https://archive.ph/ojVDk

>In response to Yale University students being arrested April 21 in New Haven, Connecticut, for setting up an encampment demanding “no tuition for genocide,” hundreds of supporters have taken to the streets blocking intersections in solidarity with the arrestees. > >The encampment at MIT on Kresge Lawn has been named “Scientists Against Genocide Encampment.” MIT has received over $11 million in research funding from [Zionism’s] Defense Ministry since 2015. > >More such solidarity actions are sure to spring up in the coming days and weeks. > >Student walkouts, inspired by the Columbia struggle, have taken place at Boston University, Harvard University and elsewhere, also with their own demands that their universities divest from [apartheid]. > >This struggle over the right to free speech is nothing new for college campuses, which have come under the intense scrutiny by right-wing forces that defend a terrorist regime now isolated and ostracized in every corner of the world. When it comes to defending Palestinian liberation, these attacks have reached a fever pitch. > >[…] > >As pro-Palestine students have rightfully raised, your right to free speech depends on which side you are on. Asna Tabassum, a Muslim student who was named valedictorian at the University of Southern California, was banned from making a speech during her graduation for her pro-Palestinian views. There is a struggle to win her the right to give her speech and not silence her. > >The heroic students at Columbia and elsewhere have shown that no matter the verbal abuse and physical repression hurled their way, the deeper will be their resolve to continue their campaigns until the genocide stops once and for all, and Palestinians inevitably kick out their colonial oppressors in order to reclaim their land, resources and their freedom. This is what real solidarity looks like. > >The UC Berkeley Divest Coalition stated: “For Palestine, we must fight. For Gaza, we must win. For all of us, and because of the Palestinian resistance, we will win. > >Glory to the martyrs, glory to our noble resistance, and glory to the people.” (Resistance News Network, April 23, 2024)

>A SCOTUS decision favorable to Grants Pass would open the door for cities across the U.S. to apply even more draconian policies against houseless people, while making no provisions to ensure adequate housing exists. Rather than allocating necessary resources to address problems of chronic homelessness, many cities are already diverting resources to increase policing to round up unhoused individuals and families simply for being poor. > >Meanwhile, RentCafe.com estimates that the average cost to rent an 899 square foot apartment in the U.S. as of March 2024 was $1,713 per month or $20,556 per year. A worker paid the federal minimum wage would only make $15,000 per year working 40 hours per week. > >The highest court’s battle takes place against a background of housing being unaffordable for a record half of renters, according to a 2022 Joint Center for Housing study at Harvard University. The study found that as rents spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2022, renters in every income category paid over 30% of their income for rent and utilities. In some cases, they paid over 50%. > >Lower-income workers and families making $30,000 to $74,000 a year were hard-hit, but renters earning under $30,000, already struggling to afford housing, faced an 83% increase in costs. The number of people sleeping outside or in shelters increased 12% in 2023 over the previous year. > >The Harvard study found nearly a third of households headed by people 65 and older pay over 30% of their income for housing. Half of that group pays more than 50%. In 2021, 11.2 million households were headed by seniors. > >A SCOTUS ruling against unhoused people could also lead to landlords raising rents, knowing that people must either pay high rents or risk being jailed. Buying homes is also increasingly unaffordable for most households, especially with interest rates for loans now over 7% and wages stagnant or falling after inflation.

>On April 15, Lucio’s children issued the following statement: “We are grateful to our mother’s legal team for their hard work to bring the truth to light and to DA Saenz for taking another look at our mother’s case and recognizing that she did not receive a fair trial and her conviction should be overturned. We hope and pray the Court of Criminal Appeals will agree with the District Attorney, the defense, and the judge and our mother can come home to her family. It’s been 17 years that we have been without her. We love and miss her and can’t wait to hug her.” > >Lucio’s case has gathered widespread attention and support. In February 2022, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACHR) issued precautionary measures asking the state to refrain from execution until her case was reviewed and to ensure detention conditions align with international human rights standards. > >In March 2022, 81 members of the Texas House of Representatives, led by Republican Representative Jeff Leach, signed a letter calling on Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant her clemency. The stay was granted before the board had a chance to vote. > >A friend of the court brief filed by the Innocence Project and The Innocence Network on behalf of Lucio stated: “Police interrogation may sometimes psychologically pressure even innocent people to confess to crimes they did not commit. When the interrogated suspect is a battered woman, as she was in this case, such risks are heightened, and the need for expert testimony to explain these risks to lay juries are more acute.”

>The reception was co-hosted by Alliance for Global Justice and the International Action Center and held at the Solidarity Center at 121 West 27th Street in Manhattan. > >The vice president was in New York for Sustainability Week at the United Nations. He would attend the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, including the 23rd Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) that started April 15 and was scheduled to run until April 26. > >In the discussion at the IAC office, Choquehuanca, who has often represented his country at international forums on the environment, emphasized the goal of MAS to create a world in which, besides working toward equality among human beings, humans are able to live in harmony with all living things. He considered this view as going beyond 20th-century socialist thought.

>As workers, we stand in solidarity with our union siblings in SWC-UAW 2710 who were arrested and face suspension. We call for their and their classmates’ immediate reinstatement and for Columbia to drop all charges against them, both legal and academic. We deplore President Shafik’s actions and call for Columbia to immediately end the repression of protest. > >We, the undersigned, believe the repression and criminalization of activists, students, professors and academic workers across the country are violations of our elementary rights to free speech and protest. If left unchecked, these attacks on academic freedom and protest against genocide will pave the way for further measures that constrain civil liberties, not only for those in universities, but for civil society at large. > >The right to protest is necessary for every struggle, and the direct attack on this right is an attack on labor as well. An injury to one is an injury to all. If the Columbia students can be repressed for protesting, Columbia workers and all workers could be too. Workers stand in full solidarity with this student movement. > >Solidarity forever!

>Following the arrests of over 100 students at Columbia by the New York Police Department less than a week ago, over 40 more encampments have sprung up countrywide in just one week, with “liberated zones” demanding a free Palestine. No amount of police repression has been able to discourage the resolve and determination of these students, which continue to grow stronger. > >Even faculty members have staged walkouts at their schools where encampments are taking place, surrounding student protesters and risking arrests, for example at Emory University in Atlanta and Columbia and The New School in New York City. We salute New York City bus drivers who refused to drive arrestees to jail on behalf of the NYPD. > >The false narrative of “antisemitism” pushed by reactionary college administrations, the right wing and the Biden administration is being obliviated by the sheer large numbers of anti-Zionist Jewish students who have joined these encampments. They are saying loud and clear that this horrific genocide will not be carried out in the name of Judaism. > >Workers World condemns the brutality being carried out by the police that proves once again which side this repressive force is on. The cops protect the private property of the billionaire ruling class, which includes the superrich college endowments that prop up the Zionist, terrorist death machine.

See also: A call to ‘Escalate for Gaza’

https://archive.is/FVuGD

NaTiOnaL SecUriTy!

>Before the VW results were known, members of the capitalist media expressed skepticism that a union could win in the U.S. South. Governors of five Southern states warned that unionization could cost workers their jobs and/or discourage new investments that would bring jobs to the region, threatening “the values we live by.” The VW vote was a big punch to the bosses’ collective gut. > >Now the union’s chances of winning at other southern plants are being downplayed. “Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at the research firm AutoForecast Solutions, predicted that most Japanese and South Korean manufacturers with plants in the South would be more difficult targets for the UAW, because they have worked hard to develop a close relationship with workers,” the New York Times reported April 20. > >However, the prospects for a successful unionization drive across the South, including but not limited to the auto industry, are high. Many of the 400-plus unionized Starbucks stores are in Southern states. The Union of Southern Service Workers has launched an ambitious organizing drive. > >The labor movement urgently needs to organize the South. Volkswagen workers have clearly demonstrated that it can be done!

On Wednesday, 93 people were arrested at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Over the last week, Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have erupted on campuses across the United States, calling for a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and cessation of U.S. military aid to Israel.

>As consciousness in the U.S. continuously develops into more awareness of our impact on the world and the purpose of the capitalist system meant to keep our mouths shut and too poverty-stricken to fight, we’re also confronted with the fact that we are also a violent nation spitefully marching towards a [neo]fascist state. Since 2020, it’s become painfully evident that stripping back the few protections protesters have is a greenlight for more violence from the opposition. > >One consolation offered to those concerned about what this decision may mean for the U.S. is that it may not be a permanent ruling. Although SCOTUS allowed the First Amendment right to protest to be attacked, they didn’t outright reverse it, possibly rendering this decision a temporary one. > >But why wouldn’t it be? It’s not hard to draw the conclusion that the gag order on protesters intends to be a nationwide feature. The working class has gotten too comfortable with the idea of having a say on how their country runs, and in response we have politicians radicalizing an angry, often armed opposition to keep us in line from just enough of a distance that they face no consequence legally. There are only benefits for the bourgeoisie. If we let them take this from us, it will be gone forever.

>Regarding the U.S. rôle, “Genocide Joe” Biden, with the enthusiastic cooperation of the Republican Party, has, as of April 20, pushed a $95 billion war bill through the House of Representatives. The bill, which the Senate passed on April 23, finances a drive toward World War III on three fronts: the […] genocidal war aimed at Palestine, the U.S.-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and preparation for a U.S.-led war in the Pacific against Peoples China and the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea. > >This war bill includes $26 billion more for [neocolonialism’s] genocidal war on Gaza and its active settlement policy in the West Bank aimed at removing Palestinian people from their land. It is direct evidence that, despite Biden’s feigned separation from the Netanyahu-led war régime in [occupied Palestine], both the Republican and Democratic Party intend to continue supplying weapons for genocide. > >There is no doubt [that] the movement here will demand the U.S. stop the transfer of weapons to [neocolonists].

>“It’s really unbelievable in this day and age that a sitting U.S. Senator can threaten violence to protesters and not be sanctioned or censured or anything else by his colleagues,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, National Chair of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), to The Electronic Intifada. > >“It’s been an incredible challenge, in the past six months especially, to experience what Palestinians have in the U.S. — that our lives are expendable, that our rights aren’t defended, that our very existence is threatened. But we can’t and won’t back down, and we will continue fighting to stop the genocide and make sure that racist, white supremacist apologists for [Zionism] like Tom Cotton will see a free Palestine in his lifetime.” > >The American Civil Liberties Union did not respond to requests from The Electronic Intifada for First Amendment analysis on how much latitude Cotton has to encourage vigilante violence against protesters.

>The crowd blocked traffic for over an hour, surrounding a cop car and refusing to leave the street after two people were arrested. Chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Let them go,” the demonstrators eventually “de-arrested” the two activists, who were released without charges. > >Several Palestine solidarity workshops and meetings were part of the conference. An impromptu meeting about the Columbia University occupation included graduate student members of United Auto Workers Local 7902, some of whom were among those arrested at Columbia. Many conference attendees wore keffiyehs in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

>Rittenhouse shot three antiracist protesters on Aug. 25, 2020, killing two, at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He was acquitted of homicide, attempted homicide and reckless endangerment in 2021. Turning Point reportedly pays him $5,000 for each 30-minute speech. When Rittenhouse attempted to speak at the University of Memphis, he was loudly booed and shouted down, leading him to cut his talk short. > >Aciano Rosales, freshman ambassador for the Spanish and Latine Student Association (SALSA), opened the press conference saying, “Kyle Rittenhouse’s presence as a guest speaker mocks the legacy of blood shed by protesters on Kent State’s campus. It optimizes hateful white supremacism that we as Ohio students feel is unacceptable.” (Kentwired.com, April 16) > >Rosales was followed by Paul Prediger, formerly Gaige Grosskreutz, who Rittenhouse shot and wounded. For almost four years Prediger kept a low profile but on April 16 felt compelled to speak out, saying, “Enough of the lies and the deceit that has been told by Kyle Rittenhouse for three years about what actually happened in Kenosha August 25, 2022.” > >SALSA President Aimée Flores reminded the crowd of the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings, in which four unarmed students were killed by the Ohio National Guard at a protest of the U.S. war against Vietnam. Calling out bigotry and white supremacy, she said, “That is why Gov. James A. Rhodes was able to send the National Guard to Kent State 54 years ago on that hill. That is why today we ask ourselves, ‘Who will defend us?’” > >Yaseen Shaikh, president of the Kent State chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, told The Progressive that a large portion of the student body was unhappy with “a vigilante coming to campus.” SJP helped organize the press conference, along with SALSA, Black United Students, Sister Circle, United Students Against Sweatshops and other student groups.

>Some 200 supporters gathered outside Google’s New York office to show solidarity with the workers inside. Chants of “Google, Google, you can’t hide, your tech’s for apartheid!” and “Not another push, not another line, no more code for genocide!” rang out as the crowd grew. Workers from Amazon, Meta and current and former Google workers were joined by activists from Jewish Voice for Peace, Al-Awda, Workers World Party and other groups at the hours-long speakout. > >The Google workers made these demands: Drop the Project Nimbus cloud and AI contract now; stop harassment, intimidation, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers; and stop retaliation and doxxing of workers raising workplace health and safety concerns caused by Project Nimbus — which has prompted workers to quit rather than see their labor used for genocide. > >“Cloud technology should be used in libraries, health care and elsewhere to protect users and the planet,” said former Googler Eddie Hatfield. “Instead, it has become a deadly exchange of technology used against the Palestinians and, from there, the world via the cloud. It has to stop.” Hatfield, a software engineer who uses they/them pronouns, was fired in March 2024 after disrupting a conference speech by the managing director of Google Israel.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4348551

> US warmongering