By Gilbert Mercier and Dady Chery, News Junkie Post | Haiti Chery. MLK could easily have built a movement to supply food, blankets, and diapers to needy African Americans. Decades later, as climate change exacerbates life for those already on the edge, the arguments are the same. Do we put a band-aid over the lash wounds, or do we stop those who are administering the beatings?
Interview of Michael Novick with Gilbert Mercier, New Junkie Post | Editorial Comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Occupy is one year-old. One would think from the news that this nascent movement is merely a series of arbitrary skirmishes between protesters and police. But if there is one area where Occupy has shined, it has been in its alliance with Labor. This excellent December 2011 article and interview of an Occupy Los Angeles organizer discusses one of the earliest efforts by Occupy to ally itself with Labor and nicely articulates the hopes for the movement.
By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Alan Blueford’s parents were forced to organize a press conference to demand the police and coroner’s reports that had not still not been released to them over two months after their son was shot to death by an Oakland Police Officer.
By Kenneth Thomas, OpEd News. Mexico City’s #yosoy132 student movement has decided to occupy the country’s grand plaza to the country’s 1910-1929 democratic government. They erected tents and a large under-tent field headquarters. At around 2:30 p.m. on July 2, the movement’s intelligence team received and posted incoming evidence of ballot fraud in the previous day’s election.
Deseret News Editorial | Rebekah Wilce, PR Watch | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Farm Bill 2012, currently before the U.S. Congress, has met more public outrage over subsidies than any previous farm bill. A quarter of U.S. farms earn over $100,000 a year, and the net income of all farms is about $91.7 billion, which is the second-highest level ever. Yet the government pays subsidies to some farmers whether or not they plant a crop, and the top 4% of subsidy collectors get 74% of all the funds.
Originally by Clarence Gillis, as told by Tommy Douglas, Information Clearing House | You Tube | Mangas Verdes | Haiti Chery. “Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do. They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election…. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.” (English | Spanish, with video)
By Kevin Carson, Center for a Stateless Society | Portuguese translation by Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme, zqxjkv0.blogspot.com |Courtesy of Frans de Waal, YouTube | Haiti Chery. Economic exploitation can only result from unequal exchange, which requires the coercive interference from a state with the normal process of market exchange. Includes video demonstrating a sense of fairness in monkeys. (English | Portuguese)
By Josh Eidelson, In These Times. Only about 12% of U.S. workers currently belong to labor unions. A turning point in the power of American labor was the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and especially its 1945 Taft-Hartly Act provisions that formally recognized the right to collective bargaining but banned tactics like mass picketing and secondary boycotts. The NLRA is examined in light of the growing disregard for unions by corporate bosses and the increasingly successful partnerships of labor with the Occupy movement.
By Jenny Brown, Labor Notes | Gary Roland, Waging Nonviolence | YouTube. In 2011 Sotheby’s enjoyed its best year since 2007, clocking $5.8 billion in sales and $171 million in profits. Nevertheless, the high-end art auction house locked out 43 Teamsters when they refused a contract that would have allowed work to be contracted out to non-union workers. With support from Occupy Wall Street, the union survived 10 months of lockout and on May 31, 2012 ratified a new three-year contract.
In Major Victory for Occupy, JP Morgan Chase Stampeded Out of Buffalo NY
By Eric W. Dolan, Raw Story | Occupy Buffalo. Buffalo, New York USA City Comptroller Mark J. F. Schroeder announced that the city will pull $45 million from an account with JPMorgan Chase, following concerns raised by members of the Occupy Buffalo movement.
By David Moberg, In These Times. Overcoming the classic town-gown social divide, students at various ivy-league universities have formed labor-action movements to win major victories for hotel workers in their fight against appalling working conditions at a set of university-financed hotels.
Taking It to the Streets: Justice for Alan Blueford! Release Chris Moreland! (UPDATED)
By Davey D, Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner Blog | twitter: @alyssa011968 | Editorial comment by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. At a recent townhall meeting in Oakland about the shooting of 18-year old Alan Blueford, attendees turned their backs on what they perceived as being lies from the police chief. A bullhorn called “Justice!” and got the response “For Alan Blueford” Chris Moreland, the man who cried “Justice!” into the bullhorn, is himself now in jail on trumped up charges.
Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans Discard Service Medals at No-NATO Protest
By Mary Wisniewski, Reuters | Jon Michael Turner, Veterans Today, Democracy Now, YouTube | Aaron Hughes, Democracy Now! Nearly 50 U.S. military veterans at an anti-NATO rally in Chicago threw their service medals into the street on Sunday May 20 in rejection of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Occupations don’t build democracies, don’t extend individuals’ freedoms. The movements—the Arab uprising, the Arab Spring—that was building democracy. The movements of Gandhi, the movements of the civil rights movements here in the United States, people’s movements, that extends democracy, not military force.” – Aaron Hughes.
By David Moberg, In These Times | Haiti Chery. Nurses around the world are calling for a tax on financial sector speculation, which caused the ongoing crisis, so the proceeds may be used to reduce inequality, provide for health and other public needs, and create a healthy economy with full employment. At a Friday May 18 rally in Chicago kicking off the no-NATO protests, the nurses wore Robin Hood attire — red shirts and green caps — to demand the Financial Transaction Tax, also called the “Robin Hood Tax.”