The North Star website has carried a two-part article by Gavin Mendel-Gleason and James O’Brien that sets out the case for a left reformist politics today. With the debates currently going on in Left Unity, and the phrase “We are […]
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Chicago, IL – On Jan. 10 the progressive Uri-Eichen Gallery in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood opened its doors to celebrate a true people’s artist, Joe Hill. Joe Hill was a member of the revolutionary labor union Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW was known for its popular art and music which captured the imagination of millions of workers. None of the IWW members was more famous for song writing and music than Joe Hill.
Larry Spivack, President of the Illinois Labor History Society, introduced Joe Hill’s legacy to the 100 people gathered. Spivack said, “Joe Hill and his union celebrated the serious matters of daily life with music, art and humor.” The walls of the Uri-Eichen Gallery were decorated with drawings by Joe Hill, photos of Joe Hill and a few paintings by the evening’s musical headliner, Jon Langford of the Mekons and the Waco Brothers.
Historian Paul Durica captivated the audience by moderating the story of Joe Hill’s arrest 100 years ago, the frame up, the world wide campaign to free him and his subsequent execution by the state of Utah. Durica used those gathered to play the different roles in a reenactment, showing how Joe Hill was framed for murder and why he was innocent. Durica said, “Joe Hill developed a special friendship with a young IWW unionist named Elizabeth Gurley Flynn while in prison awaiting execution.” Durica selected members of the audience to read Joe Hill’s actual letters from jail to the revolutionary activist. He explained how one of Hill’s most famous songs, Rebel Girl, was inspired by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. Durica effectively brought Joe Hill to life.
Joe Hill, born Joel Haggalund, like so many workers here, was an immigrant. He came to the U.S. from Sweden in 1902 at the age of 23 and changed his name to Joe Hillstrom, later becoming famous as Joe Hill. He did a variety of jobs, including stacking wheat, mining copper, playing piano, laying pipe and more. Hill joined the radical IWW union in San Pedro, California in 1910.
He was an IWW worker, an organizer, but quickly became their most effective propagandist. The IWW published the popular Little Red Songbook. Hill wrote songs that attacked labor enemies with humor. An example is the anti-union Salvation Army. They would use their band to try to drown out pro-union soapbox speakers. Workers loved to sing Joe Hill’s revolutionary words to the bands’ Christian melody. It drove the Salvation Army obstructionists nuts.
In a tribute to Joe Hill, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn wrote, “Joe writes songs that sing, that lilt and laugh and sparkle, that kindle the fires of revolt in the most crushed spirit and quicken the desire for fuller life in the most humble slave.”
Current IWW representative Matt Muchowski read the last will of Joe Hill:
“My Will is easy to decide,
For there is nothing to divide.
My kin don’t need to fuss and moan –
‘Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.’
My body?- Oh!- If I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce,
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where the flowers grow.
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will.
Good luck to all of you.”
–Joe Hill
In a telegram to IWW leader Bill Haywood, Hill requested being cremated in Wyoming writing, “I don’t want to be caught dead in Utah.” According to his wishes, he was cremated across the border in Wyoming. Haywood had his ashes divided up and sent to radical unions, parties and organizations around the world.
Muchowski said, “Even then the U.S. government was spying on radicals. It was a regular government practice to steal IWW letters from the U.S. Postal Service. Recently the magazine In These Times uncovered that they had stolen some of Joe Hill’s ashes and still had them filed away.” Through struggle the union was able to get the ashes back and send them again around the world so that as Hill himself said, “some fading flower would come back to life and bloom again.”
The evening finished with the talented John Langford playing music and telling stories. Langford played songs of working class resistance. He paid tribute to Hill, but also to Woody Guthrie, Joe Strummer and others. Langford brought grit as well as freewheeling musical fun. Langford, a Welsh immigrant, shared his perspective on working class art with the audience.
The evening was clearly a success. Uri-Eichen owners Kath Steichen and Chis Urias were working hard behind the scenes. Urias said, “This is the best event we have ever had here.” Steichen said, “Our gallery belongs to the working class people of our community. Joe Hill was the ultimate working class artist. It is natural that we would honor him on the centennial of the struggle to save his life. Tonight’s opening is Part I, we will have several Joe Hill openings culminating in a program to mark the 100th anniversary of Hill’s execution by the state of Utah on Nov. 19, 1915.
Richard Berg is the past president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 743 and currently is employed as a staff representative by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.
Israeli war criminal Ariel Sharon died today, Jan 11, having spent the last eight years in a coma. He was 85 years old.
Those of us who support the liberation of Palestine regret the fact that he was never brought to justice for his crimes. He was one of the architects and builders of the racist apartheid state that is Israel.
Sharon began his criminal career at a young age, when he joined the Zionist militia called the Haganah and participated in the campaign to drive Palestinians out of Palestine.
When Sharon was Israel’s defense minister in 1982 he carried out his greatest single crime, the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon. Under his direction, Israeli troops and their right-wing Lebanese allies surrounded and then attacked the Palestinian refugee camp. Together they carried out the slaughter of more than 3000 men, women and children.
Much of the Western press is saying that Sharon’s crimes at places like Sabra and Shatila are a point of controversy. No reasonable person can say this. Sharon’s criminality is a point of fact.
The U.S. government, which aids and arms Israel, issued a disgusting statement from Secretary of State John Kerry today, praising Sharon’s life and efforts, but one odd phrase in the statement stands out as truth: “Ariel Sharon’s journey was Israel’s journey.” The cruel brutality of Ariel Sharon certainly was, and for that matter is, “Israel’s journey.” And it will come to an end. The Palestinian people will put an end to the occupation and liberate every inch of Palestine.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/disclosure-at-last–061654557.html Disclosure at Last? In August 2013, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs published the Companies Act, 2013, consolidating and amending the laws relating to companies. The new Act contained a minor amendment requiring companies to disclose the names of political parties that received contributions from them. And thanks to a controversial letter issued recently from […]
By Democratic Students Union A preliminary report on the solidarity visit to Muzaffarnagar ‘relief’ camps Death of over 30 infants in the extreme cold of Muzzaffarnagar ‘relief camps’ and the overall inhuman conditions in which the evicted people are being forced to thrive there, once again has churned debates in the media lately. The forgotten […]
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/corporates-paid-rs379-crore-to-parties-report/article5553960.ece Corporates paid Rs.379 crore to parties: Report The corporate sector contributed around Rs.378.89 crore during the last eight years to political parties, an election research report revealed on Wednesday. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) study said that out of Rs.435.87 crore collected by national parties between 2004—05 and […]
Detroit, MI – The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and the Detroit music duo Insane Clown Posse (ICP), filed a federal lawsuit Jan. 8 on behalf of Juggalos, or fans of ICP, saying their constitutional rights to expression and association were violated when the U.S. government wrongly and arbitrarily classified the entire fan base as a “hybrid” criminal gang. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four Juggalos and the two members of ICP.
In 2011, Juggalos were officially identified as a “hybrid gang” by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), when the fan group was included in the DOJ’s third National Gang Threat Assessment. As a result of this unjust designation, “individual Juggalos are suffering improper investigations, detentions and other denials of their personal rights at the hands of government officials” or denied employment, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The lawsuit asks a judge to order the DOJ to remove the Juggalos from the government’s list of gangs so that the fans of ICP will no longer be unconstitutionally and unjustifiably singled out as targets for scrutiny and harassment by law enforcement authorities throughout the country. The lawsuit goes on to assert that the DOJ’s classification of the Juggalos as a gang is unconstitutionally vague and violates the Juggalos’ constitutional rights to association and speech.
In 2012, attorneys representing Insane Clown Posse and their record label, Psychopathic Records, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI to obtain records the federal government used to justify officially designating Juggalos as a criminal gang. When those documents were finally released, they contained nothing that would warrant labeling all Juggalos as a criminal gang.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). To view this and other news form the FARC peace delegation in Havana, Cuba go here: http://farc-epeace.org/
Public Statement on the report of the Washington Post
On December 21, 2013, the Washington Post published a report about the latest covert action by the CIA, the NSA and the Pentagon, that is, of the United States of America, in Colombia’s internal armed conflict. This involves decisions and authorizations by at least the last three governments of that country.
Interesting revelation, that shows many incredulous people that the interest of the US government is one of the main triggers of the long war Colombians are going through. More ambitious studies could easily show that the same thing has happened since the days of Operation Marquetalia in 1964, which was publicly recognized in Colombia. However, whenever the nature of the conflict is being studied, this fact is silenced with astonishing irresponsibility.
According to the report, the covert action program has helped the Colombian Army to kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 serving or retired officers in the United States and Colombia. At the same time, the National Security Agency was carrying out electronic eavesdropping and wiretaps. All these operations were financed with a secret budget of billions of dollars, additionally to the nine billion dollars aid from Plan Colombia.
President Santos, according to the same report, tried to downplay the issue when he was interviewed by that North American newspaper. Minister Pinzón (Defense), on the contrary, had no qualms about openly recognizing it in the media and abate it as part of the traditional military agreements between the two countries. It is clear that neither of them feel the slightest appreciation for Colombian sovereignty, since gringo impositions on drugs and terrorism are more important to them than any consideration of national interest. Not to speak about Colombian General and Admirals; their knees are calloused.
It is not that we didn’t know or didn’t have any idea about it, but some things do become clearer with the report of the US newspaper. For example, that the columnist Oscar Collazos is completely right when he suggests that the greatest contradiction that generates debate between former Colombian presidents, is about showing which of them is responsible for the major part of killings of their citizens. This debate is also reproduced with clear interest by the Colombian media, which are always so prone to publish and enhance the crimes of the guerrilla, as they are called by such nefarious individuals. We could now parody Senator Piedad Córdoba, when she said that Colombia was a huge mass grave. saying that with the consent of recent governments, Colombia is a victim of the most blatant and unpunished wiretapping on behalf of the intelligence services of a foreign power.
Similarly, the cited report includes disclosures that give the shivers. The article states that according to President Santos “part of the experience and the efficiency of our operations and our special operations were the product of better training and knowledge we have acquired from many countries, including the United States”. This endorses what the report states about the transfer of the American experience in Afghanistan and the struggle against Al Qaeda to the Colombian conflict, ie intelligence procedures including bribery, illegal arrests, disappearances, torture and illegal pressure on people who are expected to give information.
This makes clear that the ongoing degradation of the methods used by Colombian military, police and security forces originates in the instruction and advice given by the Americans. The government of Juan Manuel Santos is aware of the kidnappings, blackmail, death threats and attacks employed by the Colombian intelligence service to obtain, through the families of the guerrilla commanders and fighters, the location of these in order to kill them. Methods that have even been employed against the families of the FARC-EP members of the Peace Delegation in Havana. He also knows perfectly well, because of his time as defense minister under Álvaro Uribe, the true story of the military intelligence that led to the gruesome murder and mutilation of Comrade Iván Ríos.
The analysis of the report also mentions the opportunistic and unilateral interpretations of international law by successive U.S. governments, submissively accepted by Colombian leaders. Mr. Reagan authorized military intervention on behalf of his country in any nation under the pretext of combating drug trafficking; Mr. Clinton authorized the interventions to secure his country’s control of strategic resources located anywhere in the world; Mr. Bush acted the same way, under the pretext of preventing what his government qualified as the terrorist threat. All this was enough for the notions of independence, sovereignty and self-determination of people to be put in the museum of history, next to the corpse of the fundamental rights of human beings.
Only such a brazen reign of arbitrariness, born out of brute force, can explain, as corroborated by the report, the aggression of the Colombian military against the sovereignty of Ecuador on March 1, 2008, and the subsequent treacherous murders of Colombian guerrilla comandantes outside of combat, through the use of the cynically called “smart bombs” or the actions of the special forces. The report reveals the efforts of the CIA and the Pentagon to get the reprehensible legal interpretations, with which these crimes are perpetrated. It also exposes the wickedness of the American law schools in which all these new legal theories are cooked and which are responsible for legitimizing terror as a respectable method of political action.
It is true that more brainy scholars may draw many more implications from this report, but in addition to what is already said, we should ask ourselves now, when the discussion on the issue of illicit crops is coming up: What is the true role this oligarchy of vendepatrias (nation-sellers) grants to the peace talks with the FARC-EP, or possible talks with the ELN, when the interests that produce an intensification of the conflict in our country are exposed on national and international level? This report leaves many doubts about the desire for peace by the Colombian state and its imperial boss. Which confirms our idea that a true peace in our country can only be achieved with the massive and decisive participation of the millions of Colombian victims of this regime, who have just suffered one more mockery with the ridicule increase of the minimum wage while the military budget grows geometrically to crush their dissatisfaction.
SECRETARIAT OF THE CENTRAL HIGH COMMAND OF THE FARC-EP
Colombian jungle, January 2014, year of the 50th anniversary of our uprising
Archived government papers from 1984, many personally annotated by Margaret Thatcher, have been released recently under the ‘thirty-year rule’, which allows some state secrets to be made public when the authorities deem it safe to do so. Unsurprisingly, they prove […]
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As the Southwark Fire Station started its last day, locals and supporters assembled this morning in solidarity with the firefighter’s struggle, Joana Ramiro reports.
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