Tag: protest

I just got in from protesting the war during rush hour. I live by a busy intersection, so I can just walk out and get a fairly good audience with the people driving to work. I stood on the sidewalk right next to the road from 7:30 to 9:00 with a big sign that had a peace sign on one side and “The war is not worth it” on the other. I plan to do it again at quitting time today. And then I am going to do the morning and afternoon rush hours ever day until Obama makes his announcement next week. We the citizens can help set the frame for Obama’s announcement. We should demonstrate resistance before he has even said anything, so the backlash will be even greater when he tells us he’s sending more troops.

So I hope others will join me and make up a sign, very legible from a distance, and protest where they live. You don’t need a big group to protest. A single sign can remind people of the war. All you need is a big audience. High-traffic intersections are excellent. So please, for the Iraqis and Afghans, make a sign and protest. If you wait around for the big organized protests, you will have waited too long. This is something you have to do on your own. Protesting with a small group of friends is fun too.

And if you’re already doing it, keep up the good work!

I will not stand still for a surge in Afghanistan. I am going to take action against it. Americans hardly remember they are at war. I am going to be there to remind them. I invite you to do something similar in your hometown.

On the day after Thanksgiving, I am going to go to downtown Chicago, probably around Macy’s, and hold an good-size antiwar sign so all the shoppers can see it. One side will be a big, visible peace sign; the other side will just say “Stop Your Wars.”

I see this time in Obama’s administration as a crucial turning point in Americans’ perceptions of the president. Americans are about to see that Obama is oriented toward continuing the war. It is especially important during this time that Americans be allowed to see first-hand that there are citizens who, maybe just like them, disagree with Obama’s position toward escalating troops.

And it is true generally that most Americans tend to forget we are even at war at all. I think those of us who do remember have the responsibility of reminding everyone else who has forgotten. We cannot rely on the media to do it. So that really is all I want to do, remind Americans, as they enjoy their holidays with their own families, that they are still killing other people’s families. I just don’t feel it’s fair for Americans to be able to forget the kinds of activities they are involved in.

So I invite anyone who strongly opposes escalation in Afghanistan to seek out the shopping district in your area, find a visible location, and demonstrate against the US wars on the day after Thanksgiving. Lots of shoppers will be out, so lots of people will see you and think about our wars. This is a very useful time. I hope other people will join me and make the best of it.

If not you in your town, then who?

And if my way of doing things isn’t right for you, figure out another way to remind people we are at war. It is up to you. The media won’t do it.

Do it for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.

In case you’re unaware, there is currently a bill in the Pennsylvania state legislature to establish a statewide single-payer (that’s something close to Medicare for all) system.  Governor Rendell has pledged to sign it if it gets to his desk, and there are currently 35 co-sponsors in the House – including 4 Republicans – and 9 co-sponsors in the Senate.  That’s out of a Senate of 50 and a House of 203.

This Friday, the 30th, there will be a protest at a Blue Cross/Blue Shield building in Philadelphia in support of single payer, and in my state of Pennsylvania this will have particular significance because of how close we are to real health care reform.

IMPORTANT:  If you can’t make it to the protest, but live in Pennsylvania, please contact your state legislators and/or the media to either thank them for their support or to urge them to support these bills (SB 400 and HB 1660).  You can do that here.

A weekly roundup of the news made by of, by and for the active engaged progressive people of the world.  

HEAD LINES

Canada:  Nickel Mine Strike

libcom:

After months of unresolved bargaining a strike began on July 13th at the Sudbury mine in northern Ontario, Canada, after employers Vale Inco refused to alter its original demands for concessions. United Steel Workers union members (USW Local 6500) in Sudbury and Port Colburne in Ontario and Voisey Bay in Labrador responded by voting 85% in favor of strike action.

The strike affects 3,073 employees at Vale’s integrated mining, milling, smelting and refining operations in Sudbury, 116 employees at the Port Colborne refinery and over 200 at Voisey Bay. The concessions demanded by the company include a drastic change in pension benefits for new hires (the pension Fund is $725 million in deficit), changes to seniority rights and a cap on the “Nickel Bonus”. “This bonus was negotiated in earlier years to allow the company to benefit from relatively lower wages when nickel prices were depressed and workers to benefit when the price was high. Nickel bonuses – once used to placate underpaid unionised workers – in recent years suddenly paid off ‘big’

Crossposted at Daily Kos

 Does anybody remember who controlled the entire Government of the U.S.A. on 9/11/01?

  It was Clinton’s Obama’s Fault, of course!

  This is the exploitation of the Americans who lost their lives on the morning of September 11, 2001 in order to further the Right Wing/Corporatist political agenda.

  This is the exploitation of the suffering of ever family effected by 9/11.

  This is the exploitation of emergency workers who served on 9/11. Many of them died on that tragic day.

  This is the exploitation of the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.

  This is the shameless exploitation of every american, everywhere.

  And where were these protesters in 2002? or 2003? or 2004? or 2005? or 2006? or 2007? or 2008?

  But now that we have a Black Democratic President the Corporate intersts, their lobbyists, the RW media and the GOP choose to protest on the morning after the 8 year anniversary of 9/11/2001?

  This can not stand unchallenged.

 I refer to this.

Sign up for the 09.12.09 Protest at the Capitol!

It’s time to take the tea party movement directly to Washington, D.C. Please join thousands of local organizers and grassroots Americans from across the country as we gather in our nation’s capital to deliver a message to the politicians: Enough!

We are gathering on 9-12-2009 to deliver our message in person that we’ve had enough!

National Sponsor: Freedom Works

freerepublic.com

   Freedomworks, if you are not aware, is the RW lobbying firm headed by the Ex Republic House Majority Leader Dick Armey, which has been behind the Fox News sponsored tea bagging party movement that miraculously materialized the moment the Republic party lost the Presidential election on 11/4/08.

   They might as well name their event the 1/19/09 project.

Factoid only seven people on the planet know:  Bill Donahue, Roman Catholicism’s Abe Foxman, completed his dissertation on McCarthyism at LaRoche College in Pittsburgh’s north suburb, back in the day.

LaRoche College started out as the motherhouse/inhouse college for novices of the Divine Providence order.  When Donahue used its facilities, it was only slightly expanded from that, with classrooms in the motherhouse, in quonset huts, and in trailers plunked on hastily scraped lots.

Today the campus is large enough to have hosted several hundred peace activists from around the country at the second National Assembly anti-war conference.

It has been an amazing week in Iran, and you are no doubt seeing images that would have been unimaginable just a few weeks ago.

For most of us, Iran has been a country about which we know very little…which, obviously, makes it tough to put the limited news we’re getting into a proper context.

The goal of today’s conversation is to give you a bit more of an “insider look” at today’s news; and to do that we’ll describe some of the risks Iranian bloggers face as they go about their business, we’ll meet a blogging Iranian cleric, we’ll address the issue of what tools the Iranians use for Internet censorship and the companies that could potentially be helping it along, and then we’ll examine Internet traffic patterns into and out of Iran.

Finally, a few words about, of all things, how certain computer games might be useful as tools of revolution.