Tucson, AZ – On day 77 of the Asarco strike of 2000 workers from eight different unions, Teamster International President Jimmy Hoffa Jr. came by to voice his solidarity. “We are with you!” shouted Hoffa in front of the long tables where dozens of strikers and their families ate together on Sunday, December 29.

Only once since mid-October has the mining corporation Asarco come to the negotiating table. “They made it clear that they are not interested at all in real negotiations and real solutions,” said Alex Terrazas, president of United Steelworkers Local 937.

Powerful moments of solidarity emerged as the Teamster Local 104 secretary-treasurer held an informal press conference, allowing many elected politicians to announce themselves, and when a Steelworker from Wyoming said he drove all the way down to deliver $500 from his local. The crowd erupted in cheers.

As the press conference ended, Terrazas led a chant of “We are? One!” and “We will win!”

#Tucson #strike #Strikes #Asarco #TeamsterLocal104

Tucson, AZ – Outraged educators took to the streets in both Phoenix and Tucson Sept. 5 to protest the removal of Proposition 207 from the November ballot. The actions took place at the Arizona Chamber of Commerce in Phoenix and at Chamber members Tucson Electrical Power (TEP) and Wells Fargo in Tucson. These places were targets because it was the Chamber of Commerce that funded and filed the lawsuit against the InvestInEd ballot initiative that would have raised income taxes on the top 0.07% of Arizonans, some 15,000 people, and generated an estimated $690 million. This amount would provide a significant boost to missing $1.1 billion from public schools over the ten years.

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce is led by the utility monopoly APS, which funded TV ads promoting Governor Doug Ducey as the “Education Governor.” The lawsuit filed by the Chamber was driven by a distorted analysis made by the Koch brothers-funded group Americans for Prosperity. What’s more, the lower court of Arizona did not want to touch this lawsuit believing that for one, there was nothing to the analysis and two, that it is up to the voters to decide this. Some 270,000 Arizonans signed the initiative hoping to restore funding levels closer to 2008 levels. Instead of dying at the lower court, the Chamber pushed Governor Ducey to make sure his stacked Supreme Court tried the case.

In 2016 Ducey convinced the Republican-dominated state legislature to increase the Supreme Court from five to seven justices. Ducey then appointee two more justices, one of whom is a member of the conservative law association, the Federalist Society. Another Justice, Clint Bolick, appointed by Ducey in 2016, is a conservative ideologue. Before joining the Supreme Court, he served as director of litigation for the archconservative Goldwater Institute. And before that, he was the director for the pro-charter school Alliance for School Choice. His political connections with the right-wing offensive led by the billionaire Koch brothers began in 1991 when Charles Koch helped Bolick with startup money for the Institute of Justice. Bolick, like Ducey, is up for election in November.

In Phoenix, the Osborn Education Association organized the protest at the Chamber of Commerce. Organizer and educator Alexis Aguirre stated “It is an outrage that the Arizona Chamber of Commerce has taken it upon themselves to defund our children's education and bankrupt our public schools. Governor Ducey has stacked the Arizona Supreme Court to maintain his agenda of putting profit before the well-being of our students. As an educator and parent who worked tirelessly all summer alongside my kids to gather the signatures needed to put InvestInEd on the ballot, I am even more committed now to assure that Arizona schools get the funding they deserve through the ballot box and beyond.”

In Tucson, nearly 50 educators and allies received supportive honks from downtown traffic as they chanted “Red for Ed!” and “Wells Fargo you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side!” Corporate targets will continue to be the focus until the legislature fully funds public schools.

#Tucson #Arizona #TeachersUnions #ChamberOfCommerce #Proposition207

Many suspect Duque is a puppet of Uribe and will carry out the plan of undermining the Peace Process.

The murders, claims the Colombian Inspector General, are being coordinated with local and national levels of the armed forces and police of Colombia. Though the defense minister denies this, clearly these killings are not random, they are targeted. It can be assumed that the paramilitaries who carried out the dirty work of Uribe ten years ago feel emboldened by the election of Duque. The Inspector General connects the geography of many of the killings to land disputes stemming from the return of land to campesinos who had it stolen by large, private landowners during the war against the FARC. The transfer of land is one of the central tenets of the signed Peace Accord between the government and the FARC.

In addition to the failure to provide security for social movement leaders, the Colombian government has failed to ensure the safety of FARC leader Jesus Santrich. In April, the U.S. government used the DEA to cook up drug sale allegations against Santrich. They were going to extradite him until he went on hunger strike and the FARC demanded that the Special Judicial Court, created by the Peace Process, override the U.S. So far, this has succeeded in keeping Santrich in Colombia. But, since the Colombian government is not taking the proper steps to push the U.S. to drop their bogus charges, FARC leader Ivan Marquez will not be taking his seat in the Colombian senate. His protest clearly marks a challenge of departing President Santos and the rest of the Colombian government.

In response to the escalating levels of political killings against the left in Colombia, an International Day of Action has been called for August 7, the day Duque takes office.

Various groups including the Observatorio de los Derechos Humanos del Pueblo (People’s Human Rights Observatory), The Coordinadora Americana por los Derechos de los Pueblos (Americas Coordination for the People's Rights), Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ), School of the Americas Watch, and Camino Común (Common Path) are calling for August 7 to be an International Day for Peace in Colombia and against State and Paramilitary Terror. There are also calls that have been issued in Colombia for national mobilizations on that day.

#TucsonAZ #Tucson #AntiwarMovement #Colombia #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #FARC #Repression #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #Duque

Typically, the gathering commemorates important events like the historic struggle that began back in the late 1920s with national hero Augusto Sandino’s army’s successful expulsion of U.S. Marines; the toppling of the vicious Somoza family dictatorship, and the inspiring accomplishments of the Sandinista era in the 1980s. Oftentimes, there are international guests, like in 2007, when the Sandinistas returned to power, attendees were then-Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Manuel Zelaya of Honduras. Ironically, at that gathering of an anti-imperialist political party like the FSLN, on stage with Daniel Ortega were a survivor a U.S.-coordinated coup d’etat in 2002, Hugo Chavez, and a future victim of a U.S.-supported coup, Mel Zelaya, in 2009. Since Zelaya’s forced removal, Honduras has had some of the highest levels of violence in the Americas that has driven many Hondurans to migrate to the U.S., only to face repression from ICE. And now, in 2018, it is Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega who is under threat from a U.S.-supported ‘soft coup.’

Like the rescue of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez from the hands of the golpistas in April 2002, it is the masses who are the primary actor in the maintenance of Nicaraguan sovereignty amid a U.S. -backed ‘regime change’ push. Since mid-April, the country has been embroiled in violence created and maintained by opposition forces seeking the removal of democratically-elected President Ortega. One of their tactics has been the use of tranques (roadblocks) in order to create chaos and disorder through economic and social destabilization and provoking the National Police into shootouts.

Amid this disorder is the opposition media that manipulates imagery and stories in order to make it appear that the National Police are responsible for heavy-handed, bloody repression. Then, they make the call for President Ortega to step down and for the U.S. to intervene if necessary. This resembles the U.S. intervention playbook from Venezuela 2002 and 2014, when the corporate-controlled media manipulated imagery and messaging to make it appear the leftist government is ‘authoritarian’ and ‘unpopular.’

Despite the claims that Ortega is ‘unpopular,’ although he was re-elected with 72% of the vote in 2016, it is clear the opposition and, specifically their violence, is unpopular. For example, the opposition has used gang members from not only Nicaragua, but also from El Salvador as foot soldiers to carry out their violent political mission, because they cannot find ordinary Nicaraguans willing to destroy their own country. Second, since the character of the violence by the opposition has had a very clear, very vicious political character, attacking regular, rank-and-file Sandinistas, there has been a massive demonstration of support for the FSLN and President Ortega in the last few weeks, culminating in the weekend’s festivities.

The FSLN, its many organizations, and rank-and-file members have started to combat the opposition’s two fronts of struggle: the tranques and social media. In town after town, city after city, Nicaraguans have demonstrated their resolve and commitment to a peaceful, sovereign country by running off the delincuentes, disassembling the tranques, and rebuilding the roads. The heightened political level of this ‘soft coup’ is not lost on proud, patriotic Sandinistas who call their reclaimed city or town ‘liberated territory.’ All of these stories are promoted through a counter-offensive on social media by popular, revolutionary forces because the corporate-controlled, pro-opposition media does not report them on the whole. That media instead manipulates images of two different people and yet shares the story that the person was abducted and tortured by the National Police and paramilitaries. False narratives like this dominate the landscape and its impact is disastrous.

It is clear that despite the level of coordination from the comprador bourgeoisie in Nicaragua and the U.S. government, the opposition and their wave of violence is unwanted and unpopular. Whatever political opportunism they attempted after students protested a Social Security proposal by Ortega, has been lost in their bid to undemocratically decide who rules Nicaragua. The tide has turned back in favor of La RojiNegra (FSLN colors red and black) because the call for “Nicaragua Libre!” wasn’t just an 80s thing, it’s here to stay.

#Tucson #AZ #Imperialism #Americas #Socialism #Nicaragua #Sandinista #FSLN