Be loud, be proud, BASH BACK!

On August 10th 2008, participants in the Syracuse Solidarity Network, an affiliate of the North East Anarchist Network, took part in the National Day of Action Against Electoral Politics. To build support and momentum for the protests against the Democratic & Republican National Conventions, in Syracuse, New York we held a small un-permitted solidarity rally, distributed literature and had a community picnic/potluck.

[Carl Davidson, webmaster for 'Progressives for Obama', comments here on the recent piece by Jack Smith on electoral politics and the options for leftists and progressives.

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An analysis of the conditions necessary to bring about a period of significant progressive change and reform in the U.S. that would adequately address our country's major social problems, based on an examination of three eras our history noted for important reform legislation.

During June Congress funded the Iraq war deep into next year, approved a version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that endangers civil liberties, and, in effect, eliminated the possibility of impeaching President Bush. Why are progressives and the left not particularly surprised?

Today, a TV ad began airing featuring a quadriplegic from Kingston, urging the state Senate to pass a bill allowing the doctor-advised, medical use of marijuana. Several patients traveled to Albany to talk to the press and to lobby senators. Among them was Barbara Jackson, a great-grandmother from the Bronx who survived cancer and was arrested last year for using marijuana to treat her dangerous appetite loss.

On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn't want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers' Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an "illegal strike." But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses' mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers' May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their "symbolic" action was felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party.

Montpelier, VT –The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their “unequivocal” support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq.

Upstate uprise!

Hudson-Mohawk Indymedia has produced a definitive account of the whirlwind of events surrounding Wafaa Bilal's controversial art exhibit, "Virtual Jihadi".

STATEMENT FROM STEVE PIERCE, SPOKESPERSON FOR THE SANCTUARY FOR INDEPENDENT MEDIA, TROY, NEW YORK, March 14, 2008

A demonstration has been called for this Tuesday, March 18th, at 5:30 in front of Troy City Hall, One Monument Square, Troy, in support of The Sanctuary for Independent Media and against the abuse of public power to suppress art and dissent. The protest, which is being organized by a new ad hoc group calling itself the Capital Region Committee for Free Expression, will demand: