L.A. Teachers on Hunger Strike - KTLA

L.A. Teachers on Hunger Strike - KTLA

Big March on Feinstein's Office, June 3, 2009

Big March on Feinstein's Office, June 3, 2009

Press release from the Hunger Strike and Teach-In for the Kids of LAUSD: Hungry for a Better Education

HUNGRY FOR A BETTER EDUCATION

Media Contacts:

Fast Participant (Español) – Jose Lara
(714) 864-0543

Fast Participant – Sean Leys
(323) 490-2412

Teacher Organizer – Kelly Flores
(323) 286-5244


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Teachers, Parents, and Community Members Announce Hunger Strike and Teach-In for the Kids of LAUSD: Hungry for a Better Education

Los Angeles, California – Nearly a dozen individuals, including LAUSD teachers, concerned community, and a single father will undergo a full-fledged, water-only fast beginning the evening of Wednesday, May 27th, 2009.

The objective of these actions is to call attention to School Board Members Garcia, Flores, and Vladovic’s plan to put nearly a half billion dollars of federal stimulus money into a savings account while raising class sizes and laying off some of the district’s best, most exciting, vibrant new teachers. Our demand is for a new LAUSD budget that defends students’ classrooms.

LAUSD has received nearly a billion dollars in federal stimulus money. President Obama has repeatedly announced that the purpose and top priority for this money should be to keep jobs and to inject the money as quickly as possible into the economy; however, Board Members Garcia, Flores, and Vladovic have voted to approve a budget that does just the opposite. Their budget calls for saving half of the money and laying off 2,500 desperately needed teachers, the future of the profession. Worse still, their plan calls for raising class size – the single biggest factor in determining students’ success.

Hunger strikers are willing to continue the fast until all demands are met. Such drastic cuts call for drastic actions.

Demands

1) Protect out students’ education by NOT increasing class size
2) Protect the future of education in LAUSD by NOT laying off our new teachers


Fasters’ Itinerary

Wednesday-Friday: Following the press conference, fasters will be working in their communities building support. Teachers will be at their schools teaching. They may be contacted individually.
Saturday: Hungry for Education Teach-in and Speak Out. Fasters will be available at this event.
Sunday and afterwards: Fasters will begin an encampment and be available for interviews. 5:00pm, Location TBA.

Locations
Press Conference
May 27th, 2009 at 4:30 PM
Gratts Elementary School
309 Lucas Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90017

Hungry for Education Teach-in
May 30st, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Centro Cultural Francisco Villa
2100 Maple Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90011

Fasters (Partial list):

Sean Leys
Teacher at Lincoln High School, fast organizer, English only
(323) 490-2412

Jose Lara
Single father of child at First Street Elementary School, teacher at Santee High School, fast organizer, English and Español
(714) 864-0543

Brenda Barragan
Pink Slipped Teacher at Santee High School, English and Español
(323) 533-8976

Elizabeth Juarez
Third grade teacher at Hooper Avenue Elementary, English and Español
(818) 239-9395

Alexia Lewis
Substitute teacher at Lincoln High School, artist, civil rights activist, English only
(323) 369-5109

Gladys Mazariego-Hamdi
Math and special education teacher at West Adams Preparatory High School, English and Español
(818) 568-8004

Martin Terrones
Filmmaker, community activist, founder / executive director of Chicano/Latino Artists for Social Equality (CLASE), English and Español
(310) 591-7560

Press release from the Hunger Strike and Teach-In for the Kids of LAUSD: Hungry for a Better Education

CCCOP's latest on LAPD's murder of Susie Pena

The latest from the community watch group:

OBAMA-HOLDER: STOP THE KILLER COP AWARDS!  NO TROPHYS FOR KILLING BABY SUSIE!
The Coalition for Community Control Over the Police will picket outside the LAPD awards ceremony 10:30am Thursday, May 28 at the Kodak Theater, where the LAPD’s highest honor will be given to 10 of the SWAT stormtroopers who killed 18 month old baby Susie Pena in Watts in 2005.  The Medal of Valor, approved by Mayor Villaraigosa’s appointed Police Commission, is "awarded to officers who distinguish themselves by conspicuous bravery or heroism above and beyond..."
Chief Bratton has orchestrated the rewards for killing baby Susie in line with his official denial that his death squad killed her.  He recently postponed Lorena Lopez’ (Susie’s mother) lawsuit while he shops for a new coroner to re-write the autopsy, to exonerate his force from the infant’s death, and remove himself from liability as he seeks a third term.
The Coalition for Community Control Over the Police calls on Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama’s Justice Department to fully enforce the federal Consent Decree, to follow through on its lawsuit against the LAPD for refusing to break its “pattern and practice” of civil rights violations, and for the implementation of an all-elected, all-civilian police control board with full authority over the department.

CCCOP's latest on LAPD's murder of Susie Pena

Is the on-air-bully projecting?

"Rush Limbaugh's race to the bottom" in Salon. There's a rumor he was telling the truth regarding his OxyContin fueled trip to the Dominican Republic. The story goes: the boxes of Viagra weren't for him, they were for friends he planned to meet, only the vial of amyl nitrate was Mr. Limbaugh's.

Is the on-air-bully projecting?

My wife and I are outraged by the LAUSD RIF

Ms. Garcia:

My wife and I live in District 2. We are appalled that Mr. Cortines and the LAUSD board are cutting some 5,500 teachers, when funds have been made available to retain those jobs. Before going to work today, we marched alongside the parents, students, and teachers from Miguel Contreras Learning Complex this morning against the disgusting injunction Mr. Cortines obtained to support his vicious cuts.

We are further outraged by Mr. Cortines collaborative efforts with union busting charter schools and other privatization methods. Given the Superintendent's quarter million dollar a year salary, it is no surprise that he would spearhead an effort to vilify hard working teachers making a fraction of what he makes. While he enjoys lunches with Steve Barr, Eli Broad, and other enemies of public education, those of us that work for a living and pay taxes are standing by our sisters and brothers in UTLA. We don't want class size increases! We don't want teachers being laid off! We are tired of the wealthy getting a free lunch on our backs!

Ms. Garcia, I have voted for you several times in the past. However, I can guarantee you will not get my vote in the future if you don't take a stand on this. Furthermore, I will use all my resources and wherewithal as a community organizer to spread the word that you are against our students, parents, and teachers. LAUSD should have been standing alongside UTLA protesting the Governor's budget cuts and demanding more resources for our schools. Instead LAUSD has engaged in the most despicable union busting, and has supported the most reactionary elements in our city -- including the big money interests that would privatize our schools. Budget crisis? Tax the rich!

Sincerely

RD Skeels and YJ Lee
Barrio Echo Parque residents for 14 years

My wife and I are outraged by the LAUSD RIF

A parent revolution?

L.A. Parents Union, effectively an astroturf front group for Green Dot, is funded for the most part by Eli Broad and William Gates. Hardly advocates of progressive education or social equality. What the 'Parent Revolution' (have to love the extreme right wing's appropriation of terms once reserved for the social justice struggle) does do is it dupes parents into supporting 'non-profit' organizations like Green Dot which pays massive six digit salaries to Steve Barr, Marco Petruzzi, and Ben Austin. These same fat cats drone on about how UTLA rank and file are overpaid.

An end goal to their union busting efforts, will be to apply 'free market principles' like competition between their privatized schools. That's right, the same thinking that brought us the dot.com disaster and the housing bubble fiasco. How apropos, considering Steve Barr's Silicon Valley roots, and connections to super-rich venture capitalists. While he's not lounging around his opulent Silver Lake home insinuating UTLA bureaucrats have carnal relations with sus domestica, he is working with some of the most reactionary elements in Los Angeles to destroy the last vestiges of public eduction.

Private institutions, answerable to no one, will replace schools as we know them. Once they have displaced public schools, the impetus to improve education will give way to their true motive. Like all efforts to maximize profits (yes Green Dot is a non-profit, but read the rules governing non-profits, especially those for salaries), through downward pressure on spending per student and teacher salaries in order to increase Mr. Barr's and his cronies' incomes substantially.

Far from the 'revolutionary instigators' right wing libertarian admirers call them, Mr. Barr and his highly paid wrecking crew will join the pantheon of profiteering crooks like the Waltons, Gates, and Madoffs.

A parent revolution?

Protesters Take On America's Toughest Sheriff (VIDEO)

@Seanjean922, where did you get that hundreds of thousands of victims idea? Lou Dobbs, John Tanton, or a Stormfront message board? As for your condescending and patronizing "Many of you young white Americans have not traveled beyond America's borders," I'm a middle aged Navy veteran that has traveled outside these borders many times. Sorry, you can't excuse away white supremacy with your vapid and specious arguments. This country has a long history of vicious treatment towards people from other lands; taking examples like the Chinese Exclusion act, or the Japanese Internment Camps for starters. Excusing racism, white supremacy, and ethnocentrism by saying it happens in other places is wholly unacceptable -- you have to fight it where ever it is. If I lived in another country where racism was rampant, I would fight it there. I live in Los Angeles, and for years have marched and organized alongside all the people you vilified in your post -- Koreans, Salvadorians, Mexicanos, Filipinos, Ecuadoreans and so many more. These undocumented peoples, "Illegals" to quote your disgusting language of our oppressors, are hard working and honest peoples. I've stood toe to toe with vile filthy racists from white supremacist groups including the Minutemen, Stormfront, SOS, and other Klansman. Sadly, your above prose sounds strikingly familiar to the things they always say.
About Video On HuffPost
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Protesters Take On America's Toughest Sheriff (VIDEO)

08-Feb-09 SCIC planning meeting and SCIC/SAR sign making for ABC Demo

Sunday, February 8, 2009 at 11:00AM
SCIC Planning Meeting
Centro Cultural Francisco Villa
2100 Maple Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90011

(21st x Maple; facing Santee Education Complex)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2100+Maple+Avenue+LA,+CA+90011&sll=34.100294,-118.235523&sspn=0.01425,0.021479&g=1900+N+San+Fernando+Road,+Los+Angeles,+CA&ie=UTF8&ll=34.035484,-118.261857&spn=0.028522,0.042958&z=15&iwloc=addr


Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC) comprises a wide range of immigrant rights groups, NGOs, activists, and students with common agreement on these two points:
1) an immidiate end to the ICE raids
2) full legalization for undocumented immigrants.

SCIC calls demonstrations and other political actions.
http://immigrationcoalition.org/

08-Feb-09 SCIC planning meeting and SCIC/SAR sign making for ABC Demo

Masters of Reality - John Brown - Live - Feat Ginger Baker

Masters of Reality - John Brown - Live - Feat Ginger Baker

SCIC Planning Meeting to Protest ABC's "Homeland Security USA"

Please come to the planning meeting for the SCIC's next action:

Sunday, January 25, 2009 at noon.
Domingo, 25 de Enero a media dia.
Señor Fish Restaurant, Downtown
422 East First Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012.

This is the planning meeting to create a protest at ABC's studio location in Los Angeles demanding they discontinue their racist "Homeland Security USA" program. Glamorizing agents that break up families, imprison hard working people, and enforce arbitrary immigration laws creates an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in immigrant communities, and emboldens racist nativist groups.

Students, individuals, and groups in agreement with the SCIC's points of agreement are welcome to join the coalition.

1) Alto a Las Redadas / End the Raids
2) Legalizacion / Legalization

For more information of ABC's "Homeland Security USA" please join:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38289708327

Southern California Immigration Coalition
immigrationcoalition@yahoo.com
http://immigrationcoalition.org/
(323) 602-3480
(213) 234-8561

Southern California Immigration Coalition
28th St. Elementary School Acorn Chapter, Associtation of Raza Educators, Brown Berets, Comite de Mujeres Patricia Marin, CISPES-Los Angeles, Committee on Raza Rights-Oxnard, Danza Azteca Cuahtemoc, Frente Contra las Redadas, Hermandad Mexicana Transnational, Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, Homies Unidos, IDEPSCA, Internet MECHA, International Socialist Organization, MAPA, National Immigrant Solidarity Network, Palisadians for Peace, Placita Olvera Working Group, Puerto Rican Alliance, Radical Women, School of the Americas Watch, L.A. Somos Raza, Union del Barrio, and many more.

Email us to endorse the campaign at immigrationcoalition@yahoo.com

SCIC Planning Meeting to Protest ABC's "Homeland Security USA"

When laws are immoral, and serve to perpetuate racism

The following was written in response to a Facebook discussion board on the "ABC: Take "Homeland Security USA" reality show OFF the air!!" group. An individual posts a seemingly innocuous question entitled "What is the root of the concern about this show?" There is some banter back and forth, but the person initially posing the question eventually makes their point. They argue this is "a society based on rule of law." This threadbare argument, used by reactionaries and liberals alike, is premised on the notion that the state is somehow a neutral entity. The reality is the state was created as a means of maintaining class inequality and enforcing the rule of the few over the vast majority of us. Rather than an impartial arbiter, the capitalist state, along with its laws, serve the interests of those who rule. Very often the laws under the most "enlightened" bourgeois representative democracies are quite horrible. He further goes on to argue that just showing the factual accounts of DHS personnel outside the context of who they serve, and to what purpose they serve isn't intended to try and polish a tarnished DHS/ICE image. He then argues that the function of this show is utterly apolitical, and serves no propagandistic purposes whatsoever. Any immigrant rights activist knows from experience that DHS/ICE is not an apolitical department full of hardworking people safeguarding us from the other (read brown people). I think my following post really drives this home. -- Robert D. Skeels

Mr. [name withheld] has won me over with his verbosity and convoluted logic. Indeed, this is a country based on rule of law, and by extension, those paid to uphold such laws are heroes! In light of this we should beg Mr. Arnold Shapiro to produce the following shows as pitched below (obviously historical reenactments, but in spirit, identical in context to Homeland Security USA).

Defenders of Democracy - U.S.A. Against the Victimizing Vote
This Arnold Shapiro produced made for TV movie follows the travails of brave U. S. Attorney Richard Crowley doing his job to make sure those who would threaten our democracy by voting illegally pay for their crimes. When undesirables turn up to flout the law and vote in violation of the 1870's Enforcement Act, Richard Crowley does his prosaic and apolitical duty of prosecuting.

Separate, but Equal U.S.A.
If safeguarding Americans from the nefarious other from without constitutes brave and selfless service, how about from within? Just a few decades ago, before interference with States' Rights, certain folk knew their place. In fact, their place was inshrined in law. "Separate, but Equal U.S.A." is Arnold Shapiro's attempt to show how southern law enforcement protected our communities from those that would illegally cross lines they weren't supposed to cross, and committing dangerous acts like sitting on the wrong part of the bus and leering at our womenfolk. "This isn't political or about whether Jim Crow was morally wrong." said a Shapiro spokesperson. "This is about average men on the front lines upholding the laws at that time."

U.S.A. Marshals: Breaking the Contraband Network
Our democracy has always been a nation of laws, and any law or law enforcement agency protecting the sanctity of private property should be afforded the highest honors of all. This series follows ordinary U.S. Marshals performing their sacred duty of tracking down those stealing plantation property. These brave men also investigate a wide underground network of conspirators and lawbreakers aiding and abetted these fugitives. While critics of this Arnold Shapiro produced series see it as a defense of chattel slavery, they need to understand these brave marshals didn't write the "Fugitive Slave Law of 1850," they merely did their jobs.

Shall I go on?

When laws are immoral, and serve to perpetuate racism

Broccoli Kitten LOVES Broccoli!

Broccoli Kitten LOVES Broccoli!

Victory for the Republic Workers

We want to celebrate the Republic Windows and Doors workers' victory of preventing the bosses and bankers from stealing their hard earned vacation, severance, and insurance pay. However, our Saturday protest is still on. First we want to raise awareness of what just happened -- a successful factory occupation, here stateside in 2008. Also, while Bank of America is trying to sound magnanimous about making these loans, these workers might still have jobs if the bank loaned when the company was still operating. Bank of America's David Rudis remarked the bank had "no obligation to pay Republic's employees." Frankly we the workers, read taxpayers, were under no obligation for the $25 Billion recently handed over to his bank.

This struggle is a microcosm of all our struggles, and is praxis of some major points. First, it highlights the power of workers, and our ability to face down the bosses using our most powerful weapon, the strike. Second, the working class struggle is one and the same as the immigrant rights struggle. Not only were a good portion of the UE workers at Republic immigrants of Latino descent, but this is one of several recent immigrant workers' fight back actions in Illinois including Cygnus Corp. Lastly, it shows the degree of militancy and organization it will take to gain victories in both the current economy and political atmosphere.

A list of related Republic Windows and Doors articles

Victory for the Republic Workers

Paul Krugman Schools George Will On The Great Depression

I think people are misunderstanding Krugman on the effect of the war. He isn't repeating the reactionary dribble that the war saved the economy, but stating the economy recovered. What he doesn't discuss here is important. The only way to prevent the "tendency of the rate of profit to fall" is to destroy capital (mostly means of production in this case). When WWII is considered in a context of every competing country's (allies and opponents), means of production was essentially wiped out, we have the real reason for the United States' economic recovery after the war. The right wing can never admit this since there are too many ideological penalties the come with it. If war really was a easy way to fix economies, why the slumps after Viet Nam, Gulf War I, the current occupations?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman Schools George Will On The Great Depression

Paul Krugman Schools George Will On The Great Depression

Austrian school economics, brought to you by the same kooks that deify Ayn Rand, and actually think there is a way for markets to expand infinitely. For those unfamiliar with this discredited school of economics, they actually do consider Greenspan and Friedman as being left, since anything that hints of regulating the monstrosities of capital is considered left of Austrian School. Free markets always have and always will fail miserably, the contradictions inherent in the profit system insure this, and history has proven it time and time again.

A little hint for acudoc, you've misidentified the so called producers in your pro ruling class diatribe, and it sure isn't the greedy captains of industry you worship. There are producers in society, and they do create all the wealth. They are called the workers.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman Schools George Will On The Great Depression

"The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage," or the Capitalist Case?

The MIT article exposes itself all the more when you consider the doctorate the author is working on. His thesis is quite simple and rehashes what the revolutionary left has said for over a century, albeit from the vantage of the oppressors.

Capital always needs exploitable labor, but doesn't want to pay for its reproduction. It uses the state (formed for capitals' common interests) to subsidize the cost of reproducing the next generation of labor. LGBT people, according to Kolasinski, supposedly aren't contributing to the labor pool, and hence shouldn't be "subsidized." Never mind that in the regressive tax structure we live under such subsidies actually come out of our pockets anyway, his argument is surprisingly honest in terms of how their class views ours: work, breed, work...

Kolasinski then takes out insurance at the end of his piece with oft repeated, "if we let them marry, then what's next?" A reactionary straw-man that frequently devolves into discussions of bestiality and what have you.

As a straight, married, Californian, I will be standing alongside my LGBT sisters and brothers on Saturday. An injury to one is an injury to all!

"The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage," or the Capitalist Case?

I profoundly admire Apple for taking a stand against Prop 8 (Prop Hate)

From their website, posted on October 24, 2008 at 10:18 (http://www.apple.com/startpage/):

No on Prop 8
Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

I profoundly admire Apple for taking a stand against Prop 8 (Prop Hate)

Blaming the victims of the crisis

Recently I was arguing the same point this article makes with some petty bourgeois acquaintances, one a hopeless reactionary, the other a closet libertarian. They were making Wall Street's case that the entire financial crises is due to the government forcing innocent institutions like Countrywide to lend to brown (read Latino) and black people. I said "even if they did, and loans were made to every single black and brown person in the country, that still only accounts for roughly 20% of the loans. How do you account for the other 80%?" They were unable to answer it, and just reiterated the right wing 'talking points.'

Blaming the victims of the crisis

Palin: the View from British Columbia

Palin: the View from British Columbia