Building Resistance and Alternatives to Global Capitalism: Eyewitness Reports from G20 in Pittsburgh and Venezuela

FIST Forums:

2 events!



Thursday, Nov 12th – 7pm @ NCSU in Park Shops room 200
and

Tues. Nov 17th - UNC Chapel Hill, time and place, TBA

Sickness & Struggle, Part 6: Attacks on Obama plan mirror Clinton health debate

By David Hoskins

NYC FIST

Former President Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992 with health care reform as a key part of his domestic platform. It seemed then that the time was right for comprehensive reform.

The number of uninsured people had already climbed to 40 million. The Democrats were in control of the White House and Congress. A large majority of the public rated health care reform as an urgent priority and voiced support for a universal insurance plan.

In 1993, shortly after taking office, Clinton set up the President’s Task Force on National Health Reform. Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked to head the task force and prepare health reform legislation for submission to Congress within the first 100 days of the administration. This was initially viewed as the administration’s signal to Congress and the media that health care was a top priority.

Yet when the task force was hastily disbanded on May 31, without having submitted a plan to Congress, this was an early warning sign that the emerging details of the reform plan had failed on two fronts. The insurance industry and right-wing Republicans, who sought to stop any health reform legislation, were not appeased by the plan’s concessions.

Hip Hop show and Rally for Youth Jobs, Fri Oct 16& 23rd

Black Workers For Justice Youth…

Conscious Fighters Concert

Series

hip hop & spoken word show

Fri, Oct 16^th, 8pm-11pm

$5 donation (in advance)

Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center

4200 Lake Ridge Dr. Raleigh, NC

919-876-7187

Health care now!! Jobs Now!! Living Wages Now!! End Racism!!

Come out & enjoy positive, progressive, and socially conscious live music and poetry. Speak out about community issues. All ages welcome

Picket Rally for Youth Jobs!!

Date TBA

Employment Security Commission, headquarters

corner of Wade Ave and St. Mary’s St

This is particularly urgent for young workers as highlighted by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert this week. (www.nytimes.com/2009/08/1

1/opinion/11herbert.html)

Herbert wrote, “Two issues that absolutely undermine any rosy assessment of last week’s employment report are the swelling ranks of the long-term unemployed and the crushing levels of joblessness among young” workers. … The plight of young workers, especially young men, is particularly frightening.

The percentage of young … men who are actually working is the lowest it has been in the 61 years of record-keeping, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

“Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. … For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16 through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they’re catastrophic.”

Herbert called the 0.1 percent unemployment drop in July “wildly deceptive,” because the decline was “not because more people found jobs, but because 450,000 people withdrew from the labor market. They stopped looking, so they weren’t counted as unemployed.”

Larry Hales, youth organizer for FIST, said, “Young workers, in particular youth of color, are demanding meaningful jobs and education, not jail or the military. The ‘free marketers’ disrupting health care town halls hide their antiworker economic policies that increase poverty and unemployment.”

FIST statement on the Honduran coup

Fight Imperialism Stand Together sends a special message to the youth of Honduras and the United States:

In the early morning on June 28, 2009, the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was kidnapped at gunpoint Honduran military personnel, placed on an airplane and deported from the country.

The people of Honduras immediately protested the coup and built a movement to demand Zelaya’s return.  The right-wing forces plotted against Zelaya in retaliation for progressive measures he supported such as a 60 percent increase in the minimum wage, partnership with the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), and the struggle to hold elections for a Constituent Assembly.

FIST statement on police brutality at the G20

Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST) stands in solidarity with all who were harassed, brutalized, or arrested by police forces during or around the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from September 20-25, 2009.

Thousands of young activists gathered in Pittsburgh to protest the G-20 summit, held on September 24-25, and the wars, racism, poverty, and gentrification entailed by the G20’s pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist agreements. They were met by thousands of hyper-militarized police imported from states as far as Arizona and Florida, the National Guard, Homeland Security, and SWAT units—present in Pittsburgh and dressed in riot gear, military uniforms and fully armed with guns, batons (used as weapons), mace, K9 units, and a host of other military weapons.

FIST marches in Pittsburgh March for Jobs before G20

FIST marching in March for Jobs

Rakhee Devasthali from Feminist Students United at UNC-CH and Raleigh-Durham FIST speaks at rally at Freedom Corner in the Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh

Economic crisis devastates students: Fight-back strategy needed

By Julie Fry

NYC FIST

Students returning to school this fall face a devastating new reality. Along with the usual back-to-school jitters, students must cope with the massive budget cuts, higher tuition rates, and decreased financial aid affecting campuses across the country. On top of all of this, those students who manage to scrape together the extra funds necessary to graduate face a terribly bleak job market when they leave their campuses.

Faced with tens of billions of dollars in budget deficits for this fiscal year, most states have cut deep into their education spending to cover their costs. Thirty-five states have already cut higher education spending and/or increased tuition. The cuts have been particularly hard on students of color, who disproportionately rely on state universities and community colleges for access to higher education.

 

FIST Statement: Young People and the March for Jobs

Why Young People Need Jobs:

Official national unemployment rate—9.7% (14.5 million people)

Total unemployment (unemployed, underemployed and people who have not looked for work in 4 weeks)—16.8% (26 million people)

National Black unemployment rate—15.1%

National Latina/o unemployment rate—13%

Jobs lost since December 2007—7 million

Unity through Struggle, building the G-20 resistance

By Vidya Sankar, Raleigh FIST

The Sept. 24-25 G-20 Summit is a meeting of delegates from 20 countries, including some of the world’s richest economies. Although Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe are the areas most harshly affected by neocolonialism, these regions are drastically underrepresented; the billions of working class, poor, homeless, hungry and unemployed are not represented at all.

The Bail Out the People Movement, along with other organizations and coalitions, has called for a Tent City from Sept. 20-25. The week of actions will kick off with a national March for Jobs on Sunday, Sept. 20.

Rev. Barber, Pres of NC NAACP at Health Care Rally in Raleigh

Rev. William Barber, President of the NC NAACP speaks to crowd at Health Care Can’t Wait rally on Saturday, Aug 29th.