Overture Center For The Arts, 201 State Street, Madison, 6-9 P.M. 

Wisconsin has the highest rate of incarceration of people of color than any state in the country. When they or any person returns to their community after the trauma of incarceration, they are more often stigmatized than embraced, vulnerable to revocation for non-criminal acts, and locked out of opportunity such as adequate housing and life sustaining work.

Faces of Incarceration aims to reverse the stigma imposed on these individuals by showing that many emerge to live lives of dignity and extreme purpose.

In a world that often overlooks these individuals, the artists of Atwood Atelier spent hours carefully observing their features and recreating them on canvas. By inviting them into the studio and getting to know them, they forged a connection face to face. And by displaying their portraits, we invite the public to truly see them; to understand them as individuals who deserve respect and compassion.

At 8pm on the Rotunda Stage, join a panel discussion with formerly incarcerated participants and criminal justice reform experts, and listen to poetry from prison. Presenters include: Judge Everett Mitchell (Circuit Court Judge), Rudy Bankston (MMSD/Edgewood College), Jerome Dillard (EXPO), Caliph Muab’el (Focused Interruption Coalition), James Morgan (MOSES), Carmella Glenn (Just Bakery), Melissa Ludin (EXPO) and Adrian Molitor (poet).

http://www.honorearth.org/lwno2017

This July we invite the public to join us for the 5th Annual Love Water Not Oil Tour. We are expanding our ride this year to cover both Wisconsin and Minnesota. The kick-off date for the tour will be on July 9th in Madison, Wisconsin with a concert at the Majestic Theater featuring Nahko, Annie Humphrey, Gingger Shankar & special guests. On July 14th we will celebrate with a concert at Tom’s Burned Down Cafe on Madeline Island and we will celebrate July 16th at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth, MN to wrap up the July portion of the Love Water Not Oil tour.

Hosted by Milwaukee Coalition Against Trump

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision to deny entry to the United States from six countries – unless the travelers can prove a “bona fide relationship” to our country – will take effect.

We oppose any concession to Trump’s racist agenda. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling is a dangerous move, and depending on their final ruling in October could lead to damage that would take decades to undo.

Join us for a rally July 7 on the southeast corner of Howell and Layton, right outside of Mitchell Airport at 6:30 pm.

No Ban! No Wall! Legalization for all!

Blacksburg, VA

Roanoke, VA

Tuesday, July 11 – From 2-4pm at Fountain of Life Covenant Church (633 Badger Rd) and 6-8pm at First Unitarian Society (900 University Bay Dr)

Sam Mihara is a former prisoner at Heart Mountain Camp in Wyoming, one of America’s racist Japanese internment camps. On July 11, Mihara will speak about mass incarceration, one of the few people former internment prisoners to speak about the experience.

706 John Nolen Drive, Madison, 11: 30 A.M. – 2 P.M. 

Protest Paul Ryan July 7 in Madison at the Sheraton on John Nolen Dr. He’s getting an award from the Boy Scouts of America. Be there at 11:30 a.m.

From the PRSP: PRSP Pan-African Revolutionary Socialist Party 

Our Beloved paternal comrade, a champion of Pan-Africanism, transitioned July 3. Rest In Power Baba Ahmed Mbalia! May you be accepted among the Revolutionary Ancestors! We Honor and Celebrate your Legacy. Africa Thanks You!

Hosted by Voces de la Frontera

Milwaukee City Hall, 200 E Wells Street, 11 A.M. 

[ESPAÑOL ABAJO]

THE MAYOR WANTS TO CHANGE THE CURRENT POLICE POLICY THAT LIMITS COOPERATION WITH IMMIGRATION. IF THIS NEW POLICY IS IMPLEMENTED IT WILL OPEN THE DOOR TO MORE DISCRIMINATION AND FAMILY SEPARATION. COME THIS WEDNESDAY, JULY 5TH TO PUBLICLY TELL MAYOR : DON’T BETRAY YOUR PROMISES THAT YOU MADE TO US ON NOVEMBER 12TH AFTER THE NATIONAL ELECTIONS.
COMMUNITIES—DON’T DEPEND ON OTHERS TO FIGHT FOR YOU! FIGHT FOR YOUR FAMILY. JOIN US TO DEMONSTRATE OUR UNITY AND OPPOSITION TO THIS NEW POLICY THAT HE WANTS TO IMPLEMENT.
—

EL ALCALDE QUIERE MODIFICAR LA POLÍTICA DE LA POLICÍA DE LA CIUDAD QUE LIMITA LA COOPERACIÓN CON INMIGRACIÓN. SI ESTA NUEVA POLÍTICA SE IMPLEMENTA ABRIRÍA LA PUERTA A MÁS DISCRIMINACIÓN Y LA SEPARACIÓN DE LA UNIDAD FAMILIAR. VEN ESTE MIÉRCOLES 5 DE JULIO PARA DECIRLE PÚBLICAMENTE AL ALCALDE BARRETT: NO TRAICIONES TUS PROMESAS QUE NOS HICISTE A LA COMUNIDAD EL 12 DE NOVIEMBRE DESPUÉS DE LAS ELECCIONES NACIONALES.
COMUNIDAD–NO DEPENDAS DE OTROS PARA QUE LUCHEN POR TI. LUCHA POR TU FAMILIA. UNETE PARA DEMOSTRAR NUESTRA UNIDAD Y DESACUERDO CON ESTA NUEVA POLITICA QUE SE QUIERE IMPLEMENTAR.

Confronting anti-immigrant racists in Milwaukee July 19. [Photo: Occupy Riverwest]

http://nepajac.org/unac062617.html

As activists met in Richmond, VA for the UNAC conference entitled “Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad: Building a Movement Against War, Injustice & Repression,” the US military was shooting down another Syrian plane from the skies over Syria, and the cop who murdered Philando Castile was being acquitted.  Despite these realities, the conference and the movement took a huge step forward, as over 300 people registered for the conference, bringing together people from 31 states as well as nine foreign countries: Canada, Columbia, Hungary, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine and Venezuela.  The conference was the most diverse by age, race and geography of any antiwar conference or meeting in recent history.
Hosted in Richmond by the UNAC-affiliated Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality, the Friday night through Sunday conference presented a number of panels and workshops on the wars abroad and the wars at home on people of color, workers, immigrants, Muslims and others. The entire conference was professionally live-streamed and recorded by Other Voices, Other Choices, with producer Wilton Vought.  The recordings can be seen and heard here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLatnOpu3eZimt5YieDM5MFzDPGe0ZQgzI.
This was the first time that UNAC attempted a conference in the South and away from the major East Coast metropolitan areas.  This was due to the number of groups from the South that have recently joined UNAC and an increased pace of struggle in that area of the country.

Farmers Elected to State Legislature Seek to Stop Farmworker Union’s Progress

S615 continues decades long effort to deny farmworkers freedom of association

Contact: Justin Flores, jflores@floc.com, 704-577-3480

http://www.floc.com/wordpress/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 28, 2017, Raleigh, NC –State Rep. David Lewis of Dunn, NC, a tobacco farmer in Eastern NC was pushing Senate Bill 375, which focuses on stopping farmworkers from organizing for better wages and working conditions. Not having the votes to pass the bill, Rep. Jimmy Dixon, a farmer from Warsaw, NC snuck it in as an amendment to the Farm Bill, S615, which was passed without opportunity for full discussion.

The bill has two parts: 1. It makes it illegal for farmers who have signed union agreements to deduct dues from union members who want to pay dues, seeking to weaken the only farmworker union in the state, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) 2. The bill makes it illegal for farmworkers to ask growers to sign an agreement with their union as part of settling wage or other legal violations, making it more difficult for farmworkers to achieve union agreements that include wage increases, job security, benefits, and improved working conditions. This, FLOC believes, is occurring in retaliation for a series of lawsuits their members have brought over the past few years, seeking to end wage theft, intimidation, and retaliation across Eastern NC.

Farmworkers are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, face exceptions in the minimum wage, child labor, and workers compensation laws, among others. Farmworkers are covered by the state’s so called Right to Work law, which forces unions to spend money representing non-members, and more recently, were the victims of the “Agricultural Right to Work” law, passed in 2013 in response to FLOC’s tobacco campaign.

“Farmers have many ways to come together and improve their lives, such as trade associations and cooperatives; it is unfair for them to try and stop their own workers from doing the same by passing laws to make it illegal. Politicians that are also growers shouldn’t pass self-serving laws simply because they don’t want their workers to unionize. With the continuation of Jim Crow era laws that aim to stop a now almost entirely Latino workforce from organizing, this is an affront to freedom of association and smacks of racism.” said FLOC President Baldemar Velasquez.

FLOC is a farmworker union that represents over 10,000 farmworkers in NC, SC and OH. Since 2007, the union has been calling on tobacco purchasers, such as Winston-Salem based Reynolds American to spend more money buying US tobacco to support growers and improve conditions for the tobacco farmworkers in their supply chain.

###

Justin Flores

Vice-President, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO

PO Box 560

Dudley, NC 28333

Cell:704-577-3480

http://www.floc.com/wordpress/

Hosted by International League of Peoples’ Struggle – ILPS US

Join us on Sunday, July 2nd for a cultural festival to mark the centennial commemoration of the October Revolution! There will be art, readings, multi-media, perofrmances, and many more expressive works that will carry the Commemoration’s theme: “Advance the Global People’s Resistance! Carry Forward the Vision and Tasks of the Great October Socialist Revolution!”

DATE: Sunday, July 2nd
TIME: 10 AM doors open, 11AM-5PM
PLACE: 39 Eldridge Street, 4th Floor, Chinatown NYC
$5 entrance fee

BACKGROUND:

The year 2017 marks the centennial of the revolution under the leadership of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on October 25, 1917 (in the old-style or Julian calendar), in which the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers seized political power from the Russian big bourgeoisie after the Tsarist autocracy was overthrown earlier in February 1917. Amidst the destruction of World War I, the toiling masses proceeded to build and defend the socialist order in Russia and nearby nations in what is now known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (GOSR) — although the shift to the new-style or Gregorian calendar reset the date to November 7. Despite the restoration of capitalism after a long period of revisionism in the Soviet Union, the GOSR continues to inspire generations of the working class to fight for socialism and unite with the peasantry in the struggle for democracy and against all forms of oppression in many parts of the world.

The current international situation, as 2017 opens and unfolds, is a constant reminder that the basic contradictions in the world today remain as those that confronted the proletarian revolutionaries a century ago. The global capitalist system faces worsening crises and threats of new financial meltdowns. These crises have deep-going impacts on economies and social classes. The failure of the neoliberal project has spawned a relentless critique of capitalism from many directions. While there is no world war today as there was in 1917, the drums of war are getting stronger in many parts of the globe, regional and proxy wars are intensifying, and fascist movements and state terrorism are on the rise.

As a result, social discontent and mass struggles are intensifying across the world, and proletarian-led national liberation movements are persevering in several countries. While there is no ripening revolutionary upheaval in capitalist countries today as there was in Europe at the end of World War I, there is renewed and growing public interest in socialism and Marxism (and the Marxist-Leninist critique of capitalism and imperialism), and the toiling masses are looking for militant leadership in the face of weakened proletarian revolutionary parties.

The significance, lessons, legacy and continuing validity of the October Revolution are expected to become major topics of global discourse (in media, academe, political parties, and social movements) by the second half of 2017. This trend will be strengthened further by renewed public awareness of Lenin’s State and Revolution and Imperialism: the Highest State of Capitalism. These two works will mark their 100th anniversary of publication also in 2017, alongside Marx’s Das Kapital (vol. 1), which will mark its 150th anniversary.

These conditions offer all socialist and anti-imperialist forces an opportunity (and a daunting challenge as well) to quickly redouble efforts in raising public awareness of the GOSR’s continuing legacy and in raising the level of unity against monopoly capitalism and for socialism.