//class war//'s topics - tribe.net

YouTube of RNC/DNC conventions

2008-07-23T06:48:06Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=magUBVXrgiQ

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Imperialist War, State and Revolution

2008-07-21T02:49:18Z

The question of the state is now acquiring particular importance both in theory and in practical politics. The imperialist war has immensely accelerated and intensified the process of transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism. The monstrous oppression of the working people by the state, which is merging more and more with the all-powerful capitalist associations, is becoming increasingly monstrous. The advanced countries - we mean their hinterland - are becoming military convict prisons for the workers.

The unprecedented horrors and miseries of the protracted war are making the people's position unbearable and increasing their anger. The world proletarian revolution is clearly maturing.

V. I. Lenin
Preface to State and Revolution
First Edition
August 1917

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm

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Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

2008-07-15T03:47:59Z

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

By Steven Argue

In a July 14, 2008 New York Times Op Ed, Barack Obama says:

"As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces."

In other words, he does not plan to get all of the troops out of Iraq and he will only get most of the troops out in two years. And what does he explain he will do with these troops? Redeploy them. Redeployed where? His rhetoric has been clear: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

Obama goes on to call for a surge in Afghanistan as well as war in Pakistan:

"Ending the war [in Iraq] is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan [...] As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters [...]"

U.S. intervention has also been very bad for the people of Pakistan. It is US intervention that has kept a long series of dictators in power there. The US has no right to intervene against those fighting that dictatorship that it labels "terrorists". Likewise, it is US intervention in support of a long series of Pakistani dictators that is the cause of Bhutto's death, brutal repression against the majority, exploitation, and poverty, all of which has resulted in rebellion against the Pakistani government. The US has already harmed the Pakistani people enough with massive aid to dictators and would do more harm by sending in troops.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROPOSED MILITARY INTERVENTION IN PAKISTAN!

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama is proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO OBAMA”S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

In addition, at AIPAC, Obama’s speech laid the groundwork for war with Iran:

“The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. [...] The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

A war on a major oil producing nation under the imperialist excuse of weapons of mass destruction. Sound familiar? Bush would have a good case for a charge of plagiarism against Obama.

And what will the Iranians think of more imperialist intervention?

In 1953 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and put the brutal dictatorship of the Shah in power. Mossadegh had plans to nationalize the Iranian oil fields, a plan that would have taken a good chunk of the oil profits out of the private control of major international oil companies. Such nationalizations have greatly helped people in other countries, such as Venezuela, where oil wealth is used to better the conditions of the poor and provide needed programs like healthcare.

The CIA sponsored overthrow of the Mossadegh government paved the way for 26 years of dictatorship under the U.S. backed Shah. Freedom of speech did not exist under the Shah, and the CIA participated in the torture of political opponents to the Shah. Meanwhile, U.S. oil corporations made massive profits from Iranian oil while the vast majority of the Iranian people lived in extreme poverty and did not benefit from the oil wealth.

The Iranian people rightly saw the Shah as a puppet of U.S. imperialism, and finally overthrew his dictatorship in 1979. Unfortunately, repression was so bad under the Shah that the only place that people could organize opposition was in the Mosques. This gave the Mullahs a tremendous advantage in taking control of the revolution. The Islamic nature of the revolution led to a deterioration of women's rights and socialists, many of whom had naively supported the Islamic Revolution, were executed by the clerical fascist state.

Despite the brutal nature of the new Iranian government, in that respect the same as the old regime the U.S. had supported, the U.S. was not satisfied. The new regime nationalized the Iranian oil fields under government control. In addition, the new government was full of anti-imperialist rhetoric and took American hostages; a natural result of 26 years of U.S. imposed dictatorship and exploitation. The U.S. government hated the Iranian revolution most for nationalizing the oil, and they feared that the Iranian Revolution may become an influence for similar anti-imperialist revolutions in the region.

As a result, the U.S. encouraged then ally, Saddam Hussein to send Iraqi troops to invade Iran. During the war, the U.S. armed both sides, but most armed Iraq and provided Iraq with military intelligence. The Iraqi invasion of Iran began on September 22, 1980 and the war continued until 1988. As a result of the war, between half million and a million and a half people died. This U.S. support to Iraq also helped enable Iraq to murder between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign of 1988. At the time, the U.S. corporate media was silent about this crime, and only exposed it later when U.S. alliances changed.

So U.S. intervention against Iran imposed decades of dictatorship, repression, war, exploitation, poverty, and, just in the Iran-Iraq war alone, the deaths of around a million Iranian people. Like Iraq, U.S. troops on the ground in Iran will not be treated as liberators.

The Iranian working class has many scores to settle with their Iranian rulers, but as bad as the current regime in Iran is, Iranians need only look across the border into Iraq to see that U.S. occupation will be much worse. War, a puppet capitalist regime, a million dead, torture, millions of refugees, and an occupier mainly interested in privatization to loot resources. As Iraq shows, there is no liberation at the hands of U.S. occupation. And as the CIA’s Shah showed, there is no liberation under a U.S. imposed puppet. Only anti-imperialist socialist revolution can begin to solve the problems faced by women, ethnic minorities, and the working class of Iran.

NO TO OBAMA’S THREATS AGAINST IRAN!

U.S. HANDS OFF IRAN!

On Iraq, Obama has never promised to fully withdraw. In a debate in September 2007, when asked if he would have U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013 Barack Obama said "I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out." ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07).

The U.S. must leave by air, sea, and land as quickly as possible. U.S. imperialism has created a horrible situation, but that is no excuse to stay, and U.S. troops, Halliburton, etc. are only making matters worse. Over a million Iraqis are dead. These deaths are not just caused by the civil war that the U.S. has ignited, nor are they just caused by the death-squad government that the U.S. has put in power. U.S. guns and bombers are also the direct cause of a large number of deaths. Iraq needs to be turned over to the Iraqi people through immediate withdrawal.

In addition, Obama has directly supported the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq by voting in the Senate to fund it. If it were not for the Democrat votes in congress, the recent $162 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have never passed.

This most recent New York Times Op Ed from Obama continues on with a pro-war position. Obama is clear. He wants a gradual redeployment of the majority of troops to fight other wars while calling for continuing keep some troops fighting in Iraq.

On Blackwater mercenaries fighting in Iraq Obama also refuses to support a ban, and promised to continue to use Blackwater when he becomes president (Democracy Now!, June 2, 2008).

The US government has no right to be in Iraq murdering, torturing, and humiliating their people while making massive profits for the military industry and other contractors. The U.S. is attempting to privatize Iraqi oil to eliminate Iraqi control over this most important resource and give U.S. and British oil companies control over the oil. The puppet government the US has set up is a death squad government that should not be protected by U.S. troops. Continued occupation of Iraq is a continued attempt to subvert the national will of the Iraqi people and it must end immediately, yet Obama's plan is to only leave, partially, after a couple years, and this, assuredly, only after the oil law has been passed and oil ownership handed over to the multi-nationals. This, as Obama's own use of the term "redeployment" indicates, will free U.S. troops up for other oil wars.

NO TO OBAMA’S “PHASED REDEPLOYMENT”!

U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!

U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD!

Another major cause for war in the Middle East is U.S. military support to the racist regime in Israel. Obama promises to continue this practice. At AIPAC Obama promised:

“Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As president, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO.”

This despite Israel’s recent war of aggression against Lebanon, a war that, if it were not for the heroic resistance of Hezbollah fighters, would have ended in another Israeli occupation like Israel’s brutal occupation of Lebanon that took place in the 1980’s. That occupation included crimes against humanity committed by Israeli and allied Christian Phalangists when they massacred thousands of Palestinians in cold-blood at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps.

In addition, Obama’s speech made no reference to the suffering faced by the Palestinian people as a result of the creation and continuation of the Jewish state. Israel is a state that created a homeland for one people, through force and violence, by denying the homeland of Palestine’s original inhabitants. Also missing from Obama’s speech was the brutal blockade currently being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza. Obama expressed zero sympathy for the Palestinians and other Arabs, only promises to supply Israel with the weapons to kill more Arabs.

Massive U.S. military aid helps keep the repressive governments of Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in power. Instead of promising more U.S. military aid, that aid should be cut off to better allow the people of the Middle East to decide their own future.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROMISE OF BILLIONS TO ISRAEL!

Another indicator of where Obama stands on imperialist war is how he sees the past wars of the United States. Of H. W. Bush and his war on Iraq Obama recently stated, "I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm." (Barack Obama, from David Brooks article, "Obama Admires Bush, NY Times, May 16, 2008)

Leading up to that war, Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi Ramaila oil fields. Iraq saw this as theft. In addition, the Kuwaiti monarchy went against OPEC quotas and increased oil production by 40%, bringing down the price of oil on the world market, something Saddam Hussein called economic warfare.

Before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was, at that time an ally of the United States in the wars against Iran and the Kurds. He had received massive U.S. military backing in those wars. When he assembled troops on the Kuwaiti border, US ambassador April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein and told him, "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

Saddam Hussein saw this as a green light from his powerful U.S. ally to invade Kuwait. Soon after, he did.

But Saddam Hussein was set up by the United States because the U.S. wanted a war. The reason for this was to prop up the profits of the military industrial complex. The Soviet Union had just fallen, and the military industries needed an excuse to keep spending billions of dollars of our tax dollars on the military.

Saddam Hussein was the perfect boogie-man to meet their needs. The U.S. corporate media pointed out that he had murdered tens of thousands of Kurds, never mentioning why they were silent when the operations were taking place with weapons supplied by the United States.

The U.S. corporate media also claimed that premature babies in Kuwait had been taken out of incubators and left to die so that the incubators could be shipped back to Baghdad. The whole story was a complete fabrication, and the corporate media even admitted it after the war, but the lie served its purpose in swaying many people who otherwise questioned going to war for the repressive Kuwaiti monarchy.

In addition, President H.W. Bush claimed as reason for war, "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression." This was based on supposed Pentagon satellite photos. Yet, from commercial satellite photos acquired by the St. Petersburg Times, this was proven to be a lie, the desert Bush senior and the Pentagon referred to was nothing but empty desert.

While playing up false stories of baby killers and the new Hitler that was going to march across the Middle East, the U.S. corporate media ignored Kuwait’s theft of Iraqi oil as well the historic claim of Iraq to Kuwait, with Kuwait being a construct of British imperialism to divide the territory and limit Iraqi access to the sea.

In addition, the U.S. corporate media completely ignored the repressive nature of the Kuwaiti monarchy that U.S. troops were sent to fight and die for. The vast majority of those living in Kuwait were denied the right to vote and other more basic rights. This included women and people labeled foreigners, many of whom had been in Kuwait for generations. Some who had ancestors in Kuwait prior to 1920 were even denied Kuwaiti citizenship. Palestinian workers built modern Kuwait, but they were kept in second class status. This situation was so bad that many Palestinians aided the Iraqi troops and saw them as a liberation army. After the U.S. re-installed the monarchy, most Kuwaiti Palestinians were driven out of Kuwait.

For women in Kuwait the Iraqi invasion also brought hope. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Under Saddam Hussein, over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They were allowed to drive. Iraqi women could even freely criticize men. In addition, Iraqi women had the right to work and control their own funds. This was in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive monarchy of Kuwait where women had / have no rights what-so-ever.

In carrying out the war to defend the Kuwaiti monarchy the U.S. used depleted uranium (DU) weapons that have contaminated Iraqi water, soil, and food with radiation. This radiation has caused large numbers of birth defects and other diseases for the Iraqi people. In addition, U.S. soldiers were not given protection and, as a result, became ill in massive numbers with the symptoms of radiation poisoning. Like Agent Orange poisoning in Vietnam, the military brass pretended they had no clue to the cause of this illness that became dubbed “Persian Gulf War Syndrome”. Yet this was later exposed as a lie when reports were made public warning the military brass of the health risks of DU weapons before the war.

Government demographer Beth Osborn Duponte lost her job when she estimated the civilian loss of life in Iraq to be around 83,000, 13,000 directly from U.S. bombing and another 70,000 civilians dead as a result of U.S. targeting of civilian necessities such as water treatment facilities, medical facilities and supplies, and the electric power grid.

In addition, Duponte estimated deaths of Iraqi troops to be around 40,000. Many of the Iraqi troops killed were buried alive. In defense of U.S. actions Col. Lon Maggart said, "People somehow have the notion that burying guys alive is nastier than blowing them up with hand grenades or sticking them in gut with bayonets, well it's not."

So Obama has no problems with Bush targeting civilians, irradiating U.S. troops and the Iraqi people, burying people alive, and re-installing a repressive monarchy in Kuwait. In addition, Obama wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan, send troops into Pakistan, is already threatening Iran with war, will never fully pull out of Iraq and only promises to pull out most troops in two years after an extended gradual re-deployment of troops to other wars, will continue to use murderous Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq, and promises billions in military aid to Israel. Enough said.

Obama will be nominated the presidential candidate of the Democrat Party on August 24-28 at the Democrat Party National Convention (DNC). In opposition to the DNC convention, protests are being organized, with organizers stating:

"On August 24-28, the ruling elite and their defenders will converge in Denver Colorado, in an attempt to recuperate the gains of global social movements and produce another myth of progress. Lip service to global warming, the economic crisis and the war will endow them with the magic to spread amnesia across the hearts and minds of North America... Outside those doors, however, so many will exclaim, smash and sing a harmonious ‘no.’...”

In addition, there will be protests at the equally pro-war Republican National convention being held September 1-4 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Although virtually ignored by the corporate press, there are other presidential candidates who are running in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans who are for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. These include Cynthia McKinney running on the Green Party ticket, Brian Moore of the Socialist Party, and Gloria La Riva on the Party for Socialism and Liberation ticket, and Róger Calero on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. Corporate controlled elections and media assure that these authentic anti-war candidates will not get elected, but these candidacies do help expose people to positions of politicians not controlled by corporate interests and the pro-war Democrat Party machine. In addition, through some of these campaigns, more people become exposed to socialist ideas and the ideas of class struggle methods to bring about change.

A vote for Obama or McCain is a vote for war! So that's what, in active terms, you're really voting for when you vote Democrat or Republican. Those of us voting for third parties, or refusing to vote, will not change the country directly through the elections either, but at least we won’t be dumb enough to vote for own oppressors and exploiters that are waging imperialist war. Instead, we will have the sense to be working for something different.

And those of us in unions should be angry that our hard earned union dues are being squandered on the Democrat Party when that money should instead be put into stronger strike funds to strengthen our ability to fights for better contracts, for socialized medicine, and for bigger strikes against the wars.

Build the Anti-War Movement! For More Strikes for Immediate Withdrawal Like the May 1st ILWU Anti-War Strike That Shut Down 29 Ports! Support Soldiers Refusing to Fight Including the 10,000 U.S. Soldiers Who Have Gone AWOL! Build the Socialist Anti-Imperialist Movement! U.S. Hands off Iran! U.S. Out of Iraq and Afghanistan Now!

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US longshore union leader : "don't vote for Obama"

2008-07-12T19:07:39Z

US longshore union leader : "don't vote for Obama"

SHORT VIDEO OF JACK HEYMAN'S COMMENTS ON OBAMA AT PERMANENT REVOLUTION WEEKEND SCHOOL IN LONDON

Try either of the links below for the video

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=2202

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2202

Also from Jack Heyman, see:

Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/0de5539d-06be-406e-a4a8-e45eaef28b9f

******************************************

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The Fear of Insurrence Capitalists!

2008-07-11T21:12:33Z

Hey guys, can anyone explain something to me, please: Why is it NOT illegal for an insurence co. to drop a cliuent that gets sick, such as with cancer, for example? For example, back in 1993 when my dearly beloved maternal Grandmother (Grandma' Julie) died from breast cancer. However, when her insurrence co. got wind that she had cancer, they dropped her! Now, that seems absolutely criminal; after all, she paid them good money for years in case she got sick. The co. could have at LEAST given her BACK her money from all those payments so that she could have afforded her end-of-life care, rather than forcing my 8 aunts and uncles to absorb the astronomic cost.

But, what's just as bad (and heart breaking) is that--because the cos. have so much money--it simply doesn't make it worth while to go after them via the court system and sue them.

Moreover, one wonders if there's any proposed legislation TO make this practice of dropping clients hat become sick illegal; or, if so, if there is anyone trying to block it, or that would vote against such cruel behavior?

I just happened to see a fascinating comercial today on CNN for HealthCareforAmericaNOW.Org that asked (in a VERY Socialist manner): "When will insurrence companies put people's health before their profits?"

A couple months ago (if I remember correctly) there was a fascinating episode of Frontline on our local PBS station. It simply blew my mind! The US is only one of a very few countries that mandate that its citizens must pay our respective medical bills; rather, most countries on this planet differ greatly: 1.) most citizens, from most countries [eg. England and Canda, for example] simply are NOT billed for whatever medical needs they require (many have even picketed such antithetical propositions with signs that read, "No American Style Health Care!"); 2.) the government regulates how much the equipment and the prices for meds., and how much a Dr. can charge (this occurs particularly in Asiatic countries); and 3.) in many European countries, there's something in place--it escapes me right now--that allows for insurence companies to vie for clients, yet...they are NOT allowed to legally profit! Indeed, what I found most telling is how one Asiatic country wanted the BEST health-care system for their country, so they looked at the best health-care systems around the world and collected into their respective system the best that they could find to greatly benefit their own citizens. So, I have to ask: Why can't the US look to see the good systems that other countries have, and borrow ideas from them, huh? Our country seems to behave as if we are somehow "above" this. WTF?!

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Unionists Protest Uribe Venezuela Visit

2008-07-11T15:24:15Z

Uribe visit to Venezuela

STATEMENT OF CCURA UNION TENDENCY ON URIBE VISIT

July 6--The Corriente Clasista Unitaria Revolucionaria y Autonoma of the National Union of Workers (U.N.T.) rejects categorically the visit that has announced of Alvaro Uribe to Caracas, top representative of the bloody Colombian oligarchy. Venezuelan workers have shown that we are anti-imperialist fighters in fact and not just in words. We do not share the judgment issued by President Chavez when he referred to the Colombian president as a "brother" and "friend" in the opening event of the Non-Aligned Ministers Conference, We know he represents the drug traffickers and paramilitarists that kill Colombian workers and peasants. He can never be a friend or brother of our people.

The Venezuelan government has announced a meeting between Chavez and Uribe on July 11th. It will be one month since the infamous act of President Chavez, together with representatives of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie, announced "the productive reimpulse" through a strategic alliance with the exploiters. Just as the class enemies of Venezuelan workers form alliances with the government, now the maximum representative of imperialism in South America, Alvaro Uribe, will visit Caracas to give a "reimpulse" to relations with the Venezuelan government.

But the workers know who Uribe is and no government can fool us and present him as a friend or ally. Our class brothers are persecuted and murdered by the paramilitaries headed by Uribe, as Colombia has been the country where the largest number of trade unionists in the world have been murdered. This year several activists and worker fighters were murdered because they participated in a national march against the paramilitaries and state terrorism. Our brothers and friends are those who are carrying the democratic struggles against the fascist government of Uribe.

We salute the action of community radio ECOS 93.9 of Merida and other revolutionary collectives to organize a massive mobilization in repudiation of the visit of Uribe, and our organization will join this action which will class struggle, revolutionary and anti-imperialist.

(translated by Earl Gilman)

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Bill Moyer's Journal: Wage Inequality!

2008-06-17T01:30:37Z

Hey guys, I dearly hope that everyone caught last night's ep. of Bill Moyer's Journal on PBS--it was brilliant! According to the research, when adjusted for inflation, the lowest wage simply MUST be making more than $9 per hour, just to make a LIVING wage! Moreover, we are actually making LESS (when adjusted for inflatrion) that what people were paid during the 1920s! Doesn't all this make ya' sick? Personally, it makes me cringe... especially when I heard that most CEOs have in their contract that if they DIE while in office, their heirs automatically get a check worth several hundred MILLIONS of dollars!

But, it was Ronald Regan, when he crushed a Union, who destroyed job security in their place of employment; and, so, this behavior has continued ever since, because workers are deemed as "disposible". Nice, huh! (Ugh...I was being sarcastic, there.)

Hell, man genius and well-educated commentators have said that this is essentially a result of heinous GREED by one's employers! In fact, in Europe, the margine between what workers and employers make is VERY small because poverty level wages that we make in the US are simply NOT tollerated! (VIVA LA SOCIALISM! *G*) According to a late May issue of "TIME" magazine, about 68% of the poll respondants believe that wealth should be more evenly distributed amid the actual workers! Personally, these folks sound like Socialists, more or less, without even realizing it. ;o) At any rate, it seems like more and more people are turning away from capitalism, because they are not being treated fairly when compared to how much a company head makes for as little work as what he does; and this is compounded by the fact that an average worker is working 3 times harder for only 2% more money!

Ah...I wish I had known what he was going to talk about, or I would have taped it! He intereviewed the author of "Raise the Floor", Holly Sklar--go out and buy a copy!

Take Care,
Wade

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A Socialist's Heart...

2008-06-14T14:56:52Z

Ah...why this seeming class war-fare* hasn't led to a massive Socialist up-rising in the US, or a Revolution (hey, it worked for the French!), I will NEVER know! It wasn't until a few years ago that I knew that my political affiliation even HAD a name: Socialism (albeit the media does its best to demonize it! It's too bad that I can't officially register as a Socialist.

* I don't give two tears for the so-called "middle class", because every actual middle class individual I've ever met--such as a close relative's employers--have literally lost touch with reality; they literally cannot comprehend how anyone cannot afford to travel during their vacation time, despite being told that they CAN'T afford to!

Take Care,
Wade

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Iraqi Oil Workers Tell Chevron "Hands Off Iraq"

2008-05-26T22:12:36Z

Iraqi Oil Workers Tell Chevron "Hands Off Iraq"

In a letter to Chevron executives and shareholders (and to ExxonMobil, who meet the same day), Iraqi Oil Workers Unions call on Chevron to end the occupation and stop pushing for the Iraq Oil [Theft] Law. This message will be delivered by antiwar, environmenta, and labor organizers as a protest converges on Chevrons annual shareholder meeting. Their message is below. This event will be on Wednesday May 28, at 7am at Chevrons Corporate headquarters in San Ramon. For more information, see: http://bayareadirectaction.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/may-28-demand-justice-from-chevron/

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To: The Shareholders of ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporations and All Peace Loving People of the World

From: Hassan Juma’a Awad, President, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)

We call upon the governments, corporations and other institutions behind the ongoing occupation of Iraq to respond to our demands for real democracy, true sovereignty and self-determination, free of all foreign interference.

Five years of invasion, war and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery and suffering to our people. In the name of our “liberation,” more than a million of our citizens have been killed or wounded, our nation’s schools, hospitals and other infrastructure have been destroyed, our neighbourhoods have been bombed, our homes have been broken into, our children have been traumatized, many of our family members and neighbours have been assaulted and arrested, our national treasures have been looted, and nearly twenty percent of our people have been turned into refugees.

The continued occupation fuels the violence in Iraq rather than alleviating it. The occupation has helped to foment and then exploit sectarian divisions and terror attacks where there had been none.

The Ba’athist legislation of 1987, which banned trade unions in the public sector and public enterprises (80% of all workers), is still in effect and continues to be enforced against us. Our union offices have been raided. Union property has been seized and destroyed. Our bank accounts have been frozen. Our leaders have been beaten, arrested, abducted and assassinated. Our rights as workers are routinely violated. This is an attack on our rights and the basic precepts of a democratic society. It is a grim reminder of the shadow of dictatorship still stalking our country.

We call upon you and all the world’s peace-loving peoples to help us to end the nightmare of occupation and restore our sovereignty and national independence so that we can chart our own course to the future.

1) We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from our country, and utterly reject the agreement being negotiated with the USA for long-term bases and a military presence. Iraq must be returned to full sovereignty.

2) We demand the passage of a labour law promised by our Constitution, that adheres to ILO principles to protect the rights of workers to organize, bargain and strike, independent of state control and interference and on which Iraqi trade unionists have been fully consulted.

3) We demand an end to meddling in our sovereign economic affairs by the International Monetary Fund, the USA and UK, and multinational energy corporations, and recognition that no major economic decisions concerning our services and resources can be made while foreign troops occupy our country.

4) We demand that the US government, oil companies and others immediately cease lobbying for the oil law which would fracture the country and hand control over our oil to multinational companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron. We demand that all oil companies be prevented from entering into any long-term agreement concerning oil while Iraq remains occupied. The Iraqi government must tear up the current draft of the oil law, and begin to develop a legitimate oil policy based on full and genuine consultation with the Iraqi people. Only after all occupation forces are gone should a long term plan for the development of our oil resources be adopted.

We seek your support and solidarity to help us end the military and economic occupation of our country.

We look forward to the day when we have a world based on co-operation and solidarity.

We look forward to a world free from war, sectarianism, competition and exploitation.

******************
Also See:

Take the Profit Out of Global Warming and War, Nationalize the Oil Industry
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/24/18501994.php

Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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1950: 100,000 Executed by Imperialism's Korean Dictatorship

2008-05-19T17:49:54Z

[The US war of aggression in Korea murdered 5 million Koreans. Part of that murder was the cold blooded executions of over 100,000 leftists and suspected leftists by the South Korean government in 1950. Over 54,000 U.S. soldiers died in the U.S. war to defend that murderous U.S. imposed regime. The following AP article exposes what many on the left have known about for decades, but has been hidden from the general public in the United States by the government and corporate media. -Steven Argue]

AP Probes 'Cold-Blooded Slaughter' in South Korea
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003805038

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, The Associated Press

Published: May 18, 2008 4:15 PM ET

DAEJEON Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.

With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial.

The mass executions - intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners - were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were ``the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War,'' said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings.

Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.

That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is ``very conservative,'' said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press.

In addition, thousands of South Koreans who allegedly collaborated with the communist occupation were slain by southern forces later in 1950, and the invaders staged their own executions of rightists.

Through the postwar decades of South Korean right-wing dictatorships, victims' fearful families kept silent about that blood-soaked summer. American military reports of the South Korean slaughter were stamped ``secret'' and filed away in Washington. Communist accounts were dismissed as lies.

Only since the 1990s, and South Korea's democratization, has the truth begun to seep out.

In 2002, a typhoon's fury uncovered one mass grave. Another was found by a television news team that broke into a sealed mine. Further corroboration comes from a trickle of declassified U.S. military documents, including U.S. Army photographs of a mass killing outside this central South Korean city.

Now Kim's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has added government authority to the work of scattered researchers, family members and journalists trying to peel away the long-running cover-up. The commissioners have the help of a handful of remorseful old men.

``Even now, I feel guilty that I pulled the trigger,'' said Lee Joon-young, 83, one of the executioners in a secluded valley near Daejeon in early July 1950.

The retired prison guard told the AP he knew that many of those shot and buried en masse were ordinary convicts or illiterate peasants wrongly ensnared in roundups of supposed communist sympathizers. They didn't deserve to die, he said. They ``knew nothing about communism.''

The 17 investigators of the commission's subcommittee on ``mass civilian sacrifice,'' led by Kim, have been dealing with petitions from more than 7,000 South Koreans, involving some 1,200 alleged incidents - not just mass planned executions, but also 215 cases in which the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of South Korean civilians in 1950-51, usually in air attacks.

The commission last year excavated sites at four of an estimated 150 mass graves around the country, recovering remains of more than 400 people. Working deliberately, matching documents to eyewitness and survivor testimony, it has officially confirmed two large-scale executions - at a warehouse in the central South Korean county of Cheongwon, and at Ulsan on the southeast coast.

In January, then-President Roh Moo-hyun, under whose liberal leadership the commission was established, formally apologized for the more than 870 deaths confirmed at Ulsan, calling them ``illegal acts the then-state authority committed.''

The commission, with no power to compel testimony or prosecute, faces daunting tasks both in verifying events and identifying victims, and in tracing a chain of responsibility. Under Roh's conservative successor, Lee Myung-bak, whose party is seen as democratic heir to the old autocratic right wing, the commission may find less budgetary and political support.

The roots of the summer 1950 bloodbath lie in the U.S.-Soviet division of Japan's former Korea colony in 1945, which precipitated north-south turmoil and eventual war.

In the late 1940s, President Syngman Rhee's U.S.-installed rightist regime crushed leftist political activity in South Korea, including a guerrilla uprising inspired by the communists ruling the north. By 1950, southern jails were packed with up to 30,000 political prisoners.

The southern government, meanwhile, also created the National Guidance League, a ``re-education'' organization for recanting leftists and others suspected of communist leanings. Historians say officials met membership quotas by pressuring peasants into signing up with promises of rice rations or other benefits. By 1950, more than 300,000 people were on the league's rolls, organizers said.

North Korean invaders seized Seoul, the southern capital, in late June 1950 and freed thousands of prisoners, who rallied to the northern cause. Southern authorities, in full retreat with their U.S. military advisers, ordered National Guidance League members in areas they controlled to report to the police, who detained them. Soon after, commission researchers say, the organized mass executions of people regarded as potential collaborators began - ``bad security risks,'' as a police official described the detainees at the time.

The declassified record of U.S. documents shows an ambivalent American attitude toward the killings. American diplomats that summer urged restraint on southern officials - to no obvious effect - but a State Department cable that fall said overall commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur viewed the executions as a Korean ``internal matter,'' even though he controlled South Korea's military.

Ninety miles south of Seoul, here in the narrow, peaceful valley of Sannae, truckloads of prisoners were brought in from Daejeon Prison and elsewhere day after day in July 1950, as the North Koreans bore down on the city.

The American photos, taken by an Army major and kept classified for a half-century, show the macabre sequence of events.

White-clad detainees - bent, submissive, with hands bound - were thrown down prone, jammed side by side, on the edge of a long trench. South Korean military and national policemen then stepped up behind, pointed their rifles at the backs of their heads and fired. The bodies were tipped into the trench.

Trembling policemen - ``they hadn't shot anyone before'' - were sometimes off-target, leaving men wounded but alive, Lee said. He and others were ordered to check for wounded and finish them off.

Evidence indicates South Korean executioners killed between 3,000 and 7,000 here, said commissioner Kim. A half-dozen trenches, each up to 150 yards long and full of bodies, extended over an area almost a mile long, said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, chairman of a group of bereaved families campaigning for disclosure and compensation for the Daejeon killings. His father, accused but never convicted of militant leftist activity, was one victim.

Another was Yeo Tae-ku's father, whose wife and mother searched for him afterward.

``Bodies were just piled upon each other,'' said Yeo, 59, remembering his mother's description. ``Arms would come off when they turned them over.'' The desperate women never found him, and the mass graves were quickly covered over, as were others in isolated spots up and down this mountainous peninsula, to be officially ``forgotten.''

When British communist journalist Alan Winnington entered Daejeon that summer with North Korean troops and visited the site, writing of ``waxy dead hands and feet (that) stick through the soil,'' his reports in the Daily Worker were denounced as ``fabrication'' by the U.S. Embassy in London. American military accounts focused instead on North Korean reprisal killings that followed in Daejeon.

But CIA and U.S. military intelligence documents circulating even before the Winnington report, classified ``secret'' and since declassified, told of the executions by the South Koreans. Lt. Col. Bob Edwards, U.S. Embassy military attache in South Korea, wrote in conveying the Daejeon photos to Army intelligence in Washington that he believed nationwide ``thousands of political prisoners were executed within (a) few weeks'' by the South Koreans.

Another glimpse of the carnage appeared in an unofficial U.S. source, an obscure memoir self-published in 1981 by the late Donald Nichols, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, who told of witnessing ``the unforgettable massacre of approximately 1,800 at Suwon,'' 20 miles south of Seoul.

Such reports lend credibility to a captured North Korean document from Aug. 2, 1950, eventually declassified by Washington, which spoke of mass executions in 12 South Korean cities, including 1,000 killed in Suwon and 4,000 in Daejeon.

That early, incomplete North Korean report couldn't include those executed in territory still held by the southerners. Up to 10,000 were killed in the city of Busan alone, a South Korean lawmaker, Park Chan-hyun, estimated in 1960.

His investigation came during a 12-month democratic interlude between the overthrow of Rhee and a government takeover by Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee's authoritarian military, which quickly arrested many then probing for the hidden story of 1950.

Kim said his projection of at least 100,000 dead is based in part on extrapolating from a survey by non-governmental organizations in one province, Busan's South Gyeongsang, which estimated 25,000 killed there. And initial evidence suggests most of the National Guidance League's 300,000 members were killed, he said.

Commission investigators agree with the late Lt. Col. Edwards' note to Washington in 1950, that ``orders for execution undoubtedly came from the top,'' that is, President Rhee, who died in 1965.

But any documentary proof of that may have been destroyed, just as the facts of the mass killings themselves were buried. In 1953, after the war ended in stalemate, after the deaths of at least 2 million people, half or more of them civilians, a U.S. Army war crimes report attributed all summary executions here in Daejeon to the ``murderous barbarism'' of North Koreans.

Such myths survived a half-century, in part because those who knew the truth were cowed into silence.

``My mother destroyed all pictures of my father, for fear the family would get an image as leftists,'' said Koh Chung-ryol, 57, who is convinced her 29-year-old father was innocent of wrongdoing when picked up in a broad police sweep here, to die in Sannae valley.

``My mother tried hard to get rid of anything about her husband,'' she said. ``She suffered unspeakable pain.''

Even educated South Koreans remained ignorant of their country's past. As a young researcher in the late 1980s, Yonsei University's Park Myung-lim, today a leading Korean War historian, was deeply shaken as he sought out confidential accounts of those days from ordinary Koreans.

``I cried,'' he said. ``I felt, 'Oh, my goodness. Oh, Jesus. This was my country? It was true?'''

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission can recommend but not award compensation for lost and ruined lives, nor can it bring surviving perpetrators to justice. ``Our investigative power is so meager,'' commission President Ahn Byung-ook told the AP.

His immediate concern is resources. ``The current government isn't friendly toward us, and so we're concerned that the budget may be cut next year,'' he said.

South Korean conservatives complain the ``truth'' campaign will only reopen old wounds from a time when, even at the village level, leftists and rightists carried out bloody reprisals against each other.

The life of the commission - with a staff of 240 and annual budget of $19 million - is guaranteed by law until at least 2010, when it will issue a final, comprehensive report.

Later this spring and summer its teams will resume digging at mass grave sites. Thus far, it has verified 16 incidents of 1950-51 - not just large-scale detainee killings, but also such events as a South Korean battalion's cold-blooded killing of 187 men, women and children at Kochang village, supposed sympathizers with leftist guerrillas.

By exposing the truth of such episodes, ``we hope to heal the trauma and pain of the bereaved families,'' the commission says. It also wants to educate people, ``not just in Korea, but throughout the international community,'' to the reality of that long-ago conflict, to ``prevent such a tragic war from reoccurring in the future.''

CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, The Associated Press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Police Break 60 Year Old Homeless Woman's Arm

2008-05-10T18:54:22Z

[Donna Deiss is a politically active homeless woman in Santa Cruz, who was also an advocate for tenants rights before she was unfairly evicted. The homeless in Santa Cruz, as well as activists who criticize the local government, are often victims of police harrassment, false arrests, and police violence. -Steven Argue]

60 Year Old Homeless Woman Says Police Broke Her Arm
by Robert Norse
Saturday May 10th, 2008
Donna Deiss called in last night to report that yesterday around 5 PM, Officer La Moss (Badge #114) assaulted her, broke her arm, and then put her in handcuffs when he attempted to question her at Three Tree Lot near Lighthouse Field. Deiss was taken to the Watsonville hospital, had to wait hours for x-rays, whichconfirmed her arm was broken.
Deiss reported the following to me in a phone message last night and an e-mail this morning:

She was talking with friends yesterday on Westcliffe Drive near her RV. An undercover police officer, whom she later identified as Officer LaMoss, arrived in a black unmarked car and said he wanted to talk to her and others in the group. She read La Moss a statement from the ACLU about the rights of community members vis a vis the police and walked to her RV.

The cop followed her. She got in and tried to close the door. Le Moss, not saying she was under arrest or detained, reached in and grabbed her right arm, pinching the skin as he twisted it behind her back, breaking it. She screamed her arm was broken, but his response was to call for backup. 4 more police cars arrived. She continued screaming for 911 and finally paramedics showed up.

The police said they were impounding her RV, which she lives in.

She was taken to Watsonville hospital, waited hours for x-rays and painpills. She is charged with battery and an additional charge. X-rays confirm her arm was broken. She needs an attorney and community support.

This is an account from Donna Deiss (with someadditions from her friend Shane). Donna has previously been harassed by rangers as part of the 'clear out the hippies' campaign at Three Tree Lot and the other lots around Lighthouse Fields. Recently the City's Parks and Recreation Department had its 'No RVs' signs painted over by state Rangers, for apparently violating state law and policy regarding parking (i.e. RVS are allowed to park).

See related stories: 'Harassment of Homeless in RVs, a Letter from Donna Deiss' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/08/18452903.php ,

'Superintendant Hammack Stonewalls on RV Ban in Coastal Parking Lots' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/12/18447267.php , and

'Coastal Access Denied to Motorhomes and Trailers in Santa Cruz' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/30/18444952.php for related stories.

HOMELESSNESS AND POLITICAL REPRESSION, THE GREEN PARTY FAILS THE TEST IN SANTA CRUZ by Steven Argue
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2001/12/5085.shtml

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On This Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre

2008-05-06T00:47:11Z

On This Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre

By STEVEN ARGUE

Thirty eight years ago, on May 4, 2008, at Ohio’s Kent State University, the National Guard opened fire on students protesting the US war in Vietnam. The students were shot from distances of 275 to 400 feet, giving lie to claims that the students posed a threat to the Guardsmen. Four students were murdered and nine were injured. Nobody ever did time for those murders.

Before May 4, 1970, an anti-war movement had been building in the United States. The American people were increasingly impatient with the war, and an active anti-war movement helped build that kind of consciousness. People wanted an end to the war and Nixon kept promising a “light at the end of the tunnel.” On April 30, 1970, Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia. This was the opposite of what people wanted to hear. Protests erupted on campuses that had not had them in the past, like Kent State. For many, the cold blooded murder of students at Kent State and murders of students soon after at Jackson State, were the final straw.

Immediately after the Kent State shootings 8 million students went out on strike, and some Universities, such as Berkley, were taken over by students and faculty as anti-war universities. After May 1970, the majority of those drafted were already opposed to the war before they got to Vietnam. This brought an end to the war. The US government could not win the war because they were facing fierce battles from the Vietnamese and many US soldiers were actively resisting the war. Commanding officers were winding up dead as they tried to force soldiers to kill people in a foreign land for a war they did not believe in. Nixon could not win a war with drafted soldiers who refused to fight, and this was a factor that forced the U.S. government to withdraw from Vietnam.

Three million Vietnamese were murdered as a result of the US occupation of southern Vietnam and massive U.S. bombing of the north. Over 50,000 US soldiers died. It was resistance, both by the Vietnamese people, and the resistance of the anti-war movement in the United States that brought an end to the US occupation of Vietnam. Had the working class of the United States been ready to join that strike of 8 million students in May 1970, we would have potentially had a revolution in the United States, but at that time the working class was not ready.

Today, after the lessons of Vietnam, and after decades of bi-partisan union busting, outsourcing, privatization, and declining living standards for the US working class, the U.S. working class is now stepping out and taking the lead in the struggle against the criminal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. On May 1st, 2008 10,000 U.S. port workers of the ILWU went out on strike against the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, shutting down all 29 ports on the West Coast for eight hours. Within the union, Vietnam Vets were some of the strongest advocates of the strike.

Joining the strike in solidarity with the demand of immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq were the Iraqi port workers at Umm Qasr and Khor Alzubair. They joined U.S. workers in a deeply symbolic one hour strike to end the occupation.

In going out on strike, the union ranks of the ILWU defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them not to strike. They also defied the employers of the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) who declared the strike “illegal”. This is the kind of defiance the working class will need to emulate in other industries, both to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to start winning better contracts.

Today, over a million Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion. In addition, the U.S. has installed a religious death squad government where women's rights have eroded, the economy has deteriorated, the environment has been seriously devastated by the radiation of US DU weapons, millions of refugees have fled the country, people are often arrested without cause and tortured, the US bombs civilians from the sky, and basic infrastructure like water and electricity have been destroyed by the US and not rebuilt by the US occupiers.

It is also a war that has cost the U.S. thousands of lives, tens of thousands of casualties, and trillions of dollars in debt. Yet, for a few extremely wealthy Americans it has meant massive profits for military contractors and other businesses with contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, multinational companies like Exxon, BP and Shell are drooling as the U.S. government tries to force an oil law down the throats of the Iraqi people that would turn ownership of Iraqi oil over to these corporations.

Meanwhile, the pro-war Democrat Party voted for the war and keeps voting to fund it. Today, the Democrats are once again pushing for $178 billion in funding for the war. Neither Clinton nor Obama would promise to withdraw all troops from Iraq by 2013 ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07). In addition, the two of them have offered differing versions of expanding these wars into Iran and Pakistan.

Whoever wins the upcoming election, it will take increased action by the working class to end these wars. ILWU member Jack Heyman is correct in saying of the May 1st strike against the war, “There's precedent for this action. In the '50s, French dockworkers refused to load war materiel on ships headed for Indochina, and helped to bring that colonial war to an end.” The longshore workers’ May 1st strike does indeed show the way forward. More strikes, and bigger strikes, along with building a workers’ party independent of the Democrats and Republicans, can indeed end these wars.

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Iraqi Port Workers to Join US Strike

2008-05-02T22:57:33Z

BREAKING NEWS: Members of the Port Workers Union of Iraq plan to shutdown the ports of Umm Qasr and Khor Alzubair for one hour on May Day in solidarity with the shutdown of all West Coast ports by members of ILWU in opposition to the occupation of Iraq.

The second message is a May Day greeting from a broad cross-section of union leaders from many different unions and labor federations in Iraq as an expression of their appreciation for the solidarity demonstrated by organized labor, working people and all peace-loving people of the world in support of their efforts to end the foreign occupation of Iraq and the sectarian violence that occupation has spawned.

[This statement continues to be circulated in Iraq and as additional signers become known, their names will be added to the copy posted on the USLAW website.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May Day Message

From: The General Union of Port Workers in Iraq

To: The International Longshore and Warehouse Union in the United States

Dear Brothers and Sisters of ILWU in California:

The courageous decision you made to carry out a strike on May Day to protest against the war and occupation of Iraq advances our struggle against occupation to bring a better future for us and for the rest of the world as well.

We are certain that a better world will only be created by the workers and what you are doing is an example and proof of what we say. The labor movement is the only element in the society that is able to change the political equations for the benefit of mankind. We in Iraq are looking up to you and support you until the victory over the US administration's barbarism is achieved.

Over the past five years the sectarian gangs who are the product of the occupation, have been trying to transfer their conflicts into our ranks. Targeting workers, including their residential and shopping areas, indiscriminately using all sorts of explosive devices, mortar shells, and random shooting, were part of a bigger scheme that was aiming to tear up the society but they miserably failed to achieve their hellish goal. We are struggling today to defeat both the occupation and sectarian militias' agenda.

The pro-occupation government has been attempting to intervene into the workers affairs by imposing a single government-certified labor union. Furthermore it has been promoting privatization and an oil and gas law to use the occupation against the interests of the workers.

We the port workers view that our interests are inseparable from the interests of workers in Iraq and the world; therefore we are determined to continue our struggle to improve the living conditions of the workers and overpower all plots of the occupation, its economic and political projects.

Let us hold hands for the victory of our struggle.

Long live the port workers in California!

Long live May Day!

Long live International solidarity!

The General Union of Port Workers in Iraq An Affiliate Union with General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (GFWCUI)

******************************************
May Day 2008 Statement

From: The Iraqi Labour Movement

To: The Workers and All Peace Loving People of the World

On this day of international labour solidarity we call on our fellow trade unionists and all those worldwide who have stood against war and occupation to increase support for our struggle for freedom from occupation - both the military and economic.

We call upon the governments, corporations and institutions behind the ongoing occupation of Iraq to respond to our demands for real democracy, true sovereignty and self-determination free of all foreign interference.

Five years of invasion, war and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery and suffering to our people. In the name of our "liberation," the invaders have destroyed our nation's infrastructure, bombed our neighbourhoods, broken into our homes, traumatized our children, assaulted and arrested many of our family members and neighbours, permitted the looting of our national treasures, and turned nearly twenty percent of our people into refugees.

The invaders helped to foment and then exploit sectarian divisions and terror attacks where there had been none. Our union offices have been raided. Union property has been seized and destroyed. Our bank accounts have been frozen. Our leaders have been beaten, arrested, abducted and assassinated. Our rights as workers have been routinely violated.

The Ba'athist legislation of 1987, which banned trade unions in the public sector and public enterprises (80% of all workers), is still in effect, enforced by Paul Bremer's post-invasion Occupation Authority and then by all subsequent Iraqi administrations. This is an attack on our rights and basic precepts of a democratic society, and is a grim reminder of the shadow of dictatorship still stalking our country.

Despite the horrific conditions in our country, we continue to organise and protest against the occupation, against workplaces abuses, and for better treatment and safer conditions.

Despite the sectarian plots around us, we believe in unity and solidarity and a common aim of public service, equality, and freedom to organise without external intrusions and coercion.

Our legitimacy comes from our members. Our principles of organisation are based on transparent and internationally recognised International Labour Organisation standards.

We call upon our allies and all the world's peace-loving peoples to help us to end the nightmare of occupation and restore our sovereignty and national independence so that we can chart our own course to the future.

1) We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from our country, and utterly reject the agreement being negotiated with the USA for long-term bases and a military presence. The continued occupation fuels the violence in Iraq rather than alleviating it. Iraq must be returned to full sovereignty.

2) We demand the passage of a labour law promised by our Constitution, which adheres to ILO principles and on which Iraqi trade unionists have been fully consulted, to protect the rights of workers to organize, bargain and strike, independent of state control and interference.

3) We demand an end to meddling in our sovereign economic affairs by the International Monetary Fund, USA and UK. We demand withdrawal of all economic conditionalities attached to the IMF's agreements with Iraq, removal of US and UK economic "advisers" from the corridors of Iraqi government, and a recognition by those bodies that no major economic decisions concerning our services and resources can be made while foreign troops occupy the country.

4) We demand that the US government and others immediately cease lobbying for the oil law, which would fracture the country and hand control over our oil to multinational companies like Exxon, BP and Shell. We demand that all oil companies be prevented from entering into any long-term agreement concerning oil while Iraq remains occupied. We demand that the Iraqi government tear up the current draft of the oil law, and begin to develop a legitimate oil policy based on full and genuine consultation with the Iraqi people. Only after all occupation forces are gone should a long term plan for the development of our oil resources be adopted.

We seek your support and solidarity to help us end the military and economic occupation of our country. We ask for your solidarity for our right to organise and strike in defence of our interests as workers and of our public services and resources. Our public services are the legacy of generations before us and the inheritance of all future generations and must not be privatised.

We thank you for standing by us. We too stand with you in your own struggles for real democracy which we know you also struggle for, and against privatisation, exploitation and daily disempowerment in your workplaces and lives.

We commend those of you who have organised strikes and demonstrations to end the occupation in solidarity with us and we hope these actions will continue.

We look forward to the day when we have a world based on co-operation and solidarity. We look forward to a world free from war, sectarianism, competition and exploitation.

Endorsed by:

Hassan Juma'a Awad, President, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)
Faleh Abood Umara, Deputy, Central Council, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)
Falah Alwan, President, Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI)
Subhi Albadri, President, General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (GFWCUI)
Nathim Rathi, President, Iraqi Port Workers Trade Union
Samir Almuawi, President, Engineering Professionals Trade Union
Ghzi Mushatat, President, Mechanic and Print Shop Trade Union
Waleed Alamiri, President, Electricity Trade Union
Ilham Talabani, President, Banking Services Trade Union
Abdullah Ubaid, President, Railway Trade Union Ammar Ali, President, Transportation Trade Union
Abdalzahra Abdilhassan, President, Service Employees Trade Union
Sundus Sabeeh, President, Barber Shop Workers Trade Union
Kareem Lefta Sindan, President, Lumber and Construction Trade Union, General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW)
Sabah Almusawi, President, Wasit Independent Trade Union
Shakir Hameed, President, Lumber And Construction Trade Union (GFWCUI)
Awad Ahmed, President, Teachers Federation of Salahideen Alaa
Ghazi Mushatat, President, Agricultural And Food Substance Industries Adnan
Rathi Shakir, President, Water Resources Trade Union
Nahrawan Yas, President, Woman Affairs Bureau
Sabah Alyasiri, President (GFWCUI) Babil
Ali Tahi, President (GFWCUI)
Najaf Ali Abbas, President (GFWCUI) Basra
Muhi Abdalhussien, President (GFWCUI), Wasit
Ali Hashim Abdilhussien, President (GFWCUI) Kerbala
Ali Hussien, President (GFWCUI) Anbar
Mustafa Ameen, President, Arab Workers Bureau (GFWCUI)
Thameer Mzeail, Health Services, Union Committee
Khadija Saeed Abdullah, Teachers Federation, Member
Asmahan, Khudair, Woman Affairs, Textile Trade Unions Adil
Aljabiri, Oil Workers Trade Union Executive Bureau Member
Muhi Abdalhussien, Nadia Flaih, Service Employees Trade Unions
Rawneq Mohammed, Member, Media and Print Shop Trade Union
Abdlakareem Abdalsada, Vice President (GFWCUI)
Saeed Nima, Vice President (GFWCUI)
Sabri Abdalkareem, Member, (GFWCUI) Babil
Amjad Aljawhary, Representative of GFWCUI in North America

Also see:

ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/nobloodforoil/thread/f02f3fd2-9632-403e-8829-e3817def77c0

This has been distributed by Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

Come to the May Day protest in San Francisco
WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.
WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near Fisherman's Wharf).
WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.ilwu.org/ and http://www.transportworkers.org/ or call (415) 776-8100.

posted in //class war// - 2 replies

Vermont AFL-CIO endorses May 1 anti-war strike

2008-04-27T18:44:54Z

Labor's First Strike Against the War Gains Momentum

Vermont Union offers strong endorsement of West Coast longshoremen's action.

The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq.

Montpelier, VT -The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq. The strike, being organized by the Longshore Caucus of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), will seek to shutdown all west coast ports for a period of 8 hours on the day of May 1st 2008. The Vermont AFL-CIO is the first state labor federation to publicly back the Longshoremen; other state federations are expected to follow.

The resolution, among other things, calls the war in Iraq "immoral, unwanted, and unnecessary", states that the vast majority of working Vermonters oppose the war, and contends that the war will only be brought to an end by "the direct actions of working people." Many other Vermont labor unions and organizations, including the Vermont Workers' Center, have also made official statements condemning the war.

The resolution also calls on working Vermonters to "discuss the actions of the Longshoremen, to wear anti-war buttons, and to take various actions of their own design and choosing in their workplace on May 1st, 2008."

"Workers in Vermont and all across this nation are against this war. We have already demanded that the government end it, but they have consistently failed to heed our words. Therefore working people are beginning to take concrete steps to make our resistance known. If the war does not immediately end we, the unions and working people of Vermont, will also be compelled to take appropriate action," said David Van Deusen, a District Vice President of the Vermont AFL-CIO.

Traven Leyshon, President of the Washington, Lamoille & Orange County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, said, "Vermont labor has long called for an end to this war. The untold billions being spent on the war could instead be used to address our domestic needs. It is working people who pay the cost of the war - in some cases with our lives, but always with our sacrifices."

Full text of the resolution after the jump ...

Vermont AFL-CIO Resolution

In Solidarity With Longshoremen's West Coast Strike Against War

April, 2008

Whereas the war in Iraq is immoral, unwanted, and unnecessary,

Whereas this unjust war is opposed by the great majority of Americans & Vermonters, the bulk of organized labor, and by thousands of enlisted military personal,

Whereas this unjust war has already resulted in over 4000 American dead (including a disproportionate number of brave Vermonters), and tens of thousands of service men & woman being wounded,

Whereas this unjust war has further resulted in untold number of Iraqi deaths,

Whereas the Federal Government has not made any constructive moves towards the ending of this war and the full removal of US troops, and instead has taken the course of escalation and indefinite occupation,

Whereas the government of Vermont, and especially Governor Jim Douglas, have failed to find ways to bring Vermont National Guard troops home from Iraq,

Whereas this war will only be brought to an end by the direct actions of working people,

Therefore, Let It Be Resolved that the Vermont AFL-CIO continues to stand in firm opposition to this war, and unequivocally supports the decision of the Longshore Caucus of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) to shutdown the west coast ports for a period of 8 hours on May 1st, 2008, as a means of resistance.

Let It Be Resolved that the Vermont AFL-CIO stands in full solidarity with the New York Metro National Association of Letter Carriers who have resolved to conduct two minute periods of silence on May 1st, 2008, at 1PM, 5PM & 9PM in protest of the war and in support of the Longshoremen.

Let It Be Resolved that the Vermont AFL-CIO encourages all Vermont workers to stand in solidarity with the historic actions being taken by the Longshoremen & other labor unions to end this war.

Let It Be Further Resolved that the Vermont AFL-CIO calls for all Vermont workers to discuss the actions of the Longshoremen, to wear anti-war buttons, and to take various actions of their own design and choosing in their workplace on May 1st, 2008 as a means of resistance against this unjust war.

Also see:
ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/nobloodforoil/thread/f02f3fd2-9632-403e-8829-e3817def77c0

This has been distributed by Liberation News, subscribe free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

Come to the May Day protest in San Francisco
WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.
WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near Fisherman's Wharf).
WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.ilwu.org/ and http://www.transportworkers.org/ or call (415) 776-8100.

posted in //class war// - 0 replies

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

2008-04-18T20:21:40Z

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

The Democrats and Republicans are the paid agents of the oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on global warming (the single biggest threat to the future of humanity and a healthy planet).

The Cool Earth Party is being established on the principles of revolutionary democratic socialism. We call for an end to the dictatorial power of the wealthy through the nationalization of major industries and for the establishment of a planned economy run to meet human and environmental needs. This socialist society must be established within the framework of full democratic freedoms and multi-party proportional democracy. To be truly Democratic all parties running in elections will be legally guaranteed equal time in the media, big campaign spending will be outlawed, and electronic voting machines (which are presently used to rig American elections) will be eliminated.

Upon taking power the Cool Earth Party will establish a system of socialized medicine for the United States, end all U.S. military occupations of other countries, end U.S. military aid to repressive governments, and nationalize the auto and energy industries to carry out immediate emergency measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

posted in //class war// - 0 replies

EGYPT--General Strike this Sunday, April 6!

2008-04-06T02:29:19Z

Egyptian opposition groups are calling for a one-day, nationwide strike on April 6. The strike is directed against the brutally repressive Egyptian government; the strike movement responds to the rising costs of food, which is a worldwide phenomenon now, and poor wages for Egyptian workers. The opposition has called for ceasing all economic activity on Sunday, which is reportedly a workday in the Muslim world. In response, the Egyptian government has removed taxes on *some* foods, which suggests that in general, food is taxed in Egypt. The government also banned political rallies in mosques.

* * *

[From www.arabisto.com]

April 6th General Strike in Egypt Draws Together Diverse Groups Using
Newest Technologies

April 02, 2008 05:15 PM
By Courtney C. Radsch

Cairo, Egypt (for arabisto.com) - Using FaceBook, blogs, SMS,
independent media and good old fashion word-of-mouth, activists and
workers in Egypt are preparing to stage a countrywide general strike
on April 6. Calling it the "Egyptian Intifida" supporters are calling
for civil disobedience, asking everyone to stay home from work and not
buy anything; demonstrations of solidarity planned for embassies
around the world. The strike is aimed primarily at protesting the
rising cost of bread and other basic necessities and to demand
increased wages. Networks and event invitation have appeared on
FaceBook. The "General Strike in Egypt" FaceBook group has more than
54,000 members, an event another 2000 confirmed). The cyberspace
activism coupled with on-the-ground grassroots organizing promises to
test the political efficacy and continued relevance of the Egyptian
activists blogosphere and cyber-activists following a government
crackdown on Kifaya and Muslim Brotherhood over the past year that
seemed to take some of the wind out of the sails of cyber-activism.

The text of the document from [which] all this activity apparently
springs is as follows:

"All national forces in Egypt have agreed upon the 6th of April to be
a public strike. On the 6th of April, stay home, do not go out; Don't
go to work, don't go to the university, don't go to school, don't open
your shop, don't open your pharmacy, don't go to the police station,
don't go to the camp; We need salaries allowing us to live, we need to
work, we want our children to get education, we need human
transportation means, we want hospitals to get treatment, we want
medicines for our children, we need just judiciary, we want security,
we want freedom and dignity, we want apartments for youth; We don't
want prices to increase, we don't want favoritism, we don't want
police in plain clothes, we don't want torture in police stations, we
don't want corruption, we don't want bribes, we don't want detentions.
Tell your friends not to go to work and ask them to join the strike."
It was signed by and supported by the Al-Karama Party, the Al-Wasat
Party, the Labor Party, Kifaya, the Bar Association, Educational
Workers Movement, University Professors, Grain Mill Workers and of
course the Ghazl Al-Mahala workers. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo,
however, does NOT support it and has threatened to fire anyone who
misses work on Sunday.

The primary event is the workers strike in Ghazl el-Mahalla, with
several strikes planned in solidarity with the workers and organized
through the blogosphere. Hossam's 3arabawy is, as usual, a central
information node about the strike, as is Manalaa's Bit Bucket. (There
may or may not be a demonstration in Tahrir). The national press,
however, has been silent, while the independent and English language
press seems to portray it primarily as another worker's strike rather
than as something larger (though it was interesting to see the Daily
News Egypt quote a blog on the front page - clearly showing that they
have become legitimate information sources here as they have in the
U.S.) Kifaya is on board with the strike - though the movement has
been pronounced dead by many it seems to be struggling to resurrect
itself - as is, of course, the leftist/socialist bloggers, although
their activities have been focused on giving workers logistical and
media relations support rather than leading demonstrations or strikes.
This is a tactical move designed to protect the workers and their
indigenous efforts from accusations by the government that they are
being co-opted by the blogger activists and thus tainted by
association. It seems that rather the cyber-activists have found
renewed inspiration in the activism of workers and sympathetic
university students to reenergize and unify their political activism.
One group that is conspicuously absent from the milieu, however, is
the Muslim Brotherhood. ...

Read the whole story:
<http://www.arabisto.com/p_blogEntry.cfm?blogID=7&blogEntryID=1010>

posted in //class war// - 0 replies

General strike against "pension reform" brings Greece to a halt

2008-03-21T15:52:41Z

[Translated from www.jungewelt.de]

junge Welt [Berlin]
3/20/2008 International news / Page 6

General strike against "pension reform" brings Greece to a standstil

ATHENS: Millions of Greeks paralyzed public life on Wednesday with a general strike. Hospital doctors, air traffic controllers, dock workers, teachers, journalists, hotel personnel and filling station attendants, among others, took part in the protest against the planned pension reform by the conservative goovernment. It was the third general strike since December of last year. On Wednesday, the streets of the Greek capital were lined with closed stores and tall mounds of garbage. More than ten thousand people marched to the Greek parliament to express their opposition to the "pension reform" that was introduced in parliament.

The law, that was to be passed by parliament on Thursday, provides for drastic reductions in pensions, along with an increase in the age at which Greek workers can begin to collect their pensions. [That is, more work for less money.] Several unions have already fought against these provisions for weeks with lengthy strikes in opposition to the fall in the quality of life [the proposed "reform" would represent]. The striking workers of the semi-state owned electric company [DEI] who walked out at the beginning of March, have not allowed themselves to be intimidated by a court decision that prohibited going on strike in the absence of sufficient security personnel to guarantee the supply of electricity. Owing to a long strike by bank employees, the ATM's are empty. Trains have not moved since Monday, Greek lawyers are on strike as well, and the subway workers interrupted their strike only for the purpose of bringing masses of strikers to rallies. On Wednesday and Thursday TV screens showed a picture that reported the participation of TV journalists and technicians in the strike, and on Thursday, Greece had to do without some 20 daily newspapers. On Wednesday, Olympic Airlines, the biggest airline in Greece, cancelled more than 60 domestic and international flights because of the strike.

posted in //class war// - 0 replies

GERMANY--"General strike is now on the agenda"

2008-03-20T06:01:04Z

GERMANY--Strikes spread: "the general strike is now on the agenda"
By Gérard Torquet and Pierre Vandewoorde From Rouge 2243, 3/13/2008 [Edited]

Against a background of financial scandals, after the failure of wage
negotiations for civil servants and warning strikes, the general
strike is now on the agenda.

"8% raises to fill our coffers in Liechtenstein! " is the ironic slogan
that rang out on the streets of the big cities on March 5, the day of
mobilization. This day was organized by the Verdi union, in the
context of wage negotiations for the 1.3 million employees in the
national government, the states ("Länder"), and town governments.
While profits are exploding and the money scandal continues to occupy
the police and courts, only a 5% raise is proposed, spread over two
years with, as an extra provocation, a one-hour lengthening of the
work week, taking it to 40 hours. Even the most liberal [as in
"neo-liberal" ] institutes and observers of economic life recognize
that, since 2005, public servants have lost 4% of their purchasing
power. The demand for an 8% raise, with base pay of 200 Euros [$311.50 US] minimum and a raise of 120 Euros [$186.88 US] for apprentices (who currently get 600 Euros [$934.38 US]) is thus extremely popular and felt to be something owed [to the workers].

After years of concessions and compromises, Verdi really needs a
success to stop the loss of its members and the temptation to create
corporatist unions [apparently, state-controlled company unions], as
was done to the airline pilots and doctors. Employers remain
inflexible, and the union is threatening to call a strike of
indefinite duration at the end of March or the beginning of April. But
fully making use of its power like this, also risks losing control of
the situation, and the union bureaucracy is wary of a terrain that it
has ignored for such a long time. For the moment, union leaders
prefer to leave a harsh conflict, like that at the Berlin state
transportation company, isolated. Bus, streetcar and subway workers in
Berlin are on strike until March 14, while the [Berlin] Senate, with a
SPD [social democratic]- Green Party majority, refuses to let go of
anything [won't spend a penny on raises]. The example of the Deutsche
Bahn train crews (see Rouge 2236) has gained ground. Moreover, the DB
train crews went on strike again, on Monday, March 10, to impose the
agreement signed in January.

There are abundant reasons to extend [strike] action. Verdi won a
minimum wage of 9.80 Euros [$15.26 US] an hour for postal workers, but a court refused to extend this raise to all postal delivery firms, a sector completely open to [private] competition from now on. Now that the legitimacy of capitalism is weakened by the extent of the money scandals around Liechtenstein, now that the revelations are piling up
about people who preach sacrifice to those at the bottom (from the
union bigwig who was sitting on the corporate board of Volkswagen to
the former Chairman and President of the postal service), and the vote
for the Left Party expresses the search for an alternative, favorable
conditions for a broad social offensive definitely exist.

posted in //class war// - 1 reply

Mar 19--4th gen. strike against pension cuts

2008-03-16T14:35:10Z

[Translated from www.jungewelt.de]

junge Welt [Berlin], Saturday, 3/15/2008, International news, Page 6

GREECE—Growing union opposition to pension reductions

ATHENS: While the Greek government is trying to pass a law very quickly that generally raises the age for collecting a pension for workers with lower incomes, opposition by the trade unions is increasing. In Athens the subway did not run all day Thursday; lawyers and engineers were also on strike. Thursday evening, thousands of members of the Communist Party-oriented trade union front PAME demonstrated in over 60 Greek cities. Meanwhile, the staff of the partially state-owned DEI electric company, bank employees and local government workers are continuing their strike that was already underway at the beginning of March. In addition, the Greek lawyers' associations have decided to extend their strike that began on Thursday, for weeks to come. The trade union federations have called another general strike for next Wednesday, which will be the fourth one against the pension reform.

posted in //class war// - 0 replies

Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

2008-03-06T14:11:22Z

**************************************************

Greetings to all my relations.

This is the last step of our project History Watch. If History is
defined and known by the texts, we can now add to this definition the
recorded events of the filmed archives. Animated images are harder to
deny than printed words. Our objective is to spread out freely some of
the little broadcast, even hidden informations about our collective
History.

We put online a collection of 391 documentaries and other selected and
recut videos, to offer to a wide public the best of the infos
available on the net in english and in french. If you are interested,
you have the time, the right equipment and connection, all you have to
do is open the joint document and decompress it if needed (but normaly
your system should do it automaticaly). You'll find therein nine links
that will open the torrents for the nine DVDs we compiled (around 4.6
Gig each, for a total of a little over 41 G, being over 100 hours of
videos).

Otherwise, you can go directly to btjunkie.com and search for these titles.

11 Septembre 2001 - 9-11
Bush family & friends
Capitalist & Communist regimes
Capitalist conspiracy
Mind Kontrol - Secret Programs
New World Order - Secret Societies
Secret services - cover up - covert ops
Secret weapons - UFO
Terrorism Theories propaganda

Torrents are a system of peer to peer data transfer. The more people
download a torrent, the faster it spreads and the longer it stays on
the net. If you don't have a bittorrent software, we suggest that you
download uTorrent on utorrent.com. If you want to participate in
facilitating the diffusion of these infos about our collective
History, download these torrents on as many computers as possible,
whether it is in cybercafes. It takes one or two minutes to open up
the links and the downloading will keep proceeding on its own.

Please spread this out, take part in this action for social education
on a planetary scale. Thanks.

For more info: watch.history@gmail.com History Watch

posted in //class war// - 0 replies