By the United Campaign Workers of the IWW - September 8, 2014

IWW members and supporters handed out the following leaflet today at a rally in support of IWW Canvassers Union (for more details see IWW Canvassers Strike Over Unpaid Wages):

This images is not an official image of the IWW or the IWW EUC.

By Noam Chomsky - AlterNet, September 5, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

It is not pleasant to contemplate the thoughts that must be passing through the mind of the Owl of Minerva as the dusk falls and she undertakes the task of interpreting the era of human civilization, which may now be approaching its inglorious end.

The era opened almost 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, stretching from the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates, through Phoenicia on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean to the Nile Valley, and from there to Greece and beyond. What is happening in this region provides painful lessons on the depths to which the species can descend.

The land of the Tigris and Euphrates has been the scene of unspeakable horrors in recent years. The George W. Bush-Tony Blair aggression in 2003, which many Iraqis compared to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, was yet another lethal blow. It destroyed much of what survived the Bill Clinton-driven UN sanctions on Iraq, condemned as "genocidal" by the distinguished diplomats Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, who administered them before resigning in protest. Halliday and von Sponeck's devastating reports received the usual treatment accorded to unwanted facts.

One dreadful consequence of the US-UK invasion is depicted in aNew York Times "visual guide to the crisis in Iraq and Syria": the radical change of Baghdad from mixed neighborhoods in 2003 to today's sectarian enclaves trapped in bitter hatred. The conflicts ignited by the invasion have spread beyond and are now tearing the entire region to shreds.

By Sarah Petrescu - Vancouver Sun, August 27, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

‘You would never do this to your ancestors,’ chief tells workers

The sharp roar of saws and a generator coming from a construction site on Grace Islet Tuesday morning was too much for Tseycum Chief Vern Jacks.

After paddling in the Cowichan Tribes big canoe over to the small island in Ganges Harbour on Saltspring Island, where a luxury home is being built over a First Nations burial ground, he stood on the shore and yelled to the workers: “You would never do this to your ancestors. Think about your kids, your family.”

About two dozen protesters came in canoes and kayaks, and some even swam. Cowichan elder Arvid Charlie said his community members have ancestors buried on the islet and referred to it as mim’kw’e’lu, which means gravesite in Hul’qumi’num.

Within a few minutes some of the protesters — including Jacks, Victoria Coun. Ben Isitt, NDP MLA Gary Holman and organizer Joe Akerman — decided to breach the gated construction site and go inside. The group followed, walking around the concrete foundation and burial cairns encased in plywood where builders were at work.

“I’m just a contractor. You’re being disrespectful doing this,” David Yager, of West Terra Projects, said to the small crowd, which included several children.

As tension rose, protesters held hands along the site and began to sing a rendition of Amazing Grace: “Amazing grace is sacred ground, washed by wind and sea, where ancestors are laid to rest for all eternity.”

The generator and a radio blaring Whitesnake rock songs were momentarily turned off.

Jacks thanked the workers for understanding. “We’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” he said. “This place means a lot to First Nations.”

Two RCMP officers soon arrived and began to photograph the protesters before speaking with them.

“I’m sorry that it came to this today, but all else has failed,” said Holman, addressing the officers.

“The question I have for the RCMP is, where were you when the law was broken here two years ago?” he asked, referring to construction that violated the site permits issued by the B.C. archeology branch.

Grace Islet was purchased in 1990 by Alberta businessman Barry Slawsky. His plans to build a retirement home were stalled by the discovery of ancient remains and burial cairns in 2006.

Despite the 2012 permit violation and increasing public concern about construction on the documented burial site, Slawsky has been given the go-ahead to continue building by the provincial body responsible for protecting ancient remains under the Heritage Act.

“I can’t condone trespassing, but have to point out this is what’s going to happen if government does nothing,” Holman later said. “… There’s a clear way out of this: Compensate the owner and protect the islet.”

Tuesday’s protest comes a few days after the province met with local chiefs, including Jacks, about the controversial islet. They plan to speak again on possible resolutions.

By Dennis Trainor Jr - Acronym TV, September 2, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Humanity is flying headlong over a climate cliff  and reversing course does not project to be very profitable for the global elite.

So, without a growing number of us holding their feet to the ever warming fire, a much need reversal will not happen and the corporately controlled main stream media will continue to portray this topic as one where there are two sides to the story. Consider this typical news copy, filed by the AP, describing the 2012 UN Climate meeting, “the two decade old talks have not fulfilled their main purpose, reducing the greenhouse gas emission that scientists say are warming the earth.” (Emphasis added)

What is that extraneous phrase always included – “that scientists say” included as a qualifier? I mean, it is not as if the AP would, in captioning a satellite picture of Earth, would write, “here is a picture of the planet earth, which scientists say is not flat.”

By Via Campesina Africa, WoMin and Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) - La Via Campesina, September 2, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

(Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, August 18, 2014) – Women and Mining (WoMin), Via Campesina Africa and Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) contributed to demands made to the SADC Head of States during the just ended SADC People’s Summit held in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe from the 15th to the 16th of August 2014.

The RWA, WoMin and Via Campesina delegates were part of the more than 2,500 delegates drawn from grassroots movements, community and faith-based organizations, women’s organizations, labor, student, youth, economic justice and human rights networks and other social movements.

The Peoples’ Summit was convened under the leadership of the Southern Africa People’s Solidarity Network (SAPSN) and Peoples Dialogue at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair grounds in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe under the theme ‘Reclaiming SADC for People’s Development-SADC Resources for SADC People’. This political position responds to our shared analysis that the SADC development agenda is increasingly determined by corporate interests, which are privileged above the region’s 260 million people.

Via Campesina and RWA met under the agriculture and food sovereignty cluster while WoMin met under the extractives and climate cluster, and developed their own statements, which were included in the communiqué submitted to the Heads of States.

The Mozambique Union of Farmers, member of La Via Campesina, met to speak about Pro-Savanna’s role in land grabbing in Mozambique and asked for regional solidarity.

“Rural women in Africa are the main producers of food, yet their contribution remains invisible. They are the most marginalized in terms of access to land and secure tenure, natural resources, and political rights. Patriarchal relationships continue to prevail, making rural women vulnerable and subject to violence” read part of the RWA declaration.

The communiqué went on to demand that governments fulfil their commitment to allocate 10% of national budgets to agriculture following the Maputo declaration at African Union level.  RWA and Via Campesina also demanded that governments include small-scale farmers in policy and decision making processes.  Other demands included women’s rights to land and security of tenure and protection of organic products, indigenous seeds and knowledge to ensure food and seed sovereignty.

By x373644 - press release, September 3, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

SALT LAKE CITY--An award-winning independent journalist filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Tesoro and the Salt Lake City Police Department for illegally detaining him and accusing him of terrorism for taking photographs of a refinery. 

Jesse Fruhwirth posted a video on the Internet of December 16, 2013, when an ice storm and power outage prompted a major pollution event at Tesoro's tar sands refinery in the Rose Park neighborhood.

"I was in bed reading and through my window suddenly I could see that the night sky was ablaze as if all of Rose Park was on fire," says Fruhwirth. "Only the refinery was on fire, but I knew that such huge flare offs were extra dangerous events for babies, old people and sick people and I thought it was important to film the fire that might severely sicken or kill some of my neighbors that night."

Fruhwirth also filmed the interaction he had with a police officer who ordered him to stop filming. In the video, Salt Lake officer Yvette Zayas tells Fruhwirth that she detained him for taking pictures of "critical infrastructure,” that she would refer her report to a "Joint Terrorism Task Force" to protect "homeland security."

Zayas is simultaneously a paid employee of Tesoro and SLCPD, but that night she was working directly on Tesoro's payroll.

By Rising Tide Cascadia - Rising Tide North America, September 2, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

UPDATE 3:32pm PDT: Abby has been extracted after an epic 8 hour blockade. Donate to get all five awesome climate defenders out of jail!

Five residents of Seattle and Everett, WA, working with Rising Tide Seattle, have stopped work at a Burlington Northern Santa-Fe Rail Yard in Everett by erecting a tripod-structure on the outbound railroad tracks, directly in front of a mile-long oil train. Follow Rising Tide Seattle for live updates on Facebook and Twitter.

Seattle resident Abby Brockway – a small business owner, and mother – is suspended from the structure 18 feet above the tracks while four other residents are locked to the legs the tripod. The group is demanding an immediate halt to all shipments of fossil fuels through the Northwest and calling on Governor Inslee to reject permits for all new fossil fuel projects in Washington, including proposed coal and oil terminals.

Donate to support Abby and the other involved in the action!

“People in the Pacific Northwest are forming a thin green line that will keep oil, coal and gas in the ground,” said Brockway, “Just one of these proposed terminals would process enough carbon to push us past the global warming tipping point – we won’t let that happen.”

Today’s protest has shut down work at BNSF’s Delta Rail Yard in Everett. With the increase of fossil fuel transport in recent years the yard has become a crucial staging ground for coal trains headed to Canadian export terminals and oil trains bound for Washington refineries. An oil-train carrying explosive bakken crude oil sat stalled while the protest continued.

“Exploding oil-trains running through my town are just a reminder of how out of control the fossil fuel industry really is,” said Jackie Minchew an Everett resident and retired educator locked to one of the tripod’s poles.

In a controversial move, Burlington Northern Santa-Fe recently announced a tentative deal with Union leaders to reduce train crews from an engineer and conductor to a single engineer. The oil train that de-railed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec was crewed by a single engineer. BNSF claims that oil-trains will continue to have two person crews, but critics point out that nothing in the proposed contract binds the company to that statement. Under the proposed deal Coal Trains would be operated by a single crew-member.

“BNSF is endangering workers, communities and our environment. They should keep the conductors and lose the oil trains,” said Brockway.

The surge in oil-train traffic is already impacting other commodities like passenger rail and agricultural shipments. Farmers from the Midwest to Washington State have faced what they call “unprecedented” delays in moving Wheat and other products to West Coast ports. Amtrak service through fossil-fuel train corridors has also suffered significant disruption and officials have expressed concern that the problem will only get worse as more terminals come online.

By x375261 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, September 3, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Dorset Green Community Fair took place over the weekend and provided a welcome alternative to the war junkie attraction of the annual Bournemouth air show, where, a source reported there was a large military presence engaging in a dubious attempt to convince Joe Public that state terrorism is a good thing and it may be worth their while packing their kids off to some remote foreign field just to get them back in bits in the state approved body bag(s).

The usual suspects from the reformist tendency were in attendance pushing yet more discredited ideas to persuade visitors that you can reform capitalism and deal effectively with the ecological crisis. Can't be done.

After the shambles in Brighton http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-25976843 we now know the Green Party are no better than any other political party when it comes to any idea of a radical solution to the ecological nightmare about to befall us all. The bottom line is they are just tories on bikes (Boris Johnson x many by any other name).

Probably the stall that had the most impact was the launch of the newly formed Dorset Group of The Industrial Workers of the World and their Environmental Unionist Caucus (http://ecology.iww.org/).

By Gary Engler - rabble.ca, August 25, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

For the numerous readers who asked: “But what can we do?” after reading my “10 reasons to smash capitalism,” here are ten ways we can build a better economic system:

10. We can elect governments that represent people rather than corporations. This will require serious electoral reform and include laws to make it clear corporations are not people and therefore cannot participate in the political process. A government representing all the people would regulate corporations to ensure socially responsible behaviour and transform psychopathic capitalist monstrosities into democratic, social enterprises that benefit all.

9. We can build communities and organizations that encourage solidarity, compassion and altruism. These will include worker, consumer, housing and producer cooperatives, as well as institutions of government. People must always remain vigilant, especially while capitalism continues to exist, about the pervasive power of greed to destroy these communities and organizations.

8. We can promote and build a democratic economy in which social ownership replaces private ownership of communities’ means of livelihood. The people who work in them and the communities in which they are located should control economic enterprises.

7. Since authentic freedom for any of us can only come when all of us are free we must create enterprises, communities, forms of governance and institutions that respect the rights of everyone and encourage the creativity of all. Socially useful individual enterprise should be encouraged but everywhere people work together we must create effective forms of democratic decision-making to promote creative input from all involved.

6. Everywhere we work we can organize in ways that become the building blocks of a new, democratic economy. Sometimes this will be through existing unions but often we will create new organizations that defend our day-to-day interests while self-consciously preparing to replace capitalist minority rule with democratic social control of all enterprises.