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Anti-War Protests in Boston and DC: 9/24 Remembered |
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by S. Eppler and Sofia Jarrin, with contributions from Mike Borucke and Marjorie Bangs, sofiajt (nospam) yahoo.com |
 On Saturday, September 24th, 2005, dozens of local activists gathered at the Park Street corner of Boston Common to show their solidarity with protesters in Washington, DC. Meanwhile in DC, September 24-26 was filled with scheduled actions and events on national resistance against the war in Iraq and other issues related to US foreign policy.
Sponsored by The Committee for Peace and Human Rights, a local group affiliated with United for Justice and Peace that has been hosting Saturday Vigils for the Iraqi People for 6 years, the event in Boston featured guest speakers on a variety of topics including: the Iraq War & Occupation, Women's Rights, BU’s proposed Bio-terror lab, Venezuela, SHARC, and Voting and Elections, among others. Several individuals and organizations collected signatures on petitions about local issues, including Affordable Health Care in the State of Massachusetts, and many people sported buttons, badges and signs showing their dissatisfaction with the Iraqi War and the current warmongering Bush administration. |
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27 Sep 2005
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Filed under: News / Globalization : Organizing : Politics |
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Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) Will Spread Factory Farming and Threaten Wildlife in Central America |
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by homefries, |
 AUDIO: A coalition of 102 animal rights groups around the U.S. has formed to call attention to the cruelty that the Central American Free Trade Agreement is expected to inflict upon farmed and wild animals in Central America. National non-profits such as In Defense of Animals, Farm Sanctuary, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Wetlands Preserve are among the groups in the coaliton.
CAFTA was ratified by an extremely narrow margin in the U.S. House of Representatives during the wee hours of Thursday morning, July 28th. Pattrice Jones of the Eastern Shore Chicken Sanctuary and Adam Weissman of Wetlands Preserve talk about what this agreement means for animals' lives. |
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31 Jul 2005
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Filed under: News / Environment : Globalization : Human Rights : International |
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Holyoke Mall Now a Weekend No-Teenager Zone |
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by Jason Pramas, info (nospam) massglobalaction.org |
Having spent a childhood hanging out, working at, loving, and hating local malls, it was with disbelief that this commentator read a piece in the July 13 edition of The Republican (Springfield, MA) that says that the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside has instituted an "MB18" ("Must Be 18") policy on Fridays and Saturdays from 4 p.m. to closing at the facility--after some "success" with similar rules at other malls owned by The Pyramid Companies.
Any teenagers under 18 during those periods who are not accompanied by an adult, will be targetted by mall cops and escorted from the premises. Mall owners claim that racial profiling will not be involved in such targettings, but interestingly, Pyramid is instituting the policy in the relatively urban Holyoke mall frequented by that city's burgeoning Latino population, but not at the Hampshire Mall in more rural Hadley, MA, which it also owns. The Eastfield Mall in urban Springfield, MA, owned by Mountain Development Corp. of New Jersey, is planning to implement a similar policy. |
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Proman Manufacturing Co. Laying-Off Chinatown Workers without Severance Pay |
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by Sofia Jarrin-Thomas, sofiajt (nospam) yahoo.com |
 On July 16, 2005, a picket line of workers took over the entrance of Proman Manufacturing Company to protest unfair labor practices by this 61-year-old sportswear manufacturing company in Chinatown. Its owner, Joseph Proman, recently confirmed the company will be closing by the end of July and laying-off all of its 40-plus Chinese and Latino workers without severance pay.
Alice Leung, community organizer for the Chinese Progressive Association Workers Center (CPAWC), said that Mr. Proman did not give any formal notice to its workers who learned the company is moving to China from one of their supervisors. Since then, CPAWC and the American Friends Service Committee have helped Proman Co. workers organize themselves to defend their labor rights and be treated with dignity. |
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18 Jul 2005
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Filed under: News / Globalization : Human Rights : Labor : Organizing |
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Anti-Corporate Campaigners Call on TIAA-CREF to Dump Wal-Mart and Coke Stock as Unethical Investments |
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by Matthew Williams, plaid_baboon (nospam) hotmail.com |
 On Monday, July 11, 2005, a dozen people gathered for half-an-hour starting at noon outside TIAA-CREF’s offices in Boston’s financial district. They were protesting and passing out informational fliers as part of the lead up to next week’s TIAA-CREF annual shareholders meeting, where members of the Make TIAA-CREF Ethical Coalition will press TIAA-CREF, one of the country’s largest pension funds, to divest from Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart and other corporations that do not do business ethically. Wal-Mart is well known for its exploitive labor practices, while Coke is guilty of a number of socially irresponsible practices, ranging from marketing junk food to children in the US to complicity with death squads in Colombia. |
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11 Jul 2005
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Filed under: News / Environment : Globalization : International : Labor : Social Welfare |
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In Philadelphia, Biotech Devils Gone Home, Protesters Still in Jail - Update |
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by sharpie and junkyard, |
 As the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) held their June 19-22 international corporate convention in downtown Philadelphia, people from across the country converged to bring attention to BIO's closed-door agenda of medicine for profit, genetically engineered agriculture and bioweapons proliferation.
Philly Indymedia reported that as many as 13 people got arrested, including one minor. Seven of them are still in jail with outrageous jail bails bonds ranging from 9,000 to 100,000 dollars.
While chasing protesters in front of the Convention Center, Philadelphia Police Officer Paris Williams had a cardiac arrest and passed away. According to both demonstrators and police, he was not involved in the scuffle.
SEE FULL ARTICLE FOR UPDATES |
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23 Jun 2005
Modified: 24 Jun 2005 |
Filed under: News / Environment : Globalization : Human Rights |
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Opinion: America's Corporate Benedict Arnolds |
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by Scott Klinger, sklinger (nospam) faireconomy.org |
 “That’s un-American” is the cry heard whenever the unwritten code of American values is breached, Compassion, fairness and equal opportunity are hallmarks, and although you might not be able to recite chapter and verse of the code, you know when it is broken.
On this the 204th anniversary of the death of Benedict Arnold, one of America’s most famous traitors, it’s time to consider whether some of America’s largest corporations that pay little or no federal taxes, have indeed become traitors.
Large corporations are in full retreat from paying their fair share of taxes. In 2003, corporations paid just 7% of the cost of the US government, according to a study by Citizens for Tax Justice.
It wasn’t always this way. At the end of the Second World War, a time when paying taxes was viewed as a patriotic duty, corporations paid half the cost of the federal government. Even as recently as the 1970s, corporate taxes accounted for 20% of federal treasury receipts. |
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Opposition Mounts to "NAFTA Superhighway" I-69 |
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by homefries, |
 The U.S. government is currently poised to roll out a new strip of asphalt all the way from Loredo, Texas up to Port Huron, Michigan. Interstate 69, if completed, will stretch over 2000 miles, through Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan.
The main purpose of this interstate is to provide a channel for trading goods between Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. It would act as a piece of the life-support system for the North American Free Trade Agreement (or NAFTA) and, if enacted, the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Some are calling it the “NAFTA Superhighway”. |
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13 Jun 2005
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Filed under: News / Environment : Globalization : Human Rights : Labor |
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