April 23, 2018 marks the 50th Anniversary of the Columbia student uprising in 1968. Since I was involved in the events in various capacities, I want to offer a testimony to what happened and what seems to me today the most important lessons we can draw.
Source: The Guardian
We are seeing a level of organizing with little precedent – but it’s time for stronger forms of demonstration, such as sit-ins and street blockades
We are in an extraordinary era of protest. Over the course of the first 15 months of the 45th presidency, more people have joined demonstrations than at any other time in American history. Take a minute and digest that: never before have as many Americans taken to the streets for political causes as are marching and rallying now.
Thousands of logs loaded into makeshift boats at the port of Inongo at Lake Mai-Ndombe stand ready to be transported to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. “We witness this kind of spectacle every day, whereby tons and tons of logs and timber find their way to the capital either via the Congo River or by road, where they will eventually be shipped overseas, or just sold to the black market,” said environment activist Prosper Ngobila.
Politicians have made a mess of things for American workers, but a new Poor People's Campaign is rising to set things right.
Two South African women, Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid, have won the Goldman Environmental Prize, the world’s largest award honoring grassroots environmental activists, for stopping their government’s massive secret nuclear deal with Russia – a deal that would have threatened the country’s health, environment and finances.
Source: In These Times
We rarely see what goes on inside of U.S. prisons, besides the occasional reports of riots, suicides or corruption scandals that trickle out of an otherwise opaque institution. But a new study looking into prison conditions nationwide shines light on the bleak reality of everyday life behind bars.
The study, conducted by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC)—an affiliate of the Industrial Workers of the World and Research Action Cooperative—surveyed 123 incarcerated individuals across 21 states. The majority of the participants were from state facilities, but also included prisoners from federal institutions and immigrant detention centers, mostly from Missouri, Texas and California.
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