By Dan Freeman-Maloy, Z Net, May 6, 2008

The year 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel, and should be the occasion for a serious re-evaluation of international policy towards the conflict that has ensued. Political Zionism, and after 1948 the Israeli state, has consistently drawn crucial political, economic and military support from Europe and North America. With this support comes a heavy burden of responsibility for its consequences.

Monday, May 5, 2008, from http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/

Two years ago, on May 3-4, 2006, federal, state, and municipal police violently invaded San Salvador Atenco, leaving two people dead and 218 people imprisoned. To date, only a handful of police have been prosecuted for very minor crimes, and many of those convicted have since been exonerated. However, sixteen activists remain imprisoned, some with life sentences.

The invasion incurred because a handful of Atenco residents attempted their yearly ritual of selling flowers in a local market before Mother's Day despite plans to build a Wal-Mart on that site. Police told them to leave the area despite a previous agreement with local authorities that they could sell flowers there, but only for the holiday. The Popular Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT), adherents to the Zapatistas' Other Campaign, arrived to support the flower vendors in resistance. The police attacked, and more adherents to the Zapatistas' Other Campaign arrived in Atenco shortly thereafter from surrounding states to support the FPDT, because an injury to one adherent to the Other Campaign is an injury to the entire Other Campaign.

By NICOLE RIVA, Examiner Staff Writer

The public was locked out of a meeting between public officials, including the mayor, a councillor, an MPP, a public task force and a provincial minister, on an issue of public concern — poverty.

The meeting between Ontario’s Minister of Children and Youth Services and the Mayor’s Action Committee on Poverty yesterday at the Evinrude Centre — a public building — was by invitation only, excluding angry anti-poverty activists, the media and the NDP’s poverty critic.
The meeting lasted three hours and was designed to give the minister, Deb Matthews, some insight into Peterborough’s poverty strategies.
The meeting was attended by Mayor Paul Ayotte, Coun. Doug Peacock, Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal and the deputy reeve of Cavan-Monaghan Brian Fallis.

The lack of public access resulted in shouts of anger by members of the public, some of whom say they were pushed from the building by security, including former MPP Jenny Carter.

Protesters greeted Matthews with shouts of “shame” and “we want 40 per cent” upon her arrival.

What: An informative lecture and Q&A time with 30 year veteran of Six Nations land claims research Phil Monture and other leaned special guests.

When: Thursday, May 15, 2008, beginning at 7 pm.

Where: At the BCI Auditorium, Brant Ave. Brantford.

Why: Without the truth, it will be impossible to understand why Six Nations are blocking development in Brant/Brant County and elsewhere.

DID YOU KNOW:

Did you know that more than 50% of the present Six Nations land and resources disputes registered with Canada involve Brantford or Brant County?

Did you know there are dozens more yet to be filed?

Did you know that since 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada has ordered the federal and provincial governments of Canada as well as municipalities and developers to engage in meaningful consultation and accommodation with First Nations where contested land land claims or treaty rights are concerned?

Did you know that the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982 recognized and affirms Aboriginal Rights and Treaties?

Did you know that only 807 acres of Brantford is accounted for, and most of that has yet to be paid to the people of Six Nations?

Don’t believe it? Come and hear the real truth behind the settlement of Brant County and the expansionism policies of today’s City Hall.

By Michael Bronski, Z Net

Although I've only been teaching gay and lesbian studies for eight years, my involvement in writing about it (and participating in it) stretch back almost four decades. I have learned innumerable things during that time—and engaging with younger queer people has changed my mind about a number of issues. One of the most important changes has come from my realization that teaching "history" is a lot harder than teaching about social issues. Students have no trouble comprehending and grappling with complicated legal issues and political theory. They have no problem figuring out a causal historical timeline, but they often have no real sense of what this recent history felt like, or the extraordinarily high level of emotional content that fueled it or the emotions that emerged from it.

By RJ Maccani, for the upcoming issue of the RESIST Newsletter, from Zapagringo

"Behind our black mask, behind our armed voice, behind our unnameable name, behind what you see of us, behind this, we are you." – Major Ana Maria of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) at the First Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism. Chiapas, Mexico. 1996.

In their words and in their actions, Mexico’s Zapatista rebels have developed and propagated a powerful conception of solidarity. Through exploring a bit of their history, as well as the work of several of their supporters and allies within the USA, I seek to share here some of my understandings of what solidarity means to the Zapatistas and, thus, what it might mean for those of us who seek to act in solidarity with them.

Everything for Everyone, Nothing for Ourselves

Perhaps the Zapatista Army of National Liberation got lucky when they picked January 1st, 1994 to be the day they would rise up in arms. As the prominent Mexican intellectual Gustavo Esteva describes it, there wasn’t much else happening at the time:

(May 4th, 2008) Eight days ago, on Friday, April 25th, 2008, my husband, Shawn Brant, was arrested and detained on assault and weapons charges. Since that time, Commissioner Julian Fantino and the Ontario Provincial Police have issued numerous public statements that have wildly and, it seems, purposefully misstated the events leading to my husband’s arrest, and sought to vilify and criminalize him personally.

I believe it is important to the public good for people to understand the circumstances that have lead to Shawn’s incarceration at this time. Those circumstances are as follows:

On Sunday, April 20th, 2008, the community of Tyendinaga responded to threats from a Kingston developer to bring “a crew of 25 to 30 guys”, in order to begin development on a property which falls within in the Culbertson Tract land claim. Mohawks from Tyendinaga did peaceful road closures on Highway 2, adjacent to this proposed development site on Mohawk land.

By Jennifer Kilty and Tara Lyons

The proposed Bill C-484, known as the “Unborn Victims of Crime Act,” is currently receiving a great deal of media attention.

Supporters of the bill suggest that it is “simply” a strategic attempt to protect vulnerable pregnant women from violence – both at the hands of strangers, and more often than not by their intimate partners.

This argument presumes two things: (1) that we can implement new laws and policies in a simplistic and direct fashion and without the possibility of generating unintended consequences; and (2) that harsher penal sanctions effectively reduce harms and violent crime.

Both of these presumptions are inherently false. In practice, Bill C-484 is a law that opens the door for future legal challenges against women’s right to choose whether to have an abortion. In effect, this new bill could create legal rights for foetuses, marking them as human and thus as protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms while still in the womb. Given the fact that the foetus and the woman share one body, offering human rights to the foetus intrinsically means we are encroaching upon the woman’s rights.

Mark Lynas, 17 April 2008

World cereal stocks are at an all-time low, food-aid programmes have run out of money and millions face starvation. Yet wealthy countries persist with plans to use grain for petrol.

The irony is extraordinary. At a time when world leaders are expressing grave concern about diminishing food stocks and a coming global food crisis, our government brings into force measures to increase the use of biofuels - a policy that will further increase food prices, and further worsen the plight of the world's poor.

What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world's rich consumers. This is, in the words of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, nothing less than a "crime against humanity". It is a crime the UK government seems determined to play its part in abetting. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), introduced on 15 April, mandates petrol retailers to mix 2.5 per cent biofuels into fuel sold to motorists. This will rise to 5.75 per cent by 2010, in line with European Union policy.

April, 30 2008, Guardian Comment Is Free, Z Net

At the beginning of 1968, I was living in a communal house in Hackney musing on being, nothingness, confused love affairs and mounting piles of washing up, quite unaware of the turmoil the new year would bring.

Events took over; the Vietnamese National Liberation Front mounted the Tet offensive against the American forces, sending an unforgettable message around the world that resistance against overweening power was possible. The assassination of Martin Luther King and Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" attack on immigrants brought a sense of urgency. Rebellion seemed to be everywhere; students and workers erupted in Paris, in Prague, in Pakistan, the Philippines, Mexico, Kenya. In Britain, women marched for equal pay and in the United States they protested against beauty contests.

Insurgency brought an optimistic conviction that change was going to come and this encouraged a sense of empowerment. Before 1968 I had been a supporter of left causes but at 25 that spring, I felt a profound sense of responsibility to think and act. Nothing could be taken for granted.

Statement by Skyler Williams At The Cayuga Court House
Six Nations of Grand River Territory

April 28, 2008

My name is Skyler Williams. I am a Mohawk, Wolf, from Six Nations of The Grand River Territory. I am speaking on behalf of myself and several others that have been charged with criminal offences in connection with defending our land rights at Six Nations.

We have instructed our lawyer today not to proceed with our legal defence, so long as police have guns turned on our brothers and sisters in Tyendinaga.

Over the past months, Canada’s efforts to criminalize those of us who are standing up for our land rights has reached epic proportions. The message is clear: participate in negotiations that go nowhere as our lands are developed and destroyed - or go to jail.

Today, Six Nations is standing in steadfast solidarity with those in Tyendinaga whose lives and freedoms are in jeopardy because they are standing up for their rights. We also stand with those in Akwesasne, Kanawake and all peoples who have joined in this stand.

Also, we stand with those leaders of Ardoch Algonquin and Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug that are in jail because they refuse to betray their people and allow for mining exploration in their traditional territories.

On March 28, 2008, Naomi Klein gave the keynote address to Canada's first Independent Canadian Jewish Conference, attended by over 100 Jews against the occupation of Palestine from over a dozen organizations in over 20 cities across Canada. Click here to see the video of her presentation.

Six Nations spokesperson speaks on April 27th blockade of Highway 6 in Solidarity with the Mohawks of Tyendenaga. Video was filmed in the early evening of Sunday April 27th by members of the CUPE 3903 First Nations Solidarity Working Group.

Zac Smith

“Words wreak havoc when they find a name for what had up to then been lived namelessly” – Jean Paul Sartre

Over the past several months of 2008, Israel advocacy organizations have entered a period of ongoing mobilization in an effort to decisively counter what they see as the growing influence and impact of the Palestine solidarity movement.

After spending years trying to find its footing in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, the Palestine solidarity movement has found a new strategic focus with the emergence of the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), which has effectively shifted the terms of the Israel-Palestine debate and presented a clear analysis of the apartheid reality facing Palestinians.

These shifts have thrown the mainstream Zionist movement into a state of crisis as it finds itself unable to effectively counter the charge of apartheid. In addition, Zionist organizations find themselves increasingly isolated (with the exception of right-wing, conservative and Christian evangelical circles) as the solidarity movement continues to gain traction amongst an ever larger spectrum of audiences and organizations.

Gay City News, April 10, 2008
Police raids mark pre-Olympic repression as leading AIDS activist is jailed

by DOUG IRELAND
The wave of repression and intimidation of human rights activists and
dissidents in China in advance of the Beijing Olympics has also
targeted homosexuals, according to China's best-known gay and AIDS
activist.

In an email, Dr. Wan Yanhai reported that the month of March saw
numerous police raids on gay gathering spots in Beijing and Shanghai,
and he said that the evidence of a new pre-Olympic crackdown on gays
is so widespread it is clear it is being orchestrated "at the
national level."

Wan is not just anybody. A former official of China's Ministry of
Public Health, he was fired in 1994 for his participation in AIDS
information and prevention campaigns and for his support of full
equal rights for homosexuals.

After being purged from the ministry, Wan founded the AIDS-fighting
Aizhixing Action Project (the Chinese characters for "Aizhixing"
represent love, knowledge, and action, and are a play on the Chinese
word for AIDS). The association also works for freedom of expression
on the Internet and is active on behalf of LGBT rights.

Hu Jia, the former executive director of Aizhixing and a long-time
close collaborator of Wan who is also a noted human rights activist,

**URGENT** Tyendinaga 9:30 am Monday morning, April 28th

We have just been informed by the Tyendinaga Mohawk community
spokespeople that SWAT teams are amassing now on the Deseronto
and Slash Roads, bordering the Tyendinaga quarry reclamation site.

Community spokesperson Jason Maracle has just been told by the OPP to
pull people out of the quarry because they are going in.

Tyendinaga Support Committee
support.tmt@gmail.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CALL THE PREMIER! CALL THE PREMIER! CALL THE PREMIER! CALL THE PREMIER!

Please call the premier's office immediately and urge them to:

-Honour Mohawk land, call off the OPP: Do not risk people's lives
for a gravel pit the government has already acknowledged is on Mohawk land!

-Release all First Nations political prisoners!

Premier Dalton McGuinty: 416-325-1941 (phone)
416-325-3745 (fax)
daltonmcguinty@premier.gov.on.ca

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday's Press Release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
FROM TYENDINAGA MOHAWK TERRITORY:

Ontario Jails Five More First Nations People Involved in Land Struggles

(Sunday, April 27, 2008 -Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory) Five men from
Tyendinaga are in jail today bringing the total number of First Nations

Sunday, April 27, 2008, Mohawk Nation News
What happened - How you can help - – Needs of Mohawks - Contacts of cops and politicians

MNN. Apr. 27, 2008. An email came from the real estate agents, Emile and Theodore Nibourg, enibourg@sutton.com. These are the guys who wanted to build condos on Mohawk land, or at least they wanted to make it look like they were building condos. They knew the Mohawks would object. They even told some of us they were hoping to get a pay out guaranteeing their profits from Canadian taxpayers when the deal fell through. What a scam! The “OPP” [who help the thieves of “Other Peoples Property”] fell for it hook, line and sinker. These are Nibourg’s puppets. You can practically see the strings. In a press statement Nibourg said, “We sent out a media release last week stating we are refraining from continuing our plans to develop the land to allow for a peaceful resolution and negotiations with the government”.

We want peace too. There is nothing to resolve. If someone was trespassing on your land, what would you expect the police to do? Kick them off or kick you off? Why are the police on Mohawk land? They were not invited, Nibourg’s gone, the cops are trespassing! They are also violating international law by unlawfully confining our people.

URGENT CALL FOR SUPPORT – PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY**

University's level of hostility and repression against students
unprecedented in the last decade

Community Release: Toronto; April 25 2008

WHAT: Allies for Just Education - Community Support Meeting
WHEN: Monday April 28, 6pm
WHERE: Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil St (http://tinyurl.com/4sn49c)

Dear Ally,

Over the past several weeks, a wide coalition of students, alumni and
workers at University of Toronto have come together to protest and
organize against proposed fee hikes and to demand accessible
education. This coalition has organized public meetings, a sit-in and
demonstrations which have received wide community support. Students have also conducted extensive research on the effects of fees and the fiscal policies of the university administration (see
www.fightfees.ca).

Due to a peaceful sit-in, organized to protest against tuition fees on
March 20, students are being subjected to an intense campaign of
intimidation by the UofT administration and Toronto Police. Students
have been followed by campus police, both on and off campus, as well

April 27, 2008

Police Invade Cruzton, Disappear Other Campaign Adherents
Police Previously Promised They Wouldn't Raid the Chiapas Town

Police carried out an early morning operation today directed at adherents to the Zapatistas' Other Campaign, detaining three men whose whereabouts remain unknown. The Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center ("Frayba") is currently attempting to locate the three men, José Lázaro López López, Robeto López López, and Manuel Gómez, all adherents to the Other Campaign, but has thus far been unsuccessful. The men were last seen in police custody during the raid. It is also unknown what charges the government will bring against the men.

Police raided Cruzton in the Venustiana Carranza municipality in Los Altos at approximately 5am this morning. The Other Campaign in San Cristobal de las Casas reports that armed police kicked down doors and leveled residents' houses during the raid.

Wednesday, May 14th at 7pm sharp.
Laurentian University, Class Room Building (between the Library and the Arts Building), Room C-304. This is a wheel-chair accessible location.

A discussion of hip hop sparked by the "It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop" interview with Mutula Olugbala ( M-1) from the revolutionary hip hop duo Dead Prez in Upping the Anti 6. This event will include speakers, discussion, and music videos. Copies of Upping the Anti 6 will be available for $5 each.

Speakers:

Shana Calixte -- "Your Revolution Will not Happen Between these Thighs": Forwarding a Hip Hop Feminist Pedagogy.
Shana, queer mom/black feminist/academic is a lecturer in the Women's Studies department at Laurentian University. She has recently reconnected with her love of Hip Hop music, and currently teaches a course entitled: Theorizing Hip Hop Feminisms: Race, Gender and Sexuality at York University. She lives with her partner and son Dré in Sudbury.

Kaili Beck -- Music and the Movement: Using music as pedagogy for social change.

Two reports from MNN below...

MNN. Mon. April 21, 2008. Attacks on Indigenous
people continue. Canada isn?t satisfied to waste
billions of dollars a year on war missions
overseas. It?s using the same armored fist at
home. Today the town of Deseronto on Tyendinaga
Mohawk Territory was surrounded by the armed
forces of the Ontario Provincial
Police. Deseronto is an illegal nonnative enclave.

With eyes wide open, Emile and his father
Theodore Nibourg of Napanee Ontario, who own the
?Smiling Wilderness Restaurant? on the
TransCanada Highway, decided they wanted to build
a $35 million condominium on Mohawk land in
Deseronto overlooking the Bay of Quinte. Never
mind that they don’t own the land, Canada refuses
to acknowledge Indigenous property rights. The
Nibourgs are real estate developers of commercial
and residential properties out of Kingston Ontario.
They are fully aware of the Culbertson Land
dispute which has been the focus of negotiations
between the federal government and the Mohawks
since 1995. [Nibourgs at cell 6135610984 fax 6135447868 enibourg@sutton.com.

Last year the Thurlow Aggregates Quarry Site run
by Tim Letch of Intergrorup Finance of Kingston
was shut down by the Rotiskenekete. There was
evidence of extensive illegal dumping including
large amounts of asphalt. Not only was the

Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) Congratulates Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) on Historic Boycott Resolution!

16 April 2008 - CAIA extends its warm congratulations to the delegates of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers national convention held in Ottawa, Canada, April 13-17th 2008. At the convention, CUPW passed an historic resolution, Resolution 338/339, in support of the global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israeli Apartheid. This resolution is an extremely significant landmark for the Palestinian solidarity movement in Canada. It represents the first time in North American history that a national union has passed a BDS resolution. The resolution recognizes Israel as an apartheid state and expresses CUPW’s support for boycott and divestment from Israel. It was passed almost unanimously after nearly one hour of discussion on the convention floor.

CUPW represents more than 50,000 postal workers across Canada and has been at the forefront of campaigns against privatization and deregulation at Canada Post. The union has a proud history of international solidarity. During the South African apartheid years, CUPW was at the forefront of labour solidarity with South African workers and engaged in concrete actions such as the refusal to handle mail from South Africa.

Rami El-Amine

Michael Staudenmaier’s talk Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and the Three Way Fight presented at the 2007 National Conference on Organized Resistance (NCOR) uses an article I wrote for Left Turn magazine, “Anti-Arab Racism, Islam and the Left,” to critique what he refers to as a “bi-polarity” common on the left. Staudenmaier defines bi-polarity as “the dualistic and anti-dialectical tendency to reduce complex situations to two opposing, and static, sides.” He says that that I offer an “us” (anti-imperialists) vs. “them” (the imperialists) approach to analyzing events in the Middle East and Islamist movements more specifically. His main proof of this is my criticism of “Defending My Enemy’s Enemy,” a posting by Mathew Lyons on the Three Way Fight blog during Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon in which Lyons characterizes Hezbollah as “essentially a right wing political movement.” Staudenmaier singles out (and is particularly irritated by) my suggestion that Lyons’ argument may one day be used by Hillary Clinton or Bush in justifying an attack on Hezbullah and/or Iran.

Not Just a Smear Tactic

Matthew N. Lyons

April Rosenblum. The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Anti-Semitism Part of All of Our Movements. Self-published, 2007. Download at www.thepast.info

In July of 2006, Bluestockings bookshop in New York City announced it was hosting a workshop for social justice activists on “opposing anti-Semitism in the movement.” The announcement sparked a heated online discussion on New York’s Indymedia website. Some people asked if the workshop was going to be “some Zionist bullshit” and why it wasn’t going to address other forms of discrimination, such as “Zionist anti-Semetism [sic]” against Palestinians. Critics doubted the existence of any real anti-Semitism on the left, or they suggested that it was caused by “right-wing Jews” having “cried wolf too many times.” One charged that “whining about anti-Semitism is like whining about ‘anti-white,’ or ‘reverse racism.’” They added that “Jews are one of the wealthiest groups in the world with the most privilege.”

Anna Feigenbaum

Ward Churchill. Pacifism as Pathology. AK Press 2007; Peter Gelderloos. How Nonviolence Protects the State. South End Press 2007

In a 2001 In These Times article on the FTAA demonstrations in Quebec City, Abby Scher, like many others, reflected on the effective interplay between protesters’ violent and non-violent tactics. She ended her discussion with the question: “Is Quebec… a wonderful demonstration of ‘a diversity of tactics’ – or a turning point where the gap between tactics yawns larger?” Now, six years later in a post-9/11 climate, the ‘War on Terror’ continues, corporate power grows, and frustration has set in amongst many movement participants. As protesters are finding themselves disheartened, pessimistic, and often downright bored with ineffective demonstrations, questions about movement tactics are resurfacing. Specifically, many people are voicing a call for more confrontational direct actions in our struggles against globalization and imperialism.

Black Power From the Inside

Chris Harris

Muhammad Ahmad. We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960-1975. Charles H. Kerr Publishing, 2007

Toronto’s Black community has long suffered a crisis of increasing poverty, racism, and violence. This is largely the result of the oppression that African-Canadian people have endured through the implementation of neoliberal policies and the expansion of both the police state and the prison industrial complex. In Canada, African-Canadian people (the majority of whom are located amongst the lowest ranks of the working class) are confronted with two primary problems. First, a growing Black underclass is unable to compete for scarce decent paying jobs. Second, the Canadian ruling class – responding to the crisis of neoliberal globalization with their wars on drugs, guns, and gangs – is criminalizing Black working-class youth and expanding the prison industrial complex. In recent years, the Black left has responded to this crisis by trying to organize Black youth at the grassroots level, and by trying to build new mass organizations that can continue the legacy of militant
anti-racist struggle that characterized the Toronto-based Black Action Defense Committee (BADC) in the 1980s and 1990s.

You Can’t Jail the Spirit

The Movement to Free Political Prisoners

Bryan D. and Tom K.

All too often, when activists raise the issue of our movements’ Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, it is done with a sense of guilt for how they have suffered. That is not what this roundtable is about. Though the lack of support that PPs and POWs receive from contemporary movements is unfortunate, this roundtable is no guilt trip. The image of martyred revolutionaries languishing forgotten in cages is not our focus here. Men and women on the inside and their comrades on the outside are not charity cases but revolutionaries with hard-learned experiences and present-day perspectives that need to be acknowledged by those of us with less experience.

The Three Way Fight Debate

For over a generation, the decline of anti-colonial liberation struggles inspired by socialism has coincided with the rise of new forms of anti-imperialist mobilization in Western Asia. Beginning in 1979 with the Iranian revolution, and continuing in the present with national liberation struggles led by Hezbollah and Hamas, these movements have mixed religious fundamentalism with the hopes of millions striving for a better life. It is thus not surprising that leftists in the West have had a difficult time figuring out how to relate to these movements. On the one hand, they seem to represent the strivings of oppressed people seeking to free themselves from imperialist domination. On the other hand, the religious ideologues of the Iranian revolution tortured, imprisoned, and murdered tens of thousands of leftists and radicals. The program of these new Islamic movements has often been avowedly patriarchal and politically regressive.