The Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation is one of the largest right-wing anti-worker, racist think tanks in the world. The Foundation is an integral part of Wall Street’s right-wing foundation network that has as its goal to wipe out all legal, social and other barriers to making profits by capitalists. This includes: promoting deregulation and privatization including charter/voucher schools; busting or weakening unions; promoting funding for the Pentagon instead of funding for cities such as Flint, Mich.; attacking Planned Parenthood, LGBTQ organizations and communities, immigrants/migrants the Black Lives Matter Movement, First Nations people and environmental organizations; and advocating for the destruction of social safety nets such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and WIC (Women, Infants and Children).

Bradley funded the writing of the notoriously racist book, “The Bell Curve,” by Charles Murray and the late Richard Hernstein to the tune of well over $1 million. The book was co-funded by the Pioneer Society, a holdover from the white-supremacist eugenics movement of the 1920s and 30s. The book argued in part that people of African descent are genetically inferior to rich people of European descent. The book has been completely debunked by numerous scholars (including Stephen Hawking) worldwide. Murray’s and Hernstein’s racist eugenics is still being used by Wall Street politicians and policy makers to justify attacks and austerity inflicted by Wall Street interests and their political servants on poor and working people and in particular people of color. Stop The Bradley Foundation

In Wisconsin, Bradley for decades has been responsible for funding in whole or in part some of the worst austerity attacks on workers and our communities and this has increased rapidly over the past five years. Bradley’s Board of Directors is full of banking and corporate executives as well as Pentagon affiliated individuals. They all have ties to an assortment of other right-wing organizations including the Koch-brothers funded Americans For Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, the MacIver Institue and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Michael Grebe, Bradley’s current President, was the Chair of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s electoral campaigns. Bradley supports many more politicans in Wisconsin that are destroying worker’s quality of life and communities. Bradley played a fundamental role to create and push the union-busting legislation known as Act 10 and right-to-work (for less) and many more laws that took decades for poor and working people to win.

The July 7 protest at the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee will be an educational event to expose how the foundation is an enemy of all poor and working people. We will also continue our conversations of how we are fighting to build a people’s united front for a world of real freedom, justice, dignity and equality for all workers and our communities. And how to win a world without Wall Street and its tools like the Bradley Foundation.

Leading up to July 7, this page will be posting articles and other educational information about Bradley and its related right wing organizations. Stop The Bradley Foundation

More information on logistical information for July 7 will be posted as the date draws nearer.

Phone Zap to Support Wisconsin Prisoner Hunger Strike: Fight Solitary Confinement

Starting Friday, June 10, at least six prisoners in longterm solitary confinement at Waupun Correctional Institute and Columbia Correctional Institute will begin a hunger strike to demanding an end to solitary confinement in Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Please take a minute to call, and put pressure on officials to listen to them and stop torture of prisoners in Wisconsin. For day one of the hunger strike, prisoners are asking that you call 608-742-9100 for Columbia Correctional Institute Warden Michael Dittman and 920-324-5571 for Waupon Correctional Institute Warden Brian Foster.

Sample script: “I am calling in support of the food refusal being done by prisoners in longterm solitary confinement in Waupun and Columbia. They are taking this action because of the abusive and extended use of isolation at your facility, and across the Department of Corrections. Resistance from inside prisons and outside support will continue as long as these conditions do. This food refusal has six humanitarian demands, several of which you can immediately address. You need to use your influence to immediately move prisoners who have been in longterm solitary confinement for more than a year. You should also institute proper mental health treatment of these people, and comply with the U.N. Mandela Rules on the use of solitary confinement. This is day one of the hunger strike.”

There will be updates and further calls to action as the situation develops.

From a letter by one of the inmates organizing the food refusal:
“In the state of Wisconsin hundreds of prisoners are in the long term solitary confinement unit aka Administrative Confinement (A.C.). Some been on this status from 18 to 20 years concurrents. We are planning a hunger strike for June 10, 2016 and we need all the help we can get to get this to the media, put pressure on the D. O.C and politicians, etc. When calling and/or emailing any of the above be persistent. Do it a minimum of two of two or three times per day. You may also call Waupun Correctional Institution to check on our well being at 920-324-5571 ”

Here is a “How-To” video for calling prisons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=251DPVDQ17A (the example used is a lot longer than what’s expected for this call, but it shows how the process can often look like)

If you’re participating internationally, you can make an international voice call to the US very cheaply using google voice / hangouts

If you wish to write to participating prisoners to make message of support, please write to: Cesar Deleon #322800, Lamar Larry #293906, Rayshun Woods #390831, LaRon McKinley #42642, at:
Waupon Correctional Institute
P.O. Box 351
Waupon, WI 53963

Ras Atum-Ra Uhuru Mutawakkil (s/n Green) #228971 has recently been transferred to Columbia, and can be written at
Columbia Correctional Institute
P.O. Box 900
Portage, WI 53901

When writing, keep statements of support vague, language including “hunger strike” will most likely be blocked. People who wish to write can use the Milwaukee IWW PO Box as a return address, at PO Box 342294, Milwaukee, WI, 53234.

More information on the incarcerated workers participating in this action and their writings can be found at: solitarytorture.blogspot.com

http://peoplespowerassemblies.org/solidarity-with-french-workers/

French unions, students and undocumented workers have been in the streets day and night to reject the anti-labor reform (pushed through the government without a vote) that threatens their standard of living. It’s class war–which side are you on?

#MuhammadAli