Category — Activism

http://twincities.indymedia.org/2009/jul/military-spy-outted-olympia-wa-antiwarsdsiww-groups

Spy for the US Military Exposed: Spent Last Two Years Spying on Activists

(TC-IMC) “John Jacob” was an activist well liked by many in Tacoma and Olympia, WA. He was active in the anti-war and anarchist communities in both towns. He did extensive work with the group Port Militarization Resistance (PMR) which blocks military shipments to and from Iraq and Afghanistan through Northwest ports.

He went to numerous Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) events and actions, was interested in starting a chapter or Movement for a Democratic Society, worked closely with Iraq Veterans Against the War, but spent most of his time with anarchists. Aside from attending meetings, events and actions organized by activists, he spent much personal and leisure time with other anarchists in the area.

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http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22115

The Coming Insurrection, authored by the anonymous “Invisible Committee,” has been the subject of much controversy lately. Originally published in 2007 under the French title, L’insurrection qui vient (La Fabrique), the book has become focus of the “anti-terrorism” trials quoted in the above paragraph. The book is being published in English but its influence has already crossed the Atlantic.

Celebrating the English translation at an “unauthorized” Barnes & Nobel event in New York City last month, activists projected themselves and the Invisible Committee into a visible spotlight complete with photos in the New York Times and special coverage on Fox TV News. The Times reports, “As a bookstore employee announced to the milling crowd that there was no reading scheduled for that night, a man jumped onto a stage and began loudly reciting the opening words of the book’s recent introduction: ‘Everyone agrees. It’s about to explode’” (”Liberating Lipsticks and Lattes,” NYT, June 15). After the police arrived they continued in a similar fashion through other shops including a cosmetic store. Following suit Fox News’ Glen Beck reviewed the book in a near 7 minute verbal tirade assaulting not only the text’s contents but the Left in general while fear mongering to promote his own right-wing agenda. Commentator Nicolas Truong suggests that the text is “poised to become a real best seller” having already sold 27,000 copies (”The New Insurrectional Thinking,” Le Monde diplomatique, July 7). And Micah M. White, a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine, wrote that the text “may become a key manifesto of our generation’s uprising” (”Who are the Tarnac 9?,”Adbusters blog, January 9th). Other reviewers provide much more detail, for example Alberto Toscano’s “The War Against Preterrorism,” (Mute, May 28) but ultimately still overlook the books many blemishes.

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from our comrades at Radical Women

Rightwing Congresspeople are seeking to ban reproductive health services from coverage in a new federal health care system. This could cause millions of women, including many who currently receive such services under private insurance, to lose access to abortion.

NARAL Pro-Choice America has set up an easy-to-use website where you can send an email calling on your senator to oppose anti-abortion provisions in proposed health care legislation. Click here to go to their website to send a message.

Radical Women calls on feminists to join together to build a united front capable of stopping the ultra-right and winning survival needs such as full reproductive rights, affordable housing, childcare and education, single-payer healthcare, decent paying jobs, expanded human services, and an end to U.S. wars. We are currently organizing on all these fronts as well as mounting a $45,000 Fund Drive to help promote our national efforts on such issues. Your donations are warmly encouraged. Contributions of any amount can be accepted at the Radical Women webpage; or you can mail a check to Radical Women at 5018 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98118.

In addition, I encourage you to visit our website, www.RadicalWomen.org, to print out a petition to circulate to protest the criminal prosecution of a young woman in Queensland, Australia for inducing a miscarriage with RU486, an abortion drug that is legal and approved for use in the U.S. Her trial begins in early July.

A new list was created to facilitate relations between LGBTQI people and their friends around the world interested in solidarity with Palestinians by learning, promoting and actualizing the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

About The BDS Initiative
The Nakba (1948’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine during the formation of Israel) still occurs for 61+ years to this very day. Millions of Palestinian are living as stateless refugees. Gaza is the world’s largest open prison, forcefully separated even from the West Bank. The West Bank itself is divided into separate segregated areas, sometimes even sole cities - by the apartheid wall, apartheid (Jewish only) roads, and a set of blockades and checkpoints.

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The Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement’s 23rd Monthly Newsletter is now
available for PDF Download. Hard copies will soon be distributed to
community centers and newspaper boxes.

This month’s issue:
-The American Revolution Failed, pg 2
-Dyke March, pg 3
-Dissent and Repression in Iran, pg 4
-The MTA is Dead, Long live the MTA, p 6
-Protesters Voice Concern for Indigenous Massacre
in Peru, p 8
-Technological Emancipation, p 9

Download PDF HERE:
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/207899/index.php

See also:
http://BaamBoston.org
http://NeAnarchist.net

SEND SUBMISSIONS TO: anarchoqueer@gmail.com
AND PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

As Radical Queers, we are in a constant war against the HRC. Our frustrations run much deeper than ENDA or any other single issue. However, I have often found myself unable to substantiate my frustrations when talking with more mainstream “LGBT” folks. So, me and a friend are planning to compile and edit a zine on why we hate the HRC. We are looking for more radical perspectives written in a language that would be accessible to more mainstream “LGBT” folks.

Talking points could/should include, but are not limited to:

Racism, Classism, Assimilation, Militarism/Imperialism, Transphobia, The Prison-Industrial Complex, The Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Immigration as a Queer Issue, Public Sex/Sexuality and Pleasure (and how the HRC tries to hide that as a part of our identities), The culture of respectability, Healthcare.

Or maybe, even more fundamentally, why there are no “separate issues.”

We would also be interested in writings on things people have done, actions that have been taken against the HRC, and why we don’t need the HRC. (We can do this shit ourselves!)

Remember, the intended audience is mainstream “LGBT” folks who aren’t already radical– this is an attempt to radicalize them!– so please make sure submissions are written in a way that will make sense to these folks. (I.e. don’t assume somebody knows what the prison industrial complex is or why we don’t like it.)

PLEASE EMAIL SUBMISSIONS, QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS TO: anarchoqueer@gmail.com.

AND PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

Thanks!

Solidarity and Sodomy,
~Saffo

http://www.bostondykemarch.com/

This year’s Boston Dyke March is on Friday, June 12, 2009 at 6pm.
Please sign up on our meetup site and/or facebook profile to keep up to date.

Every year, we gather at the Boston Common Gazebo at 6:00 p.m. The march route is posted here.

Everyone is invited and welcome to march.

Join Mitch M. from the Workers Solidarity Alliance (http://workersolidarity.org/), Skip from NEFAC (http://www.nefac.net/), and Roger from Wrench in the Works Collective (http://www.wrenchintheworks.org/) for a discussion on the purposes and uses of anarchist specific organizations. How can we create a fighting working class movement? What role does the organization play in maintaining that movement?

We’re meeting in the large Gallery (downstairs) at Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford (21 Charter Oak Ave) at 5pm.

See you there!!

Contact:
Cindi Creager
Director of National News
(646) 871-8019
creager@glaad.org <mailto:creager@glaad.org>
Richard Ferraro
Director of Public Relations
(646) 871-8011
ferraro@glaad.org <mailto:ferraro@glaad.org>
June 2, 2009— In a lengthy May 28 tirade on the Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning radio show heard in Sacramento, California on KRXQ 98.5 FM and Reno, Nevada on KDOT 104.5 FM, hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States verbally attacked transgender children. While discussing a recent story about a transgender child in Omaha, Nebraska and her parents’ decision to support her transition, the two hosts spent more than 30 minutes explicitly promoting child abuse of and making cruel, dehumanizing and defamatory comments toward transgender children. [Read more →]

The International Queer Solidarity Network calls for a European mobilization, with support from the United States, that will stand in solidarity with Queer Bulgaria. On June 28th 2008, neo-Nazi groups aggressively attacked the first LGBTQ Pride march in Sofia, Bulgaria. A week before the march, the Bulgarian National Alliance, the most visible nationalist organization in the country, called for a “week of intolerance.” The BNA strongly encouraged nationalistic groups to organize themselves against the right of the queer community in Bulgaria to peacefully march, which resulted in loosely organized violence during the festivities.

BNA members and other neo-Nazis threw molotov cocktails and small explosives at the participants of the Pride march. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. However, more than eighty skinheads, including Boyan Rasate (head of the BNA) were arrested for their attempted harm and direct violence toward pride participants. This year neo-Nazi groups are once again organizing themselves against the march and Bulgarian queers’ ability to defend their human rights. The Bulgarian government not only tolerates but also encourages such attitudes. Two of the parties in the Parliament of Bulgaria are nationalistic and one of them, Ataka, called for “the men to beat up the gays.”

In addition, the Prime Minister of Bulgaria and head of the “socialist” party, Sergei Stanishev, subtly, through hidden sparks of hatred, said that he did not like the “manifestation and demonstration of such orientations.” Even though the rights of LGBTQ people in Bulgaria are protected by the constitution, this is yet more empty rhetoric in the hands of the powerful. The queer community refuses to give up its rights to a free assembly. There will be another Pride march on the 27th of June 2009. Let’s unite and stand together against the homophobic and transphobic state of Bulgaria and growing neo-Nazism in Europe.

The International Queer Solidarity Network calls for a European mobilization, with support from the United States, that will stand in solidarity with Queer Bulgaria. For more information on how you can help you can contact: iqsn@riseup.net or sofiagaypride2009@gmail.com If you cannot attend the Pride, visit www.iqsn.org for more information on how you can help.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6oz3yeW5yo

e-mail: iqsn@riseup.net

To organize a broad delegation of Connecticut Activists to attend the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations

In June of 2008 - in a year without a single national mass anti-war demonstration - over 400 anti-war activists from 26 states and Canada met for a national anti-war conference in Cleveland Ohio to rejuvenate the anti-war movement and unite it in the streets.  Through an open democratic process of one-person-one-vote they assembled an action plan which they proposed to the broad anti-war movement for the following year.  [Read more →]

A Talk by Jeff Mackler

The bankers would have us believe that there is only one way out of this economic crisis: use working peoples’ tax dollars to bail out the speculators. Socialists think that there is a more rational and just solution. And that working people have the power to make it happen.

Wednesday May 13, 7 p.m.
La Paloma Sabanera Coffeehouse
405 Capitol Ave., Hartford, CT 06106
For more information: Sean at 860 357 8724

Jeff Mackler biography:
Mackler has written and lectured widely from a socialist perspective. His numerous books, pamphlets and articles cover a range of subjects including revolutionary developments in Latin America, the Cuban Revolution, Marxist analyses of the unfolding world economic meltdown, global warming/climate crisis, health care, trade union struggles and the fight to build the U.S. antiwar movement. Mackler is the National Secretary of Socialist Action and was his party’s 2006 candidate for the U.S. Senate in California.

from our comrades at radical women…

Immigrant rights are a feminist fight!

Around the world, May Day is a working peoples’ holiday. For decades, the United States has tried to ignore it. But massive May Day marches in 2006 demanding justice for immigrants sparked a resurgence of this day of action. And those huge mobilizations made a difference.

They led to the utter defeat of the racist Sensenbrenner bill in the U.S. Congress. And they fueled successful opposition to all the “reforms” lawmakers have come up with since then. Most of these unacceptable proposals included temporary worker programs, forced detentions, militarized borders, and exorbitant fines for undocumented workers. However, ICE raids and deportations are still a brutal reality. And now the world has plunged into a financial crisis. [Read more →]

The Sex Workers Empowerment Project (SWEP), $pread Magazine, and WITNESS are hosting a full-day training on video advocacy, specifically for sex worker organizing and advocacy. This training will provide participants with a range of effective strategies for using video in their human rights documentation and advocacy, including a basic overview of filming. The training focuses on Setting up a “cop watch” program, including effectively utilizing video to be used in legislative advocacy and to present to UN treaty bodies in order to pressure responsible parties to take action to stop abuse by police.

.
WHO: Sex Worker advocates and organizers
WHEN: 9am - 4pm, Friday May 8th at the WITNESS conference center in Brooklyn. Morning coffee and lunch provided (with vegan-friendly options).
COST: $20 (covers the basic costs– use of facilities, lunch, etc.). If someone would like to attend and cannot afford the entire $20, please contact Email SWEP@gmail.com

..
. THERE IS A LIMITED SPACE. Please rsvp to SWEP@gmail.com  if you plan to come. Your input about what else might be useful to learn or incorporate in this training would be greatly appreciated.  Please include any and all suggestions in your RSVP. Thank you!

More About the Training: [Read more →]

cross posted from sdsqueercaucus

Over the last few years mainstream gay advocacy groups have focused their efforts on one issue, a panacea to seemingly solve all forms of inequality that gays are faced with: marriage rights. With the passage of Proposition 8 this summer in California, many people’s hopes that gays would achieve full equality in this country were dashed. What was even more distressing, however, was the wave of racist backlash against people of color in California, who were accused of being the cause of Prop 8’s passage (this is a completely unfounded claim, as studies have shown). When I look at the actions of HRC, GLAAD, and other mainstream gay advocacy groups from the past years, they make me sad to call myself queer. In particular, their perpetual focus on marriage rights as the most pressing issue facing queers, the only obstacle blocking the [Read more →]