Saturday, June 27, 2015

From The United For Peace And Justice Archives


FILM: Broken on All Sides

When: Thursday, June 4, 2015, 6:45 pm to 9:00 pmWhere: Central Square Library - Cambridge • 45 Pearl St.
 First Thursday Documentary Film

BROKEN ON ALL SIDES:
Race, Mass incarceration
&
New visions for Criminal Justice in the US

This compelling documentary shows how the war on drugs  and racial inequities within our criminal justice system  have led to mass incarceration of people of color.  The documentary centers around the theory put forward by Michelle Alexander (who appears in the movie)that mass incarceration has become The New Jim Crow. This documentary aims to answer questions and provoke questions on an issue walled off from the public’s scrutiny.
There will be discussion after the screening.

Parking nearby Municipal garage on Green Street
Sponsored by Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
More info: 617 244-8054
Light refreshments will be served.

Defend The Farm Workers

CIW list header

“We want these changes to exist not only for Florida farmworkers, but for all farmworkers…”

Education_2015Summer_1

Fair Food Program Education team hits the road, leads the way as the FFP begins its expansion north out of Florida!
This week, the Fair Food Program passed a truly extraordinary milestone, and it was marked, quite literally, with a road sign that read, “Welcome to Georgia!”
The photo at the top of this post, taken in the early hours of the morning in a field near Bainbridge, Georgia, depicts the CIW education team conducting one of the Fair Food Program’s trademark worker-to-worker education sessions.  These trainings are the very heart of the Program, designed to equip workers with a thorough understanding of their rights under the Fair Food Code of Conduct — the right to work free of sexual harassment and slavery, the right to report abuses or problems on the farm without fear of retaliation, the right to shade, drinking water, and clean bathrooms in the fields, to name just a few.  Armed with this knowledge, workers themselves become the frontline defenders of their own rights, an army of thousands of monitors keeping a close watch over compliance with the Program’s code of conduct and signaling possible violations through reports to the Program’s 24-hr complaint line.  On this foundation of informed worker participation, the Fair Food Program has been able to transform the Florida tomato industry into what one policy expert in the New York Times called “the best working environment in American agriculture.” 

From The Socialist Alternative Archives


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Capitalist Environmental Destruction

How can we build a socialist alternative to climate change?
 

Wednesday, June 17th
7 PM
Ohrenberger Community Center
West Roxbury
Oil spills, fracking, super storms — more and more the product of the for profit system is pushing the environment towards a destructive tipping point that is threatening the very existence of life on Earth.
At the same time, the very corporations causing this destruction are making record profits and the politicians are putting forward half measures that will do little to save the planet. What is really needed?

Come join Socialist Alternative to talk about how a socialist transformation of society could fundamentally overturn both the exploitation of people and the planet.
Speakers will include Seamus Whelan (Socialist Alternative member and activist with the Stop the West Roxbury Lateral pipeline campaign).

CONTACT:

boston@socialistalternative.org

(910) 639-3948

www.SocialistAlternative.org
www.socialistworld.net

 

 
www.socialistalternative.org
www.socialistworld.net

Free Chelsea Mannning! Defend The Military Resisters!

REFUSING TO KILL
CAMPAIGNING WITH & FOR MILITARY REFUSERS, WHISTLEBLOWERS & PRISONERS
TO BUILD A MOVEMENT TO INVEST IN CARING, NOT KILLING 
JUNE / JULY 2015        Follow links on WWW.REFUSINGTOKILL.NET
With Stand Up for Truth, organizing to support whistleblowers goes global. During the 1-7 June Week of Action, whistleblowers speak in webminars and meetings in London, Oslo, Stockholm, Berlin, Reykjavik, Los Angeles, Minnesota…
Compassion in Care and supporters demonstrated at the opening of the UK Parliament (27 May) to press for "Edna's law" which would protect whistleblowers and make it a criminal offence to fail to act on whistleblowers' evidence and disclosures.  Sign the petition and send your own "support photo" – you holding a sign saying I am Edna.
Whistleblower seaman William McNeilly was arrested on 18 May after disclosing a dossier to Wikileaks about the safety of the UK Trident nuclear submarine. His disclosure triggered a debate in Parliament. Please sign Scottish CND’s Petition to protect him. The £100 billion plan to renew Trident has been opposed by the Scottish National Party, the Green Party, Plaid Cymru and many protestors.  Protect William McNeilly!
Positive development for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, still at the Ecuadorean embassy: the Swedish public prosecutor Marianne Ny agreed to come to London to question him over rape allegations.  Listen to his recent interview where he speaks about McNeilly. Join the vigil at the embassy: Tue, Wed, Thu 4-6pm, Sat 4.30 – 6.30pm and on 19 June 5pm to mark his 3rd year inside
International whistleblower Chelsea Manning will be honoured as Queer Hero at London Pride after being proposed by Queer Strike. Join the whistleblowers contingent at Pride on 27 June. There was similar honour for Chelsea last year in San Francisco – the largest Pride demo in the world!, Jailed for 35 years, Chelsea, recently published an article in the Guardian on her 5 years detention experience. Write to Chelsea to support her as she supports us!
Anders Kompass, field operations director for the High Commissioner for Human Rights leaked to French prosecutors in 2014an internal UN report on the sexual abuse of children by French troops in the Central African Republic. His employer suspended him, but an appeals tribunal just ordered the suspension of the whistleblower to be lifted.
 

 
CLOSE DETENTION CENTRES FOR IMMIGRANTS
15- 21 June is an International Week of actions to close detention centres for immigrants and asylum seekers.  The times they are a-changing!  In the UK, a cross-parties parliamentary report proposes to limit indefinite detention to 28 days. In the US a Bill calls for reform while the New York Times calls for an end to detention. The All African Women's Group is calling a protest to end the practice of detention: Parliament Square in London on 15 June, 12 - 2pm.
Wikileaks has recently disclosed European Union documents exposing military plans to destroy ships in Libya which are used to transport migrants, thereby preventing them from reaching Europe. The plans foresee a year-long campaign which could include putting troops on the groundaka war. Scheduled for late June, the plans were formally approved by 28 countries on 18 May.
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Kevan Thakrar was convicted in 2007 of murders under the “Joint Enterprise” law despite no forensics, hearsay evidence and inconsistent eyewitness testimony. He has been in solitary ever since. On 22 May, a hearing for allegedly throwing excrement at a guard in self defence was postponed because the prison guards refused to release him for the hearing and the prosecution refused to turn over documents to the defence.  
Mumia Abu-Jamal was hospitalised on 30 March in a diabetic coma. An international protest denouncing this "execution by medical neglect" forced the prison authorities to provide some care and to stop keeping Mumia out of contact with family, colleagues and his own medical people. But the campaign to bring Mumia home continues.  Keep on the pressure on the authorities!
On 3 May the Israeli group Breaking the Silence issued a report of soldiers’ testimonies about the intentional savagery, criminality and murder committed by the Israeli military during its attack on Gaza in Summer 2014. Meanwhile conscientious objector Efi Drishner started a third term in prison on 26 May. Please write to him and to the authorities!