1st Coalition Meeting & March

920 N Water Street, 5 P.M., Dontre Hamilton Park (Red Arrow Park)

The Coalition to March on the DNC is calling for an initial meeting of delegates from various organizations to be held at Dontre Hamilton (Red Arrow) Park in downtown Milwaukee, with a start time of 5pm on Thursday, October 10.

Several representatives from the founding organizations will chair this meeting. We will be going over our points of unity, reviewing the route of the march, and hearing questions that coalition delegates may have.

Afterward, we will do a walk-through of a portion of the route. We encourage everyone to bring signs and/or banners if you’ve got them! We will end the march with a public demonstration on the steps of city hall, demanding answers for why we haven’t received our permit despite having made the request nearly half a year ago.

We are looking for delegates from organizations to speak during the demonstration, specifically honing in on the fact that the city has yet to grant the Coalition a permit to peacefully protest for our demands. If you are from an organization and would like to speak or know someone who would, please message us and we’ll make it happen.

Reclaiming Armistice Day

Annual Armistice Day observance to celebrate peace, not militarism. Two nationally prominent and highly knowledgable speakers are on the program:

*** GERRY CONDON, national board president of Veterans for Peace, a Vietnam era veteran and war resister who spent six years in Sweden and Canada after refusing orders to Vietnam.

*** SUZANNE GORDON, award-winning author and journalist whose latest book is “Wounds of War: How the VA Delivers Health, Healing, and Hope to the Nation’s Veterans,”

Gerry Condon has a long history in the veterans peace movement. In 1983-84, he organized the first two veterans delegations to revolutionary Nicaragua, and in 1987, he was a co-coordinator of the Veterans Peace Convoy to Nicaragua. From 1993-96, Gerry worked for IFCO/Pastors For Peace, organizing humanitarian aid and political solidarity caravans to Cuba. Since 2004, Gerry has been on the front lines of supporting Iraq and Afghanistan war resisters in Canada, Germany and elsewhere.

Suzanne Gordon has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, The American Prospect, The Washington Monthly, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, JAMA, The Annals of Internal Medicine, The BMJ, and others. She is the co-editor of The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work series at Cornell University Press.

Suzanne is the author, co-author or editor of 19 books including Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines and Beyond the Checklist: What Else Healthcare Can Learn from Aviation Teamwork and Safety. and The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Policy For her coverage of VA Healthcare, Suzanne has received the DAV’s 2017 Special Recognition Award.

Save the date and watch for more details. The program is at 7pm at Central United Methodist Church, 25th & Wisconsin. There is a church parking lot and plenty of on-street parking. The event is free and open to the public.

Young Lords Justice Worship & March

For further information contact: Younglordsmail@yahoo.com & Jackie Serrato 773-306-6960

Memorial service for fallen Young Lords and Pastor Bruce and Eugenia Johnson

Remarks from Cha-Cha Jimenez, Bishop Sally Dyck, Fred Hampton Jr., Jacqueline Lazu PhD

Performances by Bomba Con Buya and Actor/Poet Primitivo Cruz

BACKGROUND: Rev. Johnson was the pastor of the now defunct Armitage Avenue United Methodist Church, renamed People’s Church, which became the headquarters for the Young Lords. The Young Lords, a predominantly Puerto Rican gang turned civil rights organization, set up programs in Lincoln Park modeled after the Black Panthers: Free Breakfast for Children, Free Health Clinic, Free Dental Clinic, and a Free Day Care Center. This brought strong opposition to Latino residents and the Johnsons. On September 29, 1969, two months before Fred Hampton was murdered, Rev. Bruce Johnson and his wife Eugenia were brutally killed in their parsonage. He was viciously stabbed 19 times. She 14 times and her head crushed. Both were found in this condition by their infant children.

Manuel Ramos was a young Puerto Rican activist man who was shot in his face by an off duty policeman in 1969.The community said enough. They marched several times to police stations, from Lincoln Park to Humboldt Park, and also to the home of Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Jose (Pancho) Lind was also a Puerto Rican activist of Afro-Latino features. He was beaten by baseball bats as he and his family walked past a playground filled with haters of Latinos. People of all colors and political persuasions united to demand justice.

Please join us, so that the Johnsons and other martyrs are not forgotten, on September 29. Holy Covenant Church 10:30 A.M. Diversey and Sheffield.Chicago.

International Women’s Congress for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples in Caracas. Photo: Correo del Orinoco

By Cheryl LaBash

Sept. 20, 2019 — The I Congreso Internacional de Mujeres — the first International Women’s Congress for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples, organized by the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela — begins today. And what better place than Caracas in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for a meeting that is needed so much.

Although invited, I am not in the Venezuelan capital. This is the story of my attempted trip to Caracas.

The words “blockade” and “economic warfare” factually describe what the U.S. ruling class is doing to the Venezuelan people. No only medicine and food are denied for the people, but also access and travel.

As they say, though, the devil is in the details. On my way to the women’s congress in Caracas, I experienced and witnessed some of those details.

On Sept. 18, a long queue of passengers for the flight from Medellín, Colombia, to Caracas appeared to be for several airlines. But really it was only for my connecting flight, the one flight that day on the only airline that flies directly from Medellín to Caracas.

Getting bumped off a flight in the U.S. is not such a big deal. There is always another flight. But the privilege in an imperialist behemoth is nonexistent when traveling to Caracas.

The airline Avior refused to give me a boarding pass because I could not present a visa — a document from the Venezuelan government authorizing my entry. “Go reschedule your flight,” I was told. The next available flight was a week later — after the conference.

The travel authorization had been emailed to me, but somehow that document did not arrive. A picture of the letter sent by social media arrived too late.

No problem, right? In the U.S., the quick solution is to rent a car. But the Colombian government is a partner with the U.S. in its regime change plots. Over land was clearly not an option to waste time exploring.

In Medellín, with internet at the airport, surely another flight could be found.

But wait! This journey originated in Washington. Is Medellín really on the way? No, the route I had to take, when I wanted to arrive a day early for the conference, was: D.C. to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Panama City, Panama, to Medellín, and then Caracas….

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2019/09/24/my-trip-to-caracas-an-example-of-u-s-warfare-on-venezuela/

Photo: Abayomi Azikiwe

By FW Detroit Staff

Almost 50,000 UAW workers are on strike against General Motors demanding better pay, improved working conditions and enhanced benefits.

Members of Moratorium NOW! Coalition, some of whom previously worked in the auto industry, walked the picket line in solidarity with the UAW on Wed. Sept. 18, 2019 outside the Poletown plant in Detroit.

These photographs illustrate both workers in action along with labor and community solidarity. The corporation reported $11 Billion in profits last year.

Moreover, GM has paid no taxes in several years despite the firm being bailed out by taxpayers a decade ago. Poletown is one of the five plants which were slated for closure during the winter by GM. Poletown was built after 1981 when an entire community was razed while being forced to relocate by the administrations of both Detroit and Hamtramck.

After granting numerous concessions during the bankruptcy of 2009 and in the subsequent period, workers have still not regained the losses taken during the Great Recession.

https://fighting-words.net/2019/09/23/solidarity-picket-at-detroit-hamtramck-poletown-joins-striking-uaw-workers/

LiberateMKE Community Celebration

After all of our hard work to build relationships, be intentional, strategize, organize, train, turn out, show up, and more we need to take some time to celebrate the successes of the LiberateMKE campaign.

More details to come, but please know we plan to have food, music, and ask that you save the date!

#LiberateMKE
#FreedomToThrive

The undersigned, support changes to the Milwaukee Police Department Standard Operating Procedure 130, which would create stronger safeguards to ensure public dollars for law enforcement are not used to collaborate with Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the absence of a judicial warrant. Under Trump’s xenophobic and racist war on immigrant and refugee families, it is critical that police not be used as an arm of ICE in raids.

Barring collaboration between the Milwaukee Police Department and ICE — and barring collaboration between any local law enforcement agency in Wisconsin and ICE — will decrease racial profiling, improve public safety, and keep families together. https://bit.ly/2ldNeCT

Letters to Indigenous Political Prisoners

1917 W Superior Street, Duluth, MN, (Duluth Folk School), 5-6:30 P.M.

Because October 14th is Indigenous People’s Day, we celebrate Letters to Prisoners by sending birthday cards and sending letters of solidarity to polticial prisoeners of war. Red Fawn, Dion Ortiz, Michael Giron, Rattler, James White, Cesar DeLeon, Leonard Peltiers to name a few, are Polticial Prisoners fighting against the Injustice of the capitalist system.
Letters to Prisoners is a fun, educational, and easy way to send solidarity on the other side of the prison wall.
No experience neccessary! We are always looking for stamps, cards, and donations to keep this form of solidarity strong!

Oct.12-14: Natl.Call to Action to Close the Concentration Camps!

The Coalition to Close the Concentration Camps‎ is calling for a national mobilization to close the concentration camps on the weekend of October 12-14, 2019. More details to come.

Dedicated employees are crucial to successfully executing the mission of our federal government. Every government agency needs employees’ full support and a constructive working relationship with their union if it’s going to fully achieve its goals.

That’s why administrations and congresses for decades have written policies and enacted laws that foster good working relationships between agencies and employee unions.

A collective bargaining agreement is at the heart of the relationship between the employees and the agency.

Employees, through their union, negotiate an agreement that:

• Sets fair and effective workplace rules and standards to facilitate day-to-day operations.
• Promotes a safe, more productive workplace that allows employees to do their jobs and serve the American public.
• Provides an effective mechanism for sharing ideas and articulating employee concerns.
• Provides a simple, inexpensive, and just means for resolving disputes.

• Protects employees against unfair treatment, discrimination, and retaliation.
• Boosts employee morale and prevents high turnover.

But anti-worker politicians have engaged in tactics aimed at wiping out workplace rights and unions. A few examples include:

• Federal agencies are throwing out current contracts and imposing management directives.
• They are cutting off union dues deductions after one year or forcing employees to recertify their union membership on a yearly basis using a burdensome and time-consuming process.

• They are limiting employees’ access to their union by not allowing unions to use agency space for protecting workplace rights even if the union wants to pay for it.
• They are denying workers their legal right to union representation by taking away almost all representation hours, known as official time, used by union reps to fight unfair treatment, discrimination, and retaliation in the workplace.

That’s why we are taking to the streets on Sept. 24.

We are fed up with the attacks on our rights, our contracts, and our voice at work! We are rising up for dignity, for fairness, for respect, and for a real voice at work!

Join us at the rally:

When: Noon, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019

Where: Capitol Hill below Area 9 (across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court)

For more information about the rally, visit www.afge.org/fedup