Southern Workers Need a Voice!

Webinar – Tonight – Wednesday, June 29

7pm eastern | 6pm central

Register here

We are in troubling times. The Supreme Court and other institutions seem set to roll back any progress made in the last 50 years. We need a mass workers movement, with common political demands, now more than ever!

The Southern Workers Assembly invites you, your coworkers, and other workers and labor/community activists from across the South to join us for a webinar tonight, Wednesday, June 29, to discuss and build the Southern Workers Need A Voice campaign. Register to participate in the meeting here.

This virtual organizing meeting will take up:

• an overview of the current period
• the 9 point Southern Workers Power Program and how it can be utilized in building worker struggles as part of an independent social movement
• initial plans for building the campaign in the upcoming months
• your ideas and how your workplace committee or organization can participate in the campaign

These demands and associated campaign framework create the foundation of building a broad social movement of workers to wage a united struggle behind a shared platform, and to take this program directly into the workplace, the community, and to the politicians running for office. The objective between now and the November elections is to bring this program directly to workers at 40 or more strategic, non-union workplaces across the South. This leafleting activity will identify worker contacts from these workplaces who can be brought into local workers assemblies and connected into a network with other workers across the South.

We look forward to your participation in this important discussion TONIGHT, Wednesday, June 29, at 7pm eastern / 6pm central.

We are in troubling times. The Supreme Court and other institutions seem set to roll back any progress made in the last 50 years. We need a mass workers movement, with common political demands, now more than ever!

The Southern Workers Assembly invites you, your coworkers, and other workers and labor/community activists from across the South to join us for a webinar tonight, Wednesday, June 29, to discuss and build the Southern Workers Need A Voice campaign. Register to participate in the meeting here.

This virtual organizing meeting will take up:

• an overview of the current period
• the 9 point Southern Workers Power Program and how it can be utilized in building worker struggles as part of an independent social movement
• initial plans for building the campaign in the upcoming months
• your ideas and how your workplace committee or organization can participate in the campaign

These demands and associated campaign framework create the foundation of building a broad social movement of workers to wage a united struggle behind a shared platform, and to take this program directly into the workplace, the community, and to the politicians running for office. The objective between now and the November elections is to bring this program directly to workers at 40 or more strategic, non-union workplaces across the South. This leafleting activity will identify worker contacts from these workplaces who can be brought into local workers assemblies and connected into a network with other workers across the South.

We look forward to your participation in this important discussion TONIGHT, Wednesday, June 29, at 7pm eastern / 6pm central.

June 28, 2022

Yesterday a Shreveport abortion provider won a temporary injunction against the Louisiana trigger law to ban all abortions. It took immediate effect and they reopened their clinic.

On July 8 at 10 AM they will be arguing against the right-wing, racist Attorney General Landry’s office to seek a permanent injunction.

This bold move should be supported by all who can turn out in front of the court on July 8th. Even if a permanent injunction is granted based on the law being unconstitutionally vague, it will not stop the Louisiana legislature from redrafting the law. But every act of resistance can save lives and needs visible support as we continue to build an even bigger and more defiant mass movement to restore abortion rights and unite the many struggles necessary to push back the billionaire-funded right wing.

Placeholder while article actions load HAVANA – Long before he was declared a U.S. national security threat, Vicente Vérez was a Cuban chemist who loved kids. His specialty was vaccines. In the 1990s, he helped create an inexpensive vaccine…

Read more
http://www.washingtonpost.com

May 17, 2022

By Cheryl LaBash

Havana, Cuba — When you have touched a woman you have struck a rock, says a South African proverb. It continues, you have dislodged a boulder, you will be crushed. The U.S. Supreme Court justices who penned the recently leaked draft majority opinion abolishing voluntary legal pregnancy termination, should take heed.

Although the current debate centers on the issue of the women’s right to make decisions over their own bodies, in fact much more is at the root. Today’s political flashpoint holds within it the urgent need to overturn patriarchal gender norms, class oppression and the capitalist economic system that perpetuates them. The fight is really for life for the majority, not just for the few. 

This is not political jargon. The combat between the past and the future can be seen in real time when Cuba’s proposed Families Code and 2022 National Program for the Advancement of Women is compared with the hateful onslaught faced by women in the United States where the Equal Rights Amendment is still blocked.

In the United States, rights that were thought to have been won, at least in part, are now being slashed, eroded or reversed like the right to legal, safe abortion, or like universal voting rights. It must be noted that the U.S. is still the only industrialized country without a national health plan, so payment for medical procedures even where legal may not be covered by private insurance and require out of pocket payment. A poll published by CNBC.com reported that “66% of Americans fear they won’t be able to afford health care” in 2021. 

All Cubans can afford health care

On the other hand, no Cuban need fear they won’t be able to afford health care in any year. Despite the undeniable fact that the U.S. economic, commercial, financial and media war against revolutionary socialist Cuba hurts every aspect of daily Cuban life, all health care from organ transplants to abortion is the right of every Cuban who needs it. Not Obama Care, not Medicare for All – free, universal, community-based preventive health care. 

Revolutionary Cuba leaves no stone unturned to provide these rights even hampered by the laser-focused, intensified U.S. blockade. Somehow, through working together with solidarity, they do it: Witness the herculean COVID-19 vaccine development, now expanding to protect the six-month to two-year age group….

The secret weapon of socialist Cuba

Equality and development of the potential of each human being is the secret weapon of socialist Cuba. The current U.S. efforts to push women back into some past family form conflicts with development of technology and our globalized world. 

This equality was fundamental in the revolutionary process itself, recognized and promoted by the historic leader of the 1959 Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz. Women clandestine leaders like Celia Sanchez, Heidi Santamaria, Melba Hernandez and Vilma Espin also joined Fidel and the July 26 Movement in the Sierra Maestra. 

Fidel also supported the formation of a battalion of women combatants, the Marianas, named after Mariana Grajales, mother of five sons including Antonio Maceo who fought and died for an end to slavery and Cuban independence from Spain. Weapons were scarce, but Fidel prioritized arming the Marianas who were regarded as the best fighters. After the victory over the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship Fidel and Vilma Espin founded the Federation of Cuban Women to erase the legacy of colonialism through education and job opportunities. Tradition’s chains were severed when thousands of young women joined Cuba’s historic Literacy Campaign teaching the country to read and write in a year. The success of this process is evident today where women scientists and technicians are integral leaders in the development and production of Cuba’s five COVID-19 vaccines….

2319 E Kenwood Blvd., Milwaukee (Zao Church) – 6:30-9 P.M.

Join us at Zao MKE Church to send off the 32nd Friendshipment Caravan — Reception at 6:30; Program begins at 7:00

Speakers will include Cheryl LaBash, a representative of the Pastors For Peace Caravan to Cuba (caravans will travel from Milwaukee and other cities) to talk about the needs this program answers, and the solidarity it demonstrates with our neighbors in Cuba. We look forward to showing Milwaukee’s enthusiastic support with our donations for this historic project and our attendance at this important event.

For those outside of Wisconsin or unable to attend in person, the event will also stream live from the church’s facebook and youtube pages:
http://www.facebook.com/zaomke
http://www.youtube.com/c/zaomkechurch

DONATE to the work of the Friendshipment Caravans:
* at the IFCO/Pastors For Peace website — www.IFCOnews.org/Donate
* Text the word IFCO to 646.859.5344
* via check to IFCO, P.O. Box 1368, Orange, NJ 07051-1368 (Note: Do not write the word Cuba anywhere on the check)

All donations are tax deductible

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The Fox Valley Peace Coalition meets to vigil in Appleton on the first Saturday of each month, from 11-12 on W. College at Houdini Plaza. All welcome.

 Fox Valley Peace Coalition

Contact: Ronna Swift

Address: 230 W. Seymour, Appleton, WI 54915

Phone: 920-205-2589

E-Mail: ronnajean61@gmail.com