Voice of Revolution

Opposition to U.S. Imperialism Mounts

Peoples Demanding Fraternal Relations of Cooperation and Mutual Benefit

The massive May Day demonstrations across the U.S. and worldwide brought to the fore the peoples' demands for fraternal relations of mutual aid and cooperation. As workers in their many millions marched for rights and chanted together, proclaiming in many languages that No One is Illegal, they took their stand against U.S. imperialism and its efforts to divide and conquer. In many countries, workers directly expressed their support for the actions in the U.S. as well as their firm opposition to U.S. wars of aggression. Without doubt, humanity is rising as one against war and imperialism and fighting for rights, in each country and for the peoples worldwide. This fight is advancing the fraternal unity of the peoples and giving expression to the new world being created by the peoples themselves.

The stand against U.S imperialism is also being seen in the stands among the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean to reject the U.S. drive to use the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) to completely control these countries, politically, militarily and economically. Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia are advancing their Peoples Trade Agreement and ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of the Americas. As their joint statement emphasizes, "Only the united actions by the Latin American and Caribbean nations, based on principles of cooperation [and] mutual aid and solidarity will allow us to preserve our independence, sovereignty and identity." These actions, and similar ones around the world, show that the fight for sovereignty is critical for uniting the peoples and bringing forward the new.

At a time when the U.S. is striving to pit workers inside the country against each other, immigrants against African Americans, those with documents against those without, the united stand of the May Day actions show the way forward. The actions brought out that if one is illegal, whether that one is a worker from Mexico, or a transit worker on strike, or an Arab or a Muslim, or a Katrina survivor or a youth opposing police brutality or a woman defending her being, then all are illegal. And if one is illegal, then all have the duty to together insist that No One is Illegal. Let no one succumb to the brutality of U.S. imperialism's drive to divide and conquer! Let all take their place in the powerful fist of workers of all countries united in the fight for the rights of all.

Fight for the dignity and rights of all!

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If One Is Illegal, All Are Illegal!

Fight for the Dignity and Rights of All!

A phony debate is swirling in the U.S. monopoly media on two issues concerning immigrant workers: Do immigrant workers lower the wages of U.S. workers; and, how much do immigrant workers contribute to the U.S. economy, if at all?

The debate, if one could call it that, is part of a propaganda campaign to attack the rights of immigrant workers according to an arbitrary legal status. The debate is meant to divide the U.S. working class, setting up second and third-class and "slave-status" workers to undermine the rights of all. A very specific effort is being made to drive a wedge between immigrants and the large, unorganized poorly paid section of U.S. workers who are mainly African Americans.

The first phony debate: Do immigrant workers lower the wages of U.S. workers? That such a debate appears in this manner at all is a provocation against the working class. The question suggests workers, and specifically the poorest workers, are to blame for their own low wages and for others' misfortunes as well. The truth is quite the contrary.

In a capital-centered economy, like that of the U.S., the workers are victims and must actively defend themselves no matter what status the ruling class gives them. Immigrants are victims first in their home region, which they are forced to leave, and then again when they are compelled to sell their servitude in the U.S.

The working class must take -concrete, practical steps to unite and defend itself, its claim for U.S.-standard wages, benefits and livelihoods and to uphold the rights of all by virtue of being human. Workers cannot accept the dictate of the owners of capital as to whose rights among the working class will be recognized.

Workers are a single undivided class, not split according to the arbitrary divisions of capital based on race, nationality, language, gender, religion or how or when they arrived in the country. Workers warmly accept all members by virtue of being human, as unity and cooperation are the future of humanity, not division, competition and war.

Solidarity is based on principled opposition to exploitation and oppression, not charity. This is the experience of the workers, from the days of slavery to today. It was sharply evident in the recent May Day marches, where workers of all nationalities, chanting in different languages, stood as one fist, fighting for the rights of all.

The financial oligarchy wants disunity and competition among workers. One way it conspires to make that happen is to declare a large section of the working class illegal or undocumented and without rights, as occurred under slavery, as has occurred with immigrants over the years. The demand for documentation is again being used to divide and to provide the means to criminalize all workers. Declaring some legal and some not effectively makes it more difficult to organize into trade unions and to wage other political battles, against unjust wars and laws, deportation and detention, jailing of union leaders and so forth.

The stand taken by workers at the May Day actions brought to the fore that an attack on one is an attack on all. Limiting workers' rights because of a dictated status as "indentured guests" or "undocumented migrants" negatively affects the rights of all and undermines the struggle for change that favors the people, whether at the workplace or in society as a whole.

In the particular battles now being waged, the attack on immigrants is also an effort to target the political stand being taken at these actions. The monopolies are organizing to block the workers from any political role and create a situation where everyone can be branded illegal. The workers are taking their stand that No One Is Illegal and all must have their rights, as workers and as human beings.

A society's advance is marked by the extent to which it enforces rights and makes them judiciable. The monopolies and their governments hand out rights as privileges in the manner of a dog owner rewarding or punishing a pet. The people can clearly see that the victims in this denial of rights are the immigrants, national minorities, women, the elderly along with the entire working class.

Monopolies and their governments use legal and other means to split the working class and hinder it from organizing to defend its common interests against the very force that dictates who has certain rights and who does not. Rights belong to the holder by virtue of being. They can only be exercised and cannot be given, taken, or forfeited in any way.

The monopolies and their governments are to blame for denying the rights that people possess by virtue of being human. The government's declaration that certain workers do not even have the right to be is a major weapon against the entire working class.

In the U.S., the financial oligarchy has long denied the legal rights of people of African descent and discriminated against them in many ways. The denial of rights of those of African descent has been a huge negative factor in the denial of the rights of all and a block to progress much in the same way that today any denial of the rights of immigrants becomes a huge dead weight on the rights of all, dragging the entire society downward into a medieval mire of repression, racism, ignorance, irrational hatred and war.

The monopolies and their governments are responsible for downward pressure on living standards. The antidote is unity and cooperation among the working class. Workers must step up their united efforts to fight for their just first claim on the wealth they produce and for U.S.-standard wages and benefits and livelihoods for all. Workers as first principle must unite and defend the rights of all. All workers, whatever their dictated status, have rights by virtue of being human.

If one worker at a workplace is declared "illegal" and victimized, then all workers are "illegal" and victimized. If one is declared illegal then all are illegal. Workers must respond as one united force to uphold the dignity of labor until all are legal with their rights held high and honored.

All for one and one for all! We have rights as human beings!
No one is illegal!

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May Day Across the U.S.

No Business As Usual As Millions Demand Rights

- LeiLani Dowell -

On May 1, a "Day Without Immigrants," May Day - International Workers Day was celebrated. In every state, businesses closed, workers took the day off, students walked out of schools, and a multinational sea of humanity marched and rallied to demand full rights for all.

The impact of the boycott was felt in the streets as well as in the pocketbooks of businesses that profit from super-exploited immigrant labor.

The demonstration in Chicago was one of the biggest protests in the city's history. Organizers estimated the turnout at 700,000. Tens of thousands marched from schools. One high school organized transportation to the march as a "field trip."

There were two feeder marches, one from Benito Juarez High School, and another organized by the Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois, and others. Colorful T-shirts distinguished union members from UNITE-HERE and the Service Employees.

Organizers estimated that between half a million and a million people throughout New York City overfilled Union Square in Manhattan and then marched down to Federal Plaza. New York's diverse immigrant communities were reflected, with contingents from virtually every Latin American and Caribbean country; from China, Korea and the Philippines; from Senegal and other African countries; from Pakistan - whose shopkeepers based in NYC closed their doors for an hour - and other South Asian countries; from Poland and Ireland. Celebrities like Susan Sarandon joined speakers representing Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands. [ ]

Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, who is from Trinidad - released from jail on April 28 after serving five days of a 10-day sentence for leading the December transit strike - and Teamsters Black National Caucus leader Chris Silvera, who offered his union's office as the New York May Day Coalition headquarters, both applauded the immigrant struggle. Community and anti-war organizers like Larry Holmes of the Troops Out Now Coalition, Brenda Stokely of the Million Worker March, Berna Ellorin of Bayan USA, Nellie Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council and International Action Center's Teresa Gutierrez also spoke.

In front of imposing court buildings, thousands gathered to listen to the closing rally at Federal Plaza. Along with demanding legalization of immigrants, speakers explained how neoliberalism had driven so many from their homelands to seek work at the center of world imperialism.

A sea of protesters, tens of thousands, continued marching in well after the rally ended. Traffic was forced to a standstill on the Brooklyn Bridge until police violently attacked the crowd.

Lauren Giaccone reports: "The cops then started pushing. We pushed back. A cop then punched a girl, she went down and that started a huge fight between the cops and the people. The people fought back against the brutality. [ ]

When Workplace Project organizer Carlos Canales asked the mayor of Hempstead, on Long Island, for a rally permit for 800 people, he never expected that 5,000 would show. "Labor and -immigrants on Long Island changed history today," he said.

Organizers convinced more than 60 Long Island businesses to close. And they sent five busloads of people to the New York City rally. Participants cheered when organizers called for "Primero de Mayo 2007."

The West

In the San Francisco Bay area, despite last-minute attempts by the big-business media to downplay May 1, businesses stood idle as hundreds of thousands protested.

The day began with an East Oakland march to the Federal Building. Later, contingents of community organizations, unions, churches and student groups gathered for a grand march through San Francisco's financial district.

More than a thousand people rallied at the University of California, Berkeley. Demonstrators blocked the on-ramp to Route 80, a major thoroughfare. In San Jose, tens of thousands marched.

In Los Angeles, the May 1 boycott and march was initiated by the Mexican American Political Association and Hermandad Mexicana Latino American. Organizers estimate the City Hall demonstration at up to one million marchers. Reportedly 72,000 students missed school. Ninety percent of Los Angeles and Long Beach port truckers did not work. Boycott participants bolstered the numbers at a later demonstration in downtown McArthur Park. [ ]

The streets of south San Diego overflowed. There was no business as usual. Events were held in downtown San Diego as well as San Ysidro (at the border) Escondido and Vista.

In a show of solidarity, protesters in Tijuana shut down the U.S./Mexico border on the Mexican side. After a 500-person march in San Ysidro, youths were able to shut down the border again - this time on the U.S. side.

By evening, crowds had more than doubled as people gathered in Balboa Park, where a candlelight vigil and rally was scheduled. Instead, folks broke police barriers and took to the streets in an impromptu march that shut down main streets, surrounded the mall and flabbergasted tourists.

In Denver, more than 50,000 began their march across the street from Escuela Tlatelolco, the school founded by the great Chicano activist Corky Gonzales.

Across Washington state, workers shut down the agriculture and service industries. An estimated sixty-five thousand workers poured into downtown Seattle. Marchers carried flags of countries from Somalia to Honduras. In the agricultural town of Yakima, Washington, thousands of marchers paraded. Thousands more demonstrated in Wenatchee, which is apple country.

The country's biggest beef processor was forced to give workers the day off in seven plants in Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Texas and Nebraska.

The South

Tens of thousands honored the boycott in Georgia. Not one worker showed up at the Vidalia onion farms in southern Georgia.

Thousands, including whole families with small children and babies, rallied in Atlanta. In Athens, Georgia, some 2,000 grade-school and high-school students, young workers and a number of white supporters assembled near the University of Georgia campus. One activist said it "was the biggest protest Athens had ever seen." [ ]

An estimated 10,000 people marched in uptown Charlotte, NC, and over 800 students were absent from the --Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system.

Protesters also marched though downtown Lumberton, NC. They were joined by workers from Smithfield Foods Inc.'s plant in Tar Heel. Gene Bruskin, with the Food and Commercial Workers union, said, "We're in the middle of absolutely nowhere, pig farms, and you've got 5,000 workers marching."

In Raleigh, NC, some 3,000 people surrounded the State Capitol.

[In New Orleans thousands of Katrina survivors and Latino workers marched together.]

The North and East

Thousands rallied in Washington, DC. They demanded an end to government attacks on undocumented workers. More than half of the 1,147 construction workers at Dulles International Airport boycotted work. Businesses from downtown DC to the affluent Georgetown shopping area closed because of absent workers. [ ]

Across Massachusetts, tens of thousands demonstrated in over 30 cities. In Boston, a delegation from Steel Workers Local 8751, the Boston school bus drivers' union, followed a banner hoisted by youths of color.

Service Employees union leaders led chants with Local 8571 members, including all of the local's chief stewards, its newly elected Haitian President Frantz Mendes, and Vice President Steve Gillis, as well as rank-and-file members.

The militant protesters filed past the Federal Building to the statehouse for a mostly anti-imperialist speakout and to support a pro-immigrant news conference taking place inside, where Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee member Bishop Filipe Teixeira was speaking. They then marched on Boston Common for a mass rally.[ ]

LeiLani Dowell reports for Workers World

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May 1, 2006

Filipinos in NYC Say: Affirm Immigrants' & Workers' Rights
Down With U.S. Imperialism!

- Network in Solidarity with the People of the Philippines -

Filipino workers, youth and solidarity friends organized a vibrant contingent that marched in the massive May Day demonstration on Monday. The contingent was led by DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association, the Network in Solidarity with the People of the Philippines (NISPOP) and Ugnayan ng mga Anak ng Bayan. The group marched as part of Immigrant Communities in Action, a New York City-based coalition of more than 20 organizations of immigrants and non-immigrants working to build immigrant power for justice and dignity. Immigrants from around the world took part in the demonstration waving their nations' flags. The crowds stretched nearly 3 miles and over 25 blocks from Union Square to Foley Square in downtown Manhattan.

The Filipino contingent chanted "Hey hey, ho ho, deportation has got to go!" and carried placards reading: "Down with U.S. Imperialism - Root of Forced Migration" and "No to a Guest Worker Program, Legalization for All Immigrant Workers!"

"I am one of the thousands of domestic workers here in New York," said Elena Shannon, a board member of DAMAYAN. "I am very positive that this May 1 will be remembered as an important day in our lives. Together we can be stronger in succeeding with our aim to have the right to be legal immigrants in this country and free from exploitation in our home countries."

The three organizations will -continue the struggle to defeat not only the Sensenbrenner bill that was the spark for the current immigrant upsurge, but all of the punitive immigration bills being debated in U.S. Congress, none of which address the economic realities that force people to migrate. The public is urged to sign the Immigrant Communities in Action petition found at http://www.petitiononline.com/HR4437 to support a just legalization bill.

For pictures, go to: http://qc.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/7044.php.

Network in Solidarity with the People of the Philippines; PO Box 721340, Jackson Heights, NY 11372; phone: 212-561-1567; www.nispop.org

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Despite the Odds, Local Communities Take to the Streets on May 1st

-Break the Chains Alliance -

On May 1st , New York member groups of the national Break the Chains Alliance - Chinese Staff & Workers' Association, National Mobilization Against SweatShops, and New York Unemployment Project - and other local grassroots organizations led a march that put forth specific demands on the government, namely: "Repeal Employer Sanctions!" and "Derechos iguales, NO visas temporales!" (Equal rights, no guestworker program).

Break the Chains began the day with a pre-rally march more than 5,000 strong. Converging at the border of the Lower East Side and Chinatown neighborhoods, Latino families united with Chinese, Polish, and other U.S.-born workers. Together we opposed the current proposals by Bush and Congress that call for guestworker programs that would keep workers in indentured servitude and reinforce the employer sanctions provision - a modern-day slave law passed in 1986 as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Up until the very last minute, city officials had refused to approve a permit for the lower East Side -Chinatown march in an attempt to fuel fears of a backlash and to stop the diverse communities from coming together. But the community proved to be unstoppable. As throngs of workers - including contingents from Make the Road By Walking, Industrial Workers of the World, Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund, Asociación Tepeyac, and other groups - began gathering at Roosevelt Park on Grand Street, determined to march uptown, the police had no choice but to let the march take place. Extending over one mile, we took to the streets, raising placards and banners in different languages that proclaimed, "No Guestworker Program!" and "Equal Rights for All Workers!" On route, several hundreds more joined the Break the Chains march.

At Union Square, Break the Chains joined together with an estimated 500,000 workers whose numbers surprised many in the Big Apple. For weeks leading up to May 1st, some so-called immigrant rights advocates, as well as some elected officials, called on undocumented workers to not risk jeopardizing their employment, their families' safety, or the ongoing "negotiations" in Washington DC by participating in New York's May 1st demonstration. These individuals hope for a quick "compromise" that would include a harmful guestworker program, strengthening of employer sanctions, and a very limited legalization. They exploit the fear and hope of those desperate to adjust their immigration status.

But members of Break the Chains, seeing their lives as directly impacted by immigration reform, refused to be silenced. We worked with the ethnic press, who up until a few days before the arch were undecided about promoting May Day activities, to encourage all workers to attend. The resulting march was a breakthrough for workers here in New York.

We are moving beyond seeing the immigration debate as only affecting undocumented immigrants and are bringing together documented and undocumented workers from diverse communities. We refuse to settle for crumbs (e.g. guestworker programs), and instead are fighting for measures that decriminalize undocumented workers and ensure equal rights for all workers.

For more information about May 1st and the Break the Chains campaign to repeal employer sanctions, check out the BTC website at www.breakthechainsnow.org , email info@breakthechainsnow.org, or call (212) 358-0295.

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May Day 2006 International Day of Working Class Unity and Struggle

Two Worlds in Combat

- Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) -

There are two worlds in combat today. One is the world of the bourgeoisie, counter-revolution, retrogression and the anti-social offensive. This world of reaction and war tramples underfoot the right of the peoples of the world to chose their own system. There is another world, the world of the working class and all progressive humanity, the world of revolution and the opening of the door for the progress of society. This is the world of pro-social programs, the world of unity and struggle of the peoples of all lands.

While the world of the bourgeoisie is decaying, the world of the working class has to be created afresh, anew. The world of the working class is not ready-made nor will it emerge on the basis of reforming the old world. On the contrary, it is a world that must be consciously created on the basis of the most advanced and revolutionary forces engendered within the modern conditions. May Day 2006 must remind all the progressive forces to double and triple their efforts to create the new world.

The old world is relying on everything anachronistic in order to hold itself together. In the sphere of the economy, it has the vain hope that the making of maximum capitalist profits within an institutionalized global system, in the end, will be the basis of its continued prosperity. In the political sphere, it has the vain hope that its unrepresentative democracy, in the final analysis, will guarantee that political power remains in its own hands. In the sphere of relations between peoples, it hopes that the destruction of the very idea of the independence and sovereignty of nations will guarantee its eternal worldwide domination.

The world of the working class, the new world, is relying on modern definitions. It is based on dealing with the outstanding problems of each major sphere of human endeavor. The working class would organize the economy with the aim of guaranteeing a livelihood to all as a human right on the basis of the most advanced techniques and the continuous raising of standards of living. In he sphere of politics, the working class will establish a system of modern democracy in which the representatives are subordinate to the people, and the people directly participate in the selection and election of candidates, and in governance. The working class, in the sphere of relations between peoples, will uphold as a modern principle that all peoples have the right to chart their own course.

May Day 2006 presents all progressive humanity with a challenge. It is the challenge to reject everything old and decadent by waging a merciless struggle against it, while creating the new on the basis of the modern working class and on the most advanced thinking and theory coming out of the contemporary conditions. These are exciting times for all those who wish to create the new world. The basic ingredients for this new world are already in existence. The working class has its own experience of revolution and socialism of well over one hundred and sixty years, especially during the twentieth century. The ingredients of this experience are all too precious to be frittered away. The time is now to use these ingredients anew and continue to add fresh ones for the destruction of the old and the building of the new.

Let everyone take their place in this historic combat of the twenty-first century by leaving the old behind!

See www.cpcml.ca for more information

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On Being Black at a Latino March

Shout "Viva!"

- Van Jones, May 4, 2006 -

At this week's "Dia Sin Inmigrantes/Day Without Immigrants" march in San Francisco, I saw a beautiful, exciting and hopeful vision of the future of this country. I also caught a glimpse of a familiar past, fading away. And I shed a few tears for both.

From the moment I climbed aboard the BART subway cars Monday morning, I knew this May Day march and rally would differ from the Bay Area's usual protest fare. The trains headed into downtown San Francisco were filled with working-class Latinos, all wearing white; most had kids in tow.

There were few protest signs or banners. But the stars and stripes were everywhere. One tyke on my train kept trying to poke his cousin with a little American flag.

The children were all well-scrubbed and happy ... and very proud. So were their parents. They knew they were part of something new, and big, and promising.

The bright mood contrasted starkly with the dreary atmosphere that chokes protests nowadays. On this march, I saw no resigned shuffling of already-defeated feet. No sea of scowls. No pierced tongues, screaming. Nor could I spy a single person dragging behind her the weighty conviction that resistance - though obligatory - was futile.

To the contrary. Beaming, brown-skinned families walked off those trains with their heads held high. They may have been poor, but they stepped like they were marching into a future of limitless promise. Their optimism brought tears to my eyes. And not only for the obvious reasons.

Deep inside, I was grieving for my own people. I wished that my beloved African-American community had managed - somehow - to retain our own sparkling sense of faith in a magnificent future. There was once a time when we, too, marched forward together. There was a time when we, too, believed that America's tomorrow held something bright for us ... and for our children.

But those dreams have been eaten away by the AIDS virus, laid off by down-sizers, locked out by smiling bigots, shot up by gang-bangers and buried in a corporate-run prison yard. Now we cling to Black History Month for validation or inspiration. That's because Black Present Moment is so depressing - with worse, almost certainly, on the way.

When Katrina's floodwaters washed our problems back onto the front pages, the once-mighty Black Freedom Movement could not rise even to that occasion. Our legendary "movement" is now a hollowed-out shell - with our "spokespersons," both young and old, trying somehow to live off our past glories.

Meanwhile, the white-shirted future was pouring itself down Market Street, chanting "Si, Se Puede!"

My feelings of solidarity quickly trumped my sorrows. Thousands of people were standing up, here and across the United States, for their right to live and work in dignity in this country. Deep in my bones, I felt their pain, knew their hopes and affirmed their dreams. And just as non-Blacks ad supported our freedom movement in the last century, I was determined - as a non-immigrant - to give my passionate support to this righteous cause.

So I joined the crowds in the street, trying to add my voice to the thunderous chants. But I quickly discovered that - all my good intentions notwithstanding - political solidarity is sometimes more easily felt than expressed.

My fellow marchers started roaring out: "Zapata! Viva! La lucha! Sigue!"

I was like, Huh? What?

"Zapata! Vive! La lucha! Sigue!"

Then louder, faster: "LaLuchaSigueSigue! ZapataVivaViva! LaLuchaSigueSigue! ZapataVivaViva!" (Long live Zapata, the struggle continues.) Whoa, there! What the ... ?

Bewildered but undeterred, I got myself a "chant sheet." Sure enough, the handy leaflet spelled everything out very clearly - in Spanish.

"Las Calles Son Del Pueblo! El Pueblo Donde Esta? El Pueblo Esta En Las Calles, Exigiendo Libertad!" (Who's streets, our streets! The people are in the streets, demanding freedom!)

I found myself desperately trying to remember back to 11th grade, wondering what sound an "x" makes in Spanish.

Finally, I had to face a sad truth about myself: I had B.S.-ed my way through all my high school and college language requirements. Now, I had to admit that Mrs. Savage (from fourth period Espanol) had been right: I really hadn't cheated anyone - but myself. I decided instead to just walk cheerfully along, clapping in time with the drummers. But even some of the Latin rhythms were unfamiliar, strangely syncopated. I couldn't always find the beat. Suddenly, I was filled with sympathy for all those a-rhythmic white folks whom I used to make fun of at Black rallies, parties and churches. (I am SO sorry, y'all!)

Eventually I found a solution: I would simply listen for any chant that had the word "VIVA!" in it. Whenever appropriate, I would just raise my fist and shout "VIVA!" along with the crowd, as loud as I could.

In the end, despite feeling somewhat out of place, I was absolutely thrilled to see my sisters and brothers taking the future into their own hands.

Activist Latinos today are pulling the nation to a higher level of fairness and inclusion. They are posing a simple and devastating question: Should U.S. society continue to profit from the labor of 11 million people - many of whom pick our fruit, nurse our children, clean our workplaces - without embracing them fully, without honoring their work, without extending to them the same rights and respect we would want for ourselves?

Can we countenance or tolerate a Jim Crow system - in brownface - with a shunned tier of second-class workers, enriching society but lacking legal status and protections?

Or are we willing to change our laws - and change our hearts - to embrace those upon whom our economy has come to rest? This is a simple moral challenge. The right answers are not easy, but they are obvious.

I know that there will be a backlash (there always is when people push for fairness), even coming from some black folks. But I also know that the Latino-led struggle for justice and inclusion offers hope to all of us. A national conversation about the true meaning of dignity, equality, opportunity and fair play in the modern economy can ultimately benefit every American community.

During the two prior centuries, it was the African-American community that performed this service for the country. And we paid a high and awful cost in blood and martyrs. Unfortunately, we did not achieve all of our aims. But we did tear apartheid from pages of U.S. law books. And in the course of that struggle, we did improve the lot of all Americans - expanding social programs, democratic rights and social tolerance for all people.

Of course, I cannot help but mourn the loss of a Black community strong enough to put this nation on its back, and carry it forward, step by step, toward justice ... as we once did. But my pain only amplifies and underscores my joy that this marvelous new force has arisen, one that is capable - in this tough, new era - of deepening and extending the struggle for transformation and redemption.

Strong brown hands have grabbed hold of the U.S. flag. And they are pulling it away from those who have monopolized it, from bullies who have abused the nation's symbols for their violent and illegitimate ends.

If history is any guide, as Latinos and other immigrant communities raise core questions about their children's access to education, health care, jobs and safety, every American community will benefit hugely from their efforts. Including my own.

Van Jones is head of the Ella Walker Center for Human Rights, Oakland, CA

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NED Funds Coups and Dictatorships

Stop Funding and Close the National Endowment For Democracy

- National Venezuela Solidarity Network -

The U.S. Congress is about to reconsider additional funding for the National -Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED is supposedly a independent organization, but in reality it is an arm of the State Department and U.S. foreign policy with a long history of overthrowing elected governments in the global south and elsewhere. It does this by using the millions of tax dollars now under consideration to manipulate elections and fund coup d'états.

The lies used to justify the war in Iraq have made many more people wiser and less ready to fall for any hype about "democracy." The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is not about democracy. Right now, we have the opportunity to stop extra funds from being allocated to these charlatans of shamocracy!

The NED and its core institutions - the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO, and the Centers for International Private Enterprise (an arm of the Chambers of Commerce) - are running out of money. Particularly, the IRI and the NDI used up their allotments for FY 2006 on April 30. Congress will be asked to earmark special funds for these agencies, and we need to act now to stop this from happening.

Every single one of these NED institutions is deeply involved in subverting elected governments and popular movements around the world.

Although the Emergency Supplemental bill containing new NED funding has passed both the Senate and House, a committee is now meeting to reconcile the two bills. We want the dollars earmarked for the NED to be taken out of the final bill.

Sign the petition online: www.petitiononline.com/CloseNED/

Endorse this Action Alert by sending endorsements to: VSN@afgj.org or fax 202-544-9359

Call Congress, especially Appropriations Committee members. 1-800-828-0498.

For more information on how trade unionists and community groups are working to demand that the AFL-CIO stop accepting NED money, contact the Worker to Worker Solidarity Committee at workertoworker@gmail.com.

he National Venezuela Solidarity Network includes: CyberCircle, Global Women's Strike, Hands Off Venezuela, Latin American Solidarity Committee, Nicaragua Network, Oregon Bolivarian Circle, Payday, Worker to Worker Solidarity Committee.

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Petition to End Funding for the National Endowment for Democracy

To: The United States Congress

WHEREAS, the U.S. Congress is reconsidering the funding needs of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its core institutes - the International Republican Institute (Republican Party), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (Democratic Party), the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (AFL-CIO), and the Centers for International Private Enterprise (U.S. Chamber of Commerce) - in particular the IRI and NDI, which used up their allotments by April 30th;

WHEREAS, few in the United States are aware of the existence of the NED, established by U.S. Congress and President Reagan in 1983. Although Congress funds the NED using tax dollars to provide at least 95 percent of its budget, it is officially considered a "private" organization;

WHEREAS, the NED claims to support the development of democracy throughout the world, but has been used by the State Department and U.S. foreign policy to subvert elected governments and popular movements, manipulating elections, funding coup d'états and supporting dictatorships for decades;

WHEREAS, most recently, NED funds have been targeted to undermine the democratically elected governments of Venezuela and Haiti. The NED has also actively intervened in countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and elsewhere;

WHEREAS, in Venezuela the NED quadrupled its budget leading up to the coup against the elected presidency of Hugo Chavez in 2002, defeated by a popular uprising backed by soldiers loyal to the constitution. NED money was given to the AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center, which only a month before the coup attempt brought together the leadership of a corrupt trade union federation (CTV) with a national alliance of business (FEDECAMERAS), two groups that played a key role in the coup. The NED also funded groups behind the crippling lockout of oil workers later that year, in which children and elderly people died and many people lost their livelihoods. The NED also funded groups, such as "Súmate" ("join up"), that spearheaded the recall referendum against President Chavez in 2004 - which he handsomely defeated despite NED interference;

WHEREAS, in Haiti, the NED through the International Republican Institute (IRI) funded, convened and coordinated organizations behind the overthrow of the elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, including owners of sweatshop industries, former members and associates of death squads and brutal ex-military -officers. Since that coup, over 10,000 Haitians have died. The AFL-CIO's Solidarity Center has only supported a labor organization that agitated for the ousting of Aristide, while failing to act against or condemn the massive persecution of grassroots Haitians, the majority of whom support Aristide;

WHEREAS, substantial NED funding has gone into Iraq since the invasion - $63 million, including half of the NED's current budget. In the name of "democracy building", the NED funds parties, associations and union centers which are agreeable to conditions that favor U.S. military and corporate interests. Independent union centers, for instance, are outlawed and suppressed, in defiance of the principle of workers' free choice of representation;

WHEREAS, the NED undermines democracy at home by working against democracy around the world;

THEREFORE, we call upon the U.S. Congress to look out for our interests, which are dependent on the welfare of people around the world. We demand that not one more penny of our money go to help undermine and destroy the hopes, dreams and work of millions of women and men creating a better life for each other and their children.

THEREFORE, we demand the U.S. Congress stop funding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its core institutes, and close it down.

Sign the petition online: www.petitiononline.com/CloseNED/

Send signed petitions to VSN@afgj.org or fax 202-544-9359

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Latin America's Time is Now

- Nidia Diaz, Granma International, April 30, 2006 -

Once again, these April days have gone down in history. April 19 was the day, 45 years ago, that U.S. imperialism suffered its first military defeat in Latin America, on the Cuban sands of Playa Girón, in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion - and it has yet to recover. This April 29, 2006 in Havana, capital of the first socialist country in the hemisphere, the empire has suffered another defeat, and this time a more far-reaching one, because it is the defeat of its ideas and the imposition of its model of domination.

This time, Cuba was not alone in the battle: Bolivarian Venezuela, under Hugo Chávez, and the Bolivia under indigenous leader Evo Morales were with us.

On the first anniversary of the agreements to implement the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), signed by Cuba and Venezuela, a revolutionary triad has formed with the incorporation of Bolivia into this tool of integration, and the Bolivian president's proposal, moreover, of a People's Trade Agreement (TPC) as an alternative to the free trade agreements used by the U.S. government in its attempts to sink our people into greater exploitation and dependence.

In the documents signed by the three leaders, which include a Joint Communiqué, positions are established on an integration process that, they agreed, must be "based on principles of mutual aid, solidarity and respect for self-determination" with the goal of "providing an appropriate response to raising up social justice, cultural diversity, equity and the right to development that the peoples deserve and demand."

With this step taken by Bolivia, the integrationist efforts taking place throughout the continent under new nationalist and popular governments are deepening, efforts that are already bearing fruit in the case of Cuba and Venezuela.

Fidel, Chávez and Evo also agreed that only a new and genuine form of integration that goes in the opposite direction of the economic and political relations established by the Free Trade Area of the Americas and other free trade agreements can guarantee sustainable and sovereign development for our peoples.

The Start of a Great Day

It was at the International Conference Center in Havana where the meeting was held - as Evo Morales said - of those who represent three generations of revolutionaries: Fidel, Hugo Chávez and the indigenous leader himself, all of whom signed the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) Implementation Agreement and the People's Trade Agreement (TPC).

Marta Lomas, Cuba's minister of foreign investment and economic cooperation, explained, demonstrating the ALBA's justice and viability, how far Cuban-Venezuelan relations have progressed since October 30, 2000 when the two countries' presidents signed the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement that served as a basis for the December 14, 2004 signing of the Joint Declaration and the ALBA Implementation Agreement.

Consequently, Lomas noted, Cuban and Venezuelan delegations met on April 28 and 29, 2005 in what was the first meeting for the ALBA's implementation, and where the first Strategic Plan was approved to set it into motion.

The outcome has been extremely eloquent and encouraging, and is an expression of what the peoples can achieve with agreements in which honor, solidarity and love for the people are the main objectives.

It was pointed to as the most outstanding achievement of the period when, this past October 28, UNESCO declared Venezuela to be Illiteracy-Free Territory, something accomplished in less than two years of hard-fought struggle against that disgrace. Likewise, it was announced this past March 20 that Bolivia will begin a literacy campaign with the participation of 20 Venezuelan literacy educators, Bolivian experts and 48 Cuban consultants.

ALBA'S Figures

In 2001, trade between Cuba and Venezuela was $973 million. In 2005, that figure went up to $2.4 billion, representing growth of 255% in non-oil Venezuelan exports to Cuba.

In 2001, Cuban medical cooperation did not yet exist in Venezuela. Today, 23,601 Cuban health professionals are lending their services, providing care for more than 17 million Venezuelans, with a historic record of 175 million medical consultations.

Currently, 3,328 Venezuelans are studying general comprehensive medicine in Cuba, and 12,940 are doing so in Venezuela under the Comprehensive Community Program, under the guidance of 6,525 Cuban experts who are part of the Mission Barrio Adentro (Into the Barrio) program.

As of April 28, under the Operation Miracle program, 220,571 vision restoration operations had been performed, with 188,389 of them on Venezuelans. In 2001, Operation Miracle did not yet exist; today, patients from 17 Latin America and Caribbean nations are benefiting, and others are joining in.

In 2001, there were more than one million illiterate people in Venezuela; today, that country is an Illiteracy-Free Territory. With Cuba's advisement and the "Yes, I Can!" teaching method, 1,482,543 people learned how to read and write, 76,369 of them from indigenous groups.

In 2001, Venezuela and Cuba began down the road of ALBA, and now Bolivia has joined, and others will join.

After the documents were signed, Fidel was asked by a Telesur network reporter how he felt, 45 years after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, about sharing his central revolutionary role with other presidents. The Cuban president was precise in his answer: "I feel like the happiest man in the world." [ ]

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Bolivia

Jubilation Over Nationalization of Oil and Gas Resources

The nationalization of Bolivia's oil and natural gas resources brought great jubilation among the people at the many events celebrating May Day, International Workers' Day in Bolivia. The impressive crowd gathered in La Paz, the capital, exploded with joy and cheers after the nationalization decree was -announced by President Evo Morales.

Morales himself was speaking to workers at a May Day rally at the San Alberto gas field in the southern region of Chaco. It is currently operated by -companies from Brazil, France and Spain.

Vice President Alvaro García announced the measure at the rally in La Paz. García emphasized that Bolivia is undertaking "the first nationalization of the 21st century" in the world, without asking anybody's permission, without negotiating with anyone, and as part of an absolutely sovereign decision.

He added that the decree was being issued almost exactly one decade after the neoliberal Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada government privatized what is now the state-owned oil company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB).

"From today, our oil and gas will never again be in the hands of the foreign monopolies," affirmed García. The rally paid tribute to the many Bolivians who have died defending the country's natural resources.

The vice president also affirmed that the government's members were determined to stake their lives, together with the people, for the homeland and for history, and called for defense of the nationalization.

García said the government would not cede to pressures from any foreign company or government, nor from any traitor in Parliament who might try to defend the interests of the foreign monopolies.

Demonstrators gathered in Murillo Placa applauded the announcement and repeatedly shouted out Morales' name, and a veritable fiesta ensued, enlivened by popular music groups.

At May Day rallies in other cities, similar festive scenes took place, -applauding the government decision.

Bolivia has the second largest natural gas reserves in Latin America, after Venezuela. The decree establishes that the state has the majority of shares in the five existing oil companies formed when oil activity was privatized 10 years ago. Foreign companies can continue to operate in the country, so long as they meet the requirements of the Bolivian government for controlling interests. The government also now owns the wells and controls gas and oil production, industrialization and commercialization, including setting prices. The foreign companies have been given six months to comply with the measure or leave the country.

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Brazilians Support Nationalization by Bolivia

The U.S. media has made an effort to promote divisions among the peoples of Latin America, using Bolivia's recent decision to nationalize its oil and gas resources. While U.S. monopolies themselves do not have major interests in Bolivia's natural gas, they are organizing to claim all of the Americas as their own, using the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The efforts by the U.S. government to promote divisions in the region - like those at home trying to divide immigrants and pit native and foreign born workers against each other - are part of the drive of the monopolies to crush -resistance and build their world empire.

May Day actions here and worldwide showed the peoples fierce opposition to a world dictated by U.S. imperialism and their fight for another world, where cooperation and mutual aid amongst the peoples is the norm. This stand is also embodied in the statement below, from the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) on the nationalization of oil and natural gas in Bolivia. Brazil's Petrobras is one of the main foreign companies operating in Bolivia.

"The nationalization of oil and gas [hydrocarbons] decreed by Bolivian President Evo Morales was a fair and courageous decision by the fraternal country's President. It is an historical victory of the Bolivian people whose wealth was plundered by neoliberal and imperialist governments for many decades. It is a sovereign decision that corresponds to the national interests of Bolivia.

"All Brazilian progressive forces should welcome this decision and the Brazilian government should respect it, even taking in account that it can put in check Petrobras' s commercial interests. Our diplomatic organs should continue to put politics in command and count on solidarity and Latin American integration as a strategic option.

"The victorious external politics of [Brazilian President] Lula de Silva's administration will find ways to solve the commercial and financial difficulties caused by the Bolivian government's decision. Voices that are loud against President Evo Morales' fair measures are the same ones that advocate the Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA), neocolonialism and subordination of Brazil and Latin America to the interests of U.S. imperialism."

José Reinaldo Carvalho, International Relations Secretary of the Communist Party of Brazil

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Opposing U.S. Free Trade Agreements

Bolivia Joins Cuba and Venezuela in Organizing Trade Based on Mutual Benefit and Cooperation

On April 29, in Havana, Cuba, President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, signed the Joint Declaration on trade. The Declaration was initially issued in December, 2004, by Cuba and Venezuela. The joint declaration is a measure being taken by the peoples and governments of the three countries to defend their sovereignty and counter U.S. efforts to impose its dictate in the Americas, using Free Trade Agreements. The efforts by Cuba, Venezeula and Bolivia are part of a number of actions being taken in the Americas to develop trade based on mutual benefit and cooperation.

The text of the declaration follows:

Recognizing that:

. the implementation of neo-liberal plans and policies has led to the proliferation and deepening of dependence, poverty, the pillage of our natural resources and a state of social inequality within our region,

. the genuine integration among the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean is an indispensable condition for sustainable development, food security and sovereignty, in order to meet the -necessities of our peoples,

. only the united actions by the Latin American and Caribbean nations, based on principles of cooperation, solidarity and mutual and complementary aid will allow us to preserve our independence, sovereignty and identity, and to be successful in our opposition to unilateralism and hegemonic aspirations, thus -strengthening a Peoples' Trade Agreement.

The struggle to improve the lot of human beings, friendship, solidarity and peace among all nations of the world must constitute the moral obligation of each and every government,

. and convinced of the need to promote a genuine fraternal, complementary and human integration amongst our nations and our peoples, in the name of the Government of the Republic of Bolivia we would like to contribute to this process with the initiative of the Peoples' Trade Agreements, making the goals, principles and ideological bases of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of our Americas our own, contained in the joint declaration signed in Havana on the fourteenth day of December in the year two thousand and four, by the President of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba and the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

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Mexico

Brutal Attack on the Mineworkers' Strike at Las Truchas

- Pablo Moctezuma -

On April 28, Mexican trade unions held another day of protest including marches and strikes to decry the shedding of workers' blood. On April 20, 2006, the government of Vicente Fox Quesada unleashed a violent attack against the mineworkers' strike at the Lázaro Cárdenas-Las Truchas steel mill in order to get control of the plant. After four hours of resistance against about 1,000 federal and state police, the National Union of Mine, Metal and Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM) continues to hold the installations. The outcome was two workers killed: Héctor Alvarez and Mario Alberto Castillo, and 75 wounded by troops armed with high power R-15 rifles and shotguns who let loose a hail of bullets against the workers defending themselves with rocks and sticks.

Interfering in the internal life of the union, the Fox government is trying to impose upon it a leader in the service of the regime: Elías Morales. He opposes the union's accusation of "industrial homicide" with respect to the deaths of 65 miners in an accident at the Pasta de Conchos mine in Coahuila state, which was privatized 15 years ago. They perished because of the terrible working conditions imposed by the owners, the Grupo Industrial Minero México, with the complicity of the Fox government that has openly declared itself to be "a government of entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs." And it has recurred to violence to try to regain control of the "Las Truchas" installation in order to satisfy the bosses, the Villareal brothers. It is worth mentioning that top executives of the enterprise are members of the "Vamos México" foundation headed by Martha Sahagún de Fox (wife of the President).

The strike against the imposition of the scab Elías Morales - who is in the service of Germán Larrea, President of Grupo México - broke out on April 2 in Lázaro Cárdenas and is continuing. As with other union locals also on strike at present in the states of Sonora, Zacatecas and Michoacán, it has been labeled "-illegal" by the Fox government, which is also trampling upon union independence. The company has already accused the workers' defense of their own interests as "terrorist." For implementation of this criminal attack to satisfy the mining consortiums, Fox's operative and the principal promoter of violence has been Labor Secretary Francisco Salazar Sáenz. For some weeks now, the UNT, CROC, COR and FAT labor organizations have been demanding his resignation. Salazar Sáenz is an accomplice in the "industrial homicide" of the 65 miners at Pasta de Conchos, Coahuila, and the promoter of the attack against the legitimate right to strike and to freedom of expression. This has been made evident by the abduction and jailing he instigated against four opponents who demonstrated peacefully at the banquet inaugurating the Federal Labour Board, held in the heart of Santa Catarina barrio in Azcapotzalco. Salazar has declared the mine workers are "drug addicts." The PAN (the ruling party) has backed Salazar saying "he has given meaning to the rule of law."

The brutal violence of the Fox government is setting Mexico back 100 years to when the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship attacked the strike of the Cananea miners in 1906,[1] and reveals the true nature of the "change" directed by the PAN (government): it is a retrogressive change for the purpose of denying all the rights of the workers and to favor big capital and the joint plans of Bush and Harper for the annexation of México, within the framework of NAFTA and ASPAN (the Alliance for the Security and Prosperity of North America), to the empire of capital and the corporations. In order to impose their interests, a real blood bath has begun. On April 17, a Mexican worker was murdered, shot in the back by the police in Tultitlán, "because they confused him with an undocumented (immigrant)." The war against the workers by Bush, Fox and Harper has begun.

Notes

1. Cananea, 1906: Outstanding among the events leading up to the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910 was the violence of the Diaz regime against two strikes of the Mexican working class.

The first was a strike by about 5,000 Mexican miners on June 1, 1906 at the American owned copper mine at Cananea, Sonora, just south of the Arizona border. Low pay, long hours, discrimination and the infamous "company store" were among the workers' grievances. The Mexican state launched an armed attack on the strikers and brought in 275 U.S. troops to participate, killing about 20 miners.

The second was the strike of 6,000 textile workers at Rio Blanco Vera Cruz. On Jan. 7, 1907, state forces attacked the strikers and the leaders were executed by firing squad.

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