For years, Popular Resistance (https://popularresistance.org/) has been an indispensable source of information for the peace movement and struggles for economic, racial and environmental justice. Now co-director and frequent contributor Kevin Zeese will be coming to Illinois to speak at several events, including our Fall Conference in Urbana on October 26th.

Zeese, a member of the Maryland Green Party, has been in the forefront of numerous struggles for peace and social justice, from the recent People’s Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine and Save the Planet outside the United Nations to his organizing of the Embassy Protection Collective in Washington. The Embassy Protection Collective is a group of peace activists who occupied the Venezuelan embassy in Washington with the permission of the sovereign government of Venezuela, after the Trump administration forced all diplomatic staff to leave the U.S. The Embassy Protection Collective successfully thwarted the Trump administration’s efforts to turn the embassy over to supporters of its puppet Juan Guaido, as part of its attempt to execute a coup in Venezuela. The above photo shows Kevin with Dr. Margaret Flowers during the protection action.

Zeese is one of four Embassy Protectors now facing highly politicized federal criminal charges for his role in standing up for international law and the rights of nations to self-determination. Contributions to support the protectors’ legal defense will be welcome at his appearances. (See defendembassyprotectors.org)

Here is Kevin’s schedule while in Illinois:

• Carbondale, Wednesday, October 23rd, 6:30 p.m.: “Building the Peace Movement,” Carbondale Civic Center, 200 S. Illinois Ave. In this presentation, Zeese will expose the motives underlying our misbegotten foreign policy. He will be sharing his knowledge about U.S. interventions in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ukraine, and the Middle East, in making the case that the peace movement needs to become an explicitly anti-imperialist movement. Co-sponsored by the Peace Coalition of Southern Illinois and the Shawnee Green Party.
• Evanston, Thursday, October 24th, evening: Morton Civic Center, Lake Superior Room, Room #G300, 2100 Ridge Avenue. Further details forthcoming in next newsletter.
• Chicago, Friday, October 25th, evening: Cary’s Lounge, 2251 W Devon Ave. (West Rogers Park.) Further details forthcoming in next newsletter.
• Urbana, October 26th, 3 p.m.: Illinois Green Party Fall Conference, Illini Student Union Building, 1401 W Green St., Room 314B. Kevin will be participating in an afternoon panel on “The Need For an Anti-Imperialist Peace Movement.”
• Champaign, October 26th, 6 p.m.: Fall Conference Dinner, Kohinoor Indian Restaurant and Lounge, 6 E. Columbia Ave., Champaign. After-dinner talk on the Venezuela Embassy Protection Collective and the Embassy Protectors Defense Committee. Dinner is off the menu at about 6:30; talk at about 7:30. Joint fundraiser for the Illinois Green Party and the Defense Committee. Suggested door donation of $20 but open to all.

Stand Up for Education Justice Rally and March

Hosted by Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Local 73

Two unions. Teachers, staff, and park district workers—35,000 strong. Standing together in solidarity for one purpose: to build a movement for the schools Chicago’s students deserve.

We ask you to stand with us, too.

On Monday, Oct. 14, the Chicago Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union will hold an indoor rally followed by a march through downtown Chicago. And if Mayor Lightfoot still won’t put it in writing, we’ll be on strike starting October 17.

Indoor rally at 2 p.m. (doors open at 1:30 p.m.) at the Chicago Temple Building (77 W. Washington), with march through downtown to follow.

Stand Up for Education Justice Rally and March

Hosted by Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Local 73

Pack the MPS School Board Hearing for Phase II Salary Schedules

5225 W Vliet, Milwaukee, 6-9 P.M.

On Tuesday, October 22nd, the School Board’s Accountability, Finance, and Personnel (AFP) Committee will consider the Phase II salary schedule proposal MTEA is working on with MPS Administration. Public testimony will be accepted. This will be the final stop for Phase II of the new salary schedules before being voted on by the full board. MEMBERS SHOULD ATTEND WEARING MTEA GREEN, and ensure the board passes these salary schedules that are so critical to attracting and retaining the highest quality staff and to stabilize the MPS workforce and our classrooms.

Also note that on Thursday, October 31st, there will be a meeting of the full MPS School Board. Assuming the AFP passes a salary schedule on October 22nd, the full board will vote on final passage of Phase II salary schedules on Oct. 31st

Minneapolis overpowers Trump rally with mass protest

By Wyatt Miller

Minneapolis, MN – Thousands of people poured into the streets on October 10 to resist the reactionary rally held by President Donald Trump in the heart of Minneapolis. Long targeted by the president’s racist incitement against the city’s immigrant, Muslim and Black communities, Minneapolis rose to the occasion with a massive display of righteous militancy.

The evening began with several marches converging from multiple directions onto the Target Center stadium where Trump was set to appear. One march, organized by over a dozen union locals and labor organizations, shut down traffic for miles as well as a major bridge over the Mississippi River.

At the intersection of 6th Street and 1st Avenue outside the Target Center, Trump supporters were forced to run a gauntlet of thousands of protesters in order to reach the venue entrance. Surrounded by the crowd, they were met with jeers and taunts at point-blank range, the MAGA hats ripped from their heads. Everyone from Somali women, to working-class retirees, to queer youth, jostled for a chance to express their rage at the supporters of a president who has brought uncertainty and worsening oppression onto their communities.

Even armed brownshirt militias, like the Oath Keepers, who had confidently proclaimed their intention to “protect” the Trump rally, were helpless against the overwhelming demonstration of people power. Multiple attempts by police to enter the crowd were repulsed throughout the night.

The jam-packed crowd sprawled down the block to the next intersection, in front of the First Avenue nightclub, where protesters erected a makeshift stage. Thousands filled the adjacent streets, chanting slogans like “Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!” “When the working class is under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back!” and “No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA!”

Although the spectacle of impeachment proceedings in Washington dominated cable news headlines, protest organizers emphasized the concrete threats Trump represents to communities in Minneapolis. The city has been disproportionately affected by racist policies like the Muslim travel ban, as well as Trump’s support for Minneapolis police federation head and the infamous killer-cop apologist Bob Kroll, who appeared with Trump onstage. Trade unionists emphasized the attacks on union organizing rights by Trump-appointed judges. All present condemned Trump’s history of sexual violence against women, and his attacks on LGBTQ rights.

Other chants included “No ban on stolen land!” and “From Standing Rock to Palestine, occupation is a crime!” reflecting the mass movement’s growing awareness of imperialism both inside and outside U.S. borders, and its ongoing consequences. Veterans of the Minneapolis-based American Indian Movement, famous for its 1973 armed standoff with federal officials at the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, joined protesters onstage.

“Bound up in all the various progressive people’s movements is the struggle against war, the struggle against colonialism, the struggle against imperialism, the struggle to resist the occupation of indigenous lands,” said Autumn Lake of the Anti-War Committee, to the cheers of thousands.

“There’s a story they don’t tell you about why Somalis came here,” said Jaylani Hussein of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN). “And that is that this country played with our country, and used it as a proxy in the Cold War. That’s why we are here.”

CAIR-MN was part of the ad hoc organizing committee for the event, which also included Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, Anti-War Committee, Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Communities United Against Police Brutality, Minnesota Workers United, No Cages Minnesota, Queer Revolutionary Workers Syndicate, Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America, General Defense Committee Local 14, Immigrant Worker Solidarity, and others. Still more groups organized independently. Fight Back! spoke with many protesters who said they had been unaware that a demonstration was being organized at all, but simply knew they had to protest as soon as they learned that Trump was coming to town.

The scale of the protest reflected the steady growth of the mass movement in the Twin Cities. Though challenges remain for the movement, its powerful display on the night of October 10 points to new revolutionary possibilities in the fights ahead.

https://www.billybragg.co.uk/

FYS 2019 Dignity in Schools National Week of Action!

Other FYS actions: 

Youth Got Talent

Third Annual Haunted Inc.

MMSD Board of Education October Meeting

ICE out of MKE Rally and Public Comment

Enough delay. Join us as we rally for action for the Fire and Police Commission (FPC) to act now and take a stand on the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) collaboration with ICE.

We rally at City Hall this Thursday 4:30pm. There will be a public hearing at 5:30pm.

Pre-fill out your name below to make a public comment.

The FPC PolicyCommittee originally planned to consider changes to SOP130 on Sept. 26th, but cancelled their meeting last minute and have not responded to requests to reschedule. This is why we rally.

Sign to give public comment: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vTDjPNwNESJtTqkSION9412KiQGjKWEShuZlGCwLTfA/edit?usp=sharing

Sign petition: https://vdlf.org/iceoutofmke/

Photo Credit: Joe Brusky
___________________________________________________

Acompáñenos (una vez más) para una manifestacion en el Ayuntamiento para exigir que la Comisión de Bomberos y Policía (FPC) tome una posición definitiva sobre la colaboración de los Departamentos de Policía de Milwaukee (MPD) con Inmigración y Control de Aduanas en el arresto de un padre de tres y único proveedor de su familia, José de la Cruz.

Como muchos de ustedes saben, la Comisión de Bomberos y Policía originalmente estaba planeando votar sobre esta política el 26 de septiembre, sin embargo, decidieron cancelar su reunión el día anterior y no han respondido a las solicitudes de las comunidades para reprogramar.

Por favor registrese para dar comentario publico: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vTDjPNwNESJtTqkSION9412KiQGjKWEShuZlGCwLTfA/edit?usp=sharing

Firma nuestra peticion si aun no lo ha hecho: https://vdlf.org/iceoutofmke/

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2019/10/12/the-coming-economic-crisis/

October 12, 2019 Greg Butterfield

Dear friends,

You don’t need me to tell you that times are tough. Not only is the cliché about living one paycheck away from disaster absolutely true; for many who have jobs, the crisis is already here, and it never ends.

You’ve probably heard about at least one of the many studies in the last few years showing how precariously workers are living. A recent example says that almost half of U.S. residents can’t afford even a $400 emergency, such as an unexpected medical bill or car repair.

Millions are working more hours for fewer wages than before the Great Recession a decade ago. Others are desperate for more work. Many of us are supplementing low-wage, no-benefit jobs with gig work (Uber, Lyft, etc.). Others are working in inhuman conditions at Amazon.com fulfillment centers, where every step and bathroom break is timed to the second.

Families are doubling up, tripling up, living in garages and cars as rents climb through the roof. Nowhere in the U.S. can a person earning the minimum wage afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment. In May, the median cost for a month’s rent on a one-bedroom apartment in New York City was $2,980.

Profits have soared since the government bailed out big banks and companies with workers’ tax dollars during the Great Recession. But wages have not. Even as the official unemployment rate fell in September — while leaving millions of underemployed and permanently unemployed workers uncounted — average wages actually fell.

The gap between the rich and the rest of us continues to grow, aggravated by President Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy (who barely paid taxes to begin with). A Federal Reserve report showed that the top 1 percent gained $21 trillion in wealth since 1989, while the bottom 50 percent lost $900 billion. New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show income inequality is at the highest level in more than 50 years.

But these general trends, stark as they are, don’t tell the whole story. For Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Arab and Asian workers, for women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirit workers, for migrants and refugees, young and disabled workers, there is discrimination in hiring, wages are lower, jobs more precarious, and there is the constant danger of repression, sexual assault or deportation.

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, now we’re bombarded with warnings that a new recession is starting….

Manufacturing employment hours declined in September.

In recent weeks, we have seen naked violence unleashed against transwomen directed against them by the state in the form of police beatings and by rightist forces in this emerging fascist movement in America.

What does this mean? Why now?

I believe it comes now for specific strategic purposes, for transwomen stand on the periphery of the gay rights movement, not its nucleus. This means they are isolated and as such they are targeted by rightist forces to isolate them further. We must not forget that they are after all Black folks in a land and at an era where and when Black life remains cheap. Now as Black, gay and transgender – see where the analysis goes?

And if its Black transwomen today, it’ll be Black straight women tomorrow. And Black children soon thereafter.

That’s the nature of the fascist beast. Attack those who seem weak, isolate them, destroy them. Since Charlottesville, we’ve seen the emergence of rightist racist forces that are committed to destroying Black life and to proving that Black lives don’t matter.

The lives of Black people are of the literal foundation not just of America but of all of us. We need to build a radical movement that protects all of us, for all of us, that consigns such racist violence to the trash heap of history.

Thanks to PrisonRadio.com