Category — Fight Back

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Now here’s a debate you can’t miss, if you are free on Wednesday Evening, March 11th.  (Many thanks to Tessa for the cc)

The Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut will be debating the Executive Director of the Family Institute of Connecticut Peter Wolfgang at the Lincoln Theater on the University of Hartford’s campus. Doors open at 7 p.m.  To see more details, click this link.

Thanks to circle(a)matt for this article.

by Jeff Subhumyn

Wobbly City newsletter

Monday, February 16th The New York branch of the Starbucks Workers Union held an energetic 8 hour picket outside two separate Starbucks locations. Originally planned as a “loose informal picket” outside the Union Square East Starbucks location, managerial stupidity and increased union-busting activity on the part of Starbucks turned it into a media circus and all night protest. Between the time when the picket was planned and when it actually took place Starbucks decided to fire yet another union barista, Sharon Bell from the 17th and Broadway location, conveniently located across the park from Union Square East.

The picket was called to protest the recent wave of Starbucks lay offs and draw attention to the refusal of Starbucks to pay severance, in spite of claiming in several press releases to the media that they will be providing severance pay to all laid off workers. The message was expanded to include the demand for the reinstatement of Sharon Bell and an immediate end to the illegal, unethical, nationally coordinated union-busting operations of Starbucks Coffee. [Read more →]

Dear Friends
Below is an excellent Radical Women column about women’s rights in Nicaragua that ran in the Freedom Socialist newspaper. We owe many thanks to the Freedom Socialist for their continuous coverage of liberation struggles in the U.S. and around the world. You can read other articles and subscribe to the newspaper online.

In solidarity,
Anne Slater
Radical Women

Freedom Socialist • Vol. 30, No. 1 • February-March 2009

RADICAL WOMEN

The government war on women’s rights in Nicaragua
Feminists stand up against anti-abortion crusade and Daniel Ortega’s rightward turn

By Laura Mannen

On Nov. 25, 2008, police blocked 400 women’s rights activists from marching in Managua’s annual commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This shocking action came at the behest of Daniel Ortega, former revolutionary leader and current Nicaraguan president, in a bid to silence opponents of his harsh anti-abortion policies. [Read more →]

COME OUT- COME OUT - FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE !

Fenced Out!

 

Join us to view Fenced Out a video from FIERCE NYC. Fenced OUT documents the struggle of LGBTSTQ youth of color to save the Christopher Street pier and the West Village from re-development and gentrification. While researching the history of the pier, FIERCE members discovered past generations of queer peoples’ fight for use of public spaces at Christopher Street and the piers. We have continued to use the documentary as a public education tool to raise awareness about the increasing displacement, violence, and criminalization experienced by LGBTSTQ youth of color. [Read more →]

MCC Hartford Celebrates Black History Month

Film and Conversation at MCC Hartford “Brother Outsider ~ The Bayard Rustin Story”

Sunday, February 15th at 5 PM, 155 Wyllys Street, Hartford, CT^*

[Read more →]

From the NYC Bailout the People Movement

Realizing the Fightback - Some Perspective and Plans ~ Download PDF

The following was adopted at the Jan. 17 Fightback Conference in NYC. It is a work in progress.

In many ways, the U.S.-financed genocidal siege of Gaza that many of us have been demonstrating against in recent weeks is a harbinger of the widening war against the workers and oppressed peoples of the planet that is sure to intensify this year. In 2009, more and more lives are going to be devastated by the biggest global economic crisis since the depression of the 1930s.

This crisis is the challenge of a lifetime for those of us who have made a commitment to fighting for the rights of people. What we do or fail to do will prove decisive in the coming battle over whose interests in society shall prevail. [Read more →]

Up til now in this recession, the corporations have had it all their own way.  But popular anger over multi-trillion dollar corporate bailouts and the rising tide of lay-offs, cuts in hours and cuts in pay may be beginning to make a change.

The legal system is set up to preserve and protect the interests of big business.  Typically, the law makes little or no provision for interfering in a company’s ability to lay off or move workers or to move its somewhere else.  Add to that the strong inclination of lawmakers and judges to interpret these laws to protect corporations, and efforts to reign them in or hold them accountable are typically an up-hill battle.

Members of CWA Local 1298 rally against AT&T lay-offs

That’s why both unions and big business are looking carefully at a legal power struggle in Connecticut between telephone giant AT&T and the Communication Workers of America. AT&T employs about 6,800 workers in Connecticut.  Many of them are members of CWA Local 1298.  When the company announced recently that it intended to reduce its Connecticut workforce by 460 jobs, union members vowed to put up a fight.  [continued at Two Good Hands]

From our comrades Radical Women

Happy anniversary of Roe v. Wade! January 22 marks the 36th anniversary of the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision wiping out all U.S. laws criminalizing abortions. Since then, the ultra-right has worked to undermine the verdict and 2008 was no exception. The past year brought a slew of anti-abortion initiatives to voters. In California, Proposition 4 attempted to require parental notification for teens seeking abortions. In South Dakota, Measure 11 sought to outlaw most abortions and in Colorado, Measure 48 tried to legally define a fertilized egg as a human being. Fortunately, all of these efforts were overwhelmingly defeated. Radical Women (RW) celebrates these important victories!

State ballot initiatives are part of a larger reactionary and misogynist movement whose goal is nothing less than a complete ban on abortions, contraceptives and sex education. For example, the U.S. government’s global gag rule is still in effect, which denies U.S. aid to health centers in other countries if they offer or educate about abortion. Pharmacists can refuse to fill birth control prescriptions or sell over-the-counter drugs for “moral” reasons. Each year clinics stop performing abortions because health insurance or public money won’t pay for the procedure or practitioners fear being murdered. [Read more →]

FUNERAL PROCESSION AND SOLIDARITY RALLY for Athens, Gaza, and against all state violence.
Wear funeral garb. Bring coffins, flowers, or just your beautiful selves. (Or possibly stuffed animals that you may be willing to part from.)

We will meet FRIDAY, JANUARY 9TH (note, changed from original date posted) at NOON at BURNSIDE PARK. We will march to various different sites of state violence and the military-industrial complex in a show of solidarity and in memory of those whose lives have been lost. From the streets of Athens to the war in Gaza, we stand in solidarity with all victims of state violence— at home and abroad.

Called for by What Queer?! Providence’s radical queer collective.

Solidarity,
~ What Queer?!

PROVIDENCE, RI

Show your solidarity with the uprisings in Athens, and the people of Gaza.
We are planning a funeral procession in solidarity with all victims of war
and state violence on Saturday, January 10th, through the streets of
Providence. We will speak at various sites of state violence throughout
the city. Anyone interested in planning or speaking please come to a
planning meeting Monday January 5th at 6pm. Email whatqueer@gmail.com for
info, even if you can’t make it on the 5th.

Called for by What Queer?! a radical queer collective in Providence.
Please forward widely.

Jennifer Gale of Austin Texas was found dead on a walkway of the First English Lutheran Church where she slept most nights.  Jennifer ran for almost every public office in Austin and was a regular at City Council meetings speaking up for the homeless. In Austin as in many cities in America our Trans sisters and brothers have a real problem to find room at the Inn. According to news reports and blog pieces the Salvation Army in Austin is the only shelter that accepts women. (damn now that is another problem where are women suppose to go to sleep in a cardboard box?) The policy at the Salvation Army shelter is this. Jennifer would have to be grouped with the homeless men showering and sleeping with them, they would make her use her male name in disregard of who she is. 

If one can believe the outpouring of grief by city officals and the talk at this time then hopefully something will be done about these problems, as Jennifer was well respected in political circles according to reports from Equality Texas and an article posted on Queertoday.com, written by Vanessa Edwards Foster. For the article, “Having A Blue Christmas click HERE. 

For a another article about Jennifer from Bash Back News click HERE.

[Read more →]

Republished from Bashback! News  www.bashbacknews.wordpress.com

More Queer People Murdered. Lesbian and Gay Organizations Seem to Care Less.

By Beau Vyne

New Orleans Police discovered the bodies of three young, Black, Queer people in a 7th ward house Saturday. The three people, one of whom was gender variant, were all shot to death in the house sometime around 3 or 4am Thursday. Mainstream media and the Police are as of now ignoring the fact that the three people were queer and possibly trans. However, Facebook groups devoted to the three and comments on news sites, are raising interesting questions by Queer people of color as to why large Lesbian and Gay organizations are ignoring this. Many people have wondered as to whether there would be an LGBT organizational black out on such violence had the three been wealthy and white Gay businessmen. [Read more →]

On Tuesday, December 16th, there was a rally held in Boston in solidarity with the uprisings all over Greece. We protested outside the Greek consulate in a show of solidarity with all vicitims of state violence. This is the speech that I gave. (If you’ve been reading my posts you might notice that some of it was lifted from my speech at the Transgender Day of Remembrance.)

Dear comrades, it’s incredible to be here today! My name is Saffo, and I am a radical queer tranny from Providence, Rhode Island. I am part of the upcoming What Queer? radical queer collective in Providence. As I’m sure you all know, on Saturday, December 6th, 2008, the cops in Athens shot and killed a 15-year-old boy named Alexandros Grigoropoulos. I want to start by offering a moment of silence for the memory of Alexandros. (Thank you). To many of us, the violence of the Greek police is something that rings true to our own lives and experiences with the police in the United States and elsewhere. It is, in part, this commonality that brings us here today. This solidarity that we feel for those who are brutalized by the state, by any state, anywhere. We know that this kind of violence happens every day. But this time, the people struck back! These are incredible times we are living in. For instance, if you had asked me 2 years ago if I thought that today we’d see a union successfully occupying a factory in the United States, I would have said no way. I would have said, things like that happened in Argentina, but they would never happen here. But they did it! If you had asked me a year ago, would a group of queers ever dare to take direct action against a right-wing churhch, I would have said no. But they did! So here’s to the workers in Chicago. Here’s to Queers Bash Back! And here’s to the masses of anarchists, university students, high school students, and youth who have taken to the streets in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Crete, and all over Greece. It’s looking more and more every day that a revolution may really be just around the corner. [Read more →]

Response to Susan Gaertner, (Today’s) Hearing - Press Statement
December 17th, 2008

The following was read at the December 17 press conference by a member of the RNC 8 Support Committee. It is in response to that day’s court appearance by the RNC 8 and a press statement released earlier that morning by Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, which follows our statement.

PRESS STATEMENT

As you may already know, early this week members of the RNC 8 were notified that they are now facing three new felony counts for a total of four. Along with their previous charge, Conspiracy to Commit Riot in the Second Degree in Furtherance of Terrorism, they are now facing: Conspiracy to Commit Riot in the Second Degree, Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Damage to Property in Furtherance of Terrorism, and Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Damage to Property. [Read more →]