ILWU Local 21 Victory in Sight

Longview Port Workers Set Example for All Labor

Until Jan. 23, few people in the labor and social justice movements expected anything less than a major class confrontation at the state-of-the-art $200 million grain facility at Longview, Wash. The scab complex is operated by the multi-billion-dollar Export Grain Terminal (EGT) and owned by three giant international agribusiness holding companies—Bunge Ltd., Itoche, and STX Pan Ocean. The EGT is 30 miles east of the mouth of the Columbia River, as it flows into the Pacific Ocean.

Act Now to Get Mumia Out of Solitary Confinement!

Mumia Abu-Jamal is being held in Administrative Custody (“The Hole” or Solitary Confinement) at SCI Mahanoy, Frackville, PA.  Mumia’s death sentence has been dropped, and though he is supposed to be in General Population, he has been held in Solitary Confinement – shackled whenever he’s out side his cell (even to the shower), glaring lights 24/7, no regular phone calls, restrictive visits, inadequate commissary, no access to his materials and denied his typewriter.

A World Without Wall Street

The title of this note is from today's "It's the Economy" feature by Adam Davidson in the print version of the Sunday Times magazine.

In the online version that title is replaced with the less provocative "What Does Wall Street Do For You?" --a title which is actually more accurate, as Davidson's main contention is that we CAN'T do without Wall Street because of what it does for us.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/magazine/what-does-wall-street-do-for-you.html?_r=1&ref=magazine)

Davidson ends his column by admitting that there is no way regulation can rein in Wall Street's crimes and excesses, yet he still believes its virtues outweigh its vices.

Occupy, longshore workers challenge anti-union bosses

Time Magazine designated its “Person of the Year 2011” as “The Protestor.” To make clear that its reference was to what the editors considered the most important development of the year, Time added to its cover-page headline: “From the Arab Spring to Athens, from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow.” Its feature story began, “No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square, it would have ignited protests that would topple dictators and start a global wave of dissent. In 2011 protestors didn’t just voice their complaints, they changed the world.”

After ‘withdrawal’ from Iraq, U.S. seeks new battlegrounds

On Jan. 5, President Obama made a major speech about a coming shift in U.S. military strategy, a strategy that has been described as more “lean” and more “mean.” The fact that the speech coincided with the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq led mainstream commentators to characterize the change primarily as a move from employing large occupation forces in “nation-building” missions to the employment of drone warfare and special operations of the type that killed Osama Bin Laden.  

Defend the Egyptian Revolution!

The military junta ruling Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), carried out its second wave of murders in as many months, killing at least 14 between Dec. 16 and Dec. 19, when it attacked protesters engaged in a sit-in outside the Cabinet building. As had happened the month before, the murders sparked off a return of mass protests in Tahrir Square and other cities.

Obama signs bill allowing indefinite detention of U.S. policy opponents

The kind of repression that can be expected to increase exponentially as a result of the new indefinite-detention rider to the National Defense Authorization Act was illustrated just a week before Obama signed it on New Year’s Eve. On Dec. 20, a Boston jury convicted the pharmacist Dr. Tarek Mehanna of material support to terrorism based on the fact that he translated and disseminated a document titled “39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad,” a document that prosecutors failed to recognize as composed in great measure of lines from the Koran.  

U.S. Justice Dept. charges Arizona sheriff with discrimination against immigrants

On Dec. 15, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration Customs and Enforcement announced they would be canceling Maricopa County’s 287(g) agreement and restricting the Arizona county’s access to the Secure Communities program. This decision was based on findings by the U.S. Department of Justice that the sheriff’s office had been engaging in unconstitutional discrimination and racial profiling against immigrants (particularly Latinos). In a separate decision on Dec. 23, U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow enjoined Sheriff Joe Arapio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office from “detaining any person based only on knowledge or reasonable belief, without more, that the person is unlawfully present within the United States,” effectively halting their enforcement of federal immigration law.

The Passing of Kim Jong Il

The death of Kim Jong Il, on Dec. 17, caught the attention and imagination of the capitalist media hucksters. His death, which wasn’t reported for two whole days, was in many ways symbolic of his life. It was a life that, through the lens of the Western media, was obscured by secrecy and unflattering portrayals. This distorting lens is designed to sell American workers on U.S. intervention in Korea.  

Following Teamster election victory, Hoffa seeks limits on members’ rights

Coming fresh off his reelection victory, Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa Jr. is seeking to take away the right of rank-and-file members to elect their international officers.

Reviving the Strike — How to win labor’s battles

Book Review: “Reviving the Strike: How Working People Can Regain Power and Transform America,” by Joe Burns, IG Publishing, $15.95.

The holiday season may have come and gone, but it’s never too late (or too early) to find the perfect gift for that aspiring rabble-rouser in your life. Before you wrap up Joe Burn’s “Reviving the Strike” in back issues of SA, though, you’ll want to spend a few hours reading and digesting it yourself.

A visit with Mumia Abu-Jamal

by Johanna Fernandez is a professor at Baruch College, a member of Educators for Mumia, and producer of the film, “Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.”

Dear Friends:

I visited Mumia yesterday, Dec. 15, in the new prison that houses him, SCI Mahanoy. Even though he has been released from death row, he remains in Administrative Custody while he awaits transfer to general population. Because he is still in Administrative Custody and not yet in general population, visits still take place behind the plexiglass barrier characteristic of the no-contact visits to prisoners on death row.