…Race fuels the movements just as it fueled the expansive colonialism of Western capitalism, the growth of systemic inequality, and the fragmentation of the working class. White supremacy has always been a tool to break up class solidarity and to redirect class struggle against other workers and oppressed people, and therefore the thinking of fascist radicals returns to race. The American mythology was founded on the idea that some races were biologically and spiritually inferior to others. That idea left the American consciousness while it remained in its institution and subconscious, and fascists simply intend to make it a primary motivator once again. In eras where anti-racist struggles take place, such as the battle over immigration or against police brutality with Black Lives Matter, fascist radicals will simply stoke the racist subconscious of white America to get them to turn toward nationalism rather than collective liberation….
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If deconstructed, the beliefs that Winfrey and others promoted might more accurately read, “If you focus on becoming successful (your own reality), you can live untouched by rising economic and social disparities (outside reality).” Selective philanthropies sponsored by generous billionaires can never replace a society’s gutted safety net.
Chicago students stage a die-in at City Hall with their hands bound in mock zip ties to illustrate the criminalization they experience, in addition to gun violence. (Photo: Kelly Hayes)
The Chicago students who converged downtown read their demands aloud multiple times during the event, which spanned several locations. These demands, which youth organizers distributed to journalists, included a new moratorium on school closures, more school counselors (a ratio of at least 1:200 students), librarians in every school, more after-school programs and a full-time nurse for every school. The students also demanded restorative justice trainings for school staff, more youth jobs and an end to charter school expansion. Additionally, they called for the city to reopen mental health clinics that have been shuttered under Rahm Emanuel’s administration. The students repeatedly contrasted the city’s failure to meet the needs of its youth with the mayor’s willingness to spend an extra $95 million on Chicago’s infamously racist and violent police department.
As we mentioned last week, New York is currently holding a month-long festival celebrating Albert Camus’ historic visit to NYC 70 years ago. One event in the festival featured actor Viggo Mortensen giving a reading of Camus’ lecture,“La Crise de l’homme” (“The Human Crisis”) at Columbia University–the very same place where Camus delivered the lecture 70 years earlier–down to the very day (March 28, 1946). The reading was captured on a cell phone, and broadcast live using Facebook live video. It can be jittery, but if you close your eyes and give a listen, it will be worth your time. Note that Mortensen takes the stage around the 11:45 mark.
“The Human Crisis” will be added to our collection, 900 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free. You can download major works by Camus as free audiobooks if you sign up for a 30-Day Free Trial with Audible.com. Find more information on that program here.
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After a few hours’ deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge.
The Atlanta Solidarity Fund bails out activists who are arrested for participating in social justice movements, and helps them get access to lawyers.
Your contribution will go directly to supporting those facing repression. Please contribute what you can.
When we stand together, we are strong!
…Now he owed $53,000 in arrears, plus the ongoing weekly payments, plus $5,000 in court fees and fines. “It’s insurmountable pressure,” he says. “Either I do something wrong to pay off the fines and fees, or I relegate myself to a debtors’ prison or a lifetime of poverty.”…
…A men’s prison in Chino, California, runs a commercial dive school for inmates, training them to work as commercial divers, underwater welders, and heavy-construction riggers—highly specialized jobs that pay upward of $50,000 per year. Their recidivism rate is less than 7 percent, compared to 64 percent of the state’s general prison population….
…Unemployment begets unemployment. Communities with high rates of incarceration don’t just lose the workers who go to prison. They lose the money those workers (and their families) spend at the local grocery, banks, restaurants, and shops. The impact is felt through generations; studies show that having a parent in prison hampers a child’s prospect of upward economic mobility. If the law required that inmates be paid wages comparable to peers doing similar work on the outside—what the PIE program is supposed to do—their jobs would have the opposite effect. When the inmate sent his income home, he’d help create additional jobs….
…Paying inmates a prevailing wage would eliminate the complaint by free-world competitors and labor unions that prison shops are undercutting wages, since the wages would be the same on the inside and on the outside. It would help inmates make amends for their crimes, too, by allowing them to pay restitution to victims. And it would help them to accumulate some savings so they can rebuild their lives when they’re released….
…Countless judges, both state and federal, have held that inmate workers need not be offered the same rights or protections as free-world workers. But from one ruling to the next, they can’t agree on why, exactly….
Being unhoused and the effects of being unhoused
https://www.tiktok.com/@sorenrehkopf/video/7198364041402764586?_r=1&_t=8ZlMD9QnKqE
582,462 and Counting
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/business/economy/us-homeless-population-count.html
By The New York Times
Published Feb. 3, 2023Updated Feb. 9, 2023
To fix a problem like homelessness in America, you need to know its scope. To do that, you need sheriffs, social workers, volunteers, flashlights and 10 days in January.
…
According to Human Rights Watch, 40 percent of Argentine pregnancies end in abortion. Yet, abortion continues to be taboo and illegal (with the exception of cases of rape or grave risk to the mother or child). Broadly, poor women end up suffering most as they don’t have the means to get the proper care required and resort to tremendously dangerous alternatives instead.
…
“The more you know, the more burdened you are and the more you feel compelled to act.”
