DECEMBER 6. 2018: Green Bay: Licencias para Todxs / Driver Licenses for All

DECEMBER 8, 2018: Racine: Licencias para Todxs / Driver Licenses for All

DECEMBER 15, 2018: Waukesha: Licencias para todxs / Driver Licenses for All

https://tinyurl.com/y73qqs2v

Developments in the South and the worsening economic situation portends instability

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Results from the Mississippi Senatorial runoff elections where Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith defeated Democratic candidate Mike Espy by an 11 percentage points margin illustrates the formidable obstacles placed before the opposition party within the United States body politic.

Hyde-Smith was captured on videotape making a macabre joke about being invited to a public hanging. Mississippi is one of the most dreaded states in the country as it relates to racial violence and terror.

Untold numbers of lynchings and other pseudo-legal forms of torture and execution have been carried out in the state since the conclusion of the Civil War over 150 years ago. During the period of Reconstruction after the war, southern planters resisted vehemently the empowerment of African Americans.

Other factors involved in the Hyde-Smith and Espy race was the revelation that the Republican candidate had attended an all-white segregationist academy during the 1970s. These schools were established as private institutions to avoid the federally-mandated desegregation of public education in the aftermath of the Brown v. Topeka Supreme Court ruling of 1954 and subsequent decisions by lower courts and state administrative structures.

Yet this was clearly not enough to convince the majority of whites in Mississippi that such a politician would be bad for the state. The notions of a “new south” seemed to have faded into oblivion of past decades in the aftermath of the turbulent 1960s.

Adding insult to injury was the appearance of nooses on trees outside the capitol building in Jackson on November 26, just one day prior to the runoff election. There were also hand written signs posted which said that things have not changed in Mississippi since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s…

Racism and state repression is on the incline in the U.S. This is compounded by a worsening economic situation as exemplified by the proliferation of sub-standard wage labor; a widening gap between the rich and poor; a burgeoning federal budget deficit due to the corporate tax cuts imposed by the Republican-dominated Senate and House at the aegis of President Trump; the levelling of tariffs against foreign states creating havoc in the agricultural and industrial sectors of the economy; as well as the recently-announced plant closings by General Motors leaving tens of thousands of workers to a future of joblessness and uncertainty.

What is needed is an independent political party of the workers and oppressed in the U.S. which can speak in its own name based upon proletarian economic interests. A party of the workers and oppressed being brought into existence would end imperialist wars abroad and the super-exploitation of workers and the oppressed inside the country.

The Democrats cannot effectively represent the masses in this period of heightening international tensions since the leadership is pro-war and follows the dictates of Wall Street. Only a socialist-oriented party can put forward a program of struggle aimed at seizing the commanding levers of the political structures and national economy, to institute the monumental changes needed to liberate the people from the imperatives of capitalism and imperialism in the U.S. and worldwide.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All day events:

Solidarity Sing Along at NOON: Solidarity Sing Along

Monday, December 3, 12:30 P.M. Room 412 East 

Demand a “hearing slip” 

Register AGAINST ALL legislation under consideration 

Then pack the State Street steps at 5:30 P.M. 

 #RESPECTMYVOTE rally 

Bring warm winter gear, signs, banners, songs, your loud voices and bullhorns, hailers and kazoos (and other noise makers)! If you or your organization can assist with snacks, hot non-alcoholic beverages, food etc. please bring these items as well. 

ALSO CONTACT:

Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald@legis.wisconsin.gov
(608) 266-5660
Assembly Speaker Rep.Vos@legis.Wisconsin.gov
(608) 266-9171
Gov. Scott Walker:
(608) 266-1212, govgeneral@wisconsin.gov,walker.wi.gov/contact-us

Call other legislators: 1-866-832-1560

Hosted by Milwaukee Area Labor Council

Labor Phone Bank to Oppose Lame Duck Power Grab

Wisconsinities went to the polls in November and voted for a new direction in Madison. Now, right wing politicians in the Legislature plan to stop the people’s movement from moving Wisconsin forward. They aren’t looking to help working families in this special session, but to rig our democracy to their own unfair advantage.

Join us to call union members and connect them to their State Legislators to Oppose the Lame Duck Power Grab.

Shifts are 10am-1pm, 1pm-4pm, 4pm-7pm but feel free to stop by whenever you have time!

Contact Emily with questions or to RSVP- emueller@wisaflcio.org

Shining a Light on the Wisconsin GOP Power Grab

5 p.m. Monday, December 3, 2018, 2 E Main Street, Madison, WI State Capitol

The voters of Wisconsin spoke in the November election, but Republicans in Madison have scheduled a lame duck session to try and invalidate those results.

We will bring an illuminated message to an already planned rally taking at the Capitol Monday night at 5:30pm. Join us in holding this message and registering our outrage over this lame duck session. We will meet at 5;00pm at the Lady Liberty statue.

Here is a summary of some of those proposed changes:

– limit early voting to suppress voter rights and move the 2020 presidential primary from April to March for the sole stated goal of rigging the chance of retaining conservative Supreme Court judge Daniel Kelly. (There’s actually also a good thing in this bill related to making it easier for overseas voters to vote. It’s the only good thing I saw in any of the hundreds of pages I read but maybe I missed something before I made coffee.)
– radically limit powers of the Attorney General, including by requiring approval of withdrawal from lawsuits, and by allowing the GOP-led legislature to determine who represents the state in court
– give GOP lawmakers more power over Gov. Scott Walker’s economic-development agency, Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., which Evers has sought to dissolve, and remove Evers’ ability to appoint WEDC CEO, and other rule making changes that would, for instance, require Evers to get permission from the legislature before he could ban guns in the Capitol
– prevent governor from seeking to withdraw from federal waiver for work requirements for state benefits
– a ton of changes to agency rule making and waivers [could use some help making sense of this massive section of major and minor changes from someone smarter than me]
– change funding and allow tax for roads

RespectMyVote Rally

5:30 p.m., 2 E Main Street, State Capitol, Madison, WI

Join labor, community and students to demand right-wing legislators don’t ram through any anti-People measures during lame duck session!

Bring members of your respective organizations, signs, banners, noisemakers & your voices!

#RESPECTMYVOTE