general strike Detroit

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:58:40 -0400

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:56:41 -0400

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:55:23 -0400

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:54:06 -0400

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:51:21 -0400

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:50:30 -0400

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:49:10 -0400

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:48:03 -0400

May day, 1 May 2012 rolling march & rally

URGENT - Pre-May Day Police Raids in New York City

Tue, 01 May 2012 08:36:05 -0400

anon. Mon, 2012-04-30 09:42

This morning around 6:30am at least two houses were raided by NYPD detectives. In both cases, the cops used the pretext of spurious arrest warrants to gain access to apartments of local anarchists. The warrants were for individuals unconnected to those homes, but allowed cops access to one and apparently justified them forcibly breaking into another.

After entering the apartments the police searched them, intimidated the residents, and ran their identification. In one of the instances, an anarchist organizer was taken into a separate room and interrogated by detectives about past actions and upcoming plans for May Day.

It awaits to be seen if more houses were subject to raids this morning. Regardless, this ‘preemptive strike’ by the NYPD was clearly a coordinated effort to intimidate local organizers and fish for information.

This news comes on top of reports that over the past weeks hundreds of cops have been drilling on Randall’s Island in anticipation of May Day. Those in the NYC area should be aware of these pig tactics and take any necessary precautions in the hours leading up to tomorrow’s activities.

If there was any doubt how seriously the pigs are taking our efforts then those doubts can be put to bed. But if they think that intimidation and harassment can stop us, they have another thing coming.

Tomorrow they won’t be raiding innocent individuals in their beds, they will be up against tens of thousands of angry New Yorkers who have had enough of their bullshit.

May Day means no work. May Day means no shopping or housework. And May Day means revenge.

FTP/ACAB!

-Some Brooklyn Anarchists

anon. “URGENT - Pre-May Day Police Raids in New York City.” Anarchist News Dot Org. 1 May 2012. (http://anarchistnews.org/content/urgent-pre-may-day-police-raids-new-york-city)

a May day civics lesson

Tue, 01 May 2012 08:32:36 -0400

Diane Gee

1 May 2012

I am keeping my 13 year old son home from school today, to learn a real civics lesson. We are going to Occupy Detroit for May Day, join in the March and General Strike.

Our voices will be loud, here in the shadow of the closed factories, joined with so many others in what was once the largest Union City on the country.

Before we go, I will read to him and speak to him of the struggle for worker’s rights. We will talk about what the UAW once was, what it meant in terms of Civil Rights too. We will talk of the history, from Pinkertons railroad murderers to miners being killed enmasse. I will tell him of the dust bowl and Woody Guthrie and Eugene Debs.

We will speak of his teachers, what is becoming of his schools, and how they are killing education to stop that Union and privatize the very source of knowledge.

I will tell him, though that May Day originated in Australia trying to get an 8 hour work day, it really grew legs in Chicago in 1886 when many died in a demonstration for worker’s rights there. I will tell him how, in the US the powers that be decided to try and defuse this movement by creating “Labor Day” and make into a celebration of a long weekend and Summer’s beginning - but that International Worker’s Day will always remain May Day.

I will tell him how, in 2007, the police attacked a peaceful demonstration in California by striking men, women and children; many of whom were immigrants - some “legal” some not, but how these brave people managed to mostly shut that city down for a day.

He already knows why I cannot find work, and probably never will at 49. He knows I deserve better, his teachers deserve better and he deserves a better future.

Today, we put our bodies on the line for our rights.

Excuse the short essay - but I wanted to inspire any of you on the fence about this to do the same.

Gee, Diane. “A May Day Civics Lesson.” The Wild Wild Left. 1 May 2012 (http://www.wildwildleft.com/diary/2759/happy-may-day)

we will pay for nothing - call for a total strike

Tue, 01 May 2012 08:27:27 -0400

30 April 2012

“We won’t pay for your crisis.” Once this phrase raced around the world. But now we should say: “We will pay for nothing.” For we ourselves are the crisis and catastrophe.

The Lehman Shock, the Greek crisis, the Fukushima nuclear disaster (…) – who will take charge of the outcomes of these catastrophes? The only thing that is certain is that in each calamity we have become more and more indebted to the IMF or global financial capital. Inasmuch as not only our homes and schools but also all institutions both public and private are relying on bank loans, all of our labor is directly channeled into the payment of debts.

Let’s recall the difficulties the workers at La Hague Nuclear Reprocessing Plant in France first confronted. Nuclear plants cannot be stopped! They are not simply facilities for power generation, but a completion of the capitalist apparatus that makes strikes impossible. This has been revealed emphatically after four reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant exploded. Amidst massive fallout of radioactive substances, social integration is forced by the imposition of labor as leverage. It is not by accident that economic and industrial ‘reconstruction’ from the earthquake and participation in Trans-Pacific Partnership are brought up by the ruling power of both Japan and the US at the same time. While being exposed to radiation, the people continue to work in order to pay back their debts. The global financial institution called IMF is disseminating debts as radioactive substances are being disseminated. This hell for us is paradise realized for capitalism.

Innumerable occupation movements across the world — in Zuccotti Park and Koenji, for instance — have revealed the fact that our societies themselves have been fully soaked in debt and radiation. Is there a way to save the totality called society? Isn’t it society itself that needs to be decomposed? The concept of society was positivistically coined in 19^th century Europe, along with the representative system, in order to control and oppress the inundating population. During the experience of occupation, we have observed how all sorts of state violence have been exercised under the name of society. Since 3/11, the social space in Japan has been physically made into a receptacle for radiation expansion. In this condition what we can conjure is not another better society, but innumerable ways in which the totality of the world offers us space for living.

It is no longer possible to construct a new collective totality. Amidst expanding debts and radiation we should rather create unexpected connections and disconnections within all existing collectivities and by so doing, live a totality world by way of a Totality Strike. All contracts will be cancelled. It is not thanks to certain social reforms that we will be ultimately released from the yoke of loans and rents. It is our task to recover the totality world by rejecting payments of debt and rent. As the Japanese anarchist Sakae Osugi once said, in the coming strike we will be thieves. In this catastrophe, we will become animals (or bare lives) precisely like the rebel novelist Ango Sakaguchi did. Meanwhile those who are continuously obsessed with the ideas of society will suddenly find out that they are themselves a menace for the totality world. Is the earth, after having been wounded and contaminated to this extent, still our dear old home? Or can we expect that these loads of debt and fallout will disappear one day? In any event, the only way for us to proceed to the totality world is by becoming thieves and animals, by our Totality Strike.

3/11 marked a definite discontinuity. First came the unprecedented natural disaster, then the reactors exploded, and since then, massive amounts of radiation have been released into the land, rivers and the ocean. Hereby all the meanings and intentions handed down from the past have lost their ground. In the wake of 3/11 the state and society have begun to collapse and history has been severed.

Neoliberalism is a movement that takes risks as collateral and continues to accelerate that process. The explosions at Fukushima Daiichi took place as the limit of the movement, but at the same time it is evident to everyone’s eyes that the society cannot take charge of the risks derivative of the accident. In consequence capital can no longer insure Tokyo Electric Company. What does this mean? Insurance and integration are the grounds for the establishment of a society. The end of insurance is equal to the end of social collectivity, and that taking responsibility through insurance has become impossible is equal to that the law has lost its executive basis. These situations are pointing to the end of the state – it is such process that has been miserably revealed in front of the world.

Then, who should take charge of the catastrophe? It is all of us. The catastrophe has been divided among us and is shared by all of us. Thus we are the catastrophe. If so, our only possible response to 3/11 would be to realize a catastrophe from our side. The catastrophe from our side means to pronounce the state and society at their end – that is the Totality Strike. However, neither the state nor society would just die out; rather, they seek to negate the on-going catastrophe, precisely, by sharing it with the entire society. For instance, contaminated rubble as the embodiment of catastrophe has been distributed across the Japan. The state and society have been transferring the wreck of destruction and the debt of the past colonial dominations to the people. They have been manipulating to divide the anti-nuke public opinion. All of these are forms of civil war waged by the state and society.

In the catastrophe and civil war, post-3/11 Japan shares its part of the impetus for the global general strike or the insurrection.

STRIKE EVERYWHERE. “We Will Pay for Nothing - Call for a Total Strike.” www.strikeeverywhere.net. 31 April 2012. (http://strikeeverywhere.net/we-will-pay-for-nothing-call-for-a-total-strike/)

Photo

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:51:14 -0400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: Mike Shallal, 313-903-2298,...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:31:00 -0400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Mike Shallal, 313-903-2298, m3h.shallal@gmail.com

DETROIT MAY DAY MARCH AND RALLY FROM CLARK PARK TO GRAND CIRCUS PARK

NATIONAL CALLS FOR “NO WORK, NO SCHOOL, NO SHOPPING, NO BANKING”

facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/325880500800228/

WHAT: May Day is International Workers Day. The Detroit May Day Coalition will march from Clark Park to Grand Circus Park, with rallies along the way. Many people around the country will be taking off work and school in a “day without the 99 per cent.”

WHEN AND WHERE: The schedule is as follows:

12:00 Noon, Assemble at Clark Park
1:00 PM, Rally at Maybury School
March to Michigan Train Depot
2:00 PM, Rally at Train Depot
March to Federal Building
3:15 PM, Rally at Federal Building
March to Rosa Parks Transit Center
4:00 PM, Rally at Transit Center
March to Grand Circus Park
4:30 PM, Begin to assemble at Grand Circus Park for rally, picnic, music, food, tables and more—celebration of May Day
6:30 PM Occupy Detroit General Assembly

Occupy Detroit plans to set up camp and re-occupy Grand Circus Park overnight.

WHO: A coalition including Occupy Detroit and local immigrant rights, labor, community, peace, antiwar, anti-nuclear and environmental organizations and activists. Endorsers include: One Michigan (an immigrant rights organization), Occupy Detroit, Rev. D. Alexander Bullock, Peace Action of Michigan, Southeast Michigan Jobs with Justice, Detroit Area Peace and Justice Network, Sierra Club, Moratorium Now! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs, Michigan Emergency Coalition Against War and Injustice, Detroit Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Autoworkers Caravan, Alliance to Halt Fermi Three, the union UNITE HERE and Swords Into Plowshares Peace Center and Gallery, Students for Justice in Palestine—WSU, Movimiento Justicia y Paz (Justice and Peace Movement).

THEME: Save the workers, defend immigrant rights, save our communities, save the planet. Additional core demands are Green jobs now, defend democracy and union rights, stop attacks on people of color and women, and defend lgbtq rights.

WHY: Statement:
The May day actions planned in Detroit are part May day actions planned across the world. For over a century International Workers Day has been celebrated in most countries. The tradition was revived in the U.S. in 2006 when millions of immigrant workers took to the streets to demand their rights.

“We are glad to be a part and continue the tradition of immigrant rights advocacy on May day,” stated Jose Franco, spokesperson for the immigrant rights group One Michigan. “Now more than ever, in an election year, we need to let politicians and our community know that we will no longer remain in the shadows. We are undocumented and unafraid.”

All of us—part of the 99 per cent—are outraged by the violent evictions of occupations, the deporting of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants each year, the attacks on labor, women, people of color and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and the destruction of the environment. The consent decree in Detroit and the imposition of Emergency Managers in other African-American communities represent a blatant attack on democratic rights.

“Detroit is a city of hope,” stated Michelle Martinez, Detroit native and environmental activist. “We can show the world how to recover from a toxic industrial decline with human rights at the core. But we can’t wait for bureaucrats on their high horses to do this from the goodness of their hearts— we must demand it, model it, live it now.”

Across the Midwest, governors and legislatures undermine union rights. Only 11.9% of workers in the U.S. have a union. Unemployment and precarious work plague most of the younger generation. Many students face mounting debt and few desirable job prospects. Austerity policies in Detroit have closed many schools and foreclosed many homes. In Michigan 75 auto plants have been closed, most of them in the past decade—these plants could be reopened to create green jobs. This could be part of a massive public works program. Instead we read every day about more layoffs, most recently in the public sector.

“In such circumstances in which the link between politics and capital neglects the lives of most of everyone, a multitude of general assemblies and coalitions across the world call for everyone to strike and/or participate in direct actions on May Day” stated Stephen Dewyer, a local activist. Dewyer suggests Detroiters “do not go to work or school, shop or bank.”

“Occupy Detroit and other organizations and leaders from across Detroit will be joining together for all the 99 per cent” added anonymous of Occupy Detroit.

“Whites and Blacks, undocumented and documented, gay and straight we are coming together in common cause against the one per cent. They thought we were gone after they shut our camps down last fall but we’ll show them that the genie won’t go back in the bottle” (http://www.generalstrikedetroit.info/May_1st_committee_media_advisory_for_May_day.html)

occupy patriarchy Korea from 창작자공동체 <붉은창공> general strike...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:11:22 -0400

occupy patriarchy Korea from 창작자공동체 <붉은창공> general strike Korea. http://generalstrikeposter.tumblr.com/

Southwest Detroit Freedom School by Gregg Newsom Detroit – TODAY...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 09:00:53 -0400

Southwest Detroit Freedom School

by Gregg Newsom

Detroit – TODAY and for the next five days: Please support and spread the word! This deserves national coverage. These students need to be lifted up as the leaders they are. In our current political/economic climate, I believe we all have an opportunity to learn from and be inspired by the way they are rolling with this. In Solidarity! ~G

Soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1trVIrl9Xg

Southwest Detroit Freedom School
School Starts: Friday April 25, 2012 @ 10:55 a.m.

On Friday, April 27, 2012 at 10:55 a.m., we students of Western International High School will be starting our first day of class at Southwest Detroit Freedom School at Clark Park, across from our beloved school which we were suspended from. After over 300 of us staged a student walkout on Wednesday April 25, 2012, over 150 of us were given 5-day suspensions. One of our fellow students, targeted as the “ring-leader” is being threatened with formal charges for helping organize the walkout. We were walking out in solidarity with our fellow students at Southwestern High School to save their school from closing. More importantly, we were also fighting for quality education for us at Western, and at ALL DPS schools. We do not understand why we are being punished with a loss of educational opportunity when that is exactly what we were fighting for. To further demonstrate our commitment to education, we will be attending our own school taught by ourselves and community educators for the duration of our suspension. We are still looking for more teachers and students.

Contact us if you want to help and/or attend.
E-mail: ourvoicesouthwestdetroit@gmail.com,
Twitter: @_OurVoice, #LetOurVoicesBeHeard
Tumblr: ourvoicesouthwestdetroit.tumblr.com
Facebook Group: Southwest Detroit Freedom School

EVERYONE IS WELCOME….JOIN US!!!!

Classes will be about:
the history of Southwest Detroit
the Civil Rights Movement
Bboy/BGirl classes (Breakdancing)
the specifics of the Detroit Public School system
the Student Code of Conduct
your civil rights
Lino-cut prints
woodprints
screenprinting
social justice
Hip-Hop
poetry workshops
You will also have a space to do make up work for the days you are suspended.
and much more!

Our Demands to the Detroit Public School System are the following:
1. Don’t close Southwestern High School.
2. Don’t close Maybury Elementary.
3. Remove suspensions for students involved in the walkout.
4. Don’t keep students away from school for walking out to stand up for what they believe.
5. Don’t want suspensions to go on our student records.
6. Don’t press criminal charges against students’ involved in the walkout.
7. Don’t violate students’ rights.
8. Don’t take students’ phones and search through & delete their content.
9. Don’t lay hands on students. No more physical attacks on students by security guards.
10. No more favoritism in who is & is not being targeted for suspension.
11. No more favoritism to certain students, student groups, or sports teams.
12. Honor the DPS Code of Conduct.
13. School Supplies: toilet paper, hand soap, etc.
14. Clean bathrooms, facilities.
15. Stop making students feel like we’re in prison.
16. Higher expectations for students.
17. Better college prep.
18. Stability– teachers who will actually be there for us, who are qualified.
19. Protection of teachers & their union.
20. We want equal opportunity to education.
21. Stop selling away community assets.
22. We’re students, not money signs or criminals. Stop running school like a business or a prison.
23. Give students an equal say in what goes on in all DPS schools. Give students a place in decision-making process. We want a Voice.
24. We need to invest more into our education than what our test scores are gonna be.
25. We need a better education– not students’ fault that money isn’t being used correctly.
26. We need teachers that teach, adequate books and supplies.
27. Remove the Emergency Financial Manager. Give control of schools back to community by reinstating the School Board.
28. Stop closing DPS schools. Go with what we have, stop closing everything down. Fix what we have. Stop closing DPS schools and allowing the chartering of so many schools. Stop turning schools into for profit businesses.
29. WE DEMAND RESPECT!!!!

More: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120426/METRO01/204260493/1026/schools/180-Detroit-high-school-students-suspended-after-protesting-closures

SlutWalk Feminist and Queer Contingent to demand an end to...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:50:16 -0400

SlutWalk Feminist and Queer Contingent to demand an end to inequality, an end to rape, an end to victim-blaming and an end to the attacks on queer and women’s rights that are going on around the country.

slut walk feminist & queer contingent for May day (Detroit): http://www.generalstrikedetroit.info/slutwalk_feminist_&_queer_contingent_for_May_day_%28Detroit%29.html
slutwalk Detroit:http://slutwalkdetroit.org/
facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/215132741923930/
facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/slutwalkdetroit

cities in Europe planning May day actions

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 23:54:00 -0400

Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Brussels, Belgium
Barcelona, Spain
Den Haag, The Netherlands
London, England

Asia + Pacific cities planning May day actions

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 23:53:02 -0400

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Melbourne, Australia
Seoul, South Korea
Sydney, Australia

cities in Canada planning May day actions

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 23:53:00 -0400

Montreal, Quebec
Ottawa, Ontario
St. Johns, Newfoundland
Toronto, Ontario

U.S. cities planning May day actions

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 23:51:47 -0400