New York Times: Glenn Beck Leads Religious Rally at Lincoln Memorial

I watched / listened to most of Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally while doing laundry and cleaning the house. The cheesiness of the voice-overs and unevenness of the speeches lend themselves to easy mockery, but the far right's ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in Washington, DC yesterday means that this is no laughing matter.

First, on the media coverage of the event: I'm struck by the extent to which the notion of "politics" is becoming largely incoherent; the NYT reports, with a straight face, that this event was about religion, history, or nationality rather than "politics." While speakers stayed away from the strictly partisan, this event was entirely about articulating and mobilizing a politics, both in the narrow sense (firing up the base for the mid-term elections) and the broad sense (laying out an ideology which can serve cohesive and expressive functions for a politics).

A statement by the Solidarity student working group

An unprecedented assault on public education is underway. State governments are slashing public school and university budgets, while the White House and Congress push school competition, firing teachers and privatization as a “solution” to the crisis of funding. But students and teachers are fighting back—most visibly in California, but also at schools across the nation. The movement will likely grow as more and more states cut education funding. It’s a sign of a vital movement that vibrant debates are occurring over tactics and strategy. As a contribution to these debates, we offer these suggestions to orient the movement.

Hi, I'm Dan La Botz, the Socialist Party candidate for U.S. senate. I've been thinking about this guy Steve Slater that you've all been hearing about, from Jet Blue. People say he "snapped" on that airline. I think a lot of us are ready to snap. I think it's giving expression to the way people are feeling about what's happening to our society.

Think about working in the airline industry. Riding a plane used to be kind of fun. But the companies have made the planes so crowded, and the class business in the planes - you know, they used to put old people, and people with babies on the plane first. Now they put the "platinum people" on the plane first, and the "copper" people get on last.

It used to be kind of a good job to be a flight attendant. People liked that job; they had good unions there. And now people are ready to snap because the airline companies have made that a bad job.

I think a lot of people feel like Steve Slater. It's time to snap. But not snap alone, not Slater alone, let's Slater together. What do they call that when you Slater together?

This report and appeal, sent out by Farooq Tariq from the Labour Party Pakistan gives you some idea of what is occuring in Pakistan. Please respond to the appeal!

On 30 July in Moscow without being presented any charges the activists of anti-facist movement Maxim Solopov and Alexei Gascarov got arrested.  Maxim and Alexei were known as public figures of the growing youth movement against the Nazis’ violence, which in recent years has done much to reveal the ties of state structures police and the ultra-rights in Russia.

Their arrest followed a series of dramatic events which took place in July, around the destruction of forest in Himki near Moscow.  Big business and state bureaucrats having interest in cutting down the forest for realization of the multimillion dollar Moscow-Saint Petersburg highway project, launched an all-out terror campaign against the initiative group consisting of local residents and ecologists.  On 23 July the peaceful camp of protesters was violently assaulted by thugs of private security firms and ultra-right football fans hired by the construction corporation.  The police would not get involved.  During the next week since 26 July the assaults on the protesters continued, while the cutting down of the forest – one of the biggest green zones in the nearest vicinity of Moscow - went on every day too.

At Colombia's request an extraordinary session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) was convened on July 22 to hear accusations from outgoing president Álvaro Uribe that there are "1,500 guerrillas and dozens of encampments of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Venezuela." With both groups labeled "terrorist" organizations by Bogotá and Washington this escalation of tension as Uribe leaves office is a provocation.

Chávez responded by accusing Uribe of using the allegations as a pretext for war. He placed the the Venezuelan armed forces, particularly those 20,000 troops stationed along the Colombian-Venezuelan border, on "maximum alert." The Venezuelan embassy in Bogotá was closed and Colombian diplomats in Caracas were given 72 hours to vacate the country. All this took place in weeks before Juan Manuel Santos will be installed as president of Colombia on August 7.

 Given the March 2008 Colombian Air Force bombing of a FARC encampment in Angostura, Ecuador (1.8 kilometers over the border) that left 26 people dead this was a calculated maneuver. Particularly disturbing is the fact that the operation was conducted by Santos, who was then Uribe's Minister of Defense. The incident revealed the lengths Uribe and Santos were willing to go -- including violating another nation's sovereignty -- in order to destroy FARC.

Last friday there was a march and rally outside the Mets - Diamond Backs game at CitiField in Queens, NYC. The NYPD forced the rally to confine itself to a small pen across the street from the stadium, behind a fence and under a subway platform. As a result, the rally itself was almost totally unnoticeable for fans getting off of the train and going directly into the stadium (let alone if you parked in the lot right next to the stadium); could see or even hear the few hundred people gathered at that spot.

However, dozens of us abandoned the rally point and walked around the plaza outside the stadium passing out flyers about SB1070 along with big signs to hold up during the game (NO SB1070! BOYCOTT ARIZONA!, etc.). This was pretty effective, and i'd bet that almost everyone entering the stadium from the subway at least saw that something was being protested, and that it had something to do with immigration and Arizona. In addition to those efforts, there were about a half-dozen others who had bought tickets to the game and went in with carefully planned direct action. All student activists, mostly from CUNY, four people dropped two big banners off of the stadium, and another two jumped into the field and sprinted across with Mexican flags and t-shirts about SB1070. I didn't even know this was happening until i saw folks later who showed me the press coverage of the protests (see below, including some GREAT full-page photos published in the Daily News on Saturday).

Hundreds of hotel workers, members of UNITE-HERE Local 1, and their supporters confronted the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago today, July 22. In front of this glitzy hotel, some dimwit in management had placed a sign thanking the Hyatt employees for helping them win the Chicago Workplace Excellence Award. Just a few weeks ago, these very same employees walked off the job to protest horrendous working conditions.

Outside in the streets, workers and their supporters were laying their bodies on the line for justice and getting arrested for blocking a major artery. The action was one of 15 across the country today coordinated by Hotel Workers Rising to demand a decent contract with this hotel chain. Today’s demonstrations follow on the heels of coordinated protests in June, when union members and their supporters from other unions, the religious and LGBT communities showed up to shame and denounce the Hyatt chain while its first-ever shareholders meeting was taking place. (Hyatt big-wig Doug Manchester is throwing around big bucks in California to stop gay marriage.)

This article was written by a friend of mine, Michael Steven Smith. He is the co-host of the WBAI radio show "Law and Disorder" and sits on the Board of The Center for Constitutional Rights.

At all times throughout history the ideology of the ruling class is the ruling ideology.--Karl Marx

Lynne Stewart is a friend. She used to practice law in New York City. I still do. I was in the courtroom with my wife Debby the afternoon of July l9th for her re-sentencing. The Judge John Koetl buried her alive. We should have seen it coming when he told her to take all the time she needed at the start when she spoke before the sentence was read. It didn’t matter what she said. He had already written his decision, which he read out loud for to a courtroom packed with supporters. It was well crafted. Bullet proof on appeal. He is smart and cautious.

After about an hour into his pronouncement he came to the buried alive part. He prefaced it by citing the unprecedented 400 letters of support people had sent him, all of which he said he read. He noted Lynne’s three decades of service to the poor and the outcast. He stressed that she is a seventy-year-old breast cancer survivor with high blood pressure and other serious health problems. And then he laid it on her: 120 months.

Howie Hawkins - Green for Governor
Media Release
http://www.howiehawkins.org - http://www.gpny.org

For Immediate Release: July 15, 2010
For More Info: Howie Hawkins, 315 425-1019
Mark Dunlea, 518 860-3725

Hawkins Opposes Increased Jail Time for Lawyer Lynne Stewart, calls it an Attempt to Intimidate Lawyers Representing Unpopular Clients

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, harshly condemned the increased jail time ordered for civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart, calling it an affront to the American legal system.

"This is not about Lynne Stewart. This is about any lawyer defending an unpopular client. It undermines our system of legal representation, which is based on an adversarial system where the defendant has the right to confront their accusers. Her increased sentence is an effort to intimidate lawyers who defend controversial clients. Ms. Stewart has an exemplary record as a legal advocate for the poor and the oppressed and should be released from prison. I call upon President Obama to immediately provide her clemency and to put an end to this travesty of justice," said Hawkins, who was arrested last November at a single payer universal health care protest at the Syracuse offices of WellPoint, the largest health insurance conglomerate in the US.

Today, food production in the United States and in the world is dominated by a handful of corporations that put their profits above the hunger, the health, and the well-being of America’s and the globe’s population. Tyson, Kraft, Pepsico, Nestle, Conagra, and Anheuser-Busch are generally at the top of the list, though in virtually every area of food production, a small number of corporations control what is grown and what we eat. The food industry, of course, meshes with the banks and with other corporations, such as chemical companies and agricultural implement manufacturers, as well as with government agencies, which built the network of dams and canals that provide their water and which also provide government subsidies and financial aid.

(Article authored by lifetime Tennessee resident and local MT Solidarity branch member Jase Short)

For the past month, xenophobic and anti-Muslim forces have stirred up controversy around a proposed mosque outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Considering the Bible Belt location and context of two major wars against majority-Muslim countries, opponents have drawn from some of the most right wing and backwards elements of the region's culture. But local activists have drawn on other traditions: the democratic freedoms in the Bill of Rights and the Civil Rights movement.

On Thursday, Middle Tennesseans For Religious Freedom (MTRF) delivered a blow to these Islamophobic right wingers and managed to pull out more people into the streets of Murfreesboro than the well-funded opposition. Roughly 450-500 showed up to defend the rights of Muslims against the 300 or so on the other side -- stunning organizers and the entire state of Tennessee. We made it on national and international news. The chances that the County Commission will reverse its decision -- especially now since the mayor has switched his position on granting the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro the right to construct its new facility -- have been seriously diminished.

Check out this great video from Pittsburgh activist and YouTube commentator Jasiri X:

A few months ago, Tim Wise wrote a widely circulated article called, "Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black " which challenged America to take a close look at the hypocrisy of the Right Wing. Now, a Pittsburgh rapper is accepting his challenge in true Hip Hop form. Jasiri X has released a video called "What if the Tea Party was Black." The Hip Hop artist says that he got the idea when Paradise,a member of the pro-black rap group X-Clan, forwarded him a copy of Wise's article. "I saw the article and I liked the concept," says the rapper. So Jasiri hit the studio with producer Cynik Lethal while Paradise grabbed his video camera and they went on their mission to defeat the Right Wing propaganda machine.

Incidentally, I'm in the middle of re-reading Robert Allen's classic book Black Awakening in Capitalist America which deals in depth with some of the questions raised rhetorically in this song. I also discovered audio files of a symposium last year celebrating the 40th anniversary of the book's publication -- including a reflection by Robert Allen: http://www.voxunion.com/?p=1089 courtesy of Vox Union.

Two rebellious Brazilian union federations are attempting to unite. They seek an alternative to a union federation, the CUT, that has given in to the bosses, the government and the neoliberal agenda.

At the end of June, near Sao Paulo, the two dissident union federations held a Congress or “Conclat” of 3,100 delegates who were elected earlier by 15,000 delegates to 900 assemblies representing nearly 3 million workers. A bank worker delegate explained that in general “Each assembly represents one union, or union opposition caucus, or social movement.”

The workers represented include many thousands who work for General Motors and other US companies.

The federations attempting to unite are in significant measure led by revolutionary socialists. That is one reason why, for example, Conlutas is a major supporter of Pinheirinho. At Pinheirinho, thousands of homeless people occupied corporate land and built humble but functional dwellings. General Motors workers at Sao Jose dos Campos actively support this movement. Pinheirinho has mobilized strongly enough to secure electricity and water and recently to win recognition by government bodies. That means that they will now receive all public services such as paved roads and garbage collection.

On June 6, after two days of militant programs, international solidarity and stormy debate, this unity experiment broke down—to the shock of delegates and observers. However, the attempt should be inspiring and instructive for workers elsewhere, including the US.

This review is written by Barry Sheppard, a longtime friend and comrade of Peter Camejo.

North Star
By Peter Camejo
Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010, $15 paper.

This book by Peter Camejo, who was an important figure in the radicalization of “The Sixties” and beyond -- up to his untimely death in 2008 -- should be read by veterans of the socialist movement and wider social causes. It also should be read by new activists thirsty for understanding of previous struggles in order to better equip themselves for present and future battles. Additionally the book is a good read.

The first chapter is set in 1979, out of chronological order from the rest of the book. It explains how the CIA attempted to get Peter arrested in Colombia, on a leg of a speaking tour in South America. If he had been imprisoned there it is possible that he would have been “disappeared.” Without giving away the story, Peter escaped this fate through an unlikely intervention, quite a tale in itself.

Mustansar Randhawa -- a well-known organizer of power loom workers across three Punjab districts in Pakistan: Faisalabad, Jhang and Toba Tek Singh -- and his brother were shot to death July 6th. They were killed by hired gangsters who sought them out at the Labour Quomi Movement office and killed in cold blood.

Please sign on to the urgent action put out by the Asian Human Rights Commission. It details the situation of the power loom workers, whose bosses feel they can intimidate the work force and face down any government or union official daring to take the side of workers.

Our city in central Tennessee has become the latest battleground in the struggle against Islamophobia.

A short time ago, an area that had been zoned for a church right outside the city limits of Murfreesboro (home to Middle Tennessee State University, Tennessee's largest undergraduate university) was acquired by the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in order to construct a larger community center complete with a space for worship as well as athletic facilities. If constructed, the enlarged Islamic Center—including a very small mosque—would be the first large facility to serve the Muslim population in the surrounding area (the current Islamic Center is incredibly small and located in the industrial sector of the city near the interstate). Following all the legal procedures, the Regional Planning Commission approved the construction—just as it would any of the roughly 180 churches in this area.

Inspired by Ms. Alghanee's life and work, Greens reaffirm support for reparations for the descendents of slaves

WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders, mourning the recent death of Njere Akosua Aminah Alghanee ('Sister Courage'), national co-chair of National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), reaffirmed the party's dedication to reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States.

On June 24, Njere Alghanee had just returned from the US Social Forum in Detroit with plans to attend the annual meeting of N'COBRA in New Orleans the next day when her life was taken in a tragic auto accident. June 24, 2010 was her 58th birthday.

"The Green Party, especially the party's Black Caucus, has had a strong alliance with N'COBRA and has supported the demand for reparations. We send our condolences and solidarity with Sister Courage's family, friends, and fellow leaders in N'COBRA. We honor her leadership," said Alfred Molison, candidate for Houston City Council, District C.

The Group of 20 Nations Summit in Toronto was marked by incredible divisions within the summit and outside, amongst the demonstrators. Since there is ample analysis of what went on within the summit available to us all, I will try and briefly report back on my experience in the lead up to the large Saturday march, the march itself and immediately afterwards. I attended the march, which was also the largest of the week’s actions, with two comrades from the Middle Tennessee branch of Solidarity and another comrade from Ohio who served as a street medic during the mobilization.

When we arrived in Toronto on Friday it was just in time for a poorly attended spokescouncil meeting at a community center near the downtown area. Instead of a spokescouncil the meeting turned more or less into a briefing session for the 8-10 of us who had just arrived in town. There was discussion of varying degrees of police harassment of small groups of young people throughout the city over the past few weeks. Apparently youth who “fit the profile” of radicals had been harassed, detained, and in some cases even arrested for minor violations like jaywalking and absurd accusations (in one circumstance a young Canadian man was given a traffic ticket even though he was not in a car). We were told that there would be an attempt to lead a break-off from the march in order to reach the security perimeter the next day, and there were instructions on how to find this contingent.

After a number of delays, the jury in the trial of Johannes Mehserle, the BART police officer who killed Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland in January 2009, is scheduled to begin its deliberations over again today, in Los Angeles.

The case has collective resonance because of a long history of systematic disregard for and collective punishment directed at Black and Brown communities in the East Bay by various police agencies. This is the underlying question to which we must return. However, public discourse has strayed a long way from this, in that the prospect of protests, upon acquittal or a manslaughter conviction rather than a second-degree murder conviction, have been put forth as a public safety crisis in and of themselves. This post is an attempt, along with many others, to analyze this manufactured crisis and to articulate the question of action which is part of it.

As someone who worked on aspects of organizing the US Social Forum in Detroit, I found the actual event innovative and inspiring. It's difficult for any one person to provide an overview of the USSF 2010 because one could have no more than sampled the more than 1,000 workshops, half a dozen demonstrations, three plenaries, nearly 20 Detroit tours and about two dozen 4-hour People's Movement Assemblies that took place over the five days.

What impressed me the most was the creative, cooperative and generous spirit of the attendees. The majority were young and many were African Americans, Mexican Americans and folks whose ancestors came from Asia. At the Opening March several thousand marched with signs, puppets, music and chants, and the action flowed along. I found that same spirit in the two subsequent demonstrations I attended.

The US Social Forum left me feeling, more than anything else, overwhelmed and confused. I don’t mean to be overly negative—of course, it was also inspiring to see so many radicals come together and to feel the energy that was present. But I was really struck the urgency of several questions for the left, none of which I have answers to.

Oliver Stone's new documentary about Latin America's leftward political shift and its growing independence from Washington is being lambasted by the media. This shouldn't come as a surprise as Stone calls out the mainstream media in his new film South of the Border for its mostly one-sided, distorted coverage of the region's political leaders—most significantly Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez .

In an interview with CBS about his new film Stone remarked about America's obsession with empire, maintaining global hegemony, and the paranoia that accompanies such obsessions, saying, "We're a sick country."

And as if on cue, the mainstream media has published a flurry of attacks on the documentary, consequently supporting Stone’s arguments in the film about ideological biases and misinformation tainting media coverage about the region, while revealing symptoms of this “sickness” he mentions, such as intellectual impotence, pathological lying, and ideological blindness.

Part 3 in a three-part series on the UPR Student Strike of 2010. Part 1 and Part 2 were both originally published on la más mínima diferencia/the slightest difference.

On June 21, 62 days into what was initially a 48-hour occupation of the flagship campus at Río Piedras, the University of Puerto Rico’s first-ever National Student Assembly put an end to what had now become the first-ever system-wide strike in the institution’s history. The nearly 3,000 students from all 11 campuses of the UPR, assembled in the city of Ponce, unanimously ratified the agreements reached on June 16 by the students’ National Negotiating Committee (NNC) and the UPR Board of Trustees, thereby ending the strike on condition that the administration upheld the agreements. The Assembly also approved a “preventive” strike vote, in case the administration attempts to impose any increase in academic costs starting in January of next year.

When addressing the important question of scale--"how big or broad do we really need to be in order to start calling some shots in a meaningful way"--some of us on the left are fond of approvingly paraphrasing Lenin's idea that "politics is millions." ["Politics begin where millions of men and women are; where there are not thousands, but millions."]

This is a truism that few would contest, but it's also a good reminder of the real mammoth task at hand. Before we can realize the "another world" that so many will be imagining in Detroit next week, we have to think about what it will take to get there. When I think about this, I envision millions of people who identify with social movements and are directly engaged by them. We would be able to recognize this phenomenon in the conversations of strangers at a bar, the lyrics of pop songs, a politicization of sports, and so on. These people are from all walks of life and carry eclectic, diverse, and often contradictory political positions. The left is there, but only as a midwife to the struggle--leading by example and careful not to undermine its influence by mandating political orthodoxy on an array of points for every campaign or by exhibiting insensitivity to cultural and religious traditions that may have reactionary elements about them (as well as radical potential, in some cases).

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Afro-Caribbean intellectual and revolutionary Walter Rodney. On June 13, 1980, Rodney was killed by a car bomb planted by an agent of the authoritarian and nominally "socialist" Forbes Burnham regime in Guyana--a regime he had mounted critical opposition against through the Working People's Alliance. Rodney was the author of several groundbreaking books and pamphlets, most notably How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

If you're unfamiliar with this legend of Pan-Africanist and Marxist thought (or with Guyana, which has a fascinating history of struggle against capitalism and white supremacy), you owe it to yourself to check out some of the links below. If you are already among the many touched by his legacy, take a moment to encourage others to engage his writings and political activism. Please also utilize the comments section below to tell us how you first encountered Rodney or how he's influenced your work or thought!

Walter Rodney writings archive

Revolutionary Centennial: Guyana's 1905 Rebellion — Nigel Westmaas

Cheddi Jagan's Politics and Legacy — an interview with Clive Y. Thomas

I wrote this after watching more youtube vidos of speeches from today's Gaza demos than I probably should have...

The current situation has again raised the issue of Israel’s legitimacy and the power of its American lobby. Here are some thoughts in response to some of those issues. And again, they are thoughts not meant as a full analysis.

The Israeli lobby obviously exists. AIPAC and the ADL being the most prominent examples. They have huge resources and influence. You cross them in bourgeois politics at your peril. However, and I think this is so often overlooked as to make me wonder why, the power that the lobby holds stems not simply from its money and the influence that brings, and certainly it doesn’t stem from any supposed “great love of the Jewish people” on the part the good citizens of the United States. It has the influence it does because its aims, more or less, are the aims of US imperialism. Even when the aims momentarily diverge, the logic doesn’t. That their actions often undermine their aims is only testimony to the illegitimacy of their aims.

What are the international implications of the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla? Ziyaad Lunat, an activist for Palestinian rights and Outreach Coordinator for the Gaza Freedom March, provides his comments below.

Ryan: Could you describe the present situation regarding the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla?

Ziyaad Lunat: Israel illegally attacked the six-boat flotilla carrying 700 human rights activists from 40 countries in international waters on its way to deliver badly needed humanitarian aid to Gaza. This was a violent attack on unarmed civilians in international waters. Passengers included a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a Holocaust survivor, several members of parliament, a famous Swedish author and many others. Israel cited the San Remo Manual on Armed Conflicts at Sea to justify its operation, namely the paragraph 67 (a) that permits attacks on merchant vessels on neutral countries (Turkey, US, Greece) if they are in breach of a blockade. What Israel conveniently ignored is that the San Remo Manual also contains rules governing the lawfulness of blockades and there is no authority under international law that can enforce a blockade that is unlawful. Article 102 of the Manual prohibits a blockade "the damage to the civilian population is, or may be expected to be, excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the blockade.”

In the past, my blues writings for Against the Current and the Webzine have tended to be obituaries. Here's a discussion of a great soul/blues singer, though, who's very much alive--Cyril Neville. This essay below is an expanded version of a CD review that appeared in the June 3, 2010 issue of the online Blues Blast magazine, which can be accessed at www.TheBluesBlast.com--GF

Cyril Neville
The Essential Cyril Neville
1994-2007
MC Records
11 tracks
Total time: 57:13

www.myspace.com/cyrilneville

The workers at Honda have electrified the world with their determination and solidarity in their strike against the multinational company. On May 17 the strike began at Foshan City, Guangdong Province when more than 1,800 workers held a general assembly, formulated their demands and elected representatives. Eighty percent of the workers are student interns from technical schools. They are not protected by the labor law nor do they have any social insurance.

Honda management, like many other auto companies, has a "zero inventory" policy-meaning they have no stockpile so the strike has shut down not only the transmission and engine parts plant but all four Chinese factories. Within the week Honda announced they were willing to raise the monthly meal allowance. But workers felt the company was not negotiating in good faith and in face dismissed two elected representatives in an attempt to scare the entire work force.

By May 26 the company proposed a wage increase, but it was different for interns and regular workers. This too was rejected.

In response to the belligerent attacks on the civilian aid ship headed for Gaza early Monday morning, the local BDS organization in Atlanta, Movement to End Israeli Apartheid-Georgia, called for an emergency protest in front of the Israeli consulate. Over 100 people answered the call, from local BDS activists to high school students and members of other socialist organizations. Many of these demonstrators were Palestinian and a few were Jewish.

The majority of the outreach for the demonstration was done over Facebook and the Internet, showing the organizing capabilities of online promotion. The demonstration held for two hours and ended with a gathering calling for action to be taken in two ways. The first being focused on contacting representatives in government, and the second being done in a more effective means: a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement at the Atlanta-based Georgia State University (GSU). GSU houses a program called the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange, which facilitates exchanges between Georgia police officials and security officials in Israel under the guise of sharing drug-enforcement and counter-terrorism techniques.

By David Camfield and Daniel Serge
for New Socialist Group in Canada

Deficits are the difference between what governments spend and what they take in. Governments often claim deficits are the fault of social spending that's too high. But in fact deficits always grow when capitalist economic activity slows down or contracts because tax revenue falls while state spending rises.

The global economic crisis that began in 2008 has caused deficits to grow. States have had to spend around $20 trillion to prevent a melt-down of the international banking system and "stimulate" the economy. This has staved off an economic collapse like the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it's led to big deficits and growing debt.

In the Canadian state, federal and provincial deficits have risen but the federal deficit is, in fact, much smaller relative to the level of economic activity than in any other country of the G-7 (the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada).

Aren't growing deficits a problem we all have to be concerned about?

No. Big deficits are a problem for the ruling class, but working people shouldn't shoulder any responsibility for solving their problem.

When a country's deficit is large, the cost of financing state debt by issuing bonds often goes up, since the government has to offer higher interest rates on bonds in order to attract buyers. Speculation on currency markets can also lead to a fall in the value of the country's currency.

Early Monday morning, Israeli military forces attacked the six-vessel Gaza Freedom Flotilla, killing nearly twenty civilians on board the Mavi Marmara. The Flotilla had been organized to carry 10,000 tons of desperately needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza, which has been under siege since January 2009. Electronic Intifada has an article about the assault. The Real News Network has produced this video:

In response, protests are being held worldwide to stand against Israel's repeated violations of human rights.

Some cities held initial emergency actions on Monday afternoon. Rayorossa sent in a report and photographs on the New York City demonstration:

by Danielle Sabaï

On Wednesday May 19th, the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva finally launched an assault on the Red Shirt camp in the neighbourhood of Rachaprasong. Television stations from around the world broadcast brutal images of assault tanks destroying the bamboo and tyre barricades and soldiers armed with rifles firing live ammunition at demonstrators. The disproportion between the images of war and the faces of the demonstrators, mostly peasants and urban works, is striking.

The media have had much to say about the violent elements among the Red Shirts, which is profoundly abject when one sees the resources employed by the military to “cleanse” the neighbourhood. Since the beginning of the demonstrations, the government has used all kinds of violence against the demonstrators, including the use of snipers, and during the “final assault”, the soldiers were authorised to kill. It is not surprising in this context that the demonstrators expressed their hatred and rage by violence against the military and the symbols of wealth.

As in 1973, 1976 and 1992, the ruling élites have responded to Thai aspirations to democracy and social justice with a bloodbath. The balance sheet is the heaviest since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932. The authorities acknowledge 80 deaths and nearly 2000 wounded since the beginning of the demonstrations in the capital on March 12th.

by Danielle Sabaï

This article was written on Sunday, 17th May. Since then, and despite repeated requests of the leaders of the UDD to negotiate a truce, the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva has sent armour-plated tanks to "clean up” the district occupied by more than 5000 demonstrators, men, women and children. The government of Abhisit decided to use force to stay in power. Armour-plated tanks and live ammunition against mainly unarmed demonstrators! Already several deaths have been recorded, including of an Italian journalist. UDD leaders have been arrested. Abhisit will obtain a respite but it will be only temporary. The assassination of demonstrators who demand justice and respect for democracy is no solution to this political conflict.

by José A. Laguarta Ramírez

Images: JCR, RBS, Indymediapr
Video: Diálogo Digital

As the sun rose on Wednesday, April 21, 2010, two hundred students, mostly masked, some brandishing makeshift shields of wood and plastic traffic drums, approached the main vehicular access gate to the University of Puerto Rico’s historic Río Piedras campus, and chained it shut.

Thus began the ongoing campus occupation, which has now spread to all 11 campuses of the UPR system, becoming the first ever system-wide public university strike in Puerto Rico. It is also the longest-lasting strike action of any kind in this U.S. island colony since the Río Piedras student strike of 2005 (which lasted 29 days). With no end in sight, the UPR strike of 2010 will soon boast the longest campus occupation in Puerto Rico’s history.

The students’ three main demands are: repeal Certification 98, which opens the door to eliminating tuition waivers for honor students, athletes, and employees and their families; stop summer term tuition hikes; and fiscal transparency.

The decision of the Puerto Rican government, under governor Luis Fortuño, to proceed with its plan of mass firing public employees and spending cuts to public education is a major social and economic error that will only serve to deepen the current crisis in Puerto Rico. The government’s plan aims to boost the privatization process of the basic services on the island. This will directly affect thousands of Puerto Ricans and will hit the marginalized sectors of society the hardest. There are already 30,000 public employees that have been or will be fired from their jobs!

Rhonda Copelon, a human rights lawyer, died on May 6, 2010, after battling ovarian cancer for four years. Her pathbreaking work, according to Michelle J. Anderson, dean of the CUNY School of Law, “ altred the bedrock of how U.S. courts treat international human rights abuses.”

In the late 1970s, using the Alien Tort Claims Act, a little known federal statue from 1789, Copeland and Peter Weiss, both lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights, brought a civil suit for a family in Paraguay whose son had been tortured to death by the police. The torturer subsequently settled in Brooklyn, NY. The decision recognized that victims of international human rights violations may sue in U.S. federal court even if the crime was committed abroad. Thus there is no sanctuary for such criminals. Filáritga v. Peña-Irala became the precedent for increasing the number of internationally recognized human rights, including freedom from torture, slavery, genocide and cruel and inhuman treatment.

Copelon continued her human rights litigation, whether on gender-based violence, racial discrimination, job discrimination, abortion rights or government wiretapping. She worked to establish rape as a form of torture and last year won a $15.5 million settlement brought by Ken Saro Wiwa’s family against Shell Oil for the corporation’s complicity in his 1995 murder in Nigeria.

The case of the Mississippi Scott Sisters, Jamie and Gladys who are now in their sixteenth year of an unjust and racist incarceration, is beginning to reach a wider audience and is inspiring bold actions in support of their struggle for freedom and justice, all the more urgent in light of the criminal medical neglect of Jamie Scott's end-stage kidney disease by the Mississippi Department of Corrections and particularly its head, Commissioner Christopher Epps, who is well aware of Jamie's deteriorating health and refuses to authorize her urgently-needed hospitalization.

Below are two articles sent out by the indefatigable Marpess Kupendua. The first deals with a planned hunger strike at the U.S. Department of Justice by a group of women elders--including Marpessa--which will take place on June 21, 2010. The second is another outstanding article written by Dr. Lenore Daniels, regular columnist for The Black Commentator, who wrote an earlier article which was re-published on this webzine almost a year ago.

Those who are interested in building support for the Hunger Strike and organizing further actions in support of justice for the Scott Sisters can contact folks involved in this struggle at the email addresses and/or phone numbers provided below, or myself (Paul) at lefrak@gmail.com.

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Sent by Marpessa Kupendua:

While the post-modern assertion that all things were only relevant to themselves, and therefore categories were false and constraining, has been given a good battering by the post-post Cold War world, there remains a real aversion to thinking about systems with their laws and categories. The thing about categories is that they are not fixed (at certain times they are necessarily arbitrary), nor are the elements characterized by them. They, like everything, are part of processes in motion. Beyond general agreements, all evolutionary biologists know that the taxonomy of species is a bit of a ‘let’s place the marker here, no let’s place it here’ exercise. But understand evolution without them? Impossible.

In the late 1960s, as a graduate student at San Francisco State I worked with others to set up the first women's study class and to demand a School of Ethnic Studies. Over 800 were arrested in the course of the 1968-69 strike and expelled. I take pride in the fact I played a minor role in the development of ethnic and women's studies classes in schools and universities across the country.

On the 20th anniversary of the student strike at S.F. State, speech professor Hank McGuckin explained how he was won to the demand for ethnic studies. After a rally, he walked back across the campus and went to his office. He sat down, still mulling over the talks, and looked up at his books.

He thought about the moving 19th and 20th century speeches of Black orators and realized they were missing from the key "texts." At that moment he realized what students were talking about when we pointed to structural racism within the institutions of our society, and particularly at our "liberal" college.

Readers will pardon the delay in delivering part 2 of Notes on a Disaster (read part one here). Two weeks is a long time in many disasters; however in this one it isn't. Not only does oil continue to gush, unchecked, from the ocean floor, but we are going to be living with this spill for a long, long time.

The first drops of oil on the Louisiana shore

Before I get into the meat of this post, what have we learned in the last few weeks?

I came across this video today, narrated by an environmental investigator in Alabama named John Wathen:

At mile 87, ground zero. My first view of the sight was one of tremendous impact. I'll never forget the scene. These are not small boats. While standing at a dock looking at them, they look like large ships. They're dwarfed in comparison to what I see on the horizon. Nothing but a red mass of floating goo - that could have been prevented, and should have been prevented...

We counted thirty boats in the pictures, floating around while this stuff makes it way toward shore. Nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. For the first time in my environmental career, I find myself using the word "Hopeless." We can't stop this. There is no way to prevent this from hitting our shorelines...

This year, Hampshire College’s annual reproductive justice conference --held from April 9 to 11-- seemed to come at a ripe moment. Just two weeks earlier, President Obama had signed an executive order affirming that the new health insurance exchanges would have to conform to the existing rule prohibiting federal funding from being used for abortion. Feminists -- from those who had advocated compromise to others who were continuing to fight for single payer -- were debating the worth of the healthcare reform bill.

In the opening plenary, Marlene Fried, Director of Hampshire’s Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, which hosted the conference, called for activists to “demand that President Obama rescind the executive order…[and to] demand that we get a Justice [to replace Supreme Court Justice Stevens] who stands for justice,” but for the most part Obama’s policies and the right in the US figured far less prominently than they might have.

Instead, the conference focused broadly on the ongoing struggles that simultaneously confront intersecting oppressions, such as better treatment for women prisoners, health justice for immigrant communities and reproductive self-determination for teenagers.

Due to huge debts, the Greek government (led by social democratic coalition PASOK) has fallen under supervision the International Monetary Fund and the European Union - and seeks to impose historically severe austerity measures on the working class. In response, Greek workers mounted a huge general strike on May 5. Savas Michael-Matsas of the EEK (Revolutionary Workers Party) sent in this photo and report:

As the Greek Parliament prepares to vote for the IMF/EU program of draconian measures, hoping to save capitalism in its bankruptcy, the Greek working class and popular masses are mobilized to fight back. The General Strike of May the 5th was a great success- and just a beginning.

More than 300 thousand people demonstrated in Athens on the day of the General Strike. This was one of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in the Greek capital, comparable only with the mobilizations immediately after the collapse of the military dictatorship in 1974.

Whew, what a week. Last Tuesday, April 27, I intended to rush home from an exhilarating 12-hour protest at the Broadview Detention Center and write about it here. After a vigil of more than 150 people, 75 of us had spent the night talking, dancing, and picketing before an unassuming brick building in suburban Chicago. This is a place used to process captive, undocumented workers - the five vanfulls that night are just a handful from more than one thousand immigrants who are deported each day. In the morning (just after I had to leave to give someone a ride to work) 24 participants were arrested blocking a bus of deportees.

Today, a similar action took place at ICE headquarters in Los Angeles.

Here's a video I made from last week:

The May 1st rally in defense of immigrant rights in Los Angeles was one of the largest, but Nativo Vigil Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), was unable to deliver his speech -- apparently he was viewed as too militant.

MAPA is an organization that has most recently focused on the right of all immigrants to have driver's licenses. The denial of licenses to undocumented immigrants is an attempt to drive them into the shadows, but it is also a safety issue for everyone!

Below is the speech he had planned to deliver, first in English, then in Spanish.

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LEGALIZATION OR NO RE-ELECTION

(This is the speech that the "May Day Unity Coalition" in Los Angeles did not allow Nativo Vigil Lopez pronounce at the May Day march. They say that he is too much of a red rooster and makes the politicians feel uncomfortable).

We are free men and women or we are slaves. We are the ones who must choose who we are and who we want to be. No matter all that they do to try and humiliate us, they cannot humiliate him who has built his own dignity by himself and with close friends and family; knows who he is, knows from whence he came, and knows where he is headed.

by Jan Malewski

Braving the bullets of the forces of repression, thousands of demonstrators seized the “White House”, seat of the central authorities and the presidency on April 7, Bichkek, in Kyrgyzstan.

The demonstrators, first gathering to protest against the arrest of oppositionists, were attacked by the forces of repression and replied immediately with stones, charging the police squads who had fired on them, disarming them and overcoming the trucks and armoured vehicles of the police, taking over the television, freeing political prisoners, seizing several administrative buildings and finally the seat of the presidency and the villa of president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, forcing the latter to flee. The popular insurrection overthrew the regime, at the price of at least 83 dead and more than 1,500 wounded in the capital alone.

An unstable regime

Today, May 5, is also, of course, Cinco de Mayo, the holiday celebrated by Americans that recognizes the victory over the French colonialist army by a rag-tag army of Mexican peasants in 1862, in the Mexican state of Puebla--truly a people's victory.

But May 5 is Karl Marx's birthday as well; Marx was born on this date in 1818 in Trier, Germany. Marx's family had a long lineage of rabbis, but Karl's father converted to Lutheranism the year before his birth--a comon "assimilationist" strategy among Jews to avoid persecution and discrimination because they were Jewish. For now they were Christians!

Karl Marx began his active political life after he received his Ph.D. in 1842, becoming the editor of the Rheinisische Zeitung, a liberal newspaper shut down soon thereafter by the authorities. It was also in 1842 that he met Frederick Engels, and their lifelong friendship and political collaboration began in earnest in 1844.

I was prompted to reflect back forty years ago today on the anniversary of the Kent State Massacre of May 4, 1970.

36 anticapitalist groups plan European solidarity with Greek struggle

1. The global economic crisis continues. Massive amounts of money have been injected into the financial system – $14 trillion in bailouts in the United States, Britain, and the eurozone, $1.4 trillion new bank loans in China last year – in an effort to restabilize the world economy. But it remains an open question whether or not these efforts will be enough to produce a sustainable recovery. Growth remains very sluggish in the advanced economies, while unemployment continues to rise. There are fears that a new financial bubble centred this time on China is developing. The protracted character of the crisis – which is the most severe since the Great Depression – reflects its roots in the very nature of capitalism as a system.

From the Tea Party to the Coffee Party, How Political Parties Grow the Grass and Mow the Lawn
Dan La Botz
May 3, 2010

There are moments in history when driven by economic and social conditions, by war, or by political problems, grassroots groups spring up from below, among rank-and-file workers or people in local urban or rural communities. Usually the Democratic Party has succeeded in gathering up such movements, domesticating them, and gathering them into its fold and making them part of its electoral machine, to the benefit of corporate America. Overtime, however, the labor unions and the national African American and Latino civil rights groups became so tame and tired, that they ceased to provide the social base required by the party if it was to be successful in elections.

So today, the major political parties, both Republicans and Democrats, are creating new foundations and non-governmental organizations to expand the base of the parties and attract new voters. Those party think-tanks and NGOs in turn create what could be called pseudo-social movements, often describing themselves as "grassroots," though, in fact, they are created and controlled from above by inside-the-beltway D.C. organizations. These new corporate organizations, now propelled by the internet and social networking, are changing the landscape of social and political life.

Vermonters from all across the state converged on the statehouse on May 1st in a demonstration to show that Vermont can be the first state in the nation to recognize healthcare as a human right, providing it as a public good by implementing a single-payer, universal healthcare system.

Over a thousand people marched from the Montpelier City Hall down to the capital building accompanied by drums, dancers, puppets, baloons and signs supporting universal healthcare while chanting "hey, hey what do we say? Vermont is ready to lead the way!" The marchers then joined another two hundred participants already at the Statehouse lawn and swarmed up the capitol steps for a festive rally that featured skits by regional organizing committees of the "Healthcare Is A Human Right" campaign, musical performances by Vermont artists, and speeches by campaign leaders from all parts of the state.

A group from southern Vermont performed a skit based on "The Wizard of Oz" that hit opponents of a single-payer health care system for using scare tactics. "Liars and tyrants and scares, oh my," they chanted. The wicked witch represented a "greedy insurance company" and she melted after "single-payer water" was thrown on her.

Like many people in South Louisiana, I have been utterly overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster represented by the Deepwater Horizon oil leak. To witness another catastrophe of this scale, less than five years after post-Katrina levee failures, is almost too much to comprehend. There is a tendency to block it out; to think that this really can't be happening. But it is.

A boat travels through the Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

News accounts will talk of leaked memos, of containment strategies, of the small armies of volunteers and of the volume of oil. Thousands of barrels per day. First it was 1,000, then 5,000, and on April 30 we find out that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thinks we could be facing a leak ten times that size, of 50,000 barrels per day. The numbers begin to lose meaning, because the truth is that we are screwed.

But this volume of oil is the only real thing. All the containment strategies are too late, the fires ineffective, the same with the dispersant chemicals.

Clayton County, a working-class, mainly immigrant and African-American suburb just south of Atlanta, is the latest victim of neoliberalism. Last year, the Clayton County Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to shut down C-TRAN, the county's bus service, which had been around for almost a decade. In response, Atlanta Jobs with Justice started mobilizing riders last October, but there was not enough time to develop a large and strong enough movement to push back the cuts.

Besides the lack of time, most people simply were not able to believe that the county would actually cut their buses, their only means of transportation to work, school, and grocery stores. Many who were able to do so sought individual responses to the cuts, like getting a car or simply moving somewhere else. With more time to organize riders, these initial responses could have been minimized.

Activists are still in the midst of unraveling the damages that this has done to the Clayton community. We have some reports, but much more is yet to be discovered:

A week after the buses stopped running, people still showed up to some bus stops, which might have been a combination of language barriers and not understanding that the County could and did take away their buses.

Clayton county has very few sidewalks. There are many people with children who have to walk for extended amounts of time. There are people with disabilities who will not be able to leave their homes anymore. Others report that crime has gone up tremendously.

—José A. Laguarta Ramírez
Member, Puerto Rican Association of University Professors (APPU)

Over 3,000 assembled students at the main campus of the University of Puerto Rico, at Río Piedras, on Tuesday, April 13, voted overwhelmingly in favor of a tentative 48-hour campus occupation the following week, to be followed by a full-fledged “indefinite strike” if the administration refused to negotiate in good faith.

The occupation began on Wednesday, April 21, and became a strike at midnight the following day, after a meeting between the students' Negotiating Committee and UPR President Ramón de la Torre. De la Torre and campus Chancellor Ana Guadalupe had failed to show up at meeting after meeting with the Negotiating Committee, while attempting to speak exclusively to the centrist Student Council, which initially opposed any strike action (but is now part of the Negotiating Committee).

In addition to Student Council, the 16-member Negotiating Committee, created by the Assembly for that purpose, includes representatives of grassroots groups formed within the campus over the past year or so to address numerous issues facing students, ranging from privatization and budget cuts to homophobia in the surrounding community.

Demands

Check out this blog post from Eskandar about the first performance of DAM, a Palestinian hip-hop group, in Atlanta! As someone who was involved in the efforts to bring them here from apartheid Israel, I can say all the frustrations with visa denial were worth it in the end. Music like DAM's is an indispensable weapon in the struggle!

[Article originally posted over at The Ruh of Brown Folks, a blog worth following!]

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DAM, Palestine’s first hip hop crew, landed in Atlanta on Friday, April 16, 2010. They performed for a completely packed crowd at the Drunken Unicorn, along with local groups Weapons of Audio and Contraverse. The concert represents a victory for Palestinian solidarity activists who struggled to bring DAM to Atlanta, and for the group, whose voice and movement are often stifled by Israeli occupation.

The group had intended to tour the U.S. in 2009, but the U.S. government denied their travel visas at the last minute, forcing them to cancel. Their appearance and successful concert last week was made possible by the efforts of activists and organizations like the Movement to End Israeli Apartheid-Georgia (MEIA-G), who hosted the show.

This is a story of a small urban California island community of 72,000 that turned back a multi-billion dollar global Wall Street hedge fund and their developer front company SunCal from a massive takeover of 700 acres of a contaminated landfill former naval air base in the San Francisco Bay.

By Dan La Botz, Ohio Socialist Party Canadidate for the U.S. Senate

Alex M. Triantafilou, head of the Republican Party in Hamilton County, Ohio, posted a video recently attacking Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) as “The Enemy.” The video shows Maxine Waters questioning Shell Oil President John Hofmeister about the supposed benefits of permitting oil companies to expand their drilling. During the course of the discussion, Waters started to talk about “socializing” the oil companies—but then bit her tongue and, after a long pause, suggested instead “the government taking over and basically running all of your companies.”

George W. Bush was the keynote speaker at the anti-abortion Celebration of Life Event at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana on April 15, 2010. While 4,000 "pro-lifers" paid $30-$70 apiece to hear him speak, George W.'s visit was also greeted by a sprited group of around 20 protestors opposing his anti-women's rights stance, along with noting his nefarious activities in launching the war against Iraq and his general lying to the U.S. and world publics about what he was up to.

The demonstration was organized with little publicity and on short notice by Amy Shackelford, a soon-to-graduate senior in social work at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI). She also contacted and spoke before local media, and a story and pictures on the demonstration were posted the next day in the Indianapolis Star. Local TV news also interviewed her.

The demonstrators were overwhelmingly young, although there were seven older persons who also protested, long-standing Indianapolis political activists; the demonstrators were also overwhelmingly female, and the demonstrators were united in opposing both Bush's anti-choice stance as well as his criminal acts in launching the war in Iraq. Opposition to both was vocally expressed by the demonstrators, and the demonstrators' signs echoed both oppositions. Among the protestors was Allison Luthe, Community Organizer for Central Indiana JwJ. Many of the protestors were Amy Shackelford's fellow IUPUI students.

This 92-minute documentary retells the story of how a brilliant policy analyst learned that the war he supported and justified was a fraud. Even those who remember the publishing of the Pentagon Papers may not realize how deeply embedded Daniel Ellsberg was in the story itself. He was on duty at the Pentagon August 4, 1964 when calls came in that a U.S. ship had been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin - and he was there when a subsequent message arrived indicating that such an attack didn't happen. He saw how this non-incident became President Johnson's legal justification for deploying troops against North Vietnam.

Ellsberg was also the researcher who wrote up a single case of torture to provide the evidence Johnson used to launch a bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

Here's another great piece written on the current situation in Haiti, by Kali Akuno of Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.

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"Confronting the Occupation: Haiti, Neo-liberalism, and the US Occupation"
Written by Kali Akuno
National Organizer, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Sunday, April 11, 2010

The three-month marker for the earthquake that devastated Haiti is now upon us. The significance of this marker is not one determined by the Haitian people, but rather by the enemies of the Haitian people and peoples’ movements throughout the world.

by Tassos Anastassiadis and Andreas Sartzekis

As we write this article, every effort is being made in the Greek media to turn people’s attention not to the urgency of a massive and ongoing mobilization, but to the tense atmosphere of the discussions within the European Union about whether Greece “deserves” or not to be helped, and to what extent recourse to the IMF can be acceptable.

This discussion is certainly not without interest, for at least two reasons: it makes it possible to see how the great speeches on European unity and its famous constitution become scraps of paper when inter-capitalist contradictions develop; furthermore, the placing under supervision of the Greek state by unelected European institutions and the German and French governments makes it clear that a really effective response by workers in Greece requires a working-class fightback at the European level, and many gestures in this direction are encouraging, even though limited: the presence at the head of the big demonstration in Athens on February 24 of John Monks, general secretary of the European Confederation of Trade unions, the numerous declarations of solidarity with the struggles of workers in Greece.

The Vermont Workers Center/ Jobs with Justice (VWC ) grew out of a grassroots livable wage campaign in central Vermont. Since 1998, when the VWC was started, we’ve organized support for union contract and right-to-organize campaigns at over one hundred workplaces across the state.

Two years ago, based on the growing need for systemic healthcare reform reflected in calls to our workers’ rights hotline, discussions with our members and affiliates, and in increasingly difficult collective bargaining over the rising the costs of health insurance, we decided to prioritize organizing a multi-year Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign. We have had considerable success in organizing a strong grassroots social movement that has engaged thousands of Vermonters. We have built a statewide network of organizing committees in every county, and have a real chance to pass ground-breaking legislation. We are building for a huge rally on Saturday, May 1st at the Statehouse in Montpelier.

With the national healthcare reform movement derailed for the time being, it is clear that a real solution to our healthcare crisis must come from the states, and we believe that Vermont can be the first state to enact a single-payer system that guarantees the human right to healthcare. We say this recognizing that, even in Vermont with a viable third party (the Progressive Party), we lack a proper political vehicle for radical reform.

This leaflet was handed out at a Hispanic Roundtable Candidate Forum in Cleveland, OH.

¡Empleos Ya!

Necesitamos empleo y lo necesitamos ahora. Ohio es número cinco en la nación en desempleo. La proporción oficial de desempleo es 10.9 por ciento. En realidad aproxima a 17 por ciento. Toda la gente de Ohio debe tener trabajo.

La comunidad hispana ha sido duramente golpeada. La gente latina ha perdido trabajos en la construcción, la manufactura y en los servicios. Mientras la proporción de desempleo total en los EEUU es 9.7 por ciento, para los hispanos llega a 12.6 por ciento, y para los Afro-Americanos alcanza 16.5 por ciento. ¡Hay que hacer algo ahora!

El Partido Republicano causó la crisis, y el Partido Demócrata ha manejado la crisis, pero todavía las cosas se empeoran. Ni el uno ni el otro ha hecho lo necesario para crear empleos. El Demócrata dice que va a cortar los impuestos a los negocios pequeños, pero eso no va a resolver el problema de empleo.

Necesitamos empleo ahora y tenemos que crear una economía de empleo para todos. El gobierno de los EEUU y él del Estado de Ohio deben tomar las plantas cerradas y ponerlas a trabajar por emplear a los desempleados en la manufactura ecológica.

Necesitamos programas para emplear a la gente: En la renovación de nuestras ciudades deterioradas. En la renovación de nuestras escuelas. En la construción de nueva infrastructura.

The following was received in an email from Ezili Dantò (Marguerite Laurent), the text of which can be found on her blog.

US/Euro pillage masking as humanitarian aid by Ezili Dantò

Here is an good example of what real helps looks like (Statement of Cuban Foreign Minister at UN Donors Meeting on Haiti
http://bit.ly/b3ZHJa.

Below we post the Haiti-Cuba proposal for building health care in Haiti that considers the needs of the poorest of the poor in Haiti and is without the unseemly large budget of the cork-popping champaign fanfare of the UN/Papa-Mama Clinton March 31st media show and pledging session that just took place. It is worthy of all our support. If only this Haiti-Cuba health care proposal could be brought into application without the US/Euro policymakers' interference and use of their egotistical NGOs and mercenary military contractors to block it. If only their inhumanity and vulgarity could be held in abeyance while heart sore human beings, living under water-logged tents, old cardboard and wet sheets, people with damaged and inflamed limbs, some also tear-gassed by the UN for protesting their conditions; if only their inhumanity and vulgarity could be held in abeyance as Haiti tried to recover from the ravages of the US/Euro neoliberalism and despotism that exacerbated a 7.0 earthquake so that it took the lives of over 300,000...

A just released video from the internet news agency WikiLeaks shows gun-sight footage of Iraqi civilians being mowed down from a US Apache helicopter during the summer of 2007. Those killed included two Reuters reporters, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Reuters' attempts to probe the military were met with responses that the reporters were part of a “hostile force."

WikiLeaks' footage, titled “Collateral Murder,” clearly shows a group armed only with cameras. As one of the victims crawls to a rescue van, he (and other civilians, including two children, inside the vehicle) are fired on again (warning, this is obviously chilling and disturbing footage):

On March 31, I spotted a few billboards reading "Black Children are BEAUTIFUL" in downtown Atlanta. Underneath the still-drying wheat paste, the signs' original message was not so uplifting: Black Children are an Endangered Species. 

Over the past couple months, these provocative billboards have been sprouting up in Atlanta neighborhoods. Featuring a fearful-looking African American child juxtaposed with the disquieting statement, the billboards are part of a campaign sponsored by an organization called the Endangered Species Project. On March 29 a bill they supported, the OBGYN Criminalization & Racial Discrimination Act, was passed.

Six trade unionists in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were targeted and murdered in the first month and a half of 2010. The Spring 2010 USLEAP newsletter provides an excellent summary summary:

Violence Against Trade Unionists Rises throughout Central America in 2010

The civil wars that tormented Central America ended with the 1996 signing of the Peace Accords in Guatemala, but a new spiral of violence is once again claiming the lives of trade unionists throughout the region. Between January 1, 2010 and mid-February 2010, six union leaders have been assassinated in Central America: one in El Salvador, three in Guatemala, and two in Honduras.

These killings appear to be planned, targeting specific unionists who are very involved in current labor rights campaigns. Since the 2006 implementation of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) between Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and the U.S., there has been a sharp upsurge of assassinations and violence against trade unionists in Central America. While CAFTA supporters touted that it would uphold core labor rights standards, it has so far proven to be ineffective at impeding the new wave of violence that is affecting the freedom of trade unionism in the region, let alone protecting core worker rights.

Read the whole article at http://usleap.org/violence-against-trade-unionists-rises-throughout-central-america-2010.

News reports have revealed that Pope Benedict XVI appears to have been directly involved in the cover up of priests’ sexual abuse of children. What should be clear is that the Pope’s action is entirely consistent with the religious and political philosophy that he has promoted for decades within the Church. The Pope believes that he and the Roman Catholic hierarchy stand not only above the Church and its members, but also above the world’s governments and their laws.

Order these eye-catching buttons to spread the demand for social and economic justice. If you don't have paypal, email us!

Brown and black buttons demand: "Bring all the Troops Home Now!" Wear one everywhere to start a conversation about why US occupation can never be a force for liberation, and people's needs should come before the massive military budget.

Quantity

1 button & shipping $1.50 5 buttons & shipping $5.50 10 buttons & shipping $8.00 20 buttons & shipping $12.00

I thought this article, written by my friend Justin Jeffre for The Cincinnati Beacon is a fascinating article about the African American debate over Obama....

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PBS Radio and TV host Tavis Smiley has sparked controversy in the black community by criticizing the first Black President with what he calls “tough love.” Smiley reminds us of the tough line Dr. King drew against the war in Vietnam—a move that angered the LBJ administration, the media and other civil rights leaders. His controversial position even cost him a lot of support within the black community.

Increasingly black leaders are saying that the President isn’t doing enough to address the disproportionate effect the recession is having on the African American community. This article seems like a good starting point to discuss the growing divide on President Obama’s performance thus far and whether he needs to be pushed harder in order for him to do more or whether he should be left alone and given political cover to do whatever he thinks is best.

Here’s an excerpt:

By Gregory Flannery

The further left one’s politics goes, the more argumentative is the company he keeps. Thus while many progressives in Cincinnati might agree with Dan La Botz’s policy views, he is not necessarily every local activist’s favorite.

That won’t faze La Botz, who brings an unusual combination of political scholarship and organizing experience to the Ohio race for U.S. Senate. A veteran of union campaigns, anti-war movements and the ongoing struggle against racism, La Botz has spent 45 years in the politics of the workplace, the ballot box and the street. Now he’s making his first run for elective office, and he’s doing it under the banner of a party whose very name has been used as a smear against the far more moderate views of President Obama.

La Botz is running as a member of the Socialist Party USA.

“ ‘Socialist’ has become a dirty word but it’s also become an attractive word,” he says.

He describes his effort to get 500 signatures to qualify for the May 4 primary election. He gathered 1,200 and has been certified for the ballot.

“Here’s the responses I got,” La Botz says. “There were some people who just turned away. But I didn’t have one person who got nasty or call me names. For the first time in 45 years as an activist, I didn’t have one person tell me to go back to Russia. I also had people say, ‘You can’t be any worse than what we have in Washington now.’ Another response I got was people said, ‘This is America. Everybody has the right to run for office.’ Young people would turn away.

Around 200,000 immigrants, workers, and family members packed the National Mall on Sunday, March 21 to demand immigration reform. At least doubling organizers' goal, the mass of people, which recalled huge rallies and marches across the country in 2006, was one of the largest demonstrations since Obama's inauguration. We held signs and chanted: Obama, no dejes la reforma pa' mañana - Obama, don't put off reform until tomorrow.

Today, March 25th, is a "day of blogging" to support justice for the Jamie and Gladys Scott, two wrongfully imprisoned sisters in the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. There are two central issues at stake with this important case.

Most immediately, the life of Jamie Scott is being endangered due to the prison's ongoing and cruel medical negligence. She is being denied the urgent medical care she needs for both malfunctioning kidneys and she has an infection that has spread throughout her body. Jamie is in constant severe pain and is very weak. In addition, her mother, Mrs. Evelyn Rasco, and their family including their children, have been denied visitation at times.

Then there is the case itself. Here's what the flyer used to mobilize support has to say:

Of all the miserable aspects of the healthcare bill – the lack of a public option, the exclusion of undocumented immigrants, and lack of real insurance company regulation – the anti-abortion provision is near the top of the list.

On Sunday the White House released the text of an executive order reaffirming the bill’s consistency with the Hyde Amendment. Hyde, passed in 1976, prohibits federal funding for abortion, thereby preventing Medicaid recipients from accessing this essential service. President Obama’s order satisfied virulent anti-abortion Democrat Bart Stupak and brought 6 more Democrats in line behind the bill, ensuring its passage.

Less than three years ago, in July 2007, Obama shared these words these words with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund:

In my mind, reproductive care is essential care. It is basic care, so it is at the center and at the heart of the plan that I propose. Essentially what we're doing is, we’re going to set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don’t have health insurance.

It's official. Georgia has now joined the many other states experiencing an upsurge of student activism against budget cuts threatening the very nature of public higher education. On March 15, over 500 students from across the state rallied at the Capitol to demand that profound cuts, including an up to 50% fee hike and up to 4,000 layoffs of campus workers, be utterly abandoned and that new taxes be instituted to fund the public sector. From Dalton and Carrolton, to Savannah and Valdosta, students pledged to start branches of an emerging grassroots coalition, "Georgia Students for Public Higher Education" (http://www.gsphe.tk). The rally culminated with an electric mass meeting, where hundreds of students remained to discuss their ideas for "next steps" by bullhorn, making it clear that the fight was only beginning...

Photo courtesy of Josh D Weiss Photography

(For more photos, check out Caitie's slideshow here.)

On March 15, Georgia Students for Public Higher Education sponsored a state-wide demonstration at the capitol in downtown Atlanta. GSPHE was formed at Georgia State University in Fall 2009 to fight a $200 fee increase for university students. In March legislators announced plans for massive tuition and fee increases, as well as furloughs and layoffs of campus staff and faculty.

An organization called Irish Queers protested the St Patrick's Day Parade - which bans gay groups - yesterday in New York City. Despite the illegality of anti-gay discrimination, the NYPD, FDNY and public officials like Mayor Bloomberg participate in the parade. Irish Queers is pursuing a civil rights lawsuit.

The protest was covered by Europe's Pink News and was mentioned in WNYC's parade coverage.

Last summer, I started working at an after-school program but was fired after only six months. Because I was not fired 'for cause' (failure to meet expectations, inappropriate behavior, etc.), - which is possible because there is no union contract - I was eligible for unemployment benefits. But because there's no union contract, they could fire me without any cause. The director later confirmed to a co-worker that I was fired for participating in discussions about her management policies.

Surprise, surprise! I got in trouble for organizing. I figured I'd send out a little report on some of my organizing efforts recently so that perhaps others can learn from my experiences as well.

The job was with an arts and academic support program for high school students in a densely populated, mostly low income African American and African immigrant neighborhood, serving approximately 200 youth per year. Staff includes mostly 'teaching artists' and tutors (about 12 of each.) I was the only social worker involved. There are also about 5 managerial staff.

I should mention that there're a lot of problems with the larger agency, including very conservative corporate politics (big advocate for conservative politicians, no structural accountability to community, very anti-union, board of directors are all corporate execs., etc.) and huge reliance on low-wage part-time workers; half the staff make between $10-20 per hour with no benefits. Other staff comes from AmeriCorps workers who get $19,000 a year with no benefits.

The 2010 convention of Labor Campaign for Single Payer at the National Labor College, in Washington DC, showed a high level of commitment by the group to move ahead with the campaign for national s

As the new year began, four students began a 1,500 mile walk from Miami to Washington, DC.

Out of the Shadows and Into the Streets!

Much like its storied sibling, International Labor Day (May 1), International Women's Day often gets short shrift in the United

POR LA LIBERTAD A LOS PRESOS POLITICOS DE CAMPECHE, MEXICO

México está viviendo un nuevo proceso de militarización y represión hacia los movimientos sociales y de oposición al gobierno

I recently attended an event at Bluestockings organized by the Rock Dove Collective, which coordinates a network of radical health practitioners who

Labor Party Pakistan: Women's struggle for Economic justice & social protection will continue

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In the yet-to-be written guide to badass feminist entertainment, the classic 1954 movie Salt of the Earth belongs right next to classic rap trio Salt-N-Pepa (any takers on that article?)

The earthquake that took place in Haiti on 12 January 2010 affected the entire country but hit the capital city Port-au-Prince and the neighboring region especially hard.

Yesterday’s NY Times article about the US Marines’ “female engagement teams” was a good reminder that, despite the war’s

I’m writing this while recovering from a good, long, and successful day on the picket lines at UC Santa Cruz, where, over the course of the day, more than a thousand students, workers, and teachers

Dan La Botz is a member of Solidarity and of the Socialist Party USA running for Ohio Senate. The interview below originally appeared in Columbus Examiner.

Find out more, donate or get involved in the campaign at DanLaBotz.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dan La Botz, 64, a native of Chicago who lives with his wife and children in Cincinnati and teaches Spanish at a local elementary school, has his own reasoned view of socialism and reasons for entering the race.

La Botz said he's running in the senate race for many reasons, one of them being it gives him a chance to talk about domestic and foreign policy issues including what he sees as an environmental crisis and "these terrible wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan."

He believes the nation, at this particular moment, has a "sense of the crisis" and is "searching for answers" to them.

Dan La Botz, Ohio Socialist Candidate for U.S.

It seems to be an average day in the bustling

Only a month and a half after a powerful earthquake laid waste to Haiti, the most oppressed country in the western hemisphere, Chile, supposedly Latin America's ‘most advanced,’ was hit by a even s

By Eskandar and Ryan

The Movement to End Israeli Apartheid-Georgia (MEIA-G) kicked off the first day of Israeli Apartheid Week on Monday by packing a l

Dan La Botz, Ohio Socialist Candidate for U.S. Senate, Calls for Immediate U.S.

Alabama has one of the highest union densities in the south, and a rich tradition of labor militanc

Hundreds of members of the NPA (New Anticapitalist Party) are running as candidates in the upcoming French regional elections where they will speak for the party's platform of revolutionary anti-ca

In case you didn't see, national planners of the US Social Forum will be hosting informational call-in sessions every Tuesday (in english) and Thursday (in spanish) for the month of March (numbe

This page, which I'll continue updating from time to time, is an attempt to aggregate sources of information that will help you keep up with what's happening in the California student / defense of public education movement.

While building occupations, strikes, sit-ins, and major protests are in progress, the best way to keep track is through Twitter. Observers will often post updates from their phones. If you're on twitter, you can follow the following lists:

The ca-education-struggle list, maintained by yours truly, is a relatively low-volume list of people who are tweeting largely about the CA student movement.

The cacrisis list is maintained by Angus Johnston, a student movement historian who also does the studentactivism.net blog. This list is much broader; it tends to be useful when struggles are particularly pitched and kind of scattered when they are not.

Twenty years ago the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua was brought to an end with the election of Violeta Chamorro, whose campaign had been largely funded by Washington.

Earlier this month, the first National Tea Party Convention took place in Nashville, Tennessee.

Turning luxury condos into truly affordable housing. Undocumented immigrants voting. Living wage economic development.

For decades, he revolted against the Spanish crown.

A February forum in Chicago memorialized the French radical philosopher and political leader, Daniel Bensaïd, who died in January 2010.

In 1921, Blair Mountain, West Virginia became a flash point for the class struggle that raged in the southern coalfields.

Late Sunday night, like millions of other people, I found myself basking in the brilliance of the historic New Orleans Saints Super Bowl victory.

Howie Hawkins, a longtime Socialist Party member, Green Party leader and friend of Solidarity recen

Many of the global criticisms of last month's Climate Change talks in Copenhagen have sarcastically noted that not much more than hot air emerged from the meeting . It turns out that's true.

Did anybody watching Obama's state of the union address catch the part where he rolled out comprehensive immigration reform? To save you the trouble of re-reading the transcript: no.

Sinners and Saints... New Orleans Redemption Found?

Almost everyone in Louisiana- including myself- is excited about the Saints making it to the Super Bowl. No.

Below is a piece written for the emerging movement against fee hikes and budget cuts at Georgia State University in Atlanta. This version has been modified for the Solidarity webzine.

Howard Zinn died today at age 87.

In Mayor Richard Daley's Chicago, slumlords get a spot on the city's top planning board - while their tenants get thrown ou

In California today, we are facing an onslaught of austerity capitalism in the form of privatization / private accumulation, funding cuts, and neoliberal prioritization that effects public goods in

Shortly after the 1973 Supreme Court decision that overturned the laws outlawing abortion I attended a workshop in which one of the lawyers who successfully argued the case outlined how the right w

Rape. Murder. Corruption. Environmental contamination. Impunity. These are just some of the charges and incidents that have plagued Canadian mining operations abroad for years.



Tom Condit, a long time socialist in the San Francisco Bay Area, died January 9 at age 72.

by Kim Redigan

[Kim Redigan is a member of Michigan Peace Team and participated in MPT’s delegation on the Gaza Freedom March in December.

Russia Today: Now joining us now live from New York to talk about the relief response is Glen Ford.

A qualitative leap in organizing, a large African presence

Hundreds of immigrants from the Cincinnati area, most of them African and Latino, filled the Hartwell Community Center

The January 12th 7.0 earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti is a disaster of unimaginable proportions that has likely left tens of thousands dead and many more without adequate medical care,

Following the November 4 passage of Referendum 1, which banned same-sex marriages in Maine, activist Ryan Conrad of Maine Video Activists Network i

Este articulo fue publicado por Viento Sur, en número 107, diciembre 2009.

En septiembre pas

François Sabado

Daniel left us today, Tuesday the 12th of January 2010.

In September 2008, some 8,000 people — from social movements and churches, and from labor and the left — marched through Pittsburgh to protest the meeting of the finance ministers of the G-20.

Willie Mitchell, multi-faceted veteran of Memphis soul, who served as musician, long-time producer and executive at Hi Records, and talent deveoper, died recently.

The Copenhagen conference failed to produce anything remotely resembling a solution to the climate crisis, but it also failed from the perspective of the US ruling class.

When I was in college in the 1950s, I read everything I could on the death penalty -- including Albert Camus’ essay -- and decided the barbaric practice needed to be eliminated.

For decades United Auto Workers (UAW) members at the Detroit Three – GM, Ford and Chrysler – were alleged to be narrowing their goals.

On December 26, Dennis Brutus, world-renowned South African poet and anti-Apartheid fighter, who spent time in Robben Isl

I live in Indianapolis, where I am currently active in the Indiana Socialist Fellowship.

On December 16, Jamal Juma, coordinator of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, was arrested by the Israeli police.