Do you want to see a REAL riot?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10614147

Now I would never ever encourage anyone to do any of this stuff - seems rather pointless to me really but I wasnt there.  As readers know, I was at the G20 march and it proved to me that we cant even run a riot properly.  Belfast had the requisite burning barricades,  asbo hoodied yobs, laser pens (!) and word is the police were shot at and yet as far as I can tell there was no suspension of basic human rights, unlike in old TO. Thankfully the last massive sectarian riot we had was in the 1930s:

http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/Christie_Pits::sub::1933_Riot

They reckon in the G20 rampage that Johnny Pick Axe did about $300,000 dollars damage by himself.  This cant help la causa any, really.  This La Causa seems far more productive:

https://lacausainc.sslpowered.com/LaCausaSite/Index.html

 

 

 

 

Whenever the stock market falls, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow reliably blames the Obama administration’s allegedly anti-business policies. But when the market was rising on Obama’s watch, Kudlow generally did not talk about it. On tonight’s show, he took a different tack. He repeatedly asserted that the market has recently rallied not only on strong corporate profits, but also because [...]

In the last 15 months, Bill Bennett has blamed just “some folks” at a pub for wanting to give away free beer to lure voters in during the provincial election campaign and now he is blaming a staff member for calling some activists “eco-facists” [sic]. I used to think it was just him being lucky [...]

Close to 200 (still counting) activists at LabourStart 2010. Report to come but suffice it to say: great! Follow on Facebook or on Twitter (#lsconf2010).

Join the LabourStart 2010 Flickr photo-sharing group HERE and follow the fun or post your own photos for others to view and use. On Twitter? Tweet the happenings or follow what's going on with #lsconf2010.

150 trade unionists from 28 countries (from Albania to Trinidad and Tobago). 9-11 July, McMaster University School of Labour Studies, Hamilton Ontario Canada. See the list of workshops and register HERE.

It’s a very Canadian trait to not want to yell too loud. Sure we say “eh” at the end of most sentences but the number one word you will hear from a Canadian on any given day is “sorry”. We use it where the French would say “pardon”. But we’re not soft, just polite. Here is a classic example; once I held a door open for someone who had no intention of going through said door. We both smiled. She said “Thank you”. I said “Sorry”.  That’s just how we are.  I’m not sure anymore after yesterdays G20 labour march.

I was reluctant to go, not due to fear but to indifference. Twenty years ago, almost to the day, I stood on the same spot at Queen’s Park railing at the Ontario Hydro building across the street yelling “hey hey, ho ho, nuclear power has got to go”. Fast forward two decades and the new chant was that the “G20 has got to go”.  As we know, the G20 isn’t going anywhere and we still have nuclear plants. But I still have a deep rooted belief in people getting together peacefully and letting their views be known. It feels empowering walking down the middle of streets normally chock a block with cars. At one point some activist women were yelling a flirty “hiiiiiiiii” at the Legoland riot cops in front of the US embassy on University Ave. Even under all of their samurai armour they couldn’t help but smile back. But they weren’t smiling for long…

 

 

FAIL

 

Yesterdays shit storm on Queen Street and beyond had a very surreal quality to it.  I ended up in the middle of the gap in the march and you could feel it in the air that something was about to happen. The march route was shaped like a giant square and the murmurs were that at the point where the march headed back north the people that wanted to go to the fence would go south.  After a bit of a lull some guy came by screaming “They’re beating on us back there!” A Provocateur, no doubt. Somebody lit a flare, sure seemed like a signal, and not long after that a black bloc joined hands and snaked back along the parade route in their conga line of mayhem.  It was hard to see what was happening on Queen as I rejoined the tail end of the people’s march and squeaked though before the cordon of bike cops lined up in the street. Kenny Rogers was right. You need to know when to walk away.

 

 

FAIL

 

I just missed the clearing of Queen’s Park as well. I can see how the stragglers would get caught up in it, for they had closed the subway down. There are only three subway lines in Hogtown.  Many were hiking it on up to Bloor Street to try their luck up there. I think that maybe more than a few of those rounded up at QP were waiting for the TTC to reopen. I thought about hanging around briefly but by that time I’d had more than enough. The line only opened up again this morning. I eventually reached Bloor Street and from in front of the Royal Ontario Museum a couple of cops ran down the street with their rubber bullet guns. By this time I was on Bloor with a gazillion cars, Hummers, Beemers, you name it. Not too happy. Nor was I.

So, the labour march put out some good vibrations but what did it achieve? Any possible message was instantly erased by the kids acting out. And "our" march was the nucleus that charged up the mayhem. No one could honestly say that they didn’t see this shit coming.  Burning cop cars (toxic) and smashing windows is pointless stuff.  It’s a waste of resources. How much energy goes into making giant plate glass windows? Nice way to piss off all of the polite mind their own business Torontonians. The capitalists don’t care. They get to play the victim now. On Monday morning the lattes will keep on rolling out, the mannequins with rise again redecorated with the latest sweatshop gear and massive quantities of plywood will end up in a landfill somewhere. Well done.

The firebombing of the bank in Ottawa was also pretty dumbass. As any working person knows, when do the crews clean the banks? Right about the time that bomb went off.  I get it. You don’t like the banks. I don’t either.  That’s why we invented credit unions. You probably don’t like them either. You don’t like anything. Sorry. Greek protesters set fire to a bank and three people died. You might work in a bank but you are still a worker.  One of them was pregnant. What a waste.

So other than running into a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in ages I can’t say I felt great about yesterday’s march.  I didn’t need earplugs for the sound cannon, I put them in to dull the din of Sid Ryan’s bluster bouncing off the Hydro building. Here we have the tradesman who sold out the trades within his ex-union, a 17 year tenure used as a stepping stone to the big OFL job.  You want me to listen nicely to Patrick the Sell Out and applaud at the correct moment? F--- that! Career bureaucrats are met with derision after a while. The union prez gets no such scrutiny generally, unless they break the law. Now THERE is a fence, metaphoric but real enough, that the rank and file should be tearing down.

 

 

FAIL!

 

 

 

I just finished a couple of weeks of training and PD with my co-workers. There I co-facilitated a workshop on new tech and what to encourage local unions to look at and use. A rough survey of what's out there and in use provided the expected feedback regarding online tools. Websites, blogs, Facebook, even Twitter are in use. Scattered and not often integrated use, but in use. SMS/texting on the other hand gets no respect. A pity really. Simple tech, everyone has it, works well elsewhere...

 

May 15, 2010
  We are disappointed to inform you that a Solidarity Day III event where the labor movement would mobilize and demand that the government institute a massive jobs-creation program is not going to take place -- for now.
Unfortunately, the top officials of the AFL-CIO failed to move on this proposal at its special meeting of state federations and central labor councils in Orlando, Florida, on April 23-25, 2010.
We did, however, manage to create a significant groundswell where numerous labor bodies across the nation passed resolutions in support of such a Solidarity Day III march and rally in Washington, DC. These resolutions and the many endorsements by leading trade unionists were a reflection of the widespread suffering of working people who are bearing the brunt of the current economic crisis through layoffs, furloughs, home foreclosures, loss of health insurance, and so on.
Deep discontent among working people has been spreading and intensifying. It erupted in California on March 4 when tens of thousands of working people and many unions joined students and teacher unionists in demonstrations to defend public education and social services. In Oregon, despite strong opposition from corporations, the unions succeeded in leading the struggle to pass progressive taxation, forcing higher taxes on the corporations and the wealthy. In both cases, working people demonstrated an eagerness to stand up and fight for their own interests. And they represent a huge reservoir of strength that can be tapped.
While the wealthy use their money to lobby politicians, ordinary working people have historically turned to organizing huge protests to press for their needs. Accordingly, such protests served as a vital tool in winning union recognition in the 1930s. They were key to the success of the Civil Rights movement, they contributed to ending the U.S. war in Vietnam. They have helped to defend immigrant rights, and they have brought down governments around the world. Their power emanates from their size: When they are huge, it becomes unambiguously clear that they represent the desires of the majority of society.
Nevertheless, most top officials of the labor movement have rejected -- for now -- the option of organizing a massive demonstration for jobs. They view themselves as acting pragmatically by navigating through what they perceive as a permanent configuration of political alignments. In particular, most union officials look to the Democratic Party with the hope of winning some benefits, and they do not want to jeopardize the prospect of modest gains. Horrified at the possibility of inflicting the slightest injury on the Democrats, labor officials are avoiding organizing large demonstrations that would pressure the Obama government into creating jobs. They fear that the Republicans will be quick to take advantage of fissures in the relationship between labor and the Democrats.
The problem with this strategy, however, lies in the duplicitous role of the Democratic Party. On the one hand, it claims to be a friend of labor and has been quick to accept hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from unions each year. On the other hand, it receives far greater contributions from corporations, which have been adamant in insisting that labor occupy a far subordinate position in this unsavory triangle.
President Obama has received more money from financial institutions than any other sector of the economy. Consequently, administrations, whether headed by Democrats or Republicans, have allowed banks to engage in predatory loans and charge interest rates amounting to usury when people have overdrawn their bank accounts; they have allowed taxes on corporations and the wealthy to incessantly slide downwards, thereby squeezing public education and social services; they have given corporations a free hand to proceed recklessly so as to cause environmental catastrophes; they have permitted corporations to keep wages low in order to push profits higher; and they have enabled the wealthy to become wealthier than ever before.
Currently, the Obama administration has failed to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, even though it had a super-majority in Congress, it refused to consider single-payer health care, it dropped any form of a public health care option, despite strong labor support, it applauded the mass firing of teachers in Rhode Island, and it is supporting charter schools, which constitute a direct attack on unions.
In fact, never before in the history of this country have so few had so much at the expense of so many. And it raises the question: For how long will huge amounts of wealth belonging to a small minority of the population who enjoy untold luxuries be allowed to prevail over the basic needs of the working people of this country, who constitute the vast majority?
Worse still: The economic crisis for working people is far from over. Unemployment remains high, public education and social services continue to be gutted, and the enormous federal government budget deficit is looming in the background. President Obama has already established his deficit-reduction committee, headed by Republican Allan Simpson, and there has been incessant chatter about reducing Social Security benefits, which constitute the most modest lifeline for millions of Americans. The banks, the corporations, and the wealthy are pushing hard to compel the Obama government to protect their privileges at our expense. The labor movement will be forced to stand up and fight. Otherwise, what little we have will be taken from us.
We are confident that the Solidarity Day III campaign is not at an end but at the beginning. The organized labor movement will be compelled to mobilize working people to defend their standard of living. And the only effective means at its disposal will be to establish a broad united coalition, led by labor, to bring people into the streets to demand the creation of 11 million jobs while taxing Wall Street to pay for them, as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has proposed.
By refusing to rely on the politicians and by establishing an independent movement of labor, working people will be in a position to reach out and unite the majority of the population so that in solidarity we can create a powerful movement to fight for our common interests.
Bill Leumer and Alan Benjamin Co-coordinators Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign

The Alsabah (a pro-Iraqi government newspaper) published this news on May 15, 2010:

The higher ministerial committee that supervises the implementation of the Civil Provisional Authority Decree No. 3 (Paul Bremer, 2004), has decided that unionists must obtain prior approval from the government should they intend to travel or participate in any delegation or activity abroad.

The decision was made April 25, 2010, by a high committee headed by Thamir Jaffer of the State Ministry of Civil Society Affairs along with representatives of the ministries of Interior, Finance, Justice, National Security, National Assembly Affairs, the Office of the NGOs, the Supreme National Commission for Justice and Accountability and the Iraqi Central Bank, according to Fariq Abdualrahman, spokesperson for the Civil Society Affairs Ministry.

The committee also decided that names of the preparatory committee of the General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions will be further checked by the committee before the committee is approved and allowed to form a federation.

 

Amjad Ali

of Iraq Freedom Congress

www.ifcongress.com

 

phone# 1-416-264-1131 

 

Working For a Democratic, Secular and Progressive Alternative to both the US Occupation and Political Islam in Iraq