Workers Resistance

Author: Fight Back

  • University of Florida SDS demands tuition equity

    Gainesville, FL – On Oct. 17, student activists at the University of Florida (UF) officially launched their tuition equity campaign by having a demonstration at Tigert Hall, the University of Florida’s administration building. Around 40 students gathered in front of Tigert Hall to demand in-state tuition for undocumented students who have graduated from Florida high schools. The delegation made speeches calling for the university to implement DACA (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals process) at UF and live up to its claim of being a flagship university and open the door to undocumented students.

    Protesters held signs like, “No Gator is illegal,” and “Tuition equity for all.” UF student Conor Munro, an organizer with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), said, “We can’t wait for the same Florida legislature who has for years tabled tuition equity bills and continually cuts funding to higher education. We must be the example to the legislature by demanding and implementing tuition equity at the UF which our board of trustees can do as seen with FIU this past summer. ”

    At the event chants rang out of “¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!” and “What do we want? Tuition Equity! When do we want it? Now!” Student after student, including undocumented students, gave testimony on why implementing tuition equity at the university was the just thing to do.

    Filipino student Chrisley Carpio, an organizer with SDS, said, “Undocumented students are told in high school that they can work hard and earn their way up, but that hope is shut down as soon as they graduate. The university can’t posit itself as accepting the brightest minds when a community of people are being excluded from its doors because of exorbitant out of state fees.”

    Students for a Democratic Society organized the campaign in response to the growing demand from the undocumented community on campus and the recent implementation of DACA by Florida International University. The event had support from an host of organizations like CHISPAS (an immigrants rights group), Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures, Hispanic Students Association, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Graduate Assistants United.

    After the round of speeches concluded, the administration sent their spokesperson Jeanna Mastrodicasa, who agreed to student’s demands of a meeting concerning tuition equity for undocumented students. University of Florida SDS plans on hosting events in the future with the goal of getting their board of trustees to put tuition equity on the agenda and implement it at the university.

  • SDS: Study and struggle at 8th National Convention

    Clarksville, TN – Over 100 student activists from across the country convened here the weekend of Oct. 12-13 to participate in Students for a Democratic Society’s (SDS) 8th annual National Convention. This year’s convention included a diversity of topics which included organizing to stop the U.S. war on Syria and fighting for affordable education. Of great importance this year was the participation of anti-war leader and International Action Center co-founder Sara Flounders and political hip-hop group Rebel Diaz.

    Workshops at the SDS convention are one of the easiest ways for members of SDS and other participating organizations to talk about the successes and challenges of the work they are doing on their campuses and in their communities. This year, there were nearly 20 workshops highlighting important work and issues happening on campuses. Topics included opposing U.S. drones and U.S. war, student organizing and avoiding the perils of student government, combating male chauvinism and rape on campus, “Beyond Student Organizing: Graduation and Continuing The Struggle,” solidarity with Korea against U.S. war and occupation, and many others.

    Marisol Marquez, an SDSer from Tampa Bay, Florida, describes one workshop, “The ‘Tuition Equity for Undocumented Students’ workshop by Gainesville SDS as very inspiring. To know SDS is against wars but also stands for undocumented immigrants is something I have never heard or seen by any other national student group. We fight for full equality for the good of all and we are led by the best youth in the country.”

    One of the highlights of the convention for many attendees was hearing Sara Flounders speak about her experiences traveling to countries caught in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism. Flounders, of the International Action Center, is a writer for Workers World newspaper, and a longtime anti-war leader. Recently, Flounders had the opportunity to travel to Syria and see the death and destruction caused by the U.S.-sponsored Free Syrian Army. She spoke of the importance of U.S. anti-war activists traveling to countries under attack by U.S. imperialism as an act of resistance from the left. She raised the importance of self-determination for the Syrian people – that it should be the Syrians, not the U.S. imperialists, who determine the future of Syria. She also pointed out many contradictions between the countries the U.S. decides to attack and our own system. For instance, Flounders pointed out that in Syria, housing, education and healthcare were not treated as commodities, but rather as a right of the Syrian people. She continued that U.S. citizens do not have these essential rights, and if the U.S. succeeds in overthrowing the Syria government, likely the first things to go would be these public goods that we are fighting for here at home.

    Rebel Diaz hosted a workshop called “Hip Hop and Immigration” and performed on campus Saturday night. Rebel Diaz is a political hip-hop group founded in Chicago, but now based in the South Bronx of New York. Chilean brothers Rodstarz and G1 of Rebel Diaz perform at many activist events, from the 2006 immigrant rights mega marches in New York to the NATO protests in Chicago last May 2013. In their workshop, Rebel Diaz gave a history of hip-hop and showed how its very foundation was a result of immigration in New York. Through this, Rebel Diaz makes the case that all hip-hop artists have a responsibility to also take a stand for immigration rights in this country and internationally. Rebel Diaz’s work around education rights and radical politics plays out in their work as musicians as well as founders of the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective in the South Bronx, http://rdacbx.blogspot.com.

    Finally, at the end of the convention SDSers met to debate and vote on resolutions that guide SDS chapters around areas of primary concern for the upcoming year. Those resolutions include continuing the fight for education rights, demand an end to U.S. wars and war threats, end political repression and spying on activists, endorse the ongoing national campaign for immigrant rights (Legalization 4 All), end the targeted repression of black and brown youth by law enforcement and vigilantes, and most happily, recognize U.S. political prisoner and people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart, currently demanding compassionate release to fight a deadly cancer, with an honorary membership in SDS. These resolutions can be read online at www.newsds.org.

    In all, SDSers felt excited and motivated about the work that continues to happen. Matthew Boynton of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities SDS chapter expressed, “The SDS convention this year did a great job integrating student activism into a broader analysis of imperialism, racist war and capitalism. The work to make these connections is particularly useful for younger activists and new SDS members, and an important reminder for all student activists.”

  • House Republicans block compromise

    San José, CA – Today, Oct. 15, right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives stopped the House Republican leadership from trying to pass a compromise measure to re-open the federal government and raise its debt ceiling. This marks another step towards the first U.S. debt crisis in history.

    On Oct. 17, the federal government will not be able to borrow more money to pay its bills. The federal government will only be able to pay out what it collects in taxes, plus about $30 billion in cash that it has on hand. In the two weeks after that, the federal government will run short of money to pay all its bills, with the most likely date being Nov. 1, when $55 billion in Social Security benefits, Medicare payments, and military pay, benefits and retirement benefits are due.

    From now through mid-November, the federal government will have to postpone payment on about $100 billion in payments if the debt ceiling is not raised. This comes to almost 8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the standard measure of the size of the economy based on production of goods and services) on an annual basis, enough to throw the economy in a recession even worse than the one following the financial crisis in 2008.

    Background to the crisis

    The looming debt crisis has several roots. The first are the budget deficits of the federal government, where it spends more than it collects in taxes, so it has to borrow the difference by selling bonds. The federal government budget deficit ballooned to about $1.4 trillion (or $1400 billion), equal to 10% of GDP, in 2009 because the deep recession lowered tax revenues and the federal government increased spending to bail out Wall Street and stimulate the economy. Since then, a combination of higher tax revenues, spending cuts and economic growth have reduced the deficit to almost $600 billion, or about 4% of GDP in 2012, a decline of 60% in relation to the size of the economy.

    The total amount of bonds that the U.S. government sells to pay for the budget deficit is the public debt, which is now $16.75 trillion ($16,750 billion). The federal government has a self-imposed limit on the public debt of $16.7 trillion, which means that the government can no longer borrow more money. The reported debt is slightly higher than the limit because the federal government has been shifting money around to avoid running out of cash for the last five months.

    While there have been disputes over the debt ceiling in the past, they have been largely partisan affairs that did not come close to forcing the government to actually delay payment. But the recent rise of Tea Party Republicans means that the Republicans, especially in the House of Representatives, are controlled by right wingers who are more than willing to shut down the government and even force the government not to pay its bills in order to achieve their goal of ending Obama’s health care reform known as Obamacare.

    What drives the Tea Party

    Many Republican members of congress were denying the possibility of a partial shutdown of the federal government right up to the point that the government shut down. Their behavior is similar to their stance on climate change – just deny that it is happening so one doesn’t have to do anything.

    Digging a little deeper, one sees that the government agencies that were most affected by the shutdown, such as the Department of Education, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Labor, are the programs most hated by the right wing.

    There is also an extreme free-market logic among Tea Party Republicans that the government is bad for business and the economy and that a shutdown of the government will be good for business.

    What is likely to happen

    The world isn’t going to end on Oct. 17 if the debt ceiling is not raised. But the economic effects are already being felt, as the uncertainty of repayment of bonds after that date is causing the prices of bonds coming due soon to fall, which leads to higher interest rates. The interest rate on the shortest term U.S. bonds (called bills), which come due in 30 days, has now tripled and is higher than the interest rates on 60-day bills, which come due later.

    While Democrats and the Obama administration are warning of the danger of default, which is what happens when the federal government does not repay its bonds or interest payment, it is hard to see how the government won’t give Wall Street what it wants. But there is chance that some bank or financial institution will find itself in a squeeze if the federal government doesn’t pay on time, triggering another financial crisis.

    What is more likely is that the sudden drop in federal government spending will trigger a new recession. This could quickly feed upon itself in what economists call the ‘multiplier effect,’ where the individuals, businesses and institutions that aren’t being paid by the federal government then cut back their own purchases and payments, putting the economy into a downward spiral.

    What a debt crisis would mean

    If the House Republicans do manage to block any agreement to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, the self-inflicted crisis will mark another step in the decline of the U.S. as a world power. Ever since World War II, the U.S. government has been both a protector of Wall Street and big business and the head of worldwide empire of pro-U.S. governments that protect U.S. financial and business interests, backed by the U.S. military.

    From an economic point of view, the end in 1971 of the post-World War II system of fixed exchange rates centered on the U.S. dollar, called Bretton Woods, was an early sign of the decline of the U.S. relative to the rising nations of Europe and Japan. This was followed by the OPEC oil boycott in 1973, and then the U.S. military defeat in Vietnam in 1975, showing the rise of the Third World.

    Today the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and coming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shows that the U.S., despite using hundreds of thousands of troops and spending trillions of dollars, is no longer to set up stable, pro-U.S. governments that can defend U.S. business interests. With the looming debt crisis, more and more governments around the world are losing faith in the economic power of the U.S. and the safety of U.S. government bonds. Foreign governments and investors now own more than $5.5 trillion of U.S. government bonds, and any sell-off in the bond market triggered by a debt crisis would quickly spread a financial crisis around the world.

    But even if a financial crisis is avoided, a deep recession in the U.S. will also spread around the world. Europe’s economy is still in a depression with the euro-zone crisis and many economies in the Third World are slowing down already. Another worldwide recession, following so closely on the 2008-2009 so-called Great Depression, could again shake the very foundations of the world capitalist economy.

  • House Republicans block compromise

    San José, CA – Today, Oct. 15, right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives stopped the House Republican leadership from trying to pass a compromise measure to re-open the federal government and raise its debt ceiling. This marks another step towards the first U.S. debt crisis in history.

    On Oct. 17, the federal government will not be able to borrow more money to pay its bills. The federal government will only be able to pay out what it collects in taxes, plus about $30 billion in cash that it has on hand. In the two weeks after that, the federal government will run short of money to pay all its bills, with the most likely date being Nov. 1, when $55 billion in Social Security benefits, Medicare payments, and military pay, benefits and retirement benefits are due.

    From now through mid-November, the federal government will have to postpone payment on about $100 billion in payments if the debt ceiling is not raised. This comes to almost 8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the standard measure of the size of the economy based on production of goods and services) on an annual basis, enough to throw the economy in a recession even worse than the one following the financial crisis in 2008.

    Background to the crisis

    The looming debt crisis has several roots. The first are the budget deficits of the federal government, where it spends more than it collects in taxes, so it has to borrow the difference by selling bonds. The federal government budget deficit ballooned to about $1.4 trillion (or $1400 billion), equal to 10% of GDP, in 2009 because the deep recession lowered tax revenues and the federal government increased spending to bail out Wall Street and stimulate the economy. Since then, a combination of higher tax revenues, spending cuts and economic growth have reduced the deficit to almost $600 billion, or about 4% of GDP in 2012, a decline of 60% in relation to the size of the economy.

    The total amount of bonds that the U.S. government sells to pay for the budget deficit is the public debt, which is now $16.75 trillion ($16,750 billion). The federal government has a self-imposed limit on the public debt of $16.7 trillion, which means that the government can no longer borrow more money. The reported debt is slightly higher than the limit because the federal government has been shifting money around to avoid running out of cash for the last five months.

    While there have been disputes over the debt ceiling in the past, they have been largely partisan affairs that did not come close to forcing the government to actually delay payment. But the recent rise of Tea Party Republicans means that the Republicans, especially in the House of Representatives, are controlled by right wingers who are more than willing to shut down the government and even force the government not to pay its bills in order to achieve their goal of ending Obama’s health care reform known as Obamacare.

    What drives the Tea Party

    Many Republican members of congress were denying the possibility of a partial shutdown of the federal government right up to the point that the government shut down. Their behavior is similar to their stance on climate change – just deny that it is happening so one doesn’t have to do anything.

    Digging a little deeper, one sees that the government agencies that were most affected by the shutdown, such as the Department of Education, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Labor, are the programs most hated by the right wing.

    There is also an extreme free-market logic among Tea Party Republicans that the government is bad for business and the economy and that a shutdown of the government will be good for business.

    What is likely to happen

    The world isn’t going to end on Oct. 17 if the debt ceiling is not raised. But the economic effects are already being felt, as the uncertainty of repayment of bonds after that date is causing the prices of bonds coming due soon to fall, which leads to higher interest rates. The interest rate on the shortest term U.S. bonds (called bills), which come due in 30 days, has now tripled and is higher than the interest rates on 60-day bills, which come due later.

    While Democrats and the Obama administration are warning of the danger of default, which is what happens when the federal government does not repay its bonds or interest payment, it is hard to see how the government won’t give Wall Street what it wants. But there is chance that some bank or financial institution will find itself in a squeeze if the federal government doesn’t pay on time, triggering another financial crisis.

    What is more likely is that the sudden drop in federal government spending will trigger a new recession. This could quickly feed upon itself in what economists call the ‘multiplier effect,’ where the individuals, businesses and institutions that aren’t being paid by the federal government then cut back their own purchases and payments, putting the economy into a downward spiral.

    What a debt crisis would mean

    If the House Republicans do manage to block any agreement to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, the self-inflicted crisis will mark another step in the decline of the U.S. as a world power. Ever since World War II, the U.S. government has been both a protector of Wall Street and big business and the head of worldwide empire of pro-U.S. governments that protect U.S. financial and business interests, backed by the U.S. military.

    From an economic point of view, the end in 1971 of the post-World War II system of fixed exchange rates centered on the U.S. dollar, called Bretton Woods, was an early sign of the decline of the U.S. relative to the rising nations of Europe and Japan. This was followed by the OPEC oil boycott in 1973, and then the U.S. military defeat in Vietnam in 1975, showing the rise of the Third World.

    Today the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and coming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shows that the U.S., despite using hundreds of thousands of troops and spending trillions of dollars, is no longer to set up stable, pro-U.S. governments that can defend U.S. business interests. With the looming debt crisis, more and more governments around the world are losing faith in the economic power of the U.S. and the safety of U.S. government bonds. Foreign governments and investors now own more than $5.5 trillion of U.S. government bonds, and any sell-off in the bond market triggered by a debt crisis would quickly spread a financial crisis around the world.

    But even if a financial crisis is avoided, a deep recession in the U.S. will also spread around the world. Europe’s economy is still in a depression with the euro-zone crisis and many economies in the Third World are slowing down already. Another worldwide recession, following so closely on the 2008-2009 so-called Great Depression, could again shake the very foundations of the world capitalist economy.

  • Jacksonville demands school named for KKK Grand Wizard be changed

    Jacksonville, FL – The Civil War may have ended in 1865, but people in Jacksonville continue to struggle against the remains of the racist Confederate States of America in 2013. With more than 157,000 petitions signed and growing mass pressure on the Duval County School Board, community activists are waging a campaign to rename Nathan Bedford Forrest High School.

    Forrest High School is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

    Spearheaded by the Jacksonville Progressive Coalition (JPC), the campaign to rename Forrest High School hopes to deal another blow against racism and the national oppression of African Americans in the South.

    “I think the Forrest issue is important to Jacksonville in a few ways,” said Mike Stovall, a lead organizer with the JPC and one of the architects of the rename campaign. “One, it’s a homegrown reaction to a history of subtle racism in this town – the hate under the polite exterior, as it were.” Stovall continued, “Part of what we are fighting is ignorance of, and the historical revision of, history.”

    The history Stovall refers to is important. Originally named Valhalla High School, the name was changed to Forrest High School in 1959. The Daughters of the Confederacy initiated the name change as a racist stunt to protest the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated all-white schools throughout the country.

    The name Nathan Bedford Forrest is a blunt reminder of racist hatred, violence and terror. Forrest was a brutal slave trader, ordered the infamous Fort Pillow Massacre, and led the KKK. At Fort Pillow, Forrest’s troops executed hundreds of captured and surrendering Union soldiers, most of whom were African American, which Forrest bragged about in his military dispatches. The Daughters of the Confederacy chose the name to intimidate courageous African American civil rights activists, many of them teenagers, struggling for freedom.

    When Forrest High School opened in 1959, it was an all-white, segregated school. Today, 54% of the school’s approximately 1800 students are African-American.

    “I don’t think we can talk about this fight and not talk about current and future students,” said Stovallm, “and about the entirely different message that the city is sending to those kids.”

    Started in late July, the campaign to rename Forrest High School draws greater community support by the day. A petition started by Jacksonville activist Omotayo Richmond on Change.org on Aug. 4 of this year reached over 157,000 at the time of writing. More than 50 Jacksonville residents attended a Duval County School Board forum on Oct. 3 to demand a new name for Forrest High School. JPC organizers have attended local events, like Art Walk in downtown Jacksonville and canvassed neighborhoods around Forrest, collecting surveys about the name, which they intend to present to the school board.

    “We’re getting out in the community, and it’s so clear that people want to rename the school,” said Fernando Figueroa, an organizer with the JPC. “We stood out in front of a neighborhood grocery store and gathered several dozen surveys in an hour, all demanding that Forrest’s name be dropped. When people hear that Jacksonville has a high school named after a Klan leader, they’re outraged.”

    The growing success of the campaign has left racists and reactionaries in Jacksonville panicking. On Oct. 2, the local KKK branch in Jacksonville sent the Duval County School Board a six-page letter hysterically asking the Board to keep the school’s racist name. The letter grossly distorted history and openly apologized for Forrest’s heinous war crimes and racist violence.

    Other racists have come out of the woodwork to speak against the campaign. At the Oct. 3 school board forum, several older white residents from the Jacksonville-based Museum of Southern History spoke in defense of Forrest and slandered civil rights leaders, like A. Philip Randolph. The majority of the audience at the forum greatly outnumbered the small contingent from the Museum of Southern History, who received boos and jeers when they spoke.

    The JPC will continue gathering surveys and petitions from Jacksonville residents to present to the school board in November. Duval County Superintendent Nikolai Vitti publicly stated that he would support changing the name “if brought organically to the board by the community,” according to a National Public Radio interview from July 2013. The coalition plans to march on the November school board meeting to demand the name change.

  • Grand Mufti joins Jacksonville rally for Syria peace

    Jacksonville, FL – On Oct. 13, 40 people held a “Rally for Peace in Syria” at Saint Ephrem Syriac Catholic Church in Jacksonville. The peace rally drew members of the church congregation, anti-war activists and members of Jacksonville’s large Syrian-American and Arab-American community. Friends of the Syrian American Forum organized the rally.

    Protesters carried signs reading, “U.S. hands off Syria” and “U.S. stop funding al-Qaeda,” referring to the U.S. and Saudi-backed rebels affiliated with al-Qaeda. Obama’s White House and U.S. intelligence agencies have spent over $1 billion on ‘rebels’ in Syria already. Another sign featured U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s quote during his attempt to drive the U.S. into another Middle East war, “They [the Syrian rebels] are becoming more moderate by the day,” along with a photo of civilians massacred by the U.S. and Israeli-backed rebels.

    The rally began with several chants calling for no U.S. war on Syria and then others offered a prayer for peace. Both Muslims and Christians attended the rally, praying together and demanding an end to the U.S.-sponsored violence in Syria.

    The Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, spoke to the crowd by videoconference. Syria’s highest Muslim religious figure, Hassoun addressed the rally in Arabic, praying and calling for peace in Syria. He emphasized his desire for unity with all of Syria’s religious groups, including Christians, and called on Syrians to support President Assad in fighting the U.S. and Saudi-backed rebels.

    People asked Hassoun questions

    Dave Schneider, an organizer with Jacksonville Against the War on Syria (JAWS), told Hassoun about the efforts in Florida to stop U.S. military intervention in Syria. With someone translating his words into Arabic, he said, “We have brought together hundreds of people to tell the politicians who make the laws in this country that we don’t want war. 91% of the American people do not want war on Syria. And many of us see the courage of the Syrian people and President Bashar al-Assad in the face of U.S. intervention and the Saudi-funded rebels, and we are inspired by that courage.”

    Hassoun, whose son was assassinated at a university by the so-called rebels, thanked the people of Jacksonville for their support and asked them to continue spreading the truth about Syria. He told the rally that his attempt to come and address the U.S. Congress was blocked by the U.S. State Department, which denied his visa.

    Hassoun said, “When Obama was elected, he promised peace, but now he wants to deliver more war.”

    Jacksonville’s rally was part of a larger nationwide day of action called by the Friends of the Syrian American Forum. The organization plans to call more days of action in the future to demand “Hands off Syria” and an end to U.S. war.

  • Marissa Alexander to receive new trial, protesters demand ‘Free Marissa now’

    Jacksonville, FL – On Sept. 26, a Florida appeals court ordered a new trial for Marissa Alexander, the African American mother given a 20-year prison sentence for firing a warning shot to fend off her abusive husband. The announcement comes after more than a year of protests across the country that raised the demand, “Free Marissa now!”

    Speaking about the movement to get justice for Alexander, Octavia Littlejohn, an organizer with the New Jim Crow Movement and the Southern Movement Assembly in Jacksonville, stated, “I truly believe it helped Marissa’s case…I pray she gets her freedom soon and very soon.”

    Alexander, 32, discharged her licensed firearm when her husband attacked her at home just a week after giving birth to her daughter. The jury ignored her claim to self-defense against domestic abuse and found her guilty after deliberating for only 12 minutes. Under Florida’s racist mandatory minimum laws, Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

    Alexander’s case drew national attention in the wake of the not guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, the white vigilante who murdered Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American. After shooting Martin, Zimmerman was not arrested by police and a nearly all white jury found him not guilty of second-degree murder, sparking nationwide protests. Many protesters contrasted Alexander and Zimmerman’s treatment by the legal system to highlight the racist nature of the criminal injustice system.

    State Attorney Angela Corey, who was widely criticized for her lackluster prosecution of Zimmerman, prosecuted Alexander and sought the maximum 20-year sentence for her conviction. Several progressive and civil rights groups in Jacksonville have demanded that she resign for targeting Alexander and disproportionately prosecuting African American youth.

    Protests in Jacksonville by the Southern Movement Assembly, the New Jim Crow Movement, Florida New Majority and others helped bring attention to Alexander’s case. Shortly after the Zimmerman verdict, more than 500 people in Jacksonville marched to the Duval County jail, where Alexander was held, and demanded her release.

    In late July, protesters with the Southern Movement Assembly walked 126 miles from Jacksonville to Sanford to demand the release of Alexander and the resignation of Angela Corey.

    Littlejohn, one of those who participated in the ‘Walk for Dignity’ to Sanford, states, “We stood for what we believe in, and we didn’t let anybody or anyone – not even Angela Corey – defeat us or scare us away. I feel we got what we wanted and justice will be served for her.”

    Groups in Jacksonville and across the country plan to ramp up the pressure to free Alexander as she faces her new trial.

    Reflecting on this people’s victory, Littlejohn added, “Marissa will be very pleased in our hard work and dedication. Our voices were heard. We overcame all obstacles, even if it meant for me being in the media and speaking on the truth, not giving a damn what the jurisdiction said about her. We fought for her freedom and her rights.”

  • Hands off Syria! International Day of Protest marked in Chicago

    Chicago, IL – 50 people gathered in Chicago’s Federal Plaza Oct. 13 joining thousands rallying around the world in an international day of solidarity with the people of Syria. Syrians stood together with anti-war activists to tell the U.S., “No war on Syria!”

    The most popular chant that was “Hands off Syria, no more arms.” The U.S. began sending weapons directly to the pro-Western Syrian rebels in early September. When U.S. missile strikes were stopped by public opinion and the Russian diplomatic deal, President Obama then announced that weapons would begin to flow to the U.S. proxy army.

    The rally in Chicago and other states was initiated by the Syrian American Forum, and endorsed by the Anti-War Committee-Chicago, ANSWER Coalition-Chicago, Gay Liberation Network, U.S. Palestinian Community Network-Chicago and March 19 Anti-War Coalition.

    Dr. Matar Matar of the Syrian American Forum, explained, “We want to ask the Obama administration to work in the direction of peace, not fueling war. Mr. Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war in Iraq. By supporting insurgents in Syria he is losing his credibility as a peace achiever.”

    Nancy Hammond of the Anti-War Committee-Chicago, also called on the U.S. government to end its war on Syria. “Since Vietnam, the U.S. has not stopped waging wars: on Central America, on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. It has to end.”

    An emotional moment for the Syrians present came when Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja’afari, spoke to the rally by telephone.

     

  • Hands off Syria! International Day of Protest marked in Chicago

    Chicago, IL – 50 people gathered in Chicago’s Federal Plaza Oct. 13 joining thousands rallying around the world in an international day of solidarity with the people of Syria. Syrians stood together with anti-war activists to tell the U.S., “No war on Syria!”

    The most popular chant that was “Hands off Syria, no more arms.” The U.S. began sending weapons directly to the pro-Western Syrian rebels in early September. When U.S. missile strikes were stopped by public opinion and the Russian diplomatic deal, President Obama then announced that weapons would begin to flow to the U.S. proxy army.

    The rally in Chicago and other states was initiated by the Syrian American Forum, and endorsed by the Anti-War Committee-Chicago, ANSWER Coalition-Chicago, Gay Liberation Network, U.S. Palestinian Community Network-Chicago and March 19 Anti-War Coalition.

    Dr. Matar Matar of the Syrian American Forum, explained, “We want to ask the Obama administration to work in the direction of peace, not fueling war. Mr. Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the war in Iraq. By supporting insurgents in Syria he is losing his credibility as a peace achiever.”

    Nancy Hammond of the Anti-War Committee-Chicago, also called on the U.S. government to end its war on Syria. “Since Vietnam, the U.S. has not stopped waging wars: on Central America, on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. It has to end.”

    An emotional moment for the Syrians present came when Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja’afari, spoke to the rally by telephone.

     

  • PFLP: Boycott occupation elections in Jerusalem

    Fight back News Service is circulating the following Oct. 12 statement from the Popular Font for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

    The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called for a boycott of the occupation municipal elections in the city of Jerusalem. The Front called on our people in the city of Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Palestinian people, to boycott these occupation elections which are part of the policy of Judaizing Jerusalem in various fields. This includes undermining the Arab status of Jerusalem and the political, spiritual, cultural, economic and social development of our people, and repression of the people of the city of Jerusalem.

    The Front said that the occupation authorities in Jerusalem are pushing demographic and geographic changes through rampant settlement, home demolitions, economic strangulation, ethnic cleansing and compromising of sacred Islamic and Christian holy sites. These acts are invalid and contrary to historical facts and international law, and are part of the war crimes being waged against the Palestinian people, their land, holy sites and inalienable rights to return, self-determination and sovereignty.