NTLB North Texas Light Brigade action in solidarity with the Protectors at #SacredStoneCamp.

In support of the Standing Rock Reservation and the thousands standing up against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), the American Indian Movement Of Central Texas (AIMCTX) hosted a demonstration in Dallas at the corporate headquarters of Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), owners of the company constructing the pipeline. As part of the event, the NTLB North Texas Light Brigade gathered at the offices of the petro-pipeline giant to do a lighting and projection, displaying the messages: #StopDAPL; #WaterIsLife; #StopETP; and ENERGY TRANSFER PARTNERS: #StopDAPL. Special thanks to the Backbone Campaign. Photos by Linda Cooke Frankie Orona, Ernest Jones, Erica Altes Cole, Cindy Freeling, Joseph Smith, Danna Miller Pyke, Pamela Young, Yolonda BlueHorse, Connie Koch, Leslie Harris, Kit Jones, Deborah Beltran

The state of North Dakota continues to paint indigenous peoples as aggressors, as violent, as expendable people undeserving of basic human rights. They have blockaded us in. They have taken our drinking water. They have taken our medical support. And today, their police stood by as Dakota Access private security maced and attacked men and women with trained dogs.

More info:  www.the-coffee-house.com

http://www.riverwestradio.com/

The Grass is Greener-2016-09-03 Jack Laun on the Colombia Peace Agreement
The peace process has produced an agreement that the government and insurgent negotiators both approve. What’s next? Colombia Support Network co-founder Jack Laun explains.

#noDAPL Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline Opposition

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

Over 150 Indigenous Nations have descended upon Canon Ball, ND to take a stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline. [Photo: Overpass Light Brigade, https://www.facebook.com/OverpassLightBrigade]

“You can’t drink oil and you can’t eat money!”

Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline Opposition #noDAPL

http://www.edgeofsports.com/

By Dave Zirin

On Friday night, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick made the decision that he would not stand for the national anthem before his team’s preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. Afterward, he made a lengthy statement to NFL media, the heart of it being, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.”

Both Kaepernick’s words and deeds had a familiar ring for me. They recalled another moment of athlete activism and the national anthem. But it didn’t happen in the NFL, and it wasn’t the action of someone possessing wealth or fame. It was an unlikely protest, at a moment when the hard work of political dissent was unheard of on the field of play.

The year was 2003 at the start of the Iraq war. The scene was a small Division III school called Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, and the political actor was a senior forward on the women’s basketball team named Toni Smith. In an atmosphere thick with jingoistic fervor, Smith made the decision to turn her back on the flag during the national anthem.

In those relatively primitive internet days, the story still managed to go viral and the outrage directed at Toni Smith was volcanic. The webpage of the liberal arts college had 2 million hits. Threats of violence were sent to the school and were palpable in the stands. Even though this was all before social media—which has amplified every threat and created a virtual white hood for the 21st century bigot—there was an effort to bury Toni Smith for the crime of practicing dissent. Yet still she stood strong, explaining her actions by saying:

“A lot of people blindly stand up and salute the flag, but I feel that blindly facing the flag hurts more people. There are a lot of inequities in this country, and these are issues that needed to be acknowledged. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and our priorities are elsewhere.”

She broke it down further to me in an interview back then by saying, “I’m from a mixed racial and ethnic background. My mom is Jewish, and my dad is Black, white and Cherokee. I was learning about the prison industrial complex and the wars against Native Americans…. This flag represents the slaughter of our ancestors.”

Today her name is Toni Smith-Thompson. She lives in New York City and works for the New York Civil Liberties Union. I had to get in touch with her to ask what she thought about Kaepernick’s actions. She emailed me the following. Her comments are sharp and worth a read and reread.

“For years I have wondered how I would’ve weathered the backlash from my protest in the age of social media. Now, I am watching it happen. Colin Kaepernick has a vastly greater platform than I did, which will make his protest more visible, more impactful and more dangerous. I am beyond proud of his conviction and hope sports fans who cheered him on for his athletic skills will stand by him still and affirm that we don’t check our freedoms in the locker room. For us activists, Colin will need our support and solidarity. He is using his platform to stand up to oppression, joining a small but growing number of athletes to do so. We should rise to the occasion, not just for him but for us as well.”

Smith also said, “Corporations have long understood the power of athletes to sell their brand, and pay heftily for it. But Colin is not asking for compensation to sell social justice; in fact, he will likely pay for it. He’s not only standing up to oppression of people of color, he’s standing up to corporate censorship of athletes. Both sports fans and social justice activists alike should crowd-source his message and drive it into as many US homes as possible, for freedom is never free and Colin just made a down payment.”

Here’s hoping that Toni Smith-Thompson is able to communicate directly with Colin Kaepernick in the days ahead. There are few people who have walked the path he is choosing to take. Kaepernick has the worst of the sports commentariat and hordes of social media scolds shouting in his ear about all he is about to lose. Toni Smith-Thompson is one of the few who can tell him what he stands to gain. http://www.edgeofsports.com/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:      Teresa Gutierrez (917) 328-6470

                        Scott Williams (919) 791-1429

                         414-395-0665

https://www.facebook.com/mooreheadlilly2016

Monica Moorehead and Lamont Lilly, the presidential and vice presidential candidates for Workers World Party, released the following statement on Aug. 30.

“On September 9, prisoners from coast to coast will rise up against the unimaginable cruelty of the U.S. prison-industrial complex in the first-ever nationally coordinated prisoner general strike. Led by prisoners deep inside the belly of the imperialist beast, the strike will seek to end once and for all this new form of chattel slavery and legalized human trafficking in U.S. prisons.

“According to the inmate organizers themselves, “We are not making demands or requests of our captors, we are calling ourselves to action. To every prisoner in every state and federal institution across this land, we call on you to stop being a slave, to let the crops rot in the plantation fields, to go on strike and cease reproducing the institutions of your confinement.” Read the prisoners’ full statement here.

“There are 2.3 million people in U.S. concentration camps as prisoners of the racist U.S. war on Black, Latinx and poor people. Millions of dollars of sophisticated U.S. weaponry are being produced by inmate slave labor.

“The federal prison system forces tens of thousands of inmates to work in intolerable conditions for 23 cents an hour, and often no pay at all in state facilities. This creates tremendous downward pressure on all workers’ wages, which include low-wage and part-time workers.

“Poor women, especially Black women, are the fastest growing section of the U.S. prison population and that queer and trans people are particularly at risk for arrest and incarceration due to institutionalized sexism and bigotry.

“Since the founding of Workers World Party in 1959, our consistent message has been to emphasize the importance of centering on the struggles of the most oppressed. This is the truest path to working-class unity, and it is our strongest weapon in the fight against all injustices under capitalism. It is why during the heroic Attica prison uprising, the Prisoners Solidarity Committee, a Workers World Party’s mass unit, was specifically requested by the inmates to join Black Panther Party Chair Bobby Seale and attorney William Kunstler who were mediators at the prison.  Tom Soto was an observer for the PSC.

“Our steadfast belief in the power of unity under the leadership of the most oppressed is also why the Moorehead-Lilly campaign, as well as our entire party, stands in complete solidarity with all prisoners who fight for freedom and liberation. We urge our friends and allies, as well as all people of conscience, to join us by attending a support demonstration outside a prison on September 9.

“Inmates, former felons, youth, undocumented workers and all others who are denied even the most elementary right to vote in the capitalist elections are invited to make their voices heard by voting for our candidates at Vote4Socialism.org.

“The rage that burns within each of us in the presence of injustice will be the light by which we build a better world.  To echo the sentiment of the martyred Attica brothers: ‘This is the sound before the fury.’

In steadfast solidarity and undying commitment to liberation, Workers World Party and the Moorehead/Lilly 2016 campaign.” https://www.facebook.com/mooreheadlilly2016