Protesters walking off the job cause chaos days before key vote
Derek Gatopoulos/ Associated Press
Last Updated: October 18. 2011 1:00AM
Athens, Greece— Strikes halted ferries to the Greek islands Monday and left rotting trash piling up in Athens for the 16th straight day, as unions fought back against more austerity measures at the start of a crucial week for both Greece and the 17-nation eurozone.
The unions orchestrated a barrage of strikes, protests and sit-ins. Tax collectors and customs officers walked off the job, several hundred firefighters and police officers staged a central Athens protest in uniform, and protesting civil servants occupied the finance and labor ministry buildings in the Greek capital.
Greece faces a key vote on the new austerity measures Thursday, and other eurozone countries are rushing to find a comprehensive solution to Europe’s escalating debt crisis in time for a Sunday summit in Brussels by European leaders.
Both the Greek vote and the debt plan are needed so Europe can avoid a loss of confidence in global markets that some fear would plunge the world economy back into a recession.
Parliament’s finance committee on Monday approved the new austerity measures, which include pension cuts and across-the-board tax hikes, as well as pay and staff cuts in the civil service.
“The latest measures are the deathblow for our income, “the civil servants’ union ADEDY said. “The government is destroying its central administration and cutting away the safety net for our citizens, while dramatic cuts in pay are driving workers into poverty and deprivation.”
Public workers on strike; garbage piles up in streeets.
But Prime Minister George Papandreou said he was determined to see the latest reforms through because it would prove to international creditors that Greece was “seeking to make major changes.” Greece has been kept solvent since May 2010 only with international bailout loans.
“This is the most critical week for Europe, and of course for Greece, with decisions that will determine the fate of the eurozone,” he said at an emergency meeting with President Karolos Papoulias. “It will mean we can go to the (debt) negotiations … with our heads held high and with a stronger negotiating position.”
The Socialist government is facing mounting party dissent over a vote in parliament Thursday to pass a new punishing round of tax hikes and pay cuts agreed upon in exchange for international bailout loans.
One Socialist lawmaker, 50-year-old Thomas Robopoulos, resigned his seat in parliament Monday, calling the new round of austerity measures “unfair and anti-labor.”
His resignation does not affect the government’s four-seat majority in parliament as lawmakers there are replaced by party list and not by-elections.
Still, with its slim majority, the government is facing the prospect of an embarrassing defeat over a central part of the new legislation — its plans to strip Greek workers of decades-old labor rights.
The government, meanwhile, was considering using the army to help clear the mounds trash in Athens. Worse labor unrest was ahead: a 48-hour general strike looms for Wednesday and Thursday that will ground flights for two days, cripple public and many private services, even shut down essential services like gas stations and bakeries
(Reuters) – You couldn’t make it up — or could you?
U.S. allegations that an Iranian spy outfit attempted to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington in a convoluted plot involving a U.S. informant posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel seem bizarre to say the least.
Still, Washington says the drama justifies new international sanctions against Iran and Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief insists that “somebody in Iran” must pay the price.
“The burden of proof and the amount of evidence in the case is overwhelming and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for this,” Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal said.
Manssor Arbabsiar is shown in this 1996 Nueces County, Texas, Sheriff's Office photograph released to Reuters on October 12, 2011. Arbabsiar, 56, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and holds an Iranian passport, was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Sept. 29. The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of backing a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, escalating tensions with Tehran and stirring up a hornet's nest in the Gulf, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have long jostled for power. Iran denied the charges and expressed outrage at the accusations. REUTERS/Nueces County Sheriff's Office/Handout
The potential consequences are dire in a tense region where the United States and Israel reserve the right to attack Iran to stop it acquiring a nuclear bomb, a goal Tehran disavows.
For starters, the row could throttle any slim chance of resuming negotiations to settle the nuclear dispute.
Saudi-Iranian acrimony has ratcheted up this year, especially since Saudi troops intervened to help Bahrain’s Sunni rulers crush protests led by the island’s Shi’ite majority and fomented, according to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, by Iran.
From across the Middle East’s Arab-Persian and Sunni-Shi’ite faultlines, Riyadh also accuses Tehran of inciting unrest among minority Shi’ites in its own oil-rich Eastern Province, and has often urged the United States in the past to attack Iran, according to diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks.
The plot suspects are Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, arrested on September 29 in New York, and Gholam Shakuri, said to be a member of Quds Force, the covert, operational arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He is thought to be in Iran.
U.S. evidence rests mainly on Arbabsiar’s alleged confession that he had acted for men he thought were top Quds officials.
MOTIVE AND MEANS
Yet questions abound over the putative plot, not least the classic ones of motive and means. Many analysts are skeptical.
What could Iran hope to gain from an assassination that would have brought fierce retribution? Why try to recruit a hitman from a Mexican drug cartel instead of using its own? Continue reading →
The video above shows what organizers called the beginning of “Occupy Detroit” outside Cadillac Place, where Gov. Snyder’s Detroit office is, and where protesters have been fighting the cruel cut-offs of 50,000 (and counting) people including children and babies from public assistance every Thursday at noon.
By Diane Bukowski
October 11, 2011
Hazen Pingree: Beware the power of the private corporations
DETROIT – People of all ages, sexes and races poured into the City of Hope Church near Grand River and Trumbull Oct. 11 to bring Detroit into the occupation movement that has spread like wildfire across the country, beginning Sept. 17 with Occupy Wall Street.
The Detroit assemply decided by consensus that the occupation of Detroit would begin Friday, Oct. 14 at 4 p.m. outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center on Woodward at the foot of Jefferson. Participants will then march at 6 p.m. to set up their base in Grand Circus Park.
The park is presided over by a statue of 19th century Detroit Mayor Hazen Pingree, “the first to warn the people of the power of the private corporations,” according to an inscription on its base.
“This is the first time in years where we have had an opportunity for class unity, the first time we should be able to join together to stop the welfare cut-offs and the Wall Street bail-outs,” Maureen Taylor, president of the Michigan Welfare Rights Association, cried out during the assembly.
Pres. Obama greets South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak at the White House Oct. 12
U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to be in the Detroit area the same day, visiting the Ford Wixom plant with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. South Korean trade unionists have struck and held mass rallies to protest their government’s anti-labor policies.
Occupy Detroit has now been endorsed by the Metro Detroit AFL-CIO, a hopeful indication that the labor movement will come out in force to support it. Currently, Ford rank-and-file workers are fighting a proposed contract. (See article below.)
The excitement in the air was palpable. Organizers estimated the turn-out for Occupy Detroit’s first general assembly at 1,000 people, so large they re-directed participants outside to the park/playground area behind the church.
Abayomi Azikiwe
Long-time Detroit activist Abiyomi Azikiwe opened the rally in the church, noting it was taking place on Columbus Day.
“This is a day that we pay tribute to the indigenous people of America, and to our ancestors who were brought here in slaveships,” Azikiwe said. “Detroit was the first city to be hit by the economic crisis, and hit the hardest. The rest of the country and the world is now catching up. It is time to reclaim what is ours. We are the 99 percent, the masses who should be in control. We must retake the banks and the multinational corporations and run society on a humane truly democratic level.
Below, Danny Glover addresses Occupy L.A., raising the importance of supporting the hunger strike of 12,000 prisoners in California.
Other speakers acknowledged that members of the oppressed communities should be at the forefront of the occupation, including people of color, women, and the LGBT communities. Detroit’s population is at least 86 percent Black, and many said the success of the occupation will depend on the inclusion of rank-and-file Detroiters, particularly the youth.
Maryanne Godboldo, who stood off police in March to defend her daughter from CPS
“They are illegally stealing our children, and we need a committee to address that,” one woman cried out during the assembly. She referred the the thousands of families in Detroit and Michigan who have had their children kidnapped by Child Protective Services using an assembly-line court system absent any judicial oversight.
This was a concrete example of the need to address the specific problems of the people of Detroit if Occupy Detroit is to succeed.
The assembly included a large number of young white people, some who came directly from New York as representatives of the Occupy Wall Street movement. They brought with them the tools developed there, including consensus voting, hand signals, and “the people’s mike” (when mechanical mikes don’t work or the police ban bullhorns, the crowd as a whole shouts back what a apeaker either from the stage or from the audience is saying).
Section of crowd at Oct. 10 assembly/WSWS photo
They also brought copies of the “Occupied Wall Street Journal” put out by the thousands of anti-corporate activists in New York, and a lot of desperately needed energy and enthusiasm.
Many of the city’s long-time activist groups were also present, hopeful that Occupy Detroit would spark a long-awaited rising up of the people in this long down-trodden, depressed city.
They included the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition against Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs, and the Socialist Equality Party, which has led protests against DTE shut-offs that cost the lives of dozens of Detroiters, including toddlers, over the last year.
Travion, Selena and Fantasia Young, killed in a fire caused by 2009 DTE shut-off
A member of that group called on the assembly to be as inclusive as possible, allowing broad debate from all political perspectives. Recently, many leaders of the Democratic Party have sought to piggyback on the Occupy Wall Street movement, he said, and they should not be allowed to co-opt it.
A consensus vote was taken to select Grand Circus Park as the initial base for the occupation. The Park in located in central downtown, next to Comerica Park and Ford Field, which are expected to be packed with people attending the Tigers and Lions games.
Grand Circus Park is also close to the financial district full of the banks that have created the worldwide economic meltdown being taken out on the backs of poor and working people. Not to mention that it is only a few blocks from DTE headquarters on Bagley, which recently announced rate increases and cutbacks in assistance for the poor in paying their bills.
Twelve initial committees were set up, including Outreach, Comfort, Food, Education, Information, Media, Sensitivity and Racial Inclusion, Finance, Direct Action, Name (there is a debate about other names besides Occupy Detroit), Facilitation, Child Care, Medical, Security and Legal.
For more information, according to a flier distributed Oct. 10:
By Askia Muhammad -Senior Correspondent-
Updated Oct 5, 2011 – 1:21:36 PM
WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com) – It was one of the most bizarre incidents during the NATO-supported uprising in Libya. The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a retired member of the Congressional Black Caucus went missing in Tripoli for several weeks during a self-sanctioned mission to that war zone, as rebel forces advanced toward the capital and their eventual overthrow of Col. Muammar Gadhafi , who led the North African country for nearly 41 years.
Rumors spread that the former senior aide to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed. Then, on Aug. 24, the office of the Rev. Fauntroy’s successor in Congress— D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton—announced that she had “been in touch with authorities who have spoken with” Mr. Fauntroy. “Authorities have confirmed for Norton that (the) Reverend Fauntroy is safely in the care of the International Committee of the Red Cross and is expected to leave Libya soon.”
One day later Mrs. Norton issued another statement indicating that she “spoke with Ms. Dorothy Fauntroy, wife of former D.C. Congressman Walter Fauntroy. Ms. Fauntroy told Norton that the family spoke to (the) Reverend Fauntroy around 3:00 a.m. EDT and that he said he is in a safe place in Libya and expects to return to D.C. later this week. … Ms. Fauntroy did not know the circumstances of (the) Reverend Fauntroy’s visit to Libya. He told her of the trip only shortly before his departure in order to prevent her from worrying,” the statement concluded.
“And I went” to Libya, Mr. Fauntroy told The Final Call, after several days of thinking about whether or not to grant an interview. “And God knows, did I get in trouble. When I got there I found myself in the secure hotel that had been, by international law reserved for news media so they could go out and cover the war and come back and report it to the world in safety. I was there.
“But I found myself there among 37 so-called newsmen, and myself, all of whom were threatened, first by ones within the group. There were Gadhafi reporters who were so angry with the lies the reporters were saying that they were going to kill them, and told them they were going to kill them. And chop their heads off, and cut their right arm and left leg off and take a picture of it and send it to their friends. And they were scared to death, because they knew if we walked out of that place, they could do it.” Continue reading →
Early results of voting on the new Ford-United Auto Workers contract are nearly break-even, according to Detroit newspapers. Reformers in the union are organizing to get the 41,000 Ford workers to once again vote “no” on their national contract, as they did in October 2009.
Wisconsin: Now is the time to escalate the struggle for labor and a just economy/ Photo Mark Brennan Labor Notes
UAW reformers point out that the contract would freeze wages and substitute bonuses—which wouldn’t recover the losses from years of concessions—and it would permanently institutionalizes the two-tier wage system. Despite raises for the lower tier, it provides no bridge to higher wages.
With 7.3 percent of votes reported, production workers have voted “yes” by 50.1 percent and skilled trades “no” by 54.8 percent. Local 900, covering a Focus assembly plant west of Detroit where the shop chair opposed the agreement because of onerous “alternative work schedules,” voted “no” by 56 votes.
The Autoworkers Caravan group is circulating a leaflet asking workers to vote no. It says, “Ford is rolling in profits and Wall Street is tickled to see this contract.”
Labor Notes Conference 2008
Local 900 member Dave Dogonski described himself as a fence-sitter who had voted yes. “I would like to have voted no in order to make a political statement,” he said. “How can the union in one breath support things like Occupy Wall Street but at the same time let the corporations take windfall profits and not get us a raise?”
Ford is currently the richest of the Detroit 3, and the only company where workers have the right to strike. UAW President Bob King negotiated a package that is richer monetarily than the one ratified by GM workers last month. They will receive signing bonuses of $6,000 rather than $5,000 and annual bonuses of $1,500 rather than $1,000.
Judy Wraight, an instrument repairperson at Ford’s ancient Rouge complex near Detroit, pointed out that $1,500 is the monetary equivalent of just three of the concessions workers made in 2009 (one holiday, less daily break time, and a Christmas bonus). Two other concessions—a wage freeze in place since 2005 and the 99 cents-per-hour wage cut workers took when they gave up the cost-of-living allowance—were not addressed.
Auto company execs are clear that they want to shift workers to half wages—permanently.
GM CEO Dan Akerson and UAW President Bob King
GM CEO Dan Akerson said recently that although “we don’t need to get there tomorrow,” his aim is to replace higher-paid workers with those now starting at $15.78, partly through buyouts of senior workers and skilled trades.
But the contracts contain no pension increases, for the first time, and they take away the small Christmas bonus most retirees had received.
The UAW says that Ford will invest to create new jobs, but the reformers counter: “What does the record tell us about promises like that? Ford will invest in what it thinks is profitable. Every contract for decades has been presented as a ‘job security contract,’ but UAW-Ford has lost half its membership since 1999.”
Ford is rolling in profits and Wall Street is tickled to see this contract. But we don’t even get the concessions back–from COLA, to Annual Improvement Factor, to Easter Monday. Retirees lose the Christmas bonus and the legal services plan is being phased out—read on and find out more. We voted NO in 2009 to preserve the right to strike, but you wouldn’t know it from this contract.
COLA is gone forever if we can’t restore it now, when Ford is making big profits. Bloomberg News quotes Bob King: “Would [the members] like fixed rate increases? Sure they would. I’d like to give it to them, but they know the competitive structure as well as I do.”
UAW and Ford at the bargaining table
A lump sum is not a Cost of Living Allowance keyed to inflation. King’s words ”fixed rate increases” mean increases in the base hourly rate, like the 3% Annual Improvement Factor and COLA that we lost. Scott Houldieson of Chicago Assembly has a good comeback for President King: “Frozen COLA and second tier wage increased to full wage combined would have reduced profits for 2010 to a mere $6.41 billion dollars! How is a company to survive on that?!” A 4% wage increase for the first year of the contract would amount to $95.5 million–less than the stock awarded to Mulally and Bill Ford in 2011. What a time to eliminate Equity of Sacrifice from the “Unpublished Letters”!
Second tier comes up only to average NON-union industrial pay. Ford needed this anyway to get workforce stability. If we sell out our children, they won’t defend our pensions. They only get 13 weeks SUB. UNITY = Equal Pay for Equal Work, not second class citizenship. Brother Houldieson also wrote: “Forget all the happy talk about the FTPM Morale Matrix. The company knows it has a better chance of controlling us if they can keep us divided.” Gary Walkowicz of Dearborn Truck wrote: “The biggest concession is that 2-tier will continue.” Do you believe any 2nd tier will become 1st tier with this contract?
If Ford hires permanent 2nd tier workers, the contract contains loopholes that let them hire way more than the so-called 20% cap–including some whole plants that are 2nd-tier only. Either way, everyone is undermined by non-equal pay for equal work. Will Ford even hire true 2nd tier? Last time we checked, all but 100 nation-wide were LTSs, not permanent 2nd tier. We have a three tier membership. Why is insourced work not counted toward the 20% cap on entry level numbers?
Pensions: New low for the UAW: No increase. Retirees lost their Christmas bonus.
• VEBA: Health care is still inadequately funded. New VEBA funds come only from the profit-sharing gamble. 30 & Out means little–if you’re afraid to retire before Medicare!
“Manufacturing Work Groups” combine production and skilled trades. This undermines trades classifications andunderminesproduction workers’ chances of real advancement through apprenticeships.
• Overtime: Time and a half after 8 hours is not restored. Increasing Alternative Work Schedules are designed to eliminate overtime pay as much as possible. We should make enough to not need overtime.
• Without real barriers to outsourcing, the outsourcing will continue and increase. “Sourcing moratorium remains intact,” say the Highlights. But we see outsourcing all the time.
Working conditions: Lost break time is not restored. Alternative Work Schedules undermine working lives and family lives.
The 2011 UAW Bargaining Convention endorsed domestic partner same-sex bereavement pay, but it’s not in this contract.
We need a contract that helps organize the unorganized at Toyota, VW, Honda, Mercedes. Non-union workers need to see us as a fighting union. There has been no national Ford strike since 1976!
ACH workers should simply be made full Ford workers now—rather than waiting for openings.
What’s the alternative to voting Yes? Vote No–send them back to the table to get what we deserve. And show Ford some real strike preparation.
“Creating” and “saving” jobs?? What does the record tell us about promises like that? Ford will invest in what it thinks is profitable. The contract will not force Ford to add jobs if business conditions are not good and we don’t have a fighting union. Every contract for decades has been presented as a “job security contract,” but UAW-Ford has lost half its membership since 1999. Now Twin Cities MN and Walton Hills OH plants will close. And as the Autoworker Caravan wrote about the GM contract: “Shifting work from one plant to another isn’t ‘new’ work. Laying off autoworkers in Mexico is not ‘creating jobs’. Talk about new work, why didn’t the Union challenge the corporations to make fuel-efficient buses that every U.S. city could purchase?”
Gary Walkowicz, 313-737-3166, gwalk32@att.net; Judy Wraight, 313-272-0307, jswraight@aol.com; TO ADD YOUR NAME TO NEXT EDITION OF THIS LEAFLET, WRITE OR CALL:
Today the United States Supreme Court rejected a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to overturn the most recent federal appeals court decision declaring Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence unconstitutional. The Court’s decision brings to an end nearly thirty years of litigation over the fairness of the sentencing hearing that resulted in Mr. Abu-Jamal’s being condemned to death. Mr. Abu-Jamal will be automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole unless the District Attorney elects to seek another death sentence from a new jury.
The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and Professor Judith Ritter of Widener Law School represent Mr. Abu-Jamal in the appeal of his conviction and death sentence for the 1981 murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court’s decision marks the fourth time that the federal courts have found that Mr. Abu-Jamal’s sentencing jury was misled about the constitutionally mandated process for considering evidence supporting a life sentence.
“At long last, the profoundly troubling prospect of Mr. Abu-Jamal facing an execution that was produced by an unfair and unreliable penalty phase has been eliminated,” said John Payton, President and Director-Counsel of LDF. “Like all Americans, Mr. Abu-Jamal was entitled to a proper proceeding that takes into account the many substantial reasons why death was an inappropriate sentence.” Professor Ritter stated, “Our system should never condone an execution that stems from a trial in which the jury was improperly instructed on the law.”
Mr. Abu-Jamal’s case will now return to the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas for final sentencing.
Block Reportin’–The Book, by Prisoners of Conscience Committee Minister JR Valrey
Click on www.blockreportradio.comto order Minister JR Valrey’s book. Also click on http://www.393films.com/online-store.phpto order the DVD of JR Valrey’s award-winning film about the Oscar Grant police brutality rebillions in Oakland, “Operation Small Axe.” See trailer below.
In the very controversial “prison version” of “They Don’t Care About Us,” Michael Jackson showed that he, as an artist, cared about the issue of mass incarceration and had the courage to speak out on behalf of prisoners in a way that made the whole world listen. Prison hunger strikers need today’s artists who have the ears of the world to advocate for ending solitary confinement, which is officially considered torture.
by Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, for the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement
Prisoners are being held in solitary confinement indefinitely on the word of a prison debriefer – i.e., snitch, informer, rat, turncoat – or some false prison gang validation. Therefore, we seek your support and give you all the right to advocate on our behalf:
Chuck D originally of Public Enemy
MC Lyte, Baby, Keyshia Cole, Lil Wayne, Eve, Jay-Z, Goapele, Scrappy, Lil Kim, Kam, Yoyo, Kwame Kweli, Nicki Minaj, The Coup, Erykah Badu, The Game, Foxy Brown, Kanye West, Free, Mos Def, Diamond, Chuck D, Queen Latifah, MOB Deep, Rashida, E-40, Terez McCall, Snoop Dogg, Jada Pinkett, Rihanna, Scarface, Lena, Ryakin Rip, Slim Thug, Solange, Tyrese, Solē, Bun B, Jamie Fox, Will Smith, Chris Brown. Jadakiss, Gorilla Zoe, Black Rob, Rev Run, Busta Rhymes, Ice-T, Ice Cube,WC, Mack-10, Ti, Dr. Dre, Joe Budden, Eminem, T-Bone, LeCrae, Drake, Too Short, Flame, 50 cent, Loyd Banks, Raphael Saadiq, Maino, Terrence Jenkins, Rosci Diaz, Big Boi, KRS-One, DMX, 2-Mex, Gucci Mane, JT The Bigga Figga, Chino XL, Chingo, Bling, Rebel Diaz, Fat Joe, Tego Calderon, Pitbull, Bubba Sparks, Cypress Hill, Nas,
And all the original hip hop heads etc.
U.S. Pres. Barack Obama
We ask that you all support us in our struggle to be liberated from these man-made torture chambers by doing the following:
1. Support the peaceful hunger strike by having your fans contact the governor of California, Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., and the president of the United States of Amerika, Barack Obama, to end torture in California prisons, where prisoners are held indefinitely in solitary confinement – in PBSP SHU, Corcoran SHU, New Folsom SHU and Tehachapi SHU.
2. Donate $10 or more to our Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition, via California Prison Focus’ PayPal account, which can be accessed at www.prisons.org, and mark it for the hunger strike coalition, or mail your donation to California Prison Focus, 1904 Franklin St., Suite 507, Oakland CA 94612. Watch our blog, www.prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com, for information.
Hunger strike supporters demonstrate in Montreal, Quebec
3. All of you have power, and that power is in your voice. We ask that you lend that power to our hunger strike. Yes, we will make the sacrifices. There are countless prisoners held in solitary confinement throughout this nation, who come from exclusively poor communities, being tortured. Contact the following New Afrikan prisoners who have been held in SHU since as long ago as 1976 to 2011:
• Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, PBSP, D-1-117, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
• Michael Mutawally Cooperwood, C-46411, PBSP, D-1-214, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
• Abdul Olugbala Shakur, s/n J. Harvey, C-48884, PBSP, D-4-212, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
California protesters supporting hunger strike
• James Baridi Williamsun, D-34288, PBSP, D-4-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
• Yafeu Iyapo-I, s/n Leonard Alexander, B-73388, PBSP, D-3-104, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
• Marcus Tashiri Harrison, H-54077, PBSP, D-3-122, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
• Abasi Ganda, s/n Clyde Jackson, C-33559, PBSP, D-2-101, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
• Kubaua Gitu, s/n Rubben Williams, B-72882, PBSP, D-2-121, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
• Paul Redd Jr., B-72683, D-2-117, PBSP, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532
• J. Heshima Denham, J-38283, COR SHU, 4B-1L-46, P.O. Box 3481, Corcoran CA 93212
• Michael Zaharibu Dorrough, D-83611, COR SHU, 4B-1L-53, P.O. Box 3481, Corcoran CA 93212
Palesitinian prisoners in Israel supported California hunger strike
It is important that you in the public know that all of us come from the very communities you all come from. Unfortunately, we have been held in these solitary confinement units from 10 to 40 years, simply put, for nothing. The CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) has used every strategy and tactic to get us to debrief, as the only way for us to get out of solitary confinement.
Since we refuse to be emasculated and become the prison stoolie for the prison gang intelligence unit, CDCR has sanctioned the torture of each and every last one of us. Therefore, we prisoners, all races, decided to come together in order to end this cruel and unusual punishment.
Last year's Georgia prison strike: Georgia prisoners of all races pray together in special unit at Calhoun State Prison, prayer groups not allowed in general population
Yes, many of you have heard or know firsthand of the horror stories CDCR officials have used to propagate us to the world in order to label us the “worst of the worst” held in Pelican Bay state prison solitary confinement units. Yet ALL RACES – i.e., New Afrikans, Mexicans South and North, and whites etc. came together to end and fight against the torture we all have endured for 21 years here at PBSP SHU by way of a peaceful hunger strike, which we intend to carry out indefinitely.
END SOLITARY CONFINEMENT THROUGHOUT CALIFORNIA and THIS NATION!
We, Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, George Franco, Arturo Castellanos and Todd Asker, the four principle negotiators and representatives of the Pelican Bay hunger strike, are requesting for all bodies and minds who are participating in the Sept. 26, 2011, human rights movement to be mindful that we prisoners are in a protracted struggle so that no other prisoners will be held in solitary confinement. All California-held prisoners can be subjected to inhumane, torturous and intentional harsh treatment by CDCR officials, enforced by their subordinates, if the use of solitary confinement is not stopped.
For this struggle to go forward, we need supporters to donate $10 or more to our prisoners’ cause, to shut the SHUs and all solitary confinement units within the state of California and spread this resistance across the U.S. by way of peaceful hunger strikes and other peaceful demonstrations.
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity is a coalition of non-profit organizations that have been working many years on prisoner rights issues and shutting solitary confinement units throughout California and the U.S. We prisoners appreciate and continue to need their legal support.
Note: California Prison Focus is the member of the coalition responsible for meeting with the spokesmen for the prisoners. Donations will be used to travel to Pelican Bay once a week and to travel to the other SHUs as often as possible this winter in order to report to the state legislature and to protect the spokesmen as much as possible. Each trip costs $300 to $400 for two investigators for two days for gas and lodging only.
MIN. JR VALREY AT FOREFRONT OF PUBLICITY FOR HUNGER STRIKE
JR Valrey faced charges for covering Oscar Grant rebellions in Oakland, case was finally dropped
Do you know who broke the story of the California hunger strike on KPFA? According to General Manager Andrew Phillips, it was our own Minister of Information JR, the volunteer host of two weekly shows on KPFA, as well as associate editor of the Bay View! Until the mainstream media picked up the story in the last few days, if you weren’t listening to KPFA or reading the Bay View, you might not know that 12,000 – yes, 12,000, according to the court-appointed receiver – prisoners across California are literally starving themselves, risking their lives, to end the state’s unconstitutional torture of their brothers in security housing units (SHUs).
The prisoners themselves count on KPFA and the Bay View to help them organize and build the strike, because they aren’t allowed to speak or write letters to each other, those in the Pelican Bay SHU can’t send or receive mail that mentions the strike, their attorneys have been banned and this past weekend their families weren’t even allowed to visit them.
But KPFA’s super-powerful 59,000 watts, boosted by KFCF in Fresno, reaches millions of Californians, including tens of thousands of prisoners, throughout Northern and Central Cali. And we mail the Bay View to hundreds of prisoners, which infuriates their keepers.
The prisoners love JR because he respects them as newsworthy. You know that if the media don’t mention you and your issues, you’re nobody in the world today. You might as well be Dred Scott, who, when he sued for his freedom after his “owner” wouldn’t let him buy himself, was told by the U.S. Supreme Court that he and all Black people are “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” In California prisons – and much of the rest of the world – that’s still the rule. Continue reading →
Oakland – As the renewed prisoner hunger strike enters its second week, the federal receiver’s office released information that at least 12,000 prisoners were participating during the first week. Prisoners are continuing a hunger strike that they temporarily suspended in July.
Originating from Security Housing Units (SHUs) and Administrative Segregation Units (Ad-Seg and ASU) across California, prisoners held at Pelican Bay State Prison, Calipatria, Centinela, Corcoran, Ironwood, Kern Valley, North Kern, Salinas Valley, California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, Pleasant Valley State Prison, San Quentin as well as West Valley Detention Center in San Bernadino County are currently participating. Over 3,000 California prisoners held in out-of-state facilities in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma have also refused food.
This corridor of the Pelican Bay SHU is the epicenter of the California prisoners' hungr strike; photo by Michael Montgomery, California Watch
“This is the largest prisoner strike of any kind in recent U.S. history,” says Ron Ahnen of California Prison Focus. “The fact that so many prisoners are participating highlights the extreme conditions in all of California’s prisons as well as the historic opportunity the state has been given to make substantial changes to SHU and Ad-Seg policies.”
Family members of striking SHU prisoners reported that their visits this weekend were denied by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) citing security concerns. “A number of family members received notice that they were not going to be allowed to see their loved ones as long as the strike continues,” says Dolores Canales who has a son in the Pelican Bay SHU.
“Denying visits only heightens the isolation that the prisoners and family members experience, especially at this critical time.”
Solidarity rally at Cal. Dept. of Corrections HG in Sacramento; photo by Bill Hackwell
Advocates and lawyers have expressed concern that banning visits, along with other tactics including the possibility of violence on the part of CDCR are being used in attempt to break the strike.
“Historically, prison officials have used extreme measures, including physical violence to break strikes,” says Dorsey Nunn, executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and a member of the mediation team working on behalf of the strikers.
“As this peaceful protest continues, it’s essential for lawmakers and the media to monitor the actions of CDCR. The department should not be allowed to use underhanded methods to resolve the strike.” Late last week two of the mediation team’s lawyers were banned from CDCR facilities with the prison administration citing unnamed “security threats.”
SHU cell; photo Cal. Dept. Corrections and Rehabilitation
The prisoners resumed their hunger strike on Sept. 26 after the CDCR failed to address demands made when prisoners initially went on strike for almost the entire month of July. They have also reported heightened levels of intimidation and retaliation from prison officials since July. Prisoners are demanding changes to long-term solitary confinement, gang validation and debriefing processes and other conditions in the state’s Security Housing Units as well as in other parts of the prison system.
Representatives of the hunger strikers have indicated that this may be a rolling strike, with prisoners coming on and off strike periodically, allowing for the possibility of a protracted struggle. Activists and family members internationally are planning protests in support of the hunger strikers in the coming weeks. For continued updates and more information, visit www.prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com.
California Department of Corrections threatens prison hunger strikers, bans lawyers
by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway
In response to a renewed inmate hunger strike to protest conditions in the California prison system, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has taken a hard line, threatening participants with disciplinary action and banning two lawyers who represent the strikers. According to the Contra Costa Times: Continue reading →
Even Republicans object to president’s proposed cuts
They include 50 percent cut to LIHEAP program which funds THAW
(VOD ed.: More coming on Detroit’s situation with focus on utility profits; regardless of federal cuts, DTE and others must STOP SHUT-OFFS! They can afford it! Also read earlier article, OBAMA CUTS TO HOME ENERGY ASSISTANCE TO HAVE DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES, by clicking on http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/heat-m27.shtml.)
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — As winter approaches in this prosperous-looking northern Michigan city, it is clear the safety net has ripped. Thousands of households can’t afford to heat their homes and aid agencies predict many people will be forced to choose between eating and staying warm. Yet there are signs Republicans in Washington may be listening.
Pres. Obama proposed 50 percent cut in LIHEAP
First, the bad news. The Obama administration, under pressure from Republicans to cut spending, has proposed a 50 percent cut to the main federal program that helps people keep their heat on. The latest White House budget, issued in February, proposed slashing funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, from $5.1 billion to $2.57 billion, a move that would bring the program’s funding back to its 2008 level.
The program got a big budget increase under the president’s stimulus program, which Obama now says needs to be scaled back.
“We doubled the home heating assistance program when I first came into office in part because there was a huge energy spike,” Obama said at a press conference announcing the cuts last February. “Energy prices have now gone down but the cost of the program has stayed the same. So what we’ve said is let’s go back to a more sustainable level.”
In Traverse City (population about 14,000) and surrounding Grand Traverse county, Obama’s proposal would cut emergency heating assistance — given to 3,633 households last year — almost in half.
The fighting over the LIHEAP budget in Washington has forced Michigan officials to lower the cap for emergency assistance, according to Whitney Skearns, customer assistance coordinator for Consumers Energy and co-chair of the Coalition to Keep Michigan Warm. Until Oct. 1, a family could get up to $800 to turn back on the utilities, Skearns said. Now the maximum is $450. (VOD ed: The Coalition to Keep Michigan Warm includes the utilities as well as groups like the Michigan Poverty Law Center. Its website is at http://www.coalitiontokeepmichiganwarm.com.)
Family waits for assistance at United Community Housing Coalition in Detroit, which also administers a THAW site.
At the same time, the need for energy assistance is growing, despite the fact that Traverse City has flourished in the last decade. Unlike much of the state, northwestern Michigan has gained population with the arrival of retirees and people escaping Flint and Detroit. Filmmaker Michael Moore has rehabbed the city’s State Theater and launched a film festival that sold 128,000 tickets this summer. Downtown, once home to Woolworth’s and Big Boy, is now lined with stores that sell designer vinegars, equestrian garb and gelato.
Nonetheless, the Great Recession is felt almost everywhere.
“The middle class is struggling to even stay afloat but yet there is a very affluent upper class here and I know — and God knows — there is a lot of people who have barely enough to survive,” said Richard Tomey, street outreach worker for Goodwill Industries, which runs the town’s homeless shelter.
The Father Fred Foundation, a Christian charity in Traverse City, reports a 41 percent increase in visits since last year from people needing help keeping their utilities on.
Nothing can replace LIHEAP, says Martie Manty, the foundation’s executive director. “Leaning on the nonprofit sector is not very realistic because the nonprofits are dependent on the community and the community of donors is stretched,” she said in an interview. Continue reading →
