U.S. Labor Against War (USLAW) will tour six Iraqi trade unionists across the country soon. Many trade unionists and activists are interested in the experience of Iraqi trade unionists organizing under the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but anti-war and labor activists should be cautious about the message of these events.

The 10,000-plus Mexicans, Chicanos and Latinos marching through the streets of Ontario, California June 13 sent a powerful message to the Bush administration – the raids and deportations carried out by immigration enforcement will not be accepted or tolerated. This powerful display of resistance followed raids where immigration agents targeted undocumented workers at bus stops, markets and homes.

Demand Freedom for Ricardo Palmera!

Ricardo Palmera, a key leader Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, (FARC), was handed over to U.S. custody Dec. 31. He is now sitting in a U.S. jail awaiting trial in federal court. Everyone who values justice should raise their voices and demand his immediate release.

The Bush proposal on immigration does not address the real problems of the more than ten million undocumented workers in this country. It is simply a recycled version of past ‘guest worker’ programs which lock immigrant workers into poverty, without providing any real path for toward security, residency and justice.

Fight Back! is publishing the following statement criticizing the Geneva Accord – which purports to be a framework for achieving peace in Palestine. Like Bush’s ‘road map for peace,’ the Geneva Accord does not square with the aspirations of the Palestinian people for justice and liberation. When the text of the Accord was released Dec. 1, thousands protested in Gaza and other Palestinian cities.

Statement of Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Freedom Road Socialist Organization mourns the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (1929-2004). We regret the loss of a freedom fighter who worked tirelessly for the emancipation of Palestine.

On Sept. 1, 2008 the Republican Party will hold its national convention at the Xcel Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. They will be there to nominate John McCain for president, and justify the wars against – and occupations of – Iraq and Afghanistan. The Republicans will gather to celebrate economic policies that have brought riches to the few and foreclosures, homelessness and unemployment to the many. Republican delegates will cheer the anti-immigrant attacks as party leaders try to use racism to cement their reactionary supporters. We can also expect attacks from the podium on women’s rights to control our own bodies and attacks on gay marriage.

Defend Equal Access to Education

The following is a statement from the Minnesota / Madison District of Freedom Road Socialist Organization on the attempt by the University of Minnesota to shut down the General College.

On March 8, millions of people across the globe will celebrate International Women’s Day. Protests, events and declarations will recognize the contributions of women as leaders of progressive movements past and present and advance our demands for change in the future.

March 8, 2005 will be the 95th year that International Women’s Day has been celebrated worldwide since Clara Zetkin, a German revolutionary, proposed it in 1910. Zetkin was inspired by working women in the United States. In 1908, women, mainly from the garment industry, came together in New York City’s Rutgers Square to demand a strong union in the needle trades and the right to vote. Today, it is a holiday celebrated by working people worldwide.

March 8 is International Women’s Day. It is a day of struggle across the globe, when the battle of women for our own liberation and our contributions to the fight for a better world are put center stage.

March 8 is International Women's Day. It is a day of struggle across the globe, where the battle of women – for our own liberation and our contributions to the fight for a better world – are put at center stage.

Speaking at a news conference on May 5, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “The main effort in our strategic focus from a military perspective must now shift to Afghanistan.”

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement about the case of Ahmad Sa'adat.

Every progressive person should condemn the arrest of Professor Jose Maria Sison by authorities in the Netherlands. Sison’s arrest by Dutch police on trumped-up murder charges is an attempt to criminalize the liberation movement of the Philippines and to silence the voice of the Philippines’s most important revolutionary. Professor Sison has lived as a political refugee in the Netherlands for 20 years. It is the hidden hand of the Bush administration that is pressuring the Netherlands to take actions against Sison, including freezing his bank account and stripping him of his right to work. This arrest is political, not criminal.

Recently the media has been abuzz with talk of the possible ‘nationalization’ of ailing big banks such as Citigroup. Both Democrat and Republican senators, as well as the former chair of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, have raised the possibility of a temporary ‘nationalization’ or government takeover of big banks.

Israel has added another offense to its long roster of crimes by attacking Lebanon. It is conducting an air war that intentionally targets civilians; even refugees fleeing in their cars are killed. Israel is systematically destroying the infrastructure of southern Lebanon by targeting people's basic needs – apartment buildings, warehouses full of food, gas stations, powers plants, bridges and roads. Almost a million people have been driven from their homes. Now Israeli ground troops have crossed the border into Lebanon.

The U.S. should close down its bases and withdraw the troops from Korea. For more than 50 years, the U.S. has occupied southern Korea. It is time for that occupation to end.

The Bush administration is still threatening Iran, and a wider war in the Middle East. The U.S. government has made much of Iran’s nuclear energy program. Iran says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and now U.S. intelligence agencies agree with that characterization. But this makes little difference to Bush and Cheney. They are still talking about turning up the heat on Iran and looking to impose more sanctions – which are in and of themselves a form of war, and as we saw with Yugoslavia and Iraq, a buildup to open military action.