Pas un sou, pas une arme pour les fauteurs de guerre ! | PT

Macron has said it and repeated it many times: he wants to shift the country into a war economy. How? By diverting the budgets of public services towards the war budget. First 10 billion euros in 2024… and it will be twice as bad next year, i.e. 20 billion euros more! In the viewfinder of the government, “systems in favor of youth, employment policies, vocational training and apprenticeship, medical devices, long-term illnesses” (Les Échos, March 7). To implement For this policy, the government seeks to secure the broadest support, including that of “left” parties. It is clear that he obtained it. Already in November 2022, none of the group leaders in the National Assembly had voted against the resolution in favor of the delivery of weapons to Zelensky. On February 27, 2024, the head of the LFI list in the European election, Manon Aubry, as well as all French “left” deputies, voted in the European Parliament for 50 billion additional war credits, after several other votes to this effect. . In total, 200 billion euros were granted by European institutions and member states to Zelensky. On March 12, 2024, during the debate organized in the National Assembly on the France-Ukraine agreement, the Macronists , the right, the PS, the Greens voted for the Macron-Zelenski agreement (an additional 3 billion in “support for Ukraine”). The RN abstained, disagreeing with certain clauses. France Insoumise and the Communist Party, hostile to sending troops to Ukraine, voted against. But all claimed to be in the same camp of “support for Ukraine”. In the current conflict, should the workers side with one side or the other? The only side the workers can side with is that of the Russian women who are demanding the return of their brothers and husbands from the front where they are sent by force, that of young Ukrainians increasingly opposed to the ongoing butchery. No one can claim to oppose the war by voting for war credits. Not a penny, not a weapon for the warmongers! Neither Putin nor Zelensky, independence of the workers’ movement! The hundreds of billions of war for schools, hospitals and the needs of the population!

Source: Pas un sou, pas une arme pour les fauteurs de guerre ! | PT

NATIONAL LCIP CONFERENCE 2023 – May 13, 2023

URGENT APPEAL Mumia’s covid-19 Infection Has Been Confirmed by Prison Doctors After Initial Denial

• Free Mumia Immediately!
• Free All Political Prisoners!
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
We need your urgent support.
Mumia Abu-Jamal must be hospitalized. He has tested positive for covid-19 and is being warehoused in a completely inadequate prison infirmary. Given his age, 67, his liver disease, and his blood-pressure challenges, Mumia’s life is seriously in danger. His condition is even more alarming, as he has been diagnosed recently as suffering from congestive heart failure. He needs to be released from prison and sent to a hospital for proper medical attention.

But that is not all. Mumia needs to be released from prison altogether, based on his documented innocence and his medical condition, which in itself should be sufficient to warrant his release.
There is growing clamor at home and abroad demanding Mumia’s release. On February 27, activists at an emergency action at Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office called for Mumia’s immediate release and treatment at an appropriate hospital. On March 3, Mumia was able to speak by phone to his supporters as they rallied once again
outside Krasner’s office. Mumia expressed his gratitude for the worldwide support for him and for all other elders with life-threatening conditions who remain in prison.
We urge you to contact Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, Secretary of Pennsylvania Prisons John Wetzel, and Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner with these three demands:
• Transfer Mumia to a hospital for proper medical care!
• Free Mumia immediately!
• Free all elders, vulnerable inmates, and political prisoners!
…/…
Here is the contact information:
PA DA Larry Krasner: 267-456-1000 (justice@phila.gov)
PA DOC Secretary John Wetzel: 717-728-2573 (jowetzel@state.pa.us)
PA Governor Tom Wolf: 717-787-2500 (Brunelle.michael@gmail.com)
Below is a sample letter to be sent to the email addresses above; if you are able to write a longer message incorporating these demands that would be even better:
Script:
My name is …………………….. and I demand:
• Transfer Mumia to a hospital for proper medical care!
• Free Mumia immediately!
• Free all elders, vulnerable inmates, and political prisoners!
[Please send copies of your email messages — with your name, organization and country
— to owcmumbai2016@gmail.com and SuzanneWRoss@aol.com]

---

Also, please write Mumia a personal note:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, FL 33733
We need to take action now!
“We could not save Malcolm X but we can save Mumia!”
— Assata Shakur (A Message to Mumia and to Us!)
In solidarity,
The Editorial Board of
The Organizer Newspaper
(www.socialistorganizer.org)

Call for a Working Women’s International Conference

Call initiated by Rubina Jamil, General Secretary of the All-Pakistan Trade Union Federation, and Christel Keyser, National Secretary of the Democratic Independent Workers’ Party of France.

“Our Proposal is to hold an International Conference of Working Women”
All around the world, women are mobilising more and more in the fight for true equal rights between women and men.
Subjected to double oppression and double exploitation in every domain, as working women but also as mothers and as women, women are standing up against all forms of oppression, discrimination and violence, and against patriarchal domination.
We, engaged as we are in those struggles and mobilisations in our respective countries, know that the particular demands of women are part of the more general struggle of the working class for its emancipation.

However, and this is not contradictory, women have specific demands: equal pay, professional equality, legal equality, the setting up of structures for childcare, the right of women to self-determination, the right to choose regarding reproductive rights, and an end to the harassment and acts of violence they are subjected to as women.
This is why we propose that an international meeting be held before the workers’ conference called by the IWC*, involving working women engaged in the struggle to defend their existing rights, to win new rights and to win back the rights that have been lost.
In 1910, the Second International Conference of Socialist Women, held in Copenhagen, decided to organise the first annual International Women’s Day on 19 March 1911, to commemorate the Revolutions of 1848 and the Paris Commune. And on 8 March 1917, Russian women marked International Women’s Day by demonstrating in St. Petersburg to demand bread, peace and freedom. From 1920 onwards, International Women’s Day has been celebrated on 8 March.
We propose that on the occasion of the initiatives taken in each country to celebrate on 8 March 2021 (public meetings, demonstrations, rallies, etc.), the proposal to hold an international meeting of working women be put to the participants and discussed, and that delegations of working women begin to be formed and mandated to attend it.
Rubina Jamil, General Secretary of the All-Pakistan Trade Union Federation (APTUF), Pakistan
Christel Keiser, National Secretary of the Democratic Independent Workers Party (POID), France

• The International Workers Committee Against War and Exploitation, for the Workers’ International (IWC), was formed at the end of November 2016 in Mumbai, India, at an international conference bringing together 350 delegates, workers, trade union and political activists from some 40 countries. Website: coi-iwc.org

If sisters and comrades agree with this call, you are invited to download the conference call from here and respond. In addition to the initiators, labour union and working women from 30 countries around the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, have signed on.

working_women_appealDownload

On the 2020 election in the Excited States

Today I woke up to two news items.

More important personally, my baby brother Gord has a new heart this morning.

More important politically, Trump has probably lost the election unless he wins one of his dubious court challenges or his ragtag little bands of wannabee Fascisti actually get organised to start something. The right of the American working people to have their votes counted matters more than ever in this pandemic, no matter whom they vote for.

Trump’s defeat is less reason for celebration than my brother’s successful surgery, however.

One wing of what Gore Vidal used to call the Banksparty is going to replace the other wing in the White House. The largest turnout in recent US history has seen to that, despite the convolutions of the election system, based on the Electoral College established in the eighteenth-century Constitutional compromise between the Southern slaveocracy and the Northern mercantile incipient bourgeoisie.

This has sparked divisions within each of the imperialist party organisations. The Republican party is dividing between the Trumpist diehards who want the votes to be recounted until they get the result they want and the old-line conservatives who want to be able to influence the incoming Biden administration. Meanwhile, out of the public eye if one is not paying attention, the blue-dog Democrats are upset that they lost a few seats in Congress while the Squad and their “progressive” allies increased their numbers. See this article in the Intercept.

Make no mistake about it, the lesser of two evils is still evil. The Democratic Party of the United States is in no way a party of the working class, despite the collaboration of a majority of the top bureaucrats of the union federations; that party has proved it over the decades since 1948 by its refusal to even consider repeal of the invidious Taft-Hartley Act labor law, by its support and encouragement of imperialist adventures abroad from Korea to Venezuela, by its extreme reluctance (especially when led by the sainted Kennedy brothers) to act in the interests of the racialized portions of the population. Robert Kennedy as Attorney General went so far as to have his and Hoover’s FBI surveilling ML King. In the decades since, the Democratic Party when in power has continued to act in the interests of the big banks and corporations, e.g. refusing to consider a thoroughgoing replacement of the US healthcare “system” with a single-payer, government administered system like Canada’s, Britain’s, and the European countries.

They happily stab the workers and peoples of the world in the back while their Republican colleagues stab us in the front.

The struggle is not over, it simply moves to a new front. Build a workers’ party! Join Labor and Community for an Independent Party!

Fcebook is reportedly killing the Notes …

… and they can sit on it and spin. I will continue to post long posts from here, and from my other WordPress site.

Screw you, Zuck.

A Tribute to Tom Bias (1950-2019), Leader of the Labor Fightback Network

From The Organizer newspaper, December 2019

The labor, socialist, independent politics and labor music movements lost a leader on
October 17, 2019, when Tom Bias succumbed to a long struggle with cancer. Up until a few weeks before his death, Tom continued his activism, even when he knew he had very little time left and had declined further treatment. Many of us working in these
movements have lost a close friend and comrade. His wife Linda Bryk, daughter Fiona
Kyle, and other family members lost a loved one, and, to them, Socialist Organizer (SO)
sends our deepest sympathy.
We in SO knew Tom mostly through our work in the LFN, which Tom took over chairing after the group’s founder Jerry Gordon died in 2016. Some of our members also remember Tom from the 1970s, when he belonged to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
Tom’s activism started in college with the movement against the Vietnam War, where he first met and joined the SWP’s youth group the Young Socialist Alliance. Tom left the SWP in 1979, and was, for a while, a member the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, one of the groups that split off from the SWP in the early 1980s following the degeneration of the SWP. Though Tom declined to join any other socialist groups for the rest of his life, he maintained close relations with many of his comrades from those years and remained staunchly anti-capitalist.
In young adulthood, Tom spent some time in Iran, where he learned to speak Farsi and
became knowledgeable about the politics and culture of Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. He kept on being an antiwar activist, primarily in New Jersey, where he worked with New Jersey Peace Action. His knowledge of the Middle East served well
the movements against U.S. wars in the region.
A stalwart supporter of organized labor, Tom became a printer and an active member
of the International Typographical Union. He worked in this trade for much of his adult
life. In the 1990s, Tom participated in the effort to create a Labor Party and when that effort stagnated, he, along with Jerry Gordon and some of the other leaders of what be-
came the LFN, continued to organize for labor to break with the Democratic Party.
After layoffs in his 50s and subsequent struggles with medical bills and foreclosure
— a painfully direct experience of the trials of U.S. working class life in 2000s — Tom
became a paralegal to labor attorney Bennet Zurofsky.
Inspired by Woody Guthrie from his native Oklahoma, Tom shared with Zurofsky a love of labor music. Tom was a talented songwriter, singer, and guitarist, writing songs addressing workers’ rights, poverty, peace, and environmental justice. He served, as Zurofsky does now, as the director of the New Jersey-based Solidarity Singers, which
participates regularly in the Great Labor Arts Exchange and performs at picket lines and
demonstrations in New Jersey, New York, and other Eastern states. As says his close
friend, fellow musician, and LFN leader Jerry Levinsky, “His songs will leave a legacy of hope for the future of the working class.”
While Tom has left us, his legacy will live on among all who work and sing for workers’ liberation. — The Editors

ALGERIA UPDATE: Solidarity in U.S. / Millions in the Streets / Mass Strikes

via ALGERIA UPDATE: Solidarity in U.S. / Millions in the Streets / Mass Strikes

Hundreds of Thousands Take to the Streets Across Puerto Rico to Demand Justice!

Interview with Eduardo Rosario, president of the New York City chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA, AFL-CIO)

The Organizer: NYC LCLAA has convened a press conference to call for the immediate resignation of Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló. Why this call and what is happening on the ground in Puerto Rico?

Eduardo Rosario: We are holding the press conference later today [July 19] to stand in solidarity with the Puerto Rican labor movement that will be marching in San Juan and across Puerto Rico to demand Rosselló’s resignation.

The Puerto Rican people have said, “Enough Is Enough!” — “Ya No Aguantamos Mas!” They are tired of a governor — and government — that do nothing but carry water for the U.S. State Department, continuing the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States.

Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have been protesting and marching against Rosselló’s corrupt administration over the past week. On Wednesday, an estimated 500,000 people took to the streets in the largest demonstration ever held in Puerto Rico. The anger is so deep that — as we just learned today — the Puerto Rican Police Association, the union representing more than half the police force on the island, has joined the call for Rosselló to resign.

The Organizer: What sparked this week of mass mobilizations?

Eduardo Rosario: The straw that broke the camel’s back was the disclosure by the Center for Investigative Journalism of 889 pages of a chat on Telegram between Rosselló and his top advisers that revealed his misogynistic, homophobic, sexist, demeaning and disrespectful attitude toward the people of Puerto Rico, even those killed during and after Hurricane María.

But that is not all. Past and present high-level officials of Rosselló’s administration have been arrested for their participation in money-laundering schemes involving vulture hedge-fund investors. The corruption is widespread. Millions of dollars have been stolen under Rossellós watch from the public coffers, including $18 million destined to the relief fund for Hurrican María. Rosselló, as the chats reveal, knew what was going on and may have been involved.

Meanwhile the unelected Fiscal Control Board that runs Puerto Rico’s economy — in the name of administering the repayment of a debt that was never incurred by the Puerto Rican people and did not benefit them — has sliced workers’ pensions; imposed austerity; and shut down 230 public schools, while advancing a brutal school privatization agenda, among other anti-worker policies.

The Fiscal Control Board itself is a den of corruption. The Board has not released all the funds that reached the island, while approximately 30,000 houses still have blue tarps as roofs.

The Puerto Rican people are saying, “Ya Basta!” — “Enough!” They are undaunted. They are marching without trepidation. They want justice now! They will not stop until Rosselló steps down!’

The Organizer: What can labor-rights activists and supporters of Puerto Rican self-determination do in support of this struggle?

Eduardo Rosario: More than 100 Puerto Rican medical students in Guadalajara, Mexico, have organized large marches on their campus in solidarity with the Puerto Rican people fighting for justice. Similar actions no doubt are taking place in cities elsewhere. The Puerto Rican people need international labor solidarity; they need to know that they are not alone, “que no están sólos.”

Solidarity messages with this struggle can be sent to New York City LCLAA to <nyctaino@gmail.com>. All messages will be forwarded to the labor movement in Puerto Rico.

— Interview conducted by Alan Benjamin on Friday morning, July 19, 2019

After Bouteflika’s Resignation: “Down with the Regime! Let the People Speak! Sovereign Constituent Assembly! Let’s Get Organized!”

The emancipation of the working class will be the task of the workers themselves. 

MINBAR EL OUMMEL (Workers Tribune)

For democracy and socialism

—————————————————-

Publication of the Organizing Committee of the Internationalist Socialists of Algeria (COSI)

Wednesday, April 3, 2019 — Issue Number 7

—————————————————————————

Declaration of the Organising Committee of the Internationalist Socialists – COSI

 

After Bouteflika’s Resignation: 

“Down with the Regime! Let the People Speak! Sovereign Constituent Assembly! Let’s Get Organized!”

Abdelaziz Bouteflika is no longer president of the Republic as of Tuesday, April 2, 2019. This is the first victory of the entire people since they erupted onto the streets of the country’s cities and municipalities on February 22 to oppose “a fifth term” of the incumbent president.

It’s a first victory only because all the demands of the masses expressed over the past six weeks have not been met with the final exit of the outgoing president: The people have demanded, and continue to demand, “Down with the System – Let the People Speak!”

But it is still victory for the people that was wrested with the mass marches, demonstrations, rallies, strikes, and the struggle for the independence of trade union organizations, especially the historic trade union confederation of workers: the UGTA. The people, especially the workers, have shown “that everything is possible!” This initial victory will undoubtedly strengthen the people’s resolve to continue their mobilizations in support of their own aspirations, including their right to decide for themselves.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika left the presidency of the Republic, forced out by this mass movement — but he did so while opening the way to an “exit” from the crisis that preserves the regime and ensures its continuity. Bouteflika leaves, but the system remains: the National Assembly, the National Council, the Constitutional Council, the recently installed government … all remain in place. The men and women who were in his political orbit do too. It is one of them — Abdelkader Bensalah, president of the National Council — who now will be in charge of the interim presidency for 90 days, as provided for in the current Constitution, which itself has been targeted by the protesting people as illegitimate.

Bouteflika’s departure, requested more recently by Army Chief of Staff Gaid Salah and by former Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, does not reunite the various factions of the regime nor does it resolve the regime’s crisis, which continues to deepen.

Gaid Salah, head of the Army, who claims to be an ally of the people in protest after having been the main supporter of the outgoing president, is pursuing his own objectives: to ensure the continuity of the regime by putting the military hierarchy back at the center and setting up his own oligarchs in the place of those who prospered under the shadow of the Bouteflika presidency.

All the crisis exit plans, whether they come from the various factions and clans of the regime or from the so-called opposition, turn their backs on the deep aspiration of millions of demonstrators, namely that Algeria be built by the sovereign people for the sovereign people.

What the people want and continue to want is not that the characters at the head of the institutions give way to other characters, what the people want is other institutions. “Down with the System! Down with the Regime!” are the cries calling to make way for another regime, another system.

The Organizing Committee of Internationalist Socialists (COSI in its French acronym) shares, with many of our fellow citizens, young people, women and workers, the conviction that it is up to the people to decide their future; it is up to the people to establish themselves as constituent people through their Sovereign Constituent Assembly.

There is one way to do this, one that has been charted for more than a month: organizing the mobilization by workers and young people themselves, with their unions uprooted from State control, with their independent unions, their autonomous unions, their UGTA sections that have regained their sovereignty, with their committees, etc. This movement cannot stop until full democracy is established. It is up to the Sovereign Constituent Assembly, representing all the people, to carry out this task.

For our part, we believe that such a Sovereign Constituent Assembly would allow the representatives of the people not only to decide on the form of the new institutions, but also on their content, because the people want to be able to decide:

– that young people are entitled to a real diploma, a real job, a real salary,

– that all the nation’s wealth, especially hydrocarbons, be returned to the working people,

– that all privatizations be cancelled,

– that all public services be restored.

It is through this means that the way will be paved for this new Algeria for which we have all been working since February 22nd.