Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

People come out to the University of California Santa Barbara campus on December 3rd to support workers who remain unpaid by a contractor hired by U.C.S.B.

Ryan's Painting is a San Diego-based painting company who has failed to pay over a dozen workers for up to seven weeks. The U.C., in conjunction with the general contractor Prowest, allowed this to happen. Prowest recently admitted to some knowledge of falsified documents stating that workers are making over $30 per hour, a figure three times the actual salary of most. Workers who brought the injustices to light were threatened with deportation. Read Full Report by Laura

Passions continue to run high over the KPFK elections, as the deadline for casting votes approaches. All ballots must be received at the KPFK office or Post Office box by midnight on December 11. For more info on voting, see: The 2007 KPFK Local Station Board Elections are now on!

The LA IMC editorial collective encourages all candidates and community members to keep posting related news, information, and opinions on our open publishing newswire. Indymedia is an open platform for debate; if you don't like what others have posted here, research and write your own coverage of the controversy.

Posts from the newswire: KPFK Disenfranchised? by Leslie | | How To Rig a KPFK Election by Leslie Radford, KPFK LSB candidate | | Peter Camejo & Nativo Lopez Support Donna Warren & John Wegner for KPFK Board by Camejo, Lopez, etc | | VOTE FOR WARREN AND WENGER FOR KPFK BOARD by Mike Wyman | | Donna Warren and John Wenger are not recommended by Independents and Grassroots Greens by Jack Lindblad | | KPFK is biased, still, while pretending to be "fair" by sidestepper | | Response to Lila Garrett by Jim Lafferty | | XENOPHOBIA and the KPFK ELECTIONS by R. Salazar | | KPFK Programmer Plugged Assistant Running as Listener Sponsor in LSB election by Miles Copeland | | KPFK and Pacifica Need Good Governance by Grace Aaron | | A Letter from the Interim GM of KPFK by Jim Lafferty | | KPFK: Welcome to the Madhouse by Leslie Radford, KPFK LSB candidate | | (another, smaller) Stolen Election by Leslie Radford

The state’s cases against T. A. C. O., Aryana and Stress, which T. A. C. O. described as “b. s.” to defense attorney Guillermo Suarez, are based on the testimony of an undercover cop who alleges that he approached the Black Riders, pretending to be Lebanese and connected to freedom fighters in the Middle East. He claims that the three defendants were involved in a plot to take possession of weapons and protective vests that he claimed to be able to provide them.

No weapons were ever involved. These charges are essentially for a “thought crime” – allegedly conspiring to attempt to possess weapons.

It is no accident that the arrests took place while several of the Black Riders were up in northern California Building support for the San Francisco 8 political prisoners. Recall that in 1974 a federal court had dropped all charges against the San Francisco 8 because the New Orleans police and the San Francisco police used torture to extract a confession.

It is also no coincidence that the Black Riders were scheduled to appear in court on December 3, the same day as a hearing was scheduled in San Francisco on San Francisco 8.
From the newswire: Black Riders held on million dollars bail each, back in court Wednesday by Repost of Assata Shakur forums

The San Francisco Peaks are a unique mountain ecosystem which are managed as public lands in Northern Arizona. The Peaks are held Holy by more than 13 Indigenous Nations. A small ski area is threatening expansion and attempting to make fake snow from treated sewage effluent filled with harmful contaminants. A coalition of tribes and environmental groups have unified to prevent the environmental destruction, community health hazards and extreme desecration that would be caused by the proposed development. Although the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the ski area plan, the case will be reheard in Pasadena on December 11th, 2007. See: SAVE THE PEAKS CALL FOR SUPPORT! - Legal Battle to Protect Sacred Site Comes to Pasadena by Indigeneous
Additional coverage: Uprising Radio, Uprising (follow-up, Dec. 7)
From the Calendar: Defending the Land: Indigenous Cultural Survival

Since the late 1990s, activist Reverend Billy has been using his “surreal inventiveness” to raise awareness about the consequences of modern consumerism—including, among other things, the destruction of communities and products made with sweatshop labor.

The Reverend was created shortly after actor Billy witnessed his home, Time Square, being “turned into a mall." As he recalls: "Disney was signing this amazing Manifest Destiny deal to evict small vendors, and police were picking up anybody who didn’t look as if they were in possession of a credit card. And that was happening before my eyes. . . . I had to ask myself: 'Who’s shouting here? Who’s really getting out there raising their voice a little bit?’ It was the sidewalk preachers."

From the newswire: "What Would Jesus Buy?" (review) by R. Plesset