The Grand Rapids branch of the IWW is organizing a protest for this Monday, April 1st in response to the recent firing of one of their members for organizing fellow workers at Star Tickets.
The protest Facebook event page states:
IWW Organizer Deirdre Cunningham has been fired from Star Tickets in Grand Rapids where she had been working/organizing for years. The termination comes on the heels of a successful union campaign, which won IWW union certification for all Star Tickets Workers. Deirdre was fired on the day the Union was certified in an attempt to scare the other workers away from their Union.
Protest Deirdre Cunningham’s Unlawful termination!
Monday, April 1
Noon
Star Tickets building
620 Century SW, Grand Rapids
If you are unable to attend the protest, the IWW is asking people to call the owner of Star Tickets, Jack Krasula, and demand justice for Deirdre!!
Phone – 248-945-1127
The War on White Supremacy
This article by Solomon Comissiong is re-posted from Black Agenda Report.
Much has been said about the so-called “war on terror,” primarily due to the effectiveness of the relentless US propaganda machine. This cleaver ploy allows United States imperialism to wage war anywhere it wishes – so long as “they” say “terrorism” exists. It matters little that the greatest global manufacturer and purveyor of terror is the United States government itself. The evil cretins that created the “war on terror” scheme also crafted their own rules to justify their destructive actions. These actions have undoubtedly taken well over one million lives, as well as destroyed many more families. Their wretched mantra is, “terror must be destroyed anywhere it exists in world.” They have repeated this tune so many times the systematically dumbed down US populous has bought into it, hook, line, and sinker. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would be proud. Like the lies of Weapons of Mass Destruction being in Iraq, the US government rarely has to show the US populous any evidence that what they are saying is actually true.
Despite the ill-intentioned “war on terror,” there is one ideological war that would be well served, if aggressively launched. An ideological “war on White Supremacy” would do humanity immense favors, especially the people of color who are terrorized by it, every day of their lives. White Supremacy is a most nefarious ideology, created by white people for white people. White Supremacy rears its hideous head throughout the globe and has been responsible for well over 100 million deaths (i.e., African Holocaust, Native American Holocaust). However, White Supremacy not only kills bodies, it destroys minds. It is the programming to believe that white people, their various cultures, and their mores are inherently better than all other people and their respective cultures – period. People are taught, from a very young age, to worship some of them most devilish white people the world has ever known, simply because they are white. This is a vastly under-taught aspect of White Supremacy.
White Supremacy is often limited to being described as some toothless hillbilly or muscle bound and hairless white male with a Swastika etched in to his hollow, yet hate filled, head. This is merely one minor aspect of White Supremacy. White Supremacy, in its essence, is much, much more pervasive than the physical form we are programmed to sometimes see in human flesh. White Supremacy is most effective in its ideological form. Everything else is a destructive manifestation of that ideology.
White Supremacy bores destructive holes into the impressionable minds of children. White children are subconsciously programmed to falsely believe that they are the champions of humanity and that their contributions to the world vastly overshadow that of people of color. White Supremacy blinds them to myriad truths detailing the origins of sciences, medicine, democracy and philosophy came out of African, not Europe. This assembly-line type of programming sets in motion the next wave of future white adults mentally equipped carry out the crimes of their mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. It robs these white children of humanity without them ever realizing they are being developed to see the world in a most limiting and destructive way. Without progressive social intervention many white youth are bound to develop similar socially destructive ways as their elders.
Children of color, on the other hand, are systematically programmed to, not only see white people as better than themselves, but to also extol white people who carried out crimes against humanity against people of color. Within the white settler colony, otherwise known as the United States, children of color are force-fed heaping platefuls of White Supremacy. It is a most psychologically unhealthy meal. They are taught to call slave masters their “Founding Fathers,” men who would have worked them to death had these children been anywhere within the vicinity of these devilish human beings. The likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Andrew Jackson all held enslaved Africans against their will. George Washington and Andrew Jackson were also notorious for their assaults on Indigenous people from North America. It is very telling of how sadistic “American” society is, that it would impose these kinds of men upon the minds of children, especially children of color. This is exactly what white supremacist societies do – they force children of color to assimilate. Those aforementioned men, when cited within classrooms and homes, should be held as examples of what not to do. A humane society would do this. The US is far from being a humane society.
The US is a society that routinely abuses and destroys the lives of people of color. African/black and Indigenous/Latino/brown communities are systematically targeted by way of this white supremacist and institutionally racist war that is being waged upon them. Mass incarceration, the Prison Industry Complex, and Police Brutality are all very much lethal aspects of White Supremacy. In a society that rewards European genocidal monsters, like Christopher Columbus, it makes painful sense that the US would be a place that harvests oppression much like farmers do fruits and vegetables. The US is riddled with a legacy of “strange fruit.”
Police brutality is a most deleterious aspect of White Supremacy and Institutional Racism. This is why police brutality disproportionately impact people of color. Thanks to the work of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement we know that in 2012 a black person was murdered by “law enforcement” at least every 36 hours. The white supremacist corporate media did nothing to expose this story. And why would they – they are who they are because of White Supremacy. A revolution to end White Supremacy truly will not be televised – at least not on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS or the like.
The so-called entertainment industry is replete with white supremacist images, messages, and is controlled by White Supremacy and Institutional Racism. This is why the only images shown of Hip Hop Culture, within the corporate media’s usurped airwaves, are that of the most virulently racist and stereotypical images of people of color. These are the acceptable versions of blackness they feel comfortable showing. Again, it matters little that Hip Hop is a culture largely created by African/black youth. The white supremacist power structure that controls the media, that makes destructive images popular while suppressing revolutionary ones, is no different than the white people who stole North America from Indigenous people. Once in control of a resource they are hell-bent on suppressing any semblance of resistance or justice.
White Supremacy is a social disease that infects entire societies, person-by-person, community-by-community and nation-by-nation. It is a plague that has only gotten stronger and more deceptive throughout its existence, which spans over several hundred years. If the US was a sincere and justice oriented nation it would wage an all out war on the ideology of White Supremacy – aimed at destroying all vestiges of a most deadly and disproportionate white power structure. The US’s ongoing existence as a white settler nation precludes it from waging a noble war on White Supremacy. White Supremacy and Institutional Racism largely fuel this country’s lifeblood. The US’s wars are ultimately justified by White Supremacy and capitalism. Historically these wars have been waged for white men by white men. However, with the growing number of people of color within the United States, the white power structure has adapted to the times. In 2008 they selected their newest weapon – Barack Obama – a brown-faced man willing to wage white supremacist/capitalist/imperialist wars for the white power structure he ultimately serves. This, unfortunately, has worked like a lucky charm, thus converting legions of black people (who previously opposed Euro-America’s imperialist wars) into cheerleaders for the same reprehensible wars, simply because the face of Euro-American white supremacy is now a brown one.
The struggle to end White Supremacy is one that must continue and grow even stronger – countless youth of color simply depend on it. Resistance to white supremacist ideology is paramount. If you believe in humanity (regardless of the color of your skin) you must join in this resistance. White Supremacy is a most deadly social malady. It has given birth to Apartheid, Jim Crow, mass murder, chattel slavery – the list literally goes on and on.
People of color must resist White Supremacy in every way they can. We must organize ourselves to combat it – teaching our youth to recognize it is an important first step. People of color must collectively resist White Supremacy, and good intentioned white people must play their own critical roles within this struggle. It is the obligation of any good intentioned white person to go in to white communities and organize an end to the social disease there. After all, White Supremacy emanates from white communities. It is frequently birthed from ignorance and hatred, among several social maladies and complexes.
White people, it is your responsibility to put an end to White Supremacy in your communities just as it is the responsibility of men to bury Male Supremacy and sexual/physical abuse of women. White Supremacy is killing masses of people (physically and mentally). When will we all decide to wage a war on this pervasive social illness/ideology, and put and end to it? Humanity depends on our collective commitment to end it before it metastasizes and puts and end to us all.
Earlier today, MLive ran a story announcing that Rick DeVos was named by GOOD Magazine as one of the, “100 People Pushing the World Forward.”
The MLive article cites the CEO of GOOD, who states of the 100 people selected:
“They are each doing amazing work, and we believe that amplifying their voices will help move the needle on some of the world’s greatest challenges.”
First of all, Rick DeVos does not need his voice amplified, since the news and entertainment media have made sure that he and his projects are widely known. In fact, one would be hard pressed to go a week in West Michigan without hearing about ArtPrize or Start Garden.
Second, there is no real exploration of what GOOD Magazine is all about and what criterion they used to determine who the 100 People Pushing the World Forward are.
In looking at GOOD online, it seems to be another mechanism where people with tremendous amounts of privilege are identified as those “who give a damn.” However, what they give a damn about is never really clarified, but based on the case studies they present, one could certainly draw some conclusions.
These case studies are listed in the GOOD Corps section of the site, which states:
GOOD/CORPS partners with brands and organizations to help them do the same by transforming the values at the core of their identity into actionable solutions that improve both their business and the world.
Essentially, GOOD is a mechanism for people to do things to feel good about themselves, engage in small acts of charity or investment, while never having to critique or challenge the current economic system that perpetuates massive global inequity.
For instance, some of the GOOD Corps case studies are those that work in collaboration with Pepsi and Starbucks. Both companies are based on maximizing profits at all costs, whether those are social or environmental. Pepsi has contributed massively to poor public health by pushing their sugar water on children and communities around the globe, using up valuable water resources in communities that struggle to have access to fresh/potable water, as is well documented in Maude Barlow’s book, Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water.
The Starbucks GOOD Corp project was identified as essentially a program created that allowed Starbucks customers to donate to local charities. Sounds very nice, unless you know something about Starbucks treatment of workers and their role in global politics.
The IWW union has been involved in a nasty battle for years with Starbucks, which has consistently tried to undermine efforts to form a union amongst the baristas. Starbucks has even fired people who talked about unionizing or attempting to do so while working as an employee.
Starbucks is also the target of the international Boycott, Sanctions & Divestment Campaign, since Starbucks not only does business with the State of Israel, but the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Shultz, has been a major support of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
These are issues that could have been easily explored by the MLive writer, instead of just cheerleading once again for Rick DeVos.
How Obama Chose War Over Peace in Syria
This article by Shamus Cooke is re-posted from CounterPunch.
With Syria on the brink of national genocide, outside nations have only two options: help reverse the catastrophe or plunge this torn nation deeper into the abyss. Countries can either work towards a peaceful political solution or they can continue to pour money, guns, and fighters into the country to ensure a steady gushing into the bloodbath.
President Obama will have no talk of peace. He has chosen war since the very start and he’s sticking to it. A recent New York Times article revealed that President Obama has been lying through his teeth about the level of U.S. involvement in the Syrian conflict since the beginning.
The President recently said that the U.S. government continues to give only “non-lethal” military aid to the rebels, but The New York Times revealed that the CIA has been actively funneling and distributing massive shipments of weapons to the rebels over the borders of Jordan and Turkey.
This “arms pipeline” of illegal gun trafficking has been overseen by the U.S. government since January 2012. It has literally been the lifeblood of the Syrian “rebels,” and thus the cause of the immense bloodshed in Syria.
The New York Times reports:
“The C.I.A. role in facilitating the [weapons] shipments… gave the United States a degree of influence over the process [of weapon distribution]…American officials have confirmed that senior White House officials were regularly briefed on the [weapons] shipments.”
The article also explains that a “conservative estimate” of the weapons shipment to date is “3,500 tons.”
So while Obama has repeatedly lied about “non-lethal” military aid, he has been personally involved in overseeing a multi-country flood of weapons into Syria, many of which are given to terrorist organizations. The only effective fighting force for the Syrian rebels has been the terrorist grouping the Al Nusra Front, and now we know exactly where they got their guns.
If not for this U.S.-sponsored flood of guns, the Syrian rebels — many of them from Saudi Arabia and other countries — would have been militarily defeated long ago. Tens of thousands of lives would thus have been spared and a million refugees could have remained in their homes in Syria. The large scale ethnic-religious cleansing initiated by the rebels would have been preventable.
But Obama is so intent on war that he will not even discuss peace with the Syrian government. He has repeatedly stated that there are “preconditions” for peace negotiations, the most important one being the downfall of the Syrian government, i.e., regime change. If a toppling of a nation’s government is Obama’s precondition for peace, then Obama is by definition choosing war.
Never mind that Syria is a sovereign nation that should not have to worry about a foreign country making demands as to who is in power. Obama doesn’t seem to think this relevant. In fact, his administration has been very busy determining who the “legitimate” government of Syria is, by hand picking the “National Coalition of Syrian Revolution,” the prime minister of which is a U.S. citizen.
One of the preconditions for being on Obama’s National Coalition of Syrian Revolution is that there be no peace negotiations with the Syrian government. Of course most Syrians want to immediately end the conflict in Syria, since it threatens an Iraq-like destruction of the country.
The most popular leader of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution, Moaz al-Khatib, recently quit in protest because he was prohibited from pursuing peace negotiations by the U.S.-appointed opposition Prime Minister, Ghassan Hitto, a U.S. citizen who had lived in the U.S. for the previous 30 years.
The Guardian reports:
“Immediately after his nomination as interim [Prime Minister], Ghassan Hitto [U.S. citizen], had distanced himself from Al-Khatib’s willingness to negotiate with elements of the Assad regime in a bid to bring an end to the civil war.”
By appointing Hitto as the leader of the opposition, Obama has splintered the already-splintered opposition while making “no peace negotiations” the official policy of the U.S.-backed opposition, the so-called “legitimate” government of Syria.
Obama also recently pressured the Arab League — composed of regimes loyal to the United States — to install as a member the hand-picked National Coalition of Syrian Revolution as the official government of Syria. The appointment didn’t give as much credibility to the opposition as much as it degraded the Arab League’s legitimacy.
The rebel’s seat in the Arab league implies, again, that the U.S. and its allies are fully intent on “regime change,” no matter how many people die, no matter the existing political alternatives. They will not reverse course.
The Russian government called the Arab League membership decision “… an open encouragement of the [rebel] forces which, unfortunately, continue to bet on a military solution in Syria, not looking at multiplying day by day the pain and suffering of the Syrians…. Moscow is convinced that only a political settlement and not encouraging destructive military scenarios, can stop the bloodshed and bring peace and security to all Syrians in their country.”
Obama has rejected both Russian and Syrian calls for peace negotiations in recent months, as he has greatly increased the frequency of the weapons trafficking plan. Reuters reports on the Obama Administration’s reaction to peace proposals from Russia and Syria:
“…[Syria’s Foreign Minister’s] offer of [peace] talks drew a dismissive response from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was starting a nine-nation tour of European and Arab capitals in London [to help organize support for the Syrian rebels].”
Obama rejects peace because he cannot dictate its outcomes. When it comes to war the more powerful party decides what the peace looks like, and Obama’s rebels are — after two years — still in a poor position to bargain a favorable peace to the United States, no matter how many tons of guns the U.S. has dumped into Syria. This is because the Syrian government still enjoys a large social base of support, something you’ll seldom read about in the U.S. media.
Another sign of war lust from the Obama administration came after the Syrian government accused the rebels of a chemical weapons attack. The U.S. government initially dismissed the accusation, until the rebels later accused the Syrian government of the attack.
But even Syria’s rebels have admitted that the chemical weapons attack took place in a government controlled territory, and that 16 Syrian government solders died in the attack along with 10 civilians plus a hundred more injured. But the rebels make the absurd claim that the government accidentally bombed themselves with the chemical weapons.
No matter who is responsible, the Obama administration plans to hold the Syrian Government responsible for crossing the “red line” of a chemical weapons attack (Obama’s version of Bush’s infamous “weapons of mass destruction”). The red line refers to a direct military invasion, versus the prolonged blood-letting that has been U.S. policy so far.
Obama’s envoy for the United Nations, Susan Rice, issued a statement about the chemical weapons attack that, according to The New York Times, “… repeated previous American warnings that there would be “consequences” if the Assad government used or failed to secure chemical weapons.”
So, if the Syrian rebels get hold of chemical weapons and use them on the Syrian government — as seems to be the case — the Syrian government should be held responsible, according to the Obama Administration, “for not securing chemical weapons.”
There is zero room for truth with logic like this. But the perverse logic serves to protect Obama’s prized rebels, who’ve committed a slew of atrocities against the Syrian population, and who gain key political and media protection from the U.S.
Ultimately, the entire Syrian war was born amid the big lie that the battle began — and continues — as a popular armed struggle. But the real revolutionaries in Syria like the National Coordination Committee, have long ago declared that they want a peaceful end to this conflict.
Obama’s Bush-like determination to overthrow the Syrian government has led him down the same path as his predecessor, though Obama is fighting a “smarter” war, i.e., he’s employing more deceptive means to achieve the same ends, at the exact same cost of incredible human suffering.
This interview is with Mark Switzer, one of the producers of the new GVSU video, You Can Play.
1. What prompted you to get involved with the You Can Play video for GVSU?
Joe had prior knowledge of the project, given his interest and research regarding sports and oppression. Colette (The Director of the LGBT Resource Center) brought Joe Miller and I together, given my interest areas and skills (I have worked on various media projects for the LGBT Resource Center throughout the past 3 years). Joe, Alex (Gillis), and I then met with the SAAC (Student Athlete Advisory Committee), beginning production on the GVSU-focused You Can Play video soon after.
I was most interested by the simplicity and power that the YCP videos hold. Seven simple words (“If you can play, you can play”) are easily said and understood.
2. Why is it important for both the University, and the Athletic Dept in particular, to take a public stand on this issue?
GVSU is an institution—one that creates and enforces various policies, policies that influence the development of students and professionals. The radical lesbian community at GVSU was paramount in challenging various discriminatory policies that have come through over the years. Their actions had results. They changed the culture, and thus, policy had to follow. It is important for GVSU to take a public stand because of their investments. GVSU has been framed as the liberal beacon of West Michigan; this stand is done in support of that claim (which is not entirely accurate…)
3. What obstacles are there in the culture of sports that make it difficult to fight for LGBTQ justice and inclusion?
Homophobia is rooted in sexism, which is manifest in athletics through this positing of hyper-masculinity as the norm. The barriers are clear and rigid within athletics. Case in point: at this time, no active NFL player has ever come out. There is no space for LGBTQ peoples within athletics.
4.What are the hoped for outcomes of the video and this campaign? And what are components (if any) will there be to this campaign at GVSU?
This video has its place within a larger conversation. To say any more than that, to spin it as something that will give way to immediate, cultural change, is ludicrous. At best, one person will see this video (and the others like it), becoming inspired to use less sexist language within the homo-social space of the locker room.
In regards to the smaller-scale, GVSU-based outcomes: It is my hope that by connecting GVSU to this project and giving voice to the inclusive policies within our athletics programs, that we are assisting student athletes with their development—reducing the anxiety that they may feel while coming to terms with their gender identity and/or sexual orientation.
World Social Forum Opens in Tunisia
This article by Jordan Flaherty is re-posted from Counter Punch.
Tens of thousands of people marched through downtown Tunis on Tuesday in a spirited march celebrating the beginning the 13th World Social Forum – the first to be held in an Arab country. The majority of marchers were from Tunisia and neighboring nations, but there was substantial representation from Europe, as well as from across South America, Asia, and Southern Africa. An enormous annual gathering that bills itself as a “process” rather than a conference, the WSF brings together by far the largest assembly of international social movement organizations, aimed towards developing a more just and egalitarian world.
The WSF was first held in Brazil in 2001, and is billed as an alternative to the wealth and power wielded at the World Economic Forum, an elite annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland. Tuesday marked the official opening of the WSF, but official sessions start today and continue through March 30 at the El Manar University Campus. The theme of this year’s Forum is “dignity,” inspired by the movements collectively known as the Arab Spring, launched here just over two years ago.
As of last night, the WSF had reported registration by more than 30,000 participants from nearly 5,000 organizations in 127 countries spanning five continents. Since that estimate, thousands more have registered on-site. The officially announced activities include 70 musical performances, 100 films, and 1000 workshops.
Tuesday’s march traveled three miles from downtown Tunis to Menzah stadium, with chanting in multiple languages and representation from a wide variety of movements from the Tunisian Popular Front to Catholic NGOs to ATTAC, a movement challenging global finance. At Menzah stadium, an opening ceremony began at 7:30pm with female social movement leaders from Palestine, South Africa, Tunisia, and the US taking the stage, including Besma Khalfaoui, widow of Tunisian opposition leader Chokri Belaid, who was assassinated last month. According to Forum organizers, only women were chosen for the opening as a response to the rise of conservative religious governments in the region as well as patriarchal systems around the world. “We decided this because women are the struggle in the region,” said Hamouda Soubhi from Morocco, one of the organizing committee members. “They are struggling for parity, they are struggling for their rights. The new regimes want the constitutions to be more religious, and we want to take our stand against this.”
In short speeches – each about 5 minutes in length – the women projected a vision of a global movement that was inexorably rising, as the audience roared in approval. “We are trying to hold our government accountable for what it has done and continues to do around the world,” said one of the speakers, Cindy Weisner of Grassroots Global Justice, a US-based coalition of social movement organizations. “Some of the most inspiring movements and people are gathered here in Tunis. Together, we can change the course of history.” Among the loudest cheers came when speakers mentioned left political leaders and movements, including the jailed Palestinian leaders Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat, as well as sustained applause for Hugo Chavez and the Occupy movement.
After the opening speeches, legendary musician Gilberto Gil took the stage. Known for his politics and musical innovation, Gil was a leader of Brazil’s tropicália musical movement of the 1960s and more recently served as Minister of Culture in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. As a sea of people from around the world danced ecstatically, Gil played a set that ranged from his own songs to pieces by Bob Marley and by John Lennon.
Among the opening sessions this morning was a press conference led by members of La Via Campesina, an organization representing more than 200 million poor farmers from 150 local and national organizations in 70 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. “The false solutions of the government have been affecting us worse and worse,” Nandini Jayara, a leader of women farmers in India told Al Jazeera. “I feel the WSF is a stage for us to share our problems and work together for solutions.”
Over the past decade, the WSF has been credited with a number of important international collaborations. For example, the global antiwar demonstrations in February 15, 2003, which have been called the largest protests in history, came out of a call from European Social Forum participants. In the US, labor activists who received international attention for a successful factory take-over in 2008 at Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors factory said inspiration came from workers in Brazil and Venezuela that they met at the World Social Forum.
Among the many movements seeking to launch new campaigns and coalitions are indigenous activists who are seeking to educate activists from around the world about the problems in the climate change solutions, such as the “cap and trade” strategy put forward by the United Nations and mainstream environmental organizations. “We have to look at the economic construct that has been created in this world by rich industrialized countries and the profiteers that have created this scenario,” said Tom Goldtooth, director of Indigenous Environmental Network, an international alliance of native peoples organizing against environmental destruction. “We have ecological disaster, and that is capitalism’s doing.” Goldtooth’s organization is also seeking to raise awareness about REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), a United Nations program promoted as an environmental protection strategy that Goldtooth calls “genocidal” because it promotes solutions like carbon trading that he says will lead to mass deaths of poor people due to environmental catastrophe brought about by climate change. “We’ve come to a time where there has to be a transition to something different, Goldtooth added. “Our communities are saying we need some action now.”
Every year, some Forum attendees must overcome travel restrictions from various countries, and the WSF is also plagued by infighting from a sometimes fractured left. Among the incidents reported this year, Human Rights Watch reported that Algerian border authorities illegally barred 96 Algerian civil society activists from traveling to Tunisia. Meanwhile, in Tunis, a group identifying themselves as Tunisian anarchists said that they were boycotting the Forum, and appeared at the opening march, parading in the opposite direction of the rest of the crowd.
“For us the forum is already done. We have succeeded,” declared Hamouda Soubhi in an interview with Al Jazeera at the close of the opening ceremony. “Tomorrow will be problems, as there always are.”
More than 100 people arrested in Chicago while taking part in mass civil disobedience against Rahm Emmanuel’s cuts and closures
This article by Gary Younge is re-posted from The Guardian.
More than 100 demonstrators taking part in mass civil disobedience were arrested in Chicago on Wednesday as several thousand people marched against the largest proposed round of school closings in recent memory.
Many carried placards proclaiming “Strong Schools, Strong Neighbourhoods” and “Protect Our Children” while chanting “Whose Schools, Our Schools” and calling for mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s resignation.
“We’re signalling that there is going to be a large and determined movement that will use the tactics of civil disobedience and direct action in order to keep these schools open,” said Chicago Teachers Union vice-president Jesse Sharkey, who was arrested outside City Hall, one of 131 detained by police. “We see this event as kicking off an extended campaign this spring and we think it was a great success.”
The city last week announced plans to close 54 schools affecting more than 30,000 students, primarily in low-income black and Latino areas. The proposals – which had already sparked huge, rowdy protests at hearings throughout the city prior to the announcement – mark Emmanuel’s second major confrontation over education in less than six months following the teachers’ strike in late August.
“People have a right to the neighbourhoods in which they live,” said CTU leader Karen Lewis at the rally. “Children have the right to a safe, nurturing, loving environment.”
Chicago Public Schools claims the closings are necessary to plug a $1bn deficit in the third-largest school district in the city and that consolidating under-utilised and under-performing schools will save $560m over 10 years by reducing investment in shuttered buildings. The district insists the savings will go to improving classroom resources including air conditioning, libraries and iPads for all students in grades 3-8.
Roughly 100 schools in Chicago – the third-largest school district in the country and with 87% of students from low-income families – have already been closed since 2001. Eighty eight per cent of the students affected in those closings were black, even though black students comprise just over 40% of the city’s student body as a whole.
Community groups, unions and many parents argue that the closings will devastate already struggling areas, raise student-teacher ratios, put children in danger by forcing them to cross gang lines to go to new schools and are based on flawed calculations and savings.
“For too long children in certain parts of Chicago have been cheated out of the resources they need to succeed because they are in underutilised, under-resourced schools,” said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the CPS chief executive, explaining the announcement. “The district must consolidate … to get students into higher-performing schools.”
Opponents point out that there is little evidence that school closings achieve that aim and claim the closings mark an acceleration of the city’s bid to “privatise” education by forcing students into charter schools.
“In the same time these school closings have been taking place over the past decade, the city has opened about 100 charter schools in the very neighbourhoods where they’re now closing schools through under-utilisation,” said Sharkey. “Meanwhile supports of charter schools have been very open ideologically about making school competition part of the larger picture.
“We have not yet won the argument with the people of Chicago that this is a critical moment to be active. But this was a good start. Four or five thousand people and lots of different schools represented today. The argument can and will be won.”
A study by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research revealed that from the 38 schools closed between 2001 and 2006 only 6% of students who were moved went to high-performing schools.
“Our research found that school districts tended to save under $1m per school [closed],” Emily Dowdall, a senior associate at the Pew Charitable Trusts told the New York Times. “So in some ways that’s not a game-changing amount.”
Sharkey further argues that the city rarely follows through on its promises on savings. “In the past there’s been investment for the first one or two years. But the money dries up once the attention is gone.”
Emmanuel, who was absent on a skiing vacation on the day the closings were announced, which many here interpret as a bid to disassociate himself from the move, has since joined the fray. “If we don’t make these changes we haven’t lived up to our responsibility as adults to the children of the city of Chicago,” he said. “And I did not run for office to shirk my responsibility.”
The CTU emerged with considerable public support after it blunted Emmanuel’s attempts to tie teachers’ pay to test scores last year. It has pledged to continue the campaign of non-violent disobedience. “People who work in the schools and rely on public schools will oppose the mass closings by any and all peaceful means,” Sharkey has told union members. “[School closings] are not something we are prepared to accept without a fight … We’re going to take this fight as far as we have to, to defend our community schools.”
This article by Steve Horn is re-posted from Counter Punch.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Almost 11 years ago in June 2002, Environmental Resources Management (ERM) Group declared the controversial 1,300 mile-long Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline environmentally and socio-economically sound, a tube which brings oil and gas produced in the Caspian Sea to the export market.
On March 1, it said the same of the proposed 1,179 mile-long TransCanada Keystone XL (KXL) Pipeline on behalf of an Obama State Department that has the final say on whether the northern segment of the KXL pipeline becomes a reality. KXL would carry diluted bitumen or “dilbit” from the Alberta tar sands down to Port Arthur, Texas, after which it will be exported to the global market.
ERM Group, a recent DeSmogBlog investigation revealed, has historical ties to Big Tobacco and its clients include ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Koch Industries. Mother Jones also revealed that ERM – the firm the State Dept. allowed TransCanada to choose on its behalf – has a key personnel tie to TransCanada.
Unexamined thus far in the KXL scandal is ERM’s past green-light report on the BTC Pipeline – hailed as the “Contract of the Century” – which has yet to be put into proper perspective.
ERM is a key player in what PLATFORM London describes as the “Carbon Web,” shorthand for “the network of relationships between oil and gas companies and the government departments, regulators, cultural institutions, banks and other institutions that surround them.”
In the short time it has been on-line, the geostrategically important BTC pipeline – coined the “New Silk Road” by The Financial Times – has proven environmentally volatile. A full review of the costs and consequences of ERM’s penchant for rubber-stamping troubling oil and gas infrastructure is in order.
Massive Pipeline, Massive Hype: Sound Familiar?
Like the Keystone XL, the BTC Pipeline – owned by a consortium of 11 oil and gas corporations, including BP, State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni and Total – was controversial and inspired a bout of activism in the attempt to defeat its construction.
Referred to as “BP’s Time Bomb” by CorpWatch, the BTC Pipeline was first proposed in 1992, began construction in May 2003 and opened for business two years later in May 2005. BTC carries oil and gas from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) Caspian Sea oil field, co-owned by Chevron, SOCAR, ExxonMobil, Devon Energy and others, which contains 5.4 billion recoverable barrels of oil.
Paralleling the prospective 36-inch diameter Keystone XL that would carry 830,000 barrels per day of tar sands bitumen through the U.S. heartland, the BTC serves as a 42-inch diameter export pipeline and moves 1 million barrels of oil per day to market.
Like today’s KXL proposal – which would only create 35 full-time jobs – the false promise of thousands of jobs also served as the dominant discourse for BTC Pipeline proponents. The reality, like KXL, was more dim. The Christian Science Monitor pointed out in 2005 that only 100 people were hired full-time in Georgia, the second destination for BTC.
“People were told that there would be 70,000 Georgians that were going to be employed because of this pipeline,” Ed Johnson, BP’s former project manager in Georgia told the St. Petersburg Times in 2005. “The (Georgian) government needed to sell the project to its own people so some of the benefits were overblown.”
Massive Ecological Costs and Consequences
Part of the BTC Pipeline’s circuit runs through the Borjomi Mountain Gorge, an area known for its landslide hazards, and the source of Georgia’s massive bounty of mineral water. The pipeline also makes over 1,500 river crossings, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
Spills and explosions, both in the Caspian Sea that feeds the pipeline with oil and gas and in the pipeline itself, have also occurred.
The most prominent blowout, subject to a mainstream media blackout, was the 2008 BP Caspian Sea oil platform explosion that preceded the infamous 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. BP, to this day has never admitted it was an explosion – describing it simply as “a gas leak“ – but its plausible deniability cover was blown in the form of a Wikileaks cable discussing the matter, and via whistleblowers who contacted investigative reporter Greg Palast.
Palast obtained information from whistleblowers in Baku who said that, rather than a minor “gas leak,” there was a serious well blowout akin to the Gulf disaster two years later. As in the Gulf, the well-capping cement had failed. A methane explosion from the well ”engulfed the platform.”
“In fact, the workers themselves said that, like the workers on the Deepwater Horizon, they were one spark away from death, with frightened minutes to escape,” Palast wrote for EcoWatch. “More seriously, [its] official filing to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission…again talked about a ‘subsurface release,’ concealing that the methane blew out through its drilling stack.”
BTC itself also had a major explosion in its first decade of existence.
An Aug. 2008 Wikileaks cable discusses a BTC explosion in a mountainous area of eastern Turkey – where ERM said the pipeline was environmentally sound – which spewed 70,000 barrels of oil into the surrounding area.
Massive Landowner and Human Rights Costs and Consequences
Eminent domain – or the right of corporations to expropriate private land to build projects claimed to serve the public good – is a major concern for landowners living along the path of the Keystone XL. A parallel situation occurred for citizens living along BTC’s route, with private property rights essentially eliminated to make way for the pipeline.
“Host Government Agreement – the legal document on which the pipeline is based…[is a] document [that] is not simply a contract, but has the status of an international treaty, and over-rides all other national laws (except the constitution),” explained PLATFORM London. “It denies all future governments the right to introduce any new taxes or laws – including environmental, human rights or labour laws – which reduce the pipeline’s profitability.”
Environmental critics described it as the oil and gas industry becoming akin to a sovereign nation along BTC’s route.
“Turkey is now divided into three countries: the area where Turkish law applies, the Kurdish areas under official or de facto military rule; and a strip running across the entire length of the country where BP is the effective government,” Nick Hildyard of Cornerstone told The Guardian in 2002, speaking to Turkey specifically but which can be applied to all countries which cross paths with the BTC due to the dictates of the Host Government Agreement.
Getting rich quick has also turned out to be more rhetoric than reality for citizens whose property sits along BTC’s path.
“One landowner in northeast Turkey reports that he was paid the price of 7 pieces of chewing gum per square metre of his land. In some cases, no compensation has been paid at all,” PLATFORM wrote.
Activists working on behalf of human rights for Kurds explained BTC’s impacts in stark terms, with the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHPR) filing cases in the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of 38 affected villagers along the route.
KHPR “alleg[ed] multiple violations of the European Convention on Human Rights including the illegal use of land without payment of compensation or expropriation, underpayment for land, intimidation, lack of public consultation, involuntary resettlement and damage to land and property,” CorpWatch wrote.
The most shocking example of the BTC’s human rights impact is explained in investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill’s book “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.” He explains that the U.S. military contracted out the infamous Blackwater USA to guard Azerbaijan’s portion of the BTC Pipeline and the area surrounding it.
“Beginning in July 2004, Blackwater forces were contracted to work in the heart of the oil- and gas-rich Caspian Sea region, where they would quietly train a force modeled after the Navy SEALs…[to] protect…the West’s new profitable oil and gas exploitation in [the] region,” Scahill wrote.
Grassroots Response to ERM Group in 2003
As noted here on DeSmogBlog, grassroots activists responded to ERM’s claim that the BTC Pipeline’s Turkey portion was safe by occupying ERM’s office headquarters located in the City of London, a 1-square-mile subsection of London that serves as a tax shelter for multinational corporations.
It still remains to be seen what activists will do about ERM’s bogus KXL study in the U.S., with the Obama State Department expected to confer with the study’s “findings” in issuing a decision on the KXL pipeline by October.
BTC’s sordid history – which ERM helped ensure – should also enter into any honest KXL assessment.
“ERM played a crucial role in gaining approval for the BTC by presenting it as a sustainable success. But this doesn’t represent the reality of violence and pollution we have witnessed,” PLATFORM‘s Mika Minio-Paluello, co-author of The Oil Road – a new book documenting the slew of destructive impacts of BTC – told DeSmogBlog in an interview. “Supposedly an environmental consultancy, in practice ERM operated more like a PR firm representing BP and now they’re fulfilling a similar role for TransCanada.”
Starting last week, former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt has been on trial in his country for charges of genocide against the people of Guatemala, particularly the Mayan people.
This trial is significant on lots of levels. First, it is significant for the Guatemalans who have been organizing and demanding for years that Montt be held accountable for his crimes against the Guatemalan people while he was ruler of the country for roughly 18 months in the early 1980s.
Montt, after taking power in a military coup, disbanded the Guatemalan constitution and continued a campaign of terror against Guatemalan civil society that had been going on in varying degrees since the CIA coup of 1954. However, under Montt, the brutality was taken to another level and the Mayan population was targeted by genocidal policies that resulted in tens of thousands being killed during Montt’s short time in the National Palace.
The charges against Montt are well documented by numerous Guatemalan Human Rights groups like Grupo Apoyo de Mutuo and the National Security Archives, which has been collecting declassified documents from the US and Guatemala that relate to political violence since 1954. The National Security Archive has a great deal of these documents along with analysis that can be found here.
The trial of Efrain Rios Montt is also significant for the US, since Montt was considered an ally by the US government, particularly the Reagan administration. The Reagan administration provided financial & military support for Montt’s regime, thus making the US complicit in the genocidal policies committed at that time.
Sectors of the religious community in the US are also to blame for these crimes, as Montt had converted to evangelical Christianity in the mid – 70s and worked closely with US evangelicals, particularly a group from California called the Church of the Word. This relationship is detailed in the book, Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit: Guatemala Under General Efrain Rios Montt 1982-1983, written by Virginia Garrard-Burnett. Montt’s own theological views contributed to his military policies. Montt believed that the Mayan were possessed by demons and said that when the military was slaughtering them they were not killing people, but demons.
Lastly, the trial of Efrain Rios Montt is significant for people in West Michigan, because West Michigan is home to thousands of Guatemalans who have migrated to this part of the country in large numbers as a result of the political violence and economic exploitation perpetrates by Montt and other government leaders in Guatemala.
I know this personally, having been part of the US Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s, where we hosted several families from the Huehuetenago region of Guatemala. These political refugees fled the scorched-earth policies of the Montt regime, which had resulted in the murder, disappearance and torture of thousands of Guatemalans.
Following this trial is important, because it not only forces us to come to terms with why so many Guatemalans have come to West Michigan, it also provides the possibility of some political and psychological relief to Guatemalans who still live in fear of speaking out about what happened in the genocidal years. If Montt is found guilty and justice is served in some way, imagine how important this will be to the Guatemalan people and the possibilities for systemic change in the future.
For those wanting to follow the trial of Efrain Rios Montt, check out http://www.riosmontt-trial.org/. Also, there will a screening of a recent documentary on the genocide charges against Montt, Granito, that will be shown on April 6th in Grand Rapids.
This article by Andrea Germanos is re-posted from Common Dreams.
In what some see as an attempt to muzzle critics, Walmart is suing a union and other groups over protests that sought to highlight the retail behemoth’s low pay and poor working conditions.
The lawsuit targets the 1.3 million-strong United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), OUR Walmart, which is made up of “associates” of Walmart, and another group over repeated protest actions in over a dozen states, Bloomberg reports.
Walmart’s suit seeks to stop the groups from being able to picket or protest on its property, Bloomberg reports. Reuters adds:
Wal-Mart alleged that the defendants violated Florida law through coordinated, statewide acts of trespass in several Walmart stores over the last eight months.
What the suit is really about, say some of the defendants, is silencing criticism of Walmart’s corporate, and union-preventing, model.
“Rather than creating good jobs with steady hours and affordable healthcare, Walmart’s pattern is to focus its energies on infringing on our freedom of speech,” Reuters reports OUR Walmart as saying in a statement.
Denise Diaz, executive director of Central Florida Jobs With Justice, said, “This is another attempt on Wal-Mart’s behalf of … silencing their employees and also the communities that support them.”
And Walmart may indeed see OUR Walmart as a thorn in its side, as Andy Kroll writes in Mother Jones:
On Black Friday last year, it helped organize protests at nearly 100 Walmart stores in 46 states. An estimated 500 associates walked off the job on the biggest shopping day of the year. Walmart, already facing allegations of bribery in Mexico and unsafe working conditions at its Asian suppliers, asked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to block the protests, saying OUR Walmart was a union front. Store managers received a confidential memo (PDF) on dealing with restive employees (talking point: “I don’t think a walkout is a good way to resolve problems or issues, especially because it interferes with customer service and other associates who want to work”). A company spokesman said on national TV that if workers didn’t show up on Black Friday, “there could be consequences.”
The case, Wal-Mart Stores Inc v. United Food and Commercial Workers International Union et al, merits wide attention, as Josh Eidelson has previously written in The Nation:
Even though Walmart employs just under 1 percent of the American workforce, most of us live in the Walmart economy. Its model has been forced on contractors and suppliers, adopted by competitors and mimicked across industries.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 