Buffalo Tenants United has begun distributing a new newsletter, Tenants United! throughout apartment buildings in the city of Buffalo. The newsletter will be used as a means of connecting tenants throughout the city to what's happening in their buildings and in the larger fight for housing justice while building momentum and membership for Buffalo Tenants United. If you would like more information about Buffalo Tenants United, they can be contacted at buffalotenantsunited@gmail.com or (716)218-9435.

Tenants United! can be downloaded here.

Buffalo Tenants United is a union of renters from throughout the city of Buffalo. They organize alongside tenants to fight for quality and affordable housing.

For the fourth installment of our "Workers' Power Play Series," Subversive Theatre is proud to present HARVEST by Langston Hughes -- a play based heavily on Hughes' real-life experience organizing a strike of migrant farm workers in southern California in the 1930s. In the depths of the Great Depression, this story follows the disparate ethnic groups of workers involved in the strike -- Blacks, whites, and Mexicans -- who must overcome their prejudices and cultural differences in order to mount a unified campaign for better wages and the right to unionize.

Intertwining the scenes of this almost docu-drama style play with many of Hughes' most radical poems and live performances of militant union songs of the day, our rendition of HARVEST offers up a multi-disciplinary blending of drama, poetry, and song into a powerful mosaic of passion and defiance.

Like all the previous editions of our "Workers' Power Play Series," this production serves simultaneously as a moving artistic event and an important reminder of the lessons of the past all rolled into one.

Directed by Subversive Theatre's Founder & Artistic Director Kurt Schneiderman*, HARVEST features the acting talents of Rob Dziechciarz, Hasheen DeBerry*, Cynthia Maxwell*, Lawrence Rowswell*, Lisa Dee, Eric Mowery, Martha Rothkopf, Dacia Dunnigan, Joy Scime, Gabe Mirizio, Gary Darling, Tom Izard*, Thomas Brown, Guy DeFedericis*, and Dinash Lal as well as teenaged actors Ryan Berkun, Daniel Henderson, and Angelina Buscaglia. Live music is performed by Jean Dickson* and Keith Woodin.

The first edition of Buffalo Class Action's quarterly agitational paper can be found here. This edition contains two articles. The first, is a call for building a movement of tenants and the homeless throughout the city of Buffalo. The second article talks about the goals of an anarchist agitational paper and why we need our own media, as an anarchist organization.

You can find out more about our organization at www.BuffaloClassAction.com

A cartoon explanation of why we need a public health insurance option.

If you agree that a public option should be part of the health care reform bill, make sure you let your representatives know!

And take action at http://www.YoungInvincibles.org

Animated by Andy Lubershane. More comics at http://www.earthlycomics.blogspot.com

By Steve Wieser & Irene Morrison

Since the 2008/2009 attack on Gaza, Israel has implemented a public relations plan or “Rebranding” of their national image in the face of mounting calls for Israel to be held accountable for war crimes. A part of this rebranding campaign has been to send the Israel Ballet on tour throughout the world, including to Buffalo on February 23rd, and it was met with a small protest by the University at Buffalo’s Students for Justice in Palestine and the WNY Peace Center’s Palestine Israel Committee.

As Israeli Cultural Minister Yuli Edelstein stated: “We have to mobilize our human capital, meaning the residents of Israel,” in order to combat the negative image that Israeli has received. The Israeli Ballet “on its first US tour in 25 years” is doing just this. The ballet is a mobilization of Israeli “culture” and human beings as propaganda. It is a way for the state of Israel to “rebrand” itself in western eyes as a more civil institution. One that parades women in tutus around the world instead of one that uses white phosphorus on civilian populations.

A waving Palestinian flag and chanting made sure that those attending felt the presence of Palestinian supporters. Protestors provoked a few harsh reactions, from cursing to racist statements to spitting. “Here’s your propaganda back,” yelled one wide-eyed woman as she handed back a fake program outside of the Ballet at the University at Buffalo’s Center for the Arts.

The Buffalo Chapter of the United Socialist Movement of the Americas will present “Power of the People Week” in the Student Union from Feb. 22 through Feb. 26. The week’s events aim to celebrate left wing and progressive history, and raise awareness to its causes.

“UB has had a history of political action,” says William Richardson, president of Buffalo USMA. “In the last 15 years, it’s kind of ebbed. We thought it would be good to remind students of political history of UB and the nation.”

The group organized the event in conjunction with other organizations like UB Students for Justice in Palestine, UB Students Against Sweatshops, the LGBTA, the Buffalo International Action Center and the WNY Peace Center.

Via: www.buffaloactivist.org

In 2006, the Israeli Foreign Ministry launched the “Brand Israel” campaign “to show Israel’s prettier face” abroad, diverting global attention from the Palestinians. This campaign includes the Israel Ballet, described by the Israeli Consulate in New York as a “cultural representative of the State of Israel.” On Tuesday, February 23rd, the Israel Ballet will show the University at Buffalo the peaceful, pretty, Western face of Israel. But instead, we should be seeing the growing list of UN reports condemning Israel for human rights violations in the occupied territories and the systemic discrimination of the twenty percent Arab population in Israel.

With twenty percent of its citizens of Palestinian Arab descent, Israel claims to be a multi-racial democracy. Yet not a single Israel Ballet dancer, not a single member of its staff or directors, is Palestinian. It does not represent the twenty percent of Israelis who attend separate schools, receive less funding for education, and face discrimination in employment, in property purchases, in language, and in law. And it certainly does not represent the 1.5 million Palestinians who suffer intolerable conditions in Gaza, where 80% live off of UN food aid and over 40% are unemployed.

This afternoon, in the midst of a blizzard, about 30 Buffalonians came out to protest conditions at the Erie County Holding Center. Today's protest was exceptionally emotional as it comes the weekend after another inmate committed suicide, the 5th hanging suicide since 2007 and the 11th overall in the center since 2003. The inmate was a 26 year old heroin user in withdrawal named Dan Nye.