May 2012

Trotskyism vs. Social Democracy and Anarcho-Liberalism

The Left, Labor and Occupy

Occupy protesters in Portland picket Terminal 6 on December 12. (Photo: Rick Bowmer/AP)

Six months after Occupy Wall Street began – when a few hundred people sparked worldwide protest with a march and sit-in in lower Manhattan against political corruption and corporate greed – OWS was back. And four months after Occupy encampments were brutally evicted around the country, the police were there to greet them. Demonstrators chanted “this is what democracy looks like” as cops dragged scores out of Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan. More accurate would have been “this is what a police state looks like.” At the same time, the sharpening internal contradictions within the Occupy movement were also on display.

 While Dilma Roussef hits each day more, "pulling" the leveling of interest of the Brazilian public debt to international levels and begins to devise an industrial policy firmly grounded in a serious exchange rate policy and in science and technology, in addition to important tax cuts, Congress is the scene of successive corruption scandals, all them originated in the corporate funding of campaigns and in "not very corporate" funding of campaigns, and approves, with a rapporteur funded by the agro-business, apocalyptic Forest Code: A million square KM to the devastation.

2nd Plaintiff Files in USA DOJ v. Arpaio

 Dear Radio Friend, 

From Veracruz to Austin and Back:

The journey of an immigrant 

May 17 (Thurs. evening) to May 20 (Sun. evening) 2012

Delegation sponsored by Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera in partnership with Women on the Border

Since 1999 the ATCF quarterly program of solidarity delegations visiting maquiladora workers in Mexico at the border has examined the impact of free trade on real lives and communities.  Our on-going relationship of solidarity with members of the Comit� Fronterizo de Obreras/os brought us behind news headlines and US policy rhetoric. Immigration within Mexico from South to North always fueled the border maquilas with workers.  We saw border cities double their populations, many with migrants from Veracruz.

Now, teaming up with sister organization, Women on the Border, our May 2012 delegation will swivel the perspective to see what happens when Mexican and Central American immigrants cross the border into the US. In Austin we will learn about a labor system that practices wage theft on immigrants without documents and how they assert their rights.  We will hear from immigrants as well as US citizens who lose their basic human rights when they are pulled into the US's detention system and sometimes deported.  

In South Texas we will visit an immigration detention center and speak with local people as well as activist/advocates to understand the economic bribe that detention centers offer poor Texas communities.  We will stop overnight at the UFW/La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) campus east of McAllen to learn about services that UFW and the Texas Civil Rights Project offer recent immigrants.  At The Wall the Sierra Club will explain environmental and social hazards.

Throughout we will question and discuss US policies that hold this immigrants� nightmare in place.  

�      Trade,

�      Immigration,

�      Security (anti-terrorism).  

We will speculate why the federal government is so unable to �fix a broken system.�

Dates: May 17, (Thursday evening) to May 20, (Sunday

Evening), 2012.  Deadline: This 12-14 person delegation will fill quickly: Small discount if you register by April 9.

Cost: $225 � Do not hesitate to inquire about partial

scholarships if needed.

Contact: Judith Rosenberg, chelarose@grandecom.net,

More info:  http://www.atcf.org/, womenontheborder.org

Facilitators and contributors (tentative), Elvia Arriola, Women on the Border Director and Professor, NIU College of Law; Bianca Hinz- Foley, Organizer, Workers� Defense Project; Bob Cash, Director, Texas Fair Trade Coalition; Andrea Black, National Director, Detention Watch Network; Representatives from Univ. of Texas Immigration Rights Law Clinic and from the Texas Civil Rights Project, Grassroots Leadership and Texans United for Families.

 Get on the Bus and Help Prevent a NAFTA of the Pacific!
Dear Trade Justice Supportert:
International trade ministers and corporate lobbyists will be descending on Texas this May for a critical trade summit aimed at rushing the massive new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement towards completion.  The Texas Fair Trade Coalition and our allies are planning welcome them — and we need you to join us. 
Please sign up now to reserve your seat on a bus to the "TPP: Out of the Shadows!" march and rally that will be taking place in Addison, Texas on Saturday, May 12.  Rally endorsers include the Citizens Trade Campaign, Communication Workers of America, Dallas AFL-CIO Council, International Association of Machinists, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, National Family Farm Coalition, North Texas Jobs with Justice,Occupy Austin, Occupy Dallas, Occupy Texas, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Texas AFL-CIO, Texas State Building Trades Council, United Steelworkers,  United Students Against Sweatshops and many others.
If you haven't heard about the TPP yet, it's not surprising.  Despite having already concluded eleven major rounds of negotiations, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (headed by none other than former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk) has refused to let Americans know what they have proposed in our names.  The public has literally been barred from reviewing the negotiating texts.  Meanwhile, approximately 600 corporate lobbyists have been given "cleared advisor" status giving them regular access to the documents and the negotiators.
Wall Street banks and other corporate interests are pushing for the TPP to:
    •    Offshore good-paying jobs to low-wage nations and undercut working conditions globally
    •    Create new tools for attacking environmental and consumer safety policies
    •    Expand the deregulation of banks, hedge funds and insurance companies
    •    Further concentrate global food supplies into the hands of fewer-and-fewer giant middlemen
    •    Institute longer patents that restrict access to affordable, generic medications
The world can't afford a "NAFTA of the Pacific."  The May 12th march and rally is our opportunity to prevent it.  Please visit this website for details on a FREE bus from San Antonio and Austin — which will also include a rolling teach-in and strategy session on the way to the action, and quiet time for study, one-on-one networking or sleep on the way back. 
Spaces are limited, so please go recruit a friend or two to join you and reserve your seat today!  RSVP online at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDRtWERFVElDVWxZNHplcWltZV8zTWc6MQ
In solidarity,
Bob Cash
Texas Fair Trade Coalition
(512) 912-6630

PS — If you're interested in carpooling from other locations, please RSVP here. 
PPS — You can also help by signing this petition which will be delivered to negotiators in Addison.

Bo McCarver of the Blackland Development Corporation talks about his group's non-profit status and how they have fought gentrification and displacement in east Austin.  Bo spoke at MonkeyWrench Books on February 29th, 2012.  Audio from Allan Campbell of KOOP Radio's People United.  Produced by Austin Indymedia

 An ethical approach to human rights, development and globalization to replace neo liberalism is seen as the way to unleash human potential, grow knowledge and wealth, with the new, radical ideas needed to address major social problems as well as help humanity's survival by travelling to other planets. The massive rebuilding following the devastating Christchurch earthquakes can help lead the way forward for New Zealand.