This Thursday, May 1st, people will turn out across the country to demonstrate and march in celebration of International Workers’ Day, to march for immigrant and labor rights, continuing the struggle of progressive movements through out the history of liberal-capitalism to effect economic and social change.
read more | digg story
Greetings Fellow Students, Members of the Community and Infamous Ink Readers:
This Thursday, May 1st, people will turn out across the country to demonstrate and march in celebration of International Workers’ Day, to march for immigrant and labor rights, continuing the struggle of progressive movements through out the history of liberal-capitalism to effect economic and social change. Thursday’s marches are the occasion to recognize and enumerate the intolerable social and political situations enabled by that system today and to demand:
universal amnesty, equal rights in the workplace, the right to unionize, the Employee Free Choice Act, fair wages and full employment, the end of the occupation in Iraq, equal access to education, universal healthcare
CALLING ALL STUDENTS:
Leave campus to join fellow progressive labor and community organizations to
WITHHOLD LABOR and MARCH AND RALLY DOWNTOWN
Take part in a movement to change our society!
Join major events in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, San Antonio, Dallas Texas, Atlanta Ga, Phoenix, other cities in the United States and Latin America.
Meet at 11:00 am at Ashland and Ogden, and march together to Union Park for a public rally!
Here are five reasons why students of conscience should take part in Thursday’s mobilizations:
1. Student movements have played a major role in social struggles for democracy and civil rights. Students have a unique place in public discourse, as the young people in national institutions of learning, we have the task and privilege to envision and shape the future of our society.
2. Students come from communities that are effected by today’s political problems; we have friends and family who are serving in Iraq, who are threatened by deportation because they do not have legal documentation to work in this country, who do not have access to healthcare, and who labor without just compensation.
3. Students have a unique role in international political discourse. We inhabit the international institutions of higher education, and we benefit from access to funds to study and travel abroad. We study with fellow students and professors from around the world, and are thus empowered to develop a critical international perspective on political issues in this country.
4. Our ‘workplace,’ the university, is an ideal place of political discourse, we have logistical and practical tools to share information and organize ourselves that people working in other parts of society do not have access to.
5. We need to create an international community of citizens of conscience, willing to stand up and send a message to our political leaders, and the rest of society. We need to show that the American public is demanding comprehensive immigration policy reform that protects the civil and human rights of all workers, both native and foreign, who work in this country and contribute to this nation’s wealth.
The Chicago Students for a Democratic Society stand with other progressive community and labor organizations to march on May 1st.
Take a stand! Join more than 100 students across Chicago that are already planning to come out.
Please look at the following links for more information:
In solidarity,
Ben Blumburg, Ashleigh Campi, Ian Morrison
Chicago Students for a Democratic Society
The Platypus Affiliated Society
A new development has come out in the struggle over tomato pickers’ wages in Florida. If you haven’t heard, Burger King is the only major chain that is still resisting the change. Now comes a story that shows the true colors of the fast food chain: the vice president of the company has been caught posting derogatory messages about the workers’ group.
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080428/BUSINESS/804280351/1075
He signed on using his not-even-teenage daughter’s screen name to spread false information about the coalition and the propose raise in wages.
How LOW can you go?
I for one, will resist the lure of the flame-broiled behemoth until BK agrees to pay the Florida workers more. How bout you?
Howard Dean told The Financial Times in an article on Friday: “I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.”
Come again? Say what? Huh? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? WT-Fucking F?
Be prepared, all ye who voted for Barack H. Obama. The “Democratic” Party is ready to ignore your choice for the nomination and effectively throw your votes out. It is irrelevant that I support Hillary Clinton over your guy; if at the end of the day he has more votes, that’s all that matters. We cannot overturn the popular vote. Period.
This is why I promised to never vote for a Democrat again after 2004. This party pretends to care about the majority opinion, that being the bedrock of Democracy, but it is a lie. They have (rightly so) claimed that the Republicans have shown disdain for the rule of law and the American people, while at the same time have indulged in the very same sins.
If the democratic nominee coming out of the Convention is NOT the candidate who won the popular vote, then I say we boycott the Democratic party forever. Yes, this will cede the White House to John Mccain in the fall and will mean at least 4 more years of disastrous, retarded policies, but a lesson must be sent to the powers that be. We are in charge. The American voter is supposed to run the show here, and we’re tired of being disrespected and disregarded at every turn. In 2000, the Supreme Court decided that democracy wasn’t all that important in deciding an election, and in 2008 the Democrats are following suit.
My most sincere hope, my single greatest political objective in my life is to see a day when Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House do not have a single Republican or Democrat sitting in power.
After the Republicans win this round by default, I hope that the true conservatives in that party will see that their interests have been betrayed, and they return the favor.
America, it is time to stop supporting this failed system and stand up for third, fourth, and fifth parties.
MAY DAY 2008 is rapidly approaching and there is still a ton of work to be done.
Please, if you live in the Chicago area and would like to get involved please do not hesitate to contact TheInfamousInk.com
GENERAL INFORMATION
Date: Thursday, May 1, 2008
Time: 10 am to 1:30 pm
Location: Union Park, Chicago (corner of Randolph St. and Washington Blvd. or Ashland Ave. and Lake St.)
For too long I have wondered why those that rock the boat of the status quo are alienated. Most people, I believe, live lives of comfortable displeasure but are too afraid of the consequences any action against that comfortable displeasure may bring. Nothing good comes from just sitting on one’s hands and saying “eh, good enough!” Hope and change, though mocked in recent media and by bitter cynics as loaded campaign words, are very real, tangible things for which to be fought. Nothing, not a single thing, can convince me that private interests are more important than those things that liberated, thinking people demand and, when those private interests are defended by real people because they collect a paycheck from said private interests it makes me question their moral integrity. What is more important, a paycheck or liberty? What is important, a pat on the back or knowing you’ve contributed to the further liberation of people?
No one that writes, contributes or edits this news/cultural criticism blog is diluted enough to call themselves “perfect” or “righteous” but they can say they do not sell out their causes or ideas for any sort of pay. So, more to the point, this entry is an attempt to answer the question of what is more important: the private interests that string people along for pay or real tangible liberty?
No private interest should have the right to discriminate or choose not to grant any sort of due process to those individuals or movements that they deem contrary to their WASP obligations and motives. People should not be held under the thumb of or live in fear of retaliation by any private interests, especially an institution of higher education that is supposedly dedicated to the advancement of new ideas and free speech.
Readers, there is supposed to be justice for all under the law not just interpreted justice for private interests.
I am tired of Columbia College and its blatant disregard for Constitutional Rights, American traditions and its own students’ efforts to make Columbia a shining beacon of freedom, political discourse, and art. Allow students to hear to Student Bill or Rights, if not for anything else but because it is the right thing to do.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE COLUMBIA COLLEGE COMMUNITY
Dear Students, Faculty, Staff and Administrators of Columbia College Chicago:
It has been brought to my attention, via the awful rumor mill that persists in the basement of the 1104 building, that a student has been banned from participating in Student Government or SOC activities for the remainder of this year and all of next. I assure you (if this is true) I have my own opinions on this issue but, for fear of retaliation by Columbia College I will refrain from sharing them in detail and simply say this: The fact that a paying student with a sterling academic record is being prevented from being the author of this generation’s culture, based on what amounts to hearsay, is a travesty. Columbia, to my knowledge and according to the rumors, never conducted a proper investigation into those incidents that led to this student being banned nor was any sort of due process granted; private “business” or not, a human being in the United States is entitled to due process, representation in any meetings or interrogations and an opportunity to appeal.
In addition to the violation of those traditions that make America a place of free people, Columbia has also ignored its own recent statements that it is to be the most student centered media arts college in the world. Being the most student centered anything means that, ideally, a strong emphasis is placed on hearing, working with, and supporting student endeavors to advance their own cause and interests. That said, the “code of conduct” is not what the students want. Students are asking for a comprehensive document that has been written by students for students, not by administrators for their lawyers and insurance companies. What the college has been doing concerning the Student Bill of Rights amounts to censorship and a clear disregard for grass-roots democratic process. If the Bill of Rights can no longer be a Student Government issue the only clear assumption I am able to make is that it now becomes a college wide issue.
I am tired of Columbia College and its blatant disregard for Constitutional Rights, American traditions and its own students’ efforts to make Columbia a shining beacon of freedom, political discourse, and art. Allow students to hear to Student Bill or Rights, if not for anything else but because it is the right thing to do.
Wondering why Columbia Hates Freedom,
Infamous Ink
Recently, the Evergreen State College branch of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was suspended by the college administration from the campus in Olympia, Washington. This suspension occurred following a series of events that began after a police car was overturned.
read more | digg story
Powered by WordPress
