Category — Solidarity

Not long before Christmas, Sound Mental Health (SMH), the property managers of downtown Seattle’s Kasota apartments, began going door to door in the building trying to get tenants to sign a new lease. SMH houses both mentally ill ‘clients’ and roughly seventeen low-income tenants at the Kasota, but the new lease seemed to indicate that they wanted that to change. The terms of the new lease for SMH’s non-client tenants included rent increases of as much as fifty percent as well as a demand for further deposits. Many of the low-income residents of the Kasota are dependent on Social Security and other fixed incomes for survival and cannot afford to pay rent increases of this magnitude. They were outraged as it became apparent that the terms of the new lease would drive them from their homes and out into the street. For many residents the new lease would mean desperation and homelessness. It was at this point that one tenant saw a Seattle Solidarity Network (SeaSol) poster and decided to start fighting back. [Read more →]

http://hondurasresists.blogspot.com/2009/12/walter-trochez-active-member-of.html

Walter Tróchez, the human rigths defender, member of the gay, lesbian, trans and bisexual community and active member of the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d’Etat, was killed this morning. Below there is a denunciation from the human rights organization CIPRODEH, a press release from Feminists in Resistance, and a denunciation written by Walter before he died about the repression against the LGBTQ community in Honduras under the de facto government. Killing of human rights defender Walter Tróchez On December 4th the human rigths defender, member of the gay, lesbian, trans and bisexual community and active member of the National Front of Resistance Against the Coup d’Etat Walter Tróchez was kidnapped and savagely beaten around the Obelisco Park of Comayaguela by four masked men who came in a gray pickup truck without plates, presumably from the police investigative unit (DNIC) (a vehicle of similar description that he had denounced a few months back had been watching his home, forcing him to move).

[Read more →]

On the one year memorial of the horrific Gaza Massacre and in solidarity with a thousand Americans who will attempt to break the siege of Gaza and march with Palestinians of Gaza to the Israeli wall

Nada Khader of Wespac, musician Rich Siegel, performance satirist David Lippman
(and others)

$5 donation suggested

if you are looking for something fun to do friday, check out this great dance event by our comrade Adrienne.  All for a good cause!

Come Dance the night away

Get ready for the Holiday spirit

Enjoy tons of different dances, Cha Cha, Waltz, Tango, Swing, etc. all night and help us raise money for those less fortunate than ourselves

Lesson at 7pm by Adrienne Marie cotter

Dancing follows until 11pm

Friday December 11^th,2009

St. Marks                                           

singles and couples

147 w main st. new Britain

$5 suggested donation

download flyer

ISSUED BY:
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto
Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
Queer BDS activists from Israel

On October 10-16, 2009, the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) is planning to hold a tourism conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, aimed at boosting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) leisure tourism to Israel. The audience of this conference is expected to be made up mostly of travel agents who specialize in promoting LGBT tourism. With this conference IGLTA, in cooperation with an Israeli LGBT organization, the Aguda, will give its symbolic and financial support to a state that continually occupies, oppresses and dispossess millions of Palestinians and murders and imprisons many thousands of them.

We, queer activists and groups, call on LGBTQI people and friends around the world to join us in our protest against IGLTA’s promotion of leisure tourism to apartheid Israel. We demand that IGLTA cancel its planned conference in Israel and cease any promotion of tourism to this country.

For some time now, Israeli officials and organizations such as the Aguda, who are cooperating closely with IGLTA, have been promoting LGBT tourism to Israel through false representations of visiting Tel Aviv as not taking sides, or as being on the “LGBT” side, as if LGBT lives were the only ones that mattered. It is implied that it’s okay to visit Israel as long as you “believe in peace,” as if what is taking place in Palestine/Israel is merely a conflict between equals, rather than an oppressive power relationship. Consistent with globalization’s tendency to distance the “final product” from the moral implications of the manufacturing process, LGBT tourists are encouraged to forget about politics and just have fun in a so-called gay-friendly city.

This Zionist propaganda disguises the reality of anti-LGBT violence. Last month’s Tel Aviv shooting in a gay center has reminded us that it is not as friendly as it is depicted to be. Since that attack, numerous reports have been released on the prevalence of violence against LGBT people in Israel, including a state official report suggesting that “80% of gay teens in Israel suffer some sort of sexual orientation-related abuse” (Ynetnews.com). [Read more →]

On the evening of August 1st in Tel Aviv, someone entered a youth group meeting at a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community center and opened fire, killing two people and injuring many more, some critically.

We mourn the loss of those killed and injured, and are outraged by this homophobic violence. As people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and/or queer (LGBTQ), we empathize with the pain, fear, and rage that friends, loved ones, and communities are experiencing. We are heartened that people all over the world are coming together to mourn these deaths and to stand against the violence and hatred that caused them. May this loss compel us towards greater justice, compassion and humanity!

As people who reject the Zionist premise of safety based on violence and isolation of people from each other, we cannot subscibe to the representation of this crime as an isolated event, separated from the violence that pervades the state of Israel. To sincerely engage with the question of building true safety, we must recognize the systemic aspects of this incident. Israel is marketed as a gay-friendly tourist destination and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. In fact, LGBTQ people of all ethnicities and religions face discrimination and violence in Israel, just as we do in all other parts of the world. [Read more →]

Charter Oak Cultural Center

21 Charter Oak Ave

Hartford CT

6-8 pm, August 21st

“Queering the Immigration Discussion”

All over the country, including Connecticut, our government sponsors the break-up of families, the displacement of people, and the forced removal of workers from hope itself. This takes the form of immigration law and is manifested most brutally in agencies such as ICE. But the queer community has its own unique problems within the framework of the immigration debate. This event promises to highlight those problems. Come join Queers without Borders and the Workers Solidarity Alliance of Connecticut for a panel discussion on queer immigration issues! Food and drinks provided.

Panelists include:

Nancy Naples–Feminist sociologist and professor at the University of Connecticut

Virge Carstens–NLG lawyer specializing in immigration, and queer immigration issues in particular

Jerimarie Liesegang–From the CT TransAdvocacy Coalition, Queers without Borders, and the Workers Solidarity Alliance of Connecticut

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.

[Read more →]

How would you respond if South Africa’s then apartheid regime was to promote one of its “black-free” areas as a gay and lesbian tourism travel destination? Wouldn’t you be outraged if along with it, the apartheid regime’s advocates would launch a sophisticated racist propaganda presenting it as actually very liberal and open-minded? This is practically what happens these days with Tel Aviv and its promotion as a gay and lesbian tourist destination.

Apartheid’s New Clothes
Zionist propaganda has been engaged for years in promoting Israel as open and liberal through images of a flourishing gay and lesbian community as opposed to racist depiction of Palestinian society as flat and demonic. The subtext (and many times explicit text) of such propaganda refers to the Israeli society as western and enlightened in order to enable identification with it within the western world. Thus, it proceeds through ignoring Israel’s continuous violent assault, dispossessing and oppression of Palestinians within a racist segregation system (apartheid), whether they are gay or not - or otherwise referring to parts of it as “predicament” or “situation”.

StandWithUs (SWU), a US based Zionist organization affiliated to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, has taken this propaganda a step forward, combining it with promotion of gay and lesbian tourism to Israel. In June 2009 a Tel Aviv conference called iPride was launched by SWU, inviting “prominent figures” within gay and lesbian communities throughout the western world to participate in a three day seminar as well as in Tel Aviv’s pride parade. [Read more →]

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.

[Read more →]

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.

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

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.

 Listening to a report by the Center for Social Inclusion on DemocracyNow! brought the following quote to mind:

and i am not referring to marriage equality.  this saying arose out of maya wiley’s words during the interview.

Following are from the Groundswell Community Mural Project

[Read more →]