CWL

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

A backlash against high-stakes standardized testing is sweeping through U.S. school districts as parents, teachers, and administrators protest that the exams are unfair, unreliable and unnecessarily punitive - and even some longtime advocates of testing call for changes.

The objections come even as federal and state authorities pour hundreds of millions of dollars into developing new tests, including some for children as young as 5.

In a growing number of states, scores on standardized tests weigh heavily in determining whether an 8-year-old advances to the next grade with her classmates; whether a teen can get his high school diploma; which teachers keep their jobs; how much those teachers are paid; and even which public schools are shut down or turned over to private management.

To the Peoples of the World
To the Occupy Movement
To the Oakland Commune
To Our Sisters and Brothers in Struggle on the Other Side of the Border

We don’t need to remind you of the deep connections between Wall Street, Gringo Capitalism and our Mexican misery. From Imperialist wars to the initial experiments in agrobiotechnology, Mexico has been the principal landscape for offensives by northern capital. We have participated and continue to, in the uprising of the Zapatistas against the neoliberal attack of NAFTA. The uprising which set the spark for the movement against neoliberalism. We met each other at the summits of Seattle, Prague, Genoa, Miami and Cancun. We met each other through a great global conversation.

It’s been a long time since we fought together in the movement against neoliberalism and the world has changed since those times. Today the narco war is devastating our society. As two sides of the same coin, on one side we have the narco and on the other the militarization of the country. These two faces are crushing us from both sides. Although it seems like they fight, they are both at the service of capital and in the modern world local capital is connected in a strong fashion to global capital. In the last few months we have learned these connections between Wall Street and narco money. According to one analysis, narco money was the liquid capital necessary to rescue the banking sector from the initial hits of the financial crisis in 2008 [1].

Further, the huge quantity of drug profits needs a laundromat just as large. Although we don’t have a detailed balance, we know that Wall Street facilitates this laundering. For example according to the US justice department, one bank, Wachovia, laundered $378 billion narco dollars from Mexico between only 2004 and 2007. This bank fell and ironically was acquired by Wells Fargo, the same bank which still has the salaries of our fathers and grandfathers who worked in the bracero program. The same bank which funds detention centers for immigrants where our brothers and sisters die only trying to provide for their families.

But in Mexico there isn’t only the cultivation of misery. Here we drew one of the first lines of struggle against global capitalism in our laboratory of resistance. With humility in front of you, our comrades, we would like to tell of our experience. Encampments and occupations are common in Mexico and comrades joke about the lack of space to put up more encampments. But this isn’t by chance and was won through struggle.

One recent example: in 2006, in the state of Oaxaca, the local teachers union setup an encampment in the center of Oaxaca City during their annual collective bargaining. One morning, on the 14th of June, the state police tried to take down the camp of the teachers and the city rose up, they not only retook the plaza but kicked the police out of the city. The Commune of Oaxaca was born on this day and the following 6 months transformed Oaxaca and the participants in the uprising.

Like you, they also had problems of repression and representation. Against the repression they put up thousands of barricades each night to protect the population from the murderous paramilitaries of Governor Ulises Ruiz, who they struggled to kick out. Against the lying representation of the media, they took over their television and radio studios, collectivized the resources and began to have conversations that had never been had by those means.

We are following closely everything that is happening in Oakland. The police kill youth like Oscar Grant [2] and gravely injure anti-war veterans such as Scott Olsen [3]. The media lies about the popular participation in the movement and they propagate superficial divisions. The self-defense and sefl-representation of our movements are essential to our collective struggle. We invite you to learn from our experiences and we hope to learn from yours. Together and in concert we are toppling this miserable system.

In our stories you will see your story.

We Walk by Asking, We Reclaim by Occupying.

From Mexico with total support for Occupy Oakland.

SIGNED:
jóvenes en resistencia alternativa
Universidad de la Tierra en Oaxaca, A.C.
Colectivo Radio Zapatista
Regeneración Radio
Colectivo Cordyceps
Colectivo Noticias de la Rebelion
Amig@s de Mumia de Mexico
Furia de las Calles
El Centro Cultural La Piramide
Marea Creciente México (Capítulo del red internacional por justícia climática Rising Tide)
Konvergencia Gráfica
Sublevarte Collective
Hacklab Autónomo
El Enemigo Común
Centro Social Okupado “Casa Naranja”

Gustavo Esteva, Oaxaca, México
Bocafloja, DF, México
Patricia Westendarp, Querétaro, México
Alejandro Reyes Arias, Chiapas, México
José Rabasa, México
Cristian Guerrero, México

The riots that began in Tottenham and have spread across London over the past few nights are a predictable consequence of the breakdown in trust between large and growing numbers of alienated youth and the Metropolitan Police over recent years. A culture of corruption at the top has long been tolerated within the Met, which has infected the entire force with a gung-ho attitude and mindset when it comes to policing on the ground.  This has reached the stage where nothing less than a root and branch structural reform will suffice if public confidence is to be restored. 

In recent years we’ve witnessed the police execution of Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell tube station and the officers responsible being exonorated.  Worse, in what was a low point for then mayor, Ken Livingstone, the existing Met commissioner, Ian Blair, kept his job while the commanding officer of the operation, Cressida Dick, not only kept her job but was later promoted. 

The confrontational approach to policing the 2009 G20 protests, involving the kettling of large numbers of protestors for hours on end, and where Ian Tomlinson was killed as a direct result of an incident of police brutality as he attempted to make his way home, has since been joined by recent revelations surrounding the corrupt relationship that existed for years between Met officers and the Murdoch press, involving ranking detectives and officers accepting bribes for confidential information regarding ongoing criminal investigations.

Along with the myriad daily incidents of police brutality and corruption experienced by those living in low income communities around London, the shooting dead of Mark Duggan in Tottenham on Thursday in what is daily emerging were dubious circumstances, has resulted in an inevitable explosion of anger and violence. 

For people to have confidence in the police the police must be accountable to the communities in which they operate. As things stand the Met are unaccountable and have been for far too long. In fact increasingly the Met has appeared more akin to an organised militia intent on enforcing its writ via confrontation rather than consensus and cooperation with the public it is meant to be policing and protecting, especially young people living in low income and working class communities. 

The ongoing economic crisis and the increased level of social and economic injustice it has presaged as a direct result of the government’s response is another factor in these events that cannot be ignored. The blatant and callous disregard for the human cost of the swingeing cuts to the welfare system is made worse by the lack of pain being endured by those responsible for the recession, the banks and the rich. 

Law and order without justice is impossible to maintain for long in any society, and the outburst of rioting and anger London is currently witnessing will have come as no surprise to anyone living in the communities concerned. 

Time and again events prove that where there is no justice there can be no peace.

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

As California prisoners enter their fourth week of a historical mass hunger strike, literally dying for human rights, although California Department of Corrections Department (CDCD) secretary said Tuesday, that he would order staff to force-feed inmates if necessary to save lives, Nancy Kincaid, Communications Director for California Prison Health Care Services stated Wednesday that prison medical staff will not force-feed prisoners and inmates have the right to die for the cause, their five demands. Governor Jerry Brown has not intervened after CDCD officials said Friday they would not negotiate with the prisoners.

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Thousands of demonstrators have flooded Cairo’s now-iconic Tahrir Square and other rallying points across the country to demand immediate reforms and swifter prosecution of former officials from the toppled government of Hosni Mubarak.

Friday’s “March of the Million”, as protesters are calling the new uprising, is expected to be the biggest demonstration since the fall of Mubarak on February 11.

Many Egyptians feel that little has changed since the regime was forced out, and the nationwide protests are the latest calls for the country’s interim military rulers to provide a roadmap towards democracy, jobs and infrastructure improvements.

Most of Egypt’s political parties and coalitions, including the Muslim Brotherhood, supported widespread calls for the protest to be staged across Egypt. Hundreds of protesters gathered in Suez and Alexandria, among other locations.

“The main frustration here is over the release of the officers accused of killing protesters during the revolution is the main focus of the people here,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Sherine Tadros from Suez. “What people here are asking for is justice and faster trials of those responsible for the killings of protesters.

Tadros added that the military is trying to maintain control and show a visible presence in Suez.

“However, they are careful not to overshadow the protesters to make it out in many ways that they are here to stop the protest,” Tadros said.

Five months after the revolution, many activists behind Friday’s protest say few of the goals of the original uprising have been achieved. One rallying point is the claim that military rulers have failed to provide justice for the victims of the former regime.

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Open support for communism or separatism will no longer be banned in Taiwan. That’s after the legislature passed an amendment to the Civil Associations Act to remove bans on those ideologies.

The legislature made the amendments to increase personal freedoms, including freedom of speech.

But ruling Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Wu Yu-sheng said that anyone who uses the law to create domestic or international conflict will face criminal penalties.

“What this means is that you can support communism, or you can support Taiwanese independence, but remember that these are limited to freedom of speech only. If it turns into political action, like advocating armed rebellion for either communist or separatist ideals, or if you incite public insurrection, it will still be treated as treason,” said Wu.

The ban on supporting communism or separatism was previously declared unconstitutional by the Council of Grand Justices in 2008. After that, many political parties that supported those ideologies were established, including the Taiwan National Party and Communist Party of the Republic of China.