Email Zap: Abuse at Columbia Correctional

Milwaukee IWW‎

There have been escalating abuses at Columbia Correctional Institution, the prison in Portage, WI, including destructive solitary confinement, inadequate medical care and guards ignoring prisoners’ self-harm. T. People on the inside and outside have been fighting this system for over a year. You can help the ongoing campaign against abuses at Columbia Correctional by doing an email zap, sending an email on 10/17/18 to Lucas Weber, the security director of CCI. See sample script below. We are asking people to also send this to other prison administrators to spread the impact, and to cc our email to track total impact. If you have any questions, contact us at iwoc.milwaukee@gmail.com
See more info on our website: goo.gl/wymLjZ

CLOSEmsdf Monthly Meeting

2821 North Vel R. Phillips Ave., Suite 108, Milwaukee, 6-7 P.M.

Join us on Tuesday, October 18th at 6 pm to get involved with the efforts to decarcerate Milwaukee, #CLOSEmsdf, and #buildCOMMUNITIES. The #CLOSEmsdf Campaign is now 49 organizations strong. Visit https://closemsdf.org/ for information.

Sign the #CLOSEmsdf petition at https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/its-time-to-close-milwaukee-secure-detention-facility-msdf.

Like us on facebook at @CLOSEmsdf. Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/CLOSEmsdf.

The Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF) is an irredeemable torture chamber. It represents how mass supervision fuels mass incarceration. It was built to warehouse people alleged to have violated rules of probation or parole – infractions like missing an appointment or being late for curfew. MSDF is taking lives and destroying communities.

It is time to #CLOSEmsdf.

The #CLOSEmsdf campaign was launched in June 2017 by people who have been directly harmed by MSDF. The campaign is led by a coalition of organizations, including: EXPO (Ex-incarcerated People Organizing), WISDOM, IWOC (Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee), & JustLeadershipUSA. We have three core demands.

DEMAND 1: Stop incarcerating people for violations of supervision.
Wisconsin’s parole supervision rate is nearly 50% higher than the national average. The state reincarcerates people on parole at a rate that is also nearly 50% above the national average. This rampant, systemic abuse is the result of Wisconsin’s crimeless revocation process, which relies on incarceration as the primary response to alleged rule violations. The process gives parole officers nearly full autonomy and unchecked power and it takes people’s freedom – sometimes for months – even if there is no new conviction. This makes it nearly impossible for people to fight for fair and just outcomes, and it results in racialized harm: 65% of the people caged at MSDF are Black. As an alternative, people facing potential revocation must be allowed to remain in their community until their hearing, and no one should be incarcerated for any minor rule violation.

Wisconsin must overhaul supervision laws and
abolish the use of incarceration for crimeless rule violations.

DEMAND 2: Depopulate and close the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility.

MSDF is an abhorrent, irredeemable facility that is basically a state-sanctioned torture chamber. Walls are crumbling, heat is overbearing, ventilation is nearly nonexistent, and there is no outdoor space. Most people caged at MSDF are in lockdown over 20 hours a day, and in-person visits are forbidden. MSDF has already claimed the lives of 17 people, and has left thousands of others with unseen wounds and trauma. It is an unsafe environment for anyone, including people who work there. The cost to Wisconsin taxpayers to keep this facility up-and-running is 40 million dollars, every single year.

Wisconsin must immediately depopulate, shut down, and demolish MSDF.

DEMAND 3: Reinvest the money wasted on MSDF back into communities.
This campaign aims to do more than just #CLOSEmsdf. We aim to reimagine how we invest in and serve the people who have been impacted by the justice system and their families and communities. We seek to repair the harm created by Wisconsin’s penal system. This city and state must reinvest the excessive corrections spending into workforce development training for formerly incarcerated people and into expanded mental health services that are easily accessible and that are located in the community.

#CLOSEmsdf and use the money wasted there to #buildCOMMUNITIES.

https://mronline.org/2018/10/05/theory-101-class-struggle-in-the-age-of-u-s-imperial-decline/

by Danny Haiphong

“…The reason the Black liberation struggle has always led the class struggle in the U.S. is because the proletariat has been restrained by the ever-reforming forces of white supremacy and empire. Black revolutionaries such as Paul Robeson and Huey P. Newton recognized that the class structure had become an international system of global imperialism that plundered oppressed people the world over to enrich corporate oligarchs. They made common cause with oppressed people around the world and defended revolutionary movements in Russia, Vietnam, and Cuba from U.S. and Western aggression.They elevated the struggle of women to the frontlines of the class struggle. They built upon prior clashes with the powers that be and paved a path for such clashes to end with the oppressed people of the world standing tall in victory.

A troubling pattern has emerged in this era of U.S. imperial decline. Instead of a politics of solidarity and class struggle, much of what calls itself “progressive” or even “revolutionary” in the United States has adopted a politics of recognition often called “identity politics.” This term is insufficient as it does not describe the elitist character of the ideology. The focus on separate “identities” has led to numerous academic theories and non-profit career opportunities but no real power for oppressed and working-class people. Heated and often irreconcilable debates have emerged about which oppressed grouping, be it queer, Black, disabled, or women-identified people, is suffering more than the other. Sometimes these categories are combined to add some complexity to the analysis but hardly ever is history or class added to the equation. It is unsurprising that the rise of so-called “identity politics” has coincided with the increasingly destitute position of the poor, especially the Black poor, in the age of mass Black incarceration, endless war, and ruthless austerity.

The politics of “liberalism,” non-profit careerism, and the dead-end discourse of identity must be replaced by a politics of class struggle. Class struggle does not emerge without class consciousness. Class consciousness is the recognition of the conflicting interests of workers and the oppressed and those of their capitalist masters. Such recognition is not about which Supreme Court Justice is nominated or whether the Republicans or Democrats win the Congress even if issues raised by these developments very much represent the interests of the ruling class or the oppressed. Class struggle occurs only when the oppressed classes are activated and in motion against the oppressor class and fighting for material gains that will not only improve the lives of the downtrodden right now but will also open the door to a completely new arrangement of power all together.”

https://fighting-words.net/

http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/wisconsin-state-afl-cio-blog/2018/10/rally-to-stop-the-privatization-of-usps.html

The Trump administration has taken aim at the U.S. Postal Service, proposing changes that threaten to destroy the important role our public postal system plays for all Americans.

The National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Postal Workers Union, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, and the National Postal Mailhandlers Associationare combining for a rally to educate the public about the administration’s desire to privatize the USPS. All union members and concerned citizens are invited to stand in solidarity.

There will be a rally in every Congressional District in Wisconsin on October 8. Join us and stand up for a strong postal service.

Rally locations October 8 Indigenous Peoples Day 

CD 1 Janesville (Rep. Ryan) 20 S. Main St. 11am-1pm

CD 2 Madison (Rep. Pocan*) 3902 Milwaukee Street noon-4

CD 3 Eau Claire (Rep. Kind*) 131 S. Barstow 4-6 pm (also crosses over into CD 7)

CD 4 Milwaukee (Rep. Moore*) 316 N. Milwaukee St 11am-2pm

CD 5 Brookfield (Rep. Sensenbrenner) Bishop’s Way and Bluemound Rd 11am-2pm

CD 6 Fond du lac (Rep. Grothman*) 24 West Pioneer Rd 11am – 1pm

CD 7 Superior (Rep. Duffy) Webster Park Corner of N 58th St and Tower Ave Noon-2

CD 8 Green Bay (Rep. Gallagher) 1915 S. Webster Allouez, WI 11am- 2pm

* means this Member of Congress is a co-sponsor of H Res 993 opposing privatization

Privatizing USPS would harm:

• Businesses, especially millions of small- and medium-sized businesses that send and receive products, invoices, payments and advertisements through the mail.
• Consumers, who increasingly rely on e-commerce to satisfy their essential needs, such as prescription drugs, weekly newspapers and magazines, and other mail order and online purchases. Those in rural and lower-income urban areas, would face soaring delivery costs on these items.
• Jobs and the economy. USPS is the centerpiece of the $1.3 trillion national mailing industry, which employs 7 million Americans in the private sector, many of them in your state. Postal jobs would be at stake, including the 1 in 4 employee who is a military veteran.

• The U.S. election system. A public USPS is vital to the nation’s election system, with tens of millions of people voting through absentee ballots or vote-by-mail elections. Privatization is not the answer

Privatization in Europe has resulted in higher prices, lower service quality, less frequent mail delivery and extensive post office closures—all in order to milk greater profits for private shareholders. U.S. postage rates are the most affordable in the industrialized world—costing less than half the rates charged by privatized postal operators in Germany, Italy and Japan.

The U.S. Postal Service provides high-quality service, six—and often seven—days a week, at no cost to American taxpayers. Privatization is not inevitable or necessary.

Ever since I was asked to run for mayor, people have been telling me to quiet down and change who I am. “You’re running for mayor now Cat,” they say. “It’s time to put down the bullhorn and soften your message.” But that’s not who I am and that’s why you asked me to run for mayor. I will never betray the values and people that led me to where I am today. So I won’t put down my bullhorn. I’m going to keep using until all our voices are heard. If you love Oakland too, fight for it by joining our campaign. You can help by sharing this video far and wide, with friends and family across the world. We have 33 days left to win this thing, and we need everyone in our community to hear our message. I’m not putting down the bull horn. I’m asking you to pick it up. All my love, Cat

https://rethinkingschoolsblog.com/tag/columbus-day/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/UAINE/

Recently, we’ve been gratified to see the explosion of activism with cities and school districts voting to abolish Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day: Albuquerque, N. M.; Seattle and Olympia, Wash.; St. Paul, Minn.; Anadarko, Okla.; Portland, Ore.;  . . . and the list continues to grow.

Rethinking Schools—in conjunction with the Zinn Education Project, which we coordinate with Teaching for Change—plans a major push this year to undermine Columbus Day and to build support for Indigenous Peoples Day. As Rethinking Schools editor Bill Bigelow wrote in “Time to Abolish Columbus Day,” his most recent Zinn Education Project column: “If Indigenous peoples’ lives mattered in our society, and if Black people’s lives mattered in our society, it would be inconceivable that we would honor the father of the slave trade with a national holiday.”

Who we celebrate helps determine the lives and experiences that are most valued in our society. By working to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day, we hope to eliminate the silence around the history and current reality of Indigenous People as a testament to the importance of Indigenous lives. Rethinking Schools relies on supporters like you to help us continue this important work. Please donate today to  help us continue to teach the truth and to help make our world more equal and more just.

The Unafraid | (1/3)

Oriental Theatre, 2230 N Farwell, Milwaukee, 9 P.M. – 10:20 P.M. 

NOTE: Screenings also October 23 and 30, https://mkefilm.org/oriental-theatre

USA / 2018 / 85min / Director: Anayansi Prado and Heather Courtney

TRAILER: http://bit.ly/2OTUcX6

ESPAÑOL ABAJO

Follow the four-year odyssey of three young immigrants in Georgia in this powerful observational documentary portrait of what it means to grow up in the United States as an undocumented (but fully DACAmented) American. Disallowed from attending state universities or receiving financial aid by the state, Alejandro, Silvia, and Aldo nonetheless persevere in the face of the rising tide of ignorance and hatred, embracing activism and fighting for their families and communities, all the while pursuing their right to a higher education.

Sigue la odisea de cuatro años de tres jóvenes inmigrantes en Georgia en este impactante documental observacional que relata lo que significa crecer en los Estados Unidos como indocumentado (con DACA) Americano. Sin ser permitidos de atender cualquier universidad estatal o recibir ayuda financiera por parte del estado, Alejandro, Silvia, y Aldo perseveran, mientras la ola de ignorancia y odio crece, acogen el activismo y luchan por sus familias, todo esto mientras continúan persiguiendo su derecho de asistir a la Universidad.

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This film is part of the Cine Sin Fronteras MKE program of the 10th annual Milwaukee Film Festival.
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UNITE HERE Local 26

WE’RE ON STRIKE!

Marriott workers have walked off the job at the Marriott-operated Aloft Boston Seaport District, Element Boston Seaport District, Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton Boston, W Hotel Boston, Westin Boston Waterfront, and Westin Copley Place. Join us on the picket line! Share if you support Boston Marriott hotel workers on strike!

UNITE HERE Local 26