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#antiwar

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Today in Labor History March 13, 1979: The Marxist New Jewel movement, led by Maurice Bishop, overthrew the prime minister of Grenada. Bishop led the People’s Revolutionary Government of Grenada until 1983, when he was overthrown and executed in a coup supported by the U.S. Bishop supported anti-racist struggles around the world and the fight to end Apartheid. Under his leadership, Granada gave women equal pay to men and provided paid maternity leave. They also banned sexual discrimination and introduced free public health and literacy programs that brought the national illiteracy rate from 35% down to 5%. In 1983, the U.S. invaded Granada. 19 U.S. soldiers and 45 Grenadian soldiers died in the fighting that ensued. The invasion effectively ended the so-called “Vietnam Syndrome,” where U.S. leaders feared that overt regime change, with U.S. boots on the ground, would spark large antiwar protests, like those that rocked the nation in the 1960s and early 70s. The Grenada invasion paved the way for much more aggressive interventions like Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

Street Art for Ukraine (14 Photos)

Since Russia invaded Ukraine street artists worldwide have wielded their brushes and spray paints, creating a powerful collection of anti-war murals and protest art. These artists visually express their resistance to the war in Ukraine and advocate for fundamental human rights and values. We've curated a collection of street art by artists who dedicate their creative talents to supporting peace in Ukraine. These striking pieces serve as reminders of the human cost of war while displaying […]

streetartutopia.com/2025/02/24

During my appointment with my new family doctor on Friday, he complimented me on my purple checkered jeans & my green tribal printed boots & then asked me about all the stickers plastered on my walking cane. I told him they're assorted anti-war, anti-fascist & Palestine support stickers because I'm a war child survivor & a longtime human rights activist. I also said no one really ever wins in wars except for inhumane war profiteers. Innocent people are mass murdered for profits & power for a tiny handful of greedy monsters & it is disgusting.
He said, I agree. I can understand & support that. He proceeds to tell me that when he lived in UK, he had enlisted in military for a brief period. He quit after learning more about the military & decided to go into medical field instead, so he can help more people & not be a major part of traumatizing them.

Global Day of Action to #CloseBases

At a military base near you, Sunday, February 23 at 12:00 AM GMT+1

World BEYOND War (source)

February 23, 2025 — at a military base near you!

The thousands of military bases, both foreign and domestic, around the world are a critical piece of the war machine that must be dismantled. Closing bases is a necessary step to shift the global security paradigm towards a demilitarized approach that centers common security — no one is safe until all are safe.

We call on individuals and organizations around the world to join the Global Day of Action to #CloseBases on February 23 by organizing protests at military base sites near you.

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events.todon.eu/event/global-d

Ukrainian Secret Service SBU Arrests Anti-War Youth in Multiple Cities

On Jan. 28, the Ukrainian secret service SBU arrested Ukrainian youth and workers who oppose the ongoing forced mobilization of young men into the NATO proxy war against Russia. The World Socialist Web Site, the organ of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), demands the immediate release of the prisoners

abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/167

Ukrainian Secret Service SBU Arrests Anti-War Youth in Multiple Cities

On January 28, the Ukrainian secret service SBU arrested Ukrainian youth and workers who oppose the ongoing forced mobilization of young men into the NATO proxy war against Russia. The World Socialist Web Site, the organ of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), demands the immediate release of the prisoners. Their lives are in danger. The prisons in Ukraine are notorious for torture and inhumane conditions, and the SBU is known for its close ties to neo-Nazis. Photos released by the SBU from the raids indicate that abuse of the arrested has already taken place.

Information about the arrests was first circulated by a family member of one of the victims of the SBU raid. On a Telegram channel, they reported:

On the morning of January 28, many young people with anti-war and anti-fascist beliefs were searched and detained in Ukraine. They are charged with involvement in the organization Workers’ Front of Ukraine and Article 114-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Obstruction of the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations). Article 114-1 is the article under which those who oppose the violent mobilization in Ukraine are judged: from administrators of Telegram channels with posts about the arbitrariness of the TCR [Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support, the agency that enacts the mobilization] to people with political views opposed to the current system.

One of the arrested youth with bruises on his face. Photo released by the Kiev City Prosecutor’s Office

In an official press release from February 1, the Kiev City Prosecutor’s Office stated that it had arrested members of an “underground communist organization, who disrupted mobilization and called for not donating to the armed forces.” Arrests took place in Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, and the Poltava and Kharkiv (Kharkov) regions. The Prosecutor’s Office charges the youth with adhering to “Marxist and communist ideology.” According to the allegations, they distributed leaflets in several cities and ran social media channels encouraging people

to think that there is no need to defend Ukraine, saying that someone else should do it. Similarly, [the youth argued that] there is no need to raise money for drones, thermal imagers, or other assistance to the military. In their posts, the authors also used emotional statements, allegedly by women, to argue that no one is obliged to fight, thus trying to disrupt the mobilization and persuading the wives of those liable for military service to resist mobilization [and] convincing their husbands to evade service.

Another Telegram channel, Dialektik, reported on February 3:

According to the investigation, the arrested persons set up underground printing houses and distributed leaflets urging civilians to evade mobilization and military personnel to join soldiers’ committees and desert. During the searches, equipment and communist literature were seized. Published photos show facial injuries and plastic ties on the hands instead of handcuffs, which in itself is regarded as torture because blood does not flow to the hand in full. The detainees are students and workers at local businesses. They are all accused of obstructing the activities of the AFU [Ukrainian Armed Forces] (Article 114-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The activists face up to 15 years in prison.

SBU officers have one of the arrested handcuffed with plastic ties instead of handcuffs. Photo released by the Kiev City Prosecutor’s Office

The photos released by the SBU show that the confiscated literature includes volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital and a volume with Lenin’s works Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism and State and Revolution.

The case against these youth gives an indication of the immense popular opposition to the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Now almost in its fourth year, it is estimated that the war has claimed the lives of well over half a million Ukrainian workers and youth, with many more wounded or crippled for life. Thousands are regularly kidnapped off the streets and forced into the “meat grinder” at the front. Especially over the past year, desertions have reached enormous proportions.

The Zelensky regime, armed and funded by the imperialist powers, has only been able to impose this war on the Ukrainian population through an escalating crackdown on all left-wing opposition to the war. In the first days after the invasion by Russia, the regime banned 13 major opposition parties. Among them was the Ukrainian Union of Left Forces—For a New Socialism Party, whose head, Maxim Goldarb, had to flee the country. In a tacit acknowledgement of the politically repressive character of a regime it has been arming with billions in weapons, the European Union in January granted Maxim Goldarb international protection.

On April 25, 2024, the SBU arrested the Ukrainian Trotskyist youth Bogdan Syrotiuk, a leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL). He has been charged with “state treason under martial law,” which carries a prison sentence of between 15 years to life in prison. In political solidarity with the ICFI, the YGBL has opposed the war in Ukraine from a socialist standpoint, fighting to unite Russian and Ukrainian workers with the working class in Europe and America.

As of March 2024, there were at least 55,000 political prisoners in Ukraine who were detained as “collaborators” by the SBU, according to the United Nations. This number will have no doubt increased significantly over the past year.

The latest arrests of anti-war youth underscore not only the brutal character of the NATO war and the dictatorial nature of the Zelensky regime in Ukraine. They also show that significant sections of workers and youth are seeking to find the path forward on a socialist basis. The fight for their release, that of Bogdan Syrotiuk and all other political prisoners in Ukraine, is an indispensable and urgent component of the struggle against an emerging third imperialist world war.

source: World Socialist Website

abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=

Today in Labor History February 4, 1869: Labor leader and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) co-founder William D. "Big Bill" Haywood was born. Haywood started mining at age nine. He became secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in 1900 and co-founded the IWW in 1905. He was a WFM organizer during the Colorado Labor Wars (1903-1904), in which 33 miners were killed.

At the IWW’s first convention (1905), he said, “We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working-class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the working-class from the slave bondage of capitalism. The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working-class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters.” With the IWW, he came up with the propaganda ploy of sending workers’ kids out of town, for their own safety, during the Lawrence Textile Strike (1912), leading to a media backlash against the mill owners and the ultimate victory for the workers.

In 1907, he was falsely charged with the bombing murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg, but was acquitted with the counsel of Clarence Darrow. The WFM dismissed him in 1918 because of his radicalism. That same year, the Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (future first commissioner of Major League Baseball) convicted him of violating the Alien and Sedition acts during the first Red Scare for his antiwar activism. They sentenced him to 20 years in prison. However, he jumped bail and fled to the Soviet Union, where he died in 1928 from heart failure and alcoholism. His ashes were split between the Kremlin Wall Mausoleum and the Haymarket Martyrs Monument in Chicago.

Today in Labor History February 4, 1900: Jacques Prévert was born (1900-1977). Prevert was a poet, surrealist and libertarian socialist who glorified the spirit of rebellion & revolt.

Excerpt from “Song in the Blood”
There are great puddles of blood on the world
Where’s it going all this spilled blood
Murder’s blood. . . war’s blood. . .
Misery’s blood. . .
And the blood of men tortured in prisons. . .
The blood of children calmly tortured by their papa
And their mama. . .
And the blood of men whose heads bleed in
Padded cells
And the roofer’s blood
When the roofer slips and falls from the roof

#workingclass #LaborHistory #prévert #Ferlinghetti #antiwar #socialism #poetry #Poet #surrealism #rebellion #books #revolt @bookstadon

In honor of Black History Month, a short biography of Ben Fletcher (April 13, 1890 – 1949), Wobbly and revolutionary. Fletcher joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1912 and became secretary of the IWW District Council in 1913. He also co-founded the interracial Local 8 in 1913. Also in 1913, he led a successful strike of over 10,000 dockers. At that time, roughly one-third of the dockers on the Philadelphia waterfront were black. Another 33% were Irish. And about 33% were Polish and Lithuanian. Prior to the IWW organizing drive, the employers routinely pitted black workers against white, and Polish against Irish. The IWW was one of the only unions of the era that organized workers into the same locals, regardless of race or ethnicity. And its main leader in Philadelphia was an African American, Ben Fletcher.

By 1916, thanks in large part to Fletcher’s organizing skill, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW. And the IWW maintained control of the Philly waterfront for about a decade. After the 1913 strike, Fletcher travelled up and down the east coast organizing dockers. However, he was nearly lynched in Norfolk, Virginia in 1917. At that time, roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. Most had been rejected from other unions because of their skin color. In 1918, the state arrested him for treason, sentencing him to ten years, for the crime of organizing workers during wartime. He served three years. Fletcher supposedly said to Big Bill Haywood after the trial that the judge had been using “very ungrammatical language. . . His sentences are much too long.”

Today in Labor History January 31, 1971: For the second time in six months, rioting broke out during an anti-war protest in East Los Angeles. Police fired into the crowd, killing one protester. The anti-war demonstrations were organized by the Chicano Moratorium. Chicanos were dying at a higher rate during the Vietnam War than white Americans. During the August 29, 1970 protests, police killed three people, including Journalist and Civil Rights activist Ruben Salazar. Oscar Zeta Acosta portrayed Salazar in his 1973 novel, “The Revolt of the Cockroach People.” Hunter S. Thompson portrayed Acosta as his “Samoan attorney” in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Salazar was the first Mexican journalist for a mainstream newspaper (L.A. Times) to write about the Chicano community. He also worked as the Times’ bureau chief in Mexico City and covered both the Tlatelolco Massacre and the U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic, both in 1965. Because of his outspoken support for the Chicano movement, and his criticism of racism and police abuse against the Chicano community, he was a target of FBI surveillance. Many believe his death was an assassination.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #RubenSalazar #chicano #moratorium #antiwar #riot #policebrutality #police #huntersthompson #journalism #vietnam #eastla #losangeles #racism #freepress #oscarzetaocosta #books #fiction #novel #writer #author @bookstadon

Continued thread

Nguyễn Thị Bình is a granddaughter of the Nationalist leader Phan Chu Trinh. She grew up in a land that had been under French rule since 1858. The country’s resources were plundered, & the people exploited as cheap labour & reduced to grinding poverty. So determined were the French to maintain their colonial hold at any cost, they collaborated in power-sharing with Japanese #fascist #occupiers who brought horror & starvation from 1940-1945.

Despite this, led by the #VietMinh Front, people of Vietnam triumphed in the #AugustRevolution of 1945 & the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (DRV) was declared on September 2nd. Democratic elections took place in January 1946 but French troops, with the open support of the US & Britain, attacked the new Viet Minh administration in the south of the country & the #WarOfResistance against #France began.

Binh studied French at Lycée Sisowath in Cambodia & worked as a teacher during the #French #colonisation of Vietnam. She joined #VietnamCommunistParty in 1948. Upon joining, she immediately began work as a #grassroots #AntiColonial organiser. From 1945-1951, she took part in intellectual protest movements against French #colonists. She was arrested & jailed between 1951-1953 in #Saigon by the French #colonial authority in Vietnam. She was repeatedly interrogated under torture & sentenced to death but was reprieved & released in very poor health in 1954.

Upon release from prison, Binh went north to work in #Hanoi for the National #WomensUnion. Her job took her to many localities where she witnessed first-hand the impact of #colonialism & the French War on ordinary people & especially women & children.

1954 was a year of victory for the Vietnamese army. The defeated French were forced to sign the #GenevaAccords recognising the independence, sovereignty & unity of Vietnam. The country was temporarily split in two at the 17th parallel, with the French moving to the south from which they would withdraw, while the Viet Minh went to the north. A general election for the government of a united country was to follow within 2 years.

But it never happened. The #USA came centre stage to ensure that the Accords were never implemented. Driven by strategic interests in the region, it made sure that Vietnam stayed divided – preventing an election that would have swept Ho Chi Minh to power with 80% support, while bankrolling & controlling the reactionary #regime of Diem-Nhu south of the 17th parallel. This regime violently suppressed all opposition, executing of thousands of Viet Minh supporters & condemning hundreds of thousands to concentration camps and prisons.

In response, the NLF (for liberation of South Vietnam & unification) was formed in 1960. Nguyen Thi Chau Sa was assigned to the Foreign Affairs Section of its Re-unification Committee & given the name Nguyen Thi Binh (Peace). From 1962 onwards, her high-profile diplomatic work, took her across the world. She represented the aspirations of the people of Vietnam in every country & forum she visited, while the world’s strongest #imperialist power made all-out war on her small country.

During the #VietnamWar, she became a member of the #Vietcong Central Committee and a vice-chairperson of the South Vietnamese #WomensLiberation Association. In 1969 she was appointed foreign minister of the Provisional #Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. A fluent French speaker, Bình played a major role in the #ParisPeaceAccords - an agreement that was supposed to end the war & restore peace in Vietnam.

She was expected to be replaced by a male Vietcong representative after preliminary talks, but became one of the group's most visible international public figures. During this time, she was famous for representing Vietnamese women with her elegant & gracious style, and was referred to by the media as "Madame Bình". She was also referred to as the "Viet Cong Queen" by Western media.

After the war, she was appointed Minister of Education of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam from 1982-1986; the first female minister ever in the history of Vietnam. Binh was a member of the Central Committee of Vietnam's Communist Party from 1987-1992. She was the Deputy Chair of the Party's Central Foreign Affairs Commission & Chair of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee. The National Assembly elected her twice to position of Vice President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam for the terms 1992–1997 & 1997–2002.

Bình has authored several op-eds, including a one on the state newspaper Nhân Dân in which she voiced concerns that the current personnel policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam have allowed some "incompetent and opportunistic" individuals to enter the party's apparatus. She also criticized the Party's focus on increasing membership at the expense of "quality."

From March 2009-2014, she served as a member of the support committee of #RussellTribunal on #Palestine.

Madame Bình became a source of inspiration & namesake for Madame Binh Graphics Collective, a #RadicalLeft all-women poster, printmaking, & street art collective based in NYC from 1970s-1980s.
Many Americans in the #AntiWar movement were proud to wear T-shirts printed with the portrait of "Madame Binh". By then, she had become a symbol for female soldiers of the legitimacy of Vietnam's efforts.

Madame Bình has been awarded many prestigious awards & honours, including the Order of Ho Chi Minh & Resistance Order (First Class). In 2021, President of Vietnam Nguyễn Xuân Phúc awarded her the 75-year Party Membership Commemorative Medal.
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, the Government of Vietnam commissioned the official portraits for 12 former foreign ministers from 1945-2020. Nguyễn Thị Bình was included among them as the only South Vietnamese foreign minister & the only woman.

Ref: Nguyen Thi Binh". Northeastern Dictionary of Women's Biography (3rd ed.). Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1999. ISBN 978-1-55553-421-9

Ref: Triantafillou, Eric (3 May 2012). "Graphic Uprising". The Brooklyn Rail. 

Ref: russelltribunalonpalestine.com

Ref: Hy V. Luong (2003), Postwar Vietnam: dynamics of a transforming society, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0847698653

V SRDCI CHARKOVA, UPROSTŘED VÁLEČNÝCH HRŮZ, ROZKVÉTÁ DĚTSKÝ VÝTVARNÝ ATELIÉR V PROTIATOMOVÉM KRYTU V "PODZEMNÍ ZAHRADU". MLADÍ UMĚLCI ZDE POD VEDENÍM SVÉHO MENTORA VYTVÁŘEJÍ ZÁŘIVÁ MISTROVSKÁ DÍLA A DÍKY SVÉ TVOŘIVOSTI NACHÁZEJÍ ÚTOČIŠTĚ A NADĚJI V TĚCH NEJTEMNĚJŠÍCH ČASECH.

Pokud pojedete pražským metrem na trase B, vystupte na chvilku ve stanici Národní třída a rozhledněte se okolo sebe.

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