Brief History of Ohio Farmwokers in FLOC near Toledo (tags)
The US Midwest does not plant, grow, pack or transport many vegetables. However near Toledo OH the Farm Labor Organizing Committee AFL-CIO has organised agricultural areas with walkouts and the signing of strike authorization cards by over 2,500 members in the early 1980's as covered by Multinational Monit
US-Anti-Iranian Arrogance (tags)
Iran
Antitrust Settlement: Visa, MasterCard Payoff for Anti-WikiLeaks Moves? (tags)
"While the and terms of the “settlement” certainly suggest Visa and MasterCard are on the receiving end of some very nice benefits for helping the Obama Administration with its efforts to censor WikiLeaks, this is hardly the first time the administration has made shilling for the companies a matter of public policy. Indeed a February cable from the US Embassy in Moscowshowed that the State Department conspired to lobby the Russian Duma (parliament) on behalf of credit card companies, fighting a draft law that would create a new national credit card payment system organized through Russia’s central bank, on the grounds that it would make Visa’s Russia operations unprofitable. A redacted commenter in the cable says the Russian government “assumes” that both Visa and MasterCard routinely spy on their customers on behalf of the US government, and that the attempt to make all payment processing in Russia a domestic venture was an attempt at countering this."
Georgetown Students Serve Uribe Subpoena (tags)
"Last week, students at Georgetown University in Washington, DC succeeded in serving Colombia's ex-president Álvaro Uribe with a subpoena to testify about paramilitary ties in Colombia. The Adios Uribe Coalition has campaigned since September to get Georgetown to drop Uribe as a 'Distinguished Scholar."
Sign petition to lift travel restrictions on Palestinian journalist (tags)
Please sign this petition to help lift travel restrictions placed in this palestinian journalist.
"Science in the White House": David Baltimore (tags)
"The White House and the US Congress have shown little respect for science in the last years. The government obviously does not understand the importance of independence for science. Unfree scientific thinking does not work."
Popular immigration lawyer gets 2 year jail sentence (tags)
An immigration lawyer, who once run one of the biggest immigration law firms on the West Coast, was sentenced early this week to two years in federal prison for filing fraudulent visa applications, some of which were for their own employees, according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office said. A senior associate of the same firm was sentenced to three years probation, plus 200 hours of community service.
Contradictions Abound in Cuban Five Case (tags)
Contradictions Abound in Cuban Five Case
Oct. 19-21 IMF/WB actions update #3 (tags)
This update provides a quick glimpse into how the organizing for the October 19-21 mobilization against the IMF/World Bank annual meetings is going. Read it to find out about our outreach activities, new endorsers of the mobilization, how to plug in, and more.
Capitalist Globalization and the "middle-class" (tags)
Since the 1970s, the social consequences of the current period of capitalism (commonly referred to as globalization) have primarily affected the working class, especially those in manufacturing jobs. Despite the consequential deterioration of large cities and countless smaller towns — not to mention the pauperization of large segments of the population — the effects were dismissed by politicians and the mainstream media as necessary evils. The victims of this process were told to pick themselves up by their boot-straps, go back to school, and learn to integrate into the new, technology-driven global economy. How things have changed! Experience has exposed all the promises of globalization to be lies, and now those who think of themselves as "middle-class" are finding themselves on the chopping block. These skilled workers — engineers, Information Technology workers, accountants, legal and medical personnel, etc. — are confronted by the combined forces of a shrinking labor market, outsourcing, and the corporate-led importation of foreign workers through the H-1B visa program.
Presidential Candidate: Immigrants Beaten Coast to Coast (tags)
On a day when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton spent the evening in rallies with thousands of immigrants, to make amends for the terrible beatings that hundreds of immigrants and reporters received at the Los Angeles May Day rallies, President Bush, along with key Democrats and Republicans, took their tern beating up 12 million immigrants coast to coast.
The Migrant Trap, and the Migrants' Way Out: May 1, 2007 (tags)
Migrants face an impossible choice. And they've got their own humane and just answer. Is anybody listening?
Hinggil sa Pagkansela ng Visa ni USEC Bolante sa Amerika (tags)
Nagulantang ang lahat ng arestuhin ng mga tuhan ng Imigrasyon ng Amerika si Jocelyn Bolante pagbaba nito sa paliparan ng Los Angeles. Diumano nakansela ang Visa nito at kung sino ang nagkansela ay isang naging bugtong na hindi masagot-sagot.Hindi ito gulong ng palad, ito ang sirkulo ng kawalanghiyaan ng isang angkang pampulitika na naging papet ng Imperyalismong US. Mula sa ama hanggang sa anak, iisang puno, iisang bunga Hindi ito gulong ng palad, ito ang sirkulo ng kawalanghiyaan ng isang angkang pampulitika na naging papet ng Imperyalismong US. Mula sa ama hanggang sa anak, iisang puno, iisang bunga!
Bolante wants US to give him asylum (tags)
Former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante has sought political asylum in the US, where he has been detained after US immigration canceled his visa last week. A source in the Department of Foreign Affairs said Bolante asked for asylum about 1 a.m. on Thursday, Manila time. The information jibes with the report of the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) that Bolante’s lawyer in Los Angeles confirmed he had requested asylum.
Land of the Paranoid, Bunker of the Skittish (tags)
December 21, 2004 Bunker of the Skittish Losing It in America By DAVE LINDORFF In this post-Columbine, post 9-11 era, America has simply lost it. Just this past week, a 10-year old girl who brought a pair of scissors from home to school in her school bag to continue work on a magazine clipping class project, was summarily turned over to police in Philadelphia by a bureaucratically blinded principal, who allowed her to be shipped off to jail, handcuffed, in a police wagon. The principal didn't even bother to notify the frightened child's mother, who learned of her daughter's ordeal when police detectives called her and said they had her daughter in a holding cell. The school district is justifying its over-the-top handling of this incident by citing the several hundred cases of weapons and sharp objects being brought into Philadelphia schools this year, as well as some serious incidents of attacks on students by other students. Earlier, a young boy's parents in Ohio were interrogated by detectives from the local sheriff's office because their junior high school son, in a classroom discussion on the war in Iraq, had opined that he hoped American soldiers would all be killed in that military adventure. The boy had not engaged in violence, nor threatened it; he had merely expressed a perhaps unpopular and unpatriotic political wish. The list of these over-zealous persecutions of children resembles nothing so much as the mentality of the Puritans during the Salem witch trials. I experienced a little of this madness myself when my son's second-grade teacher called his mother and me in for a meeting. We had no idea what the problem was but the woman sounded dead serious. When we arrived, she sat us down in the classroom and handed us a sheet of drawing paper, saying in a voice that sounded like someone had just died, "I found your son drawing this in class." We looked at the page, on which were neatly arrayed a set of artfully drawn swords of all types-daggers, scimitars, cutlasses, epees, broadswords, dirks and the like. We both broke out in laughter, to the teacher's dismay. Our son, we explained, was fascinated with medieval weaponry, and this was a graphic cataloging of his knowledge. What did she think? That our second-grade, 48-lb son was going to come to school with a Roman broadsword and decapitate a few classmates someday? The teacher looked skeptical, but the matter was quietly dropped. What made this visit so annoying was that our son has never shown the least sign of violent or aggressive behavior, and in fact is known for his openness and willingness to be friends with everyone he meets. What is going on here? Universities report that they are losing foreign students, who used to flock to this country to study, because the immigration service now makes it so difficult for anyone from overseas to get a student visa. Many potential students have just given up the idea of going to the U.S. because it's not worth the hassle or the unpredictability of the visa process. Even in Taiwan, where I taught last spring, which has yet to send a terrorist to American shores and which probably ranks among the most pro-American societies in the world, frustrated students say they are given the third degree when they apply for a visa to study in the U.S. Every foreign student these days is viewed as a potential terrorist! The Home of the Brave has become the Bunker of the Skittish. It's not that the nation has become less safe, either. Schools always had bullies, kids with knives, and in fact, by most measures, the crime rate has been falling (though you wouldn't know this if you get your news watching local television). And don't get me wrong. I don't want kids coming to school with guns either. But probably the best way to guard against that would be to make it harder for them to get guns-something our perverse society and political leadership seem averse to doing. What seems to have gone wrong is this notion that bureaucratic rules and draconian punishments will cure the problem. Principals and teachers, like those involved in the above incidents are checking their common sense at home and turning into slavish automatons on the job. Administrators are handing down so-called "zero tolerance" guidelines on behavior and even speech that belong in China, the former Soviet Union or Iran, not in an American school. The answer to student alienation is not more draconian school rules, any more than the answer to anti-American terrorism is banning foreign exchange students. What we need are more humane and engaged schools. If the welfare and development of all students is the goal, students who misbehave or exhibit anti-social behavior will be treated with kindness and sensitivity, and offered appropriate treatment or therapy, not shipped off in cuffs in a police van.
The Bushes and Saudi Arabia (tags)
In June 2001, the American embassy announced a Visa Express program, which allowed Saudis to get a visa to the U.S. without actually appearing at the consulate in person, allowing some of the 9/11 hijackers to enter the country.
9/11: Flights of Fancy in Florida (tags)
In these selected excerpts from his landmark article, Chaim Kupferberg looks at the Florida portion of the 9/11 Legend, using the recorded recollections of Yosri Fouda - the only journalist ever to interview the 9/11 mastermind - in order to expose a glaring contradiction in the "official" record of 9/11.
Statement of Susan Barclay, US Political Prisoner of Israel (tags)
At 9 am on Monday, March 10th the Jerusalem District Court will conduct a hearing concerning the re-arrest of the American peace activist Susan Barclay. This is her statement in response.
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