The 1936 battle of Cable Street, when residents of the east end of London stopped Oswald Mosley and his fascist followers marching through their streets. In this powerful dissection of what happened, the real battle we learn was 3 way, between the police, the fascists and local people. Interwoven with eyewitness testimony provides riveting accounts of events, the context and many hidden truths. The official labor movement tried to stop the anti-fascist protests and organized an alternative rally in Trafalgar Square. Lessons for today come thick and fast as we are left to contemplate parallels to current day struggles.
Now in its 13th year, Left Forum has grown into one the largest annual convergences of the left. The 2016 conference featured over 350 workshops/panels, multiple musical performances and film screenings, a comedy show, and a large grassroots-organization/book fair. In 2016, over 4000 people – including artists, activists, and great thinkers from around the globe – were drawn to NYC to engage in critical discussions and debates, build coalititions, socialize with new friends and long-time allies, learn, reflect, and strategize for a new future.
Building our collective strength as a movement and as a community committed to social justice is more important than ever. Join us for Left Forum 2017
Held every summer in Detroit, the conference brings together a vibrant and diverse community of people using media to incite change: filmmakers, radio producers, technologists, youth organizers, writers, entrepreneurs, musicians, dancers, and artists. We define “media” as anything you use to communicate with the world. You are a media-maker!
Allied Media Projects defines media-based organizing as any collaborative process that uses media, art, or technology to address the roots of problems and advances holistic solutions towards a more just and creative world.
The Allied Media Conference is a collaboratively designed event. Conference content is curated with care every year by 100+ volunteer coordinators of tracks, practice spaces, and network gatherings. The conference features over 300 hands-on workshops, panels, film screenings, Detroit tours, art and music events, strategy sessions, karaoke, bowling, collaborative art and more!
As members of the racist far right group “Proud Boys” host a so-called “free speech” rally in Washington DC on Sunday, June 25, activists, antifascists, and members of marginalized communities will host their own “Really Really Free Speech Rally” speakout across town at DC police headquarters to call attention to the hypocrisy of the far right’s rhetoric on “free speech.” Organizers of the speakout at police headquarters will host speakers from communities that are actually having their rights threatened, such as immigrants, Muslims, brown and black people, women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, indigenous people, and others who hail from marginalized communities. Speakers will also include representatives of those who were arrested during the J20 protests at the inauguration of Donald Trump.
“We intend to demonstrate that, actually, we are the ones having our rights to free speech imperiled, despite the fact that the far right throws around the term ‘free speech’ all the time,” says Daryle Lamont Jenkins, Executive Director of One People’s Project. “While we are monitoring what the Proud Boys are doing, after the dramatic events of the past several weeks, we feel it is important that the public hears our concerns.”
While rallies have been held by the far right purport to promote free speech, they have been revealed to be more of an attempt to provoke physical confrontations with those they politically disagree with. Recently, the country has grown alarmed after an attendee of a Portland “Free Speech Rally,” Jeremy Christian, fatally stabbed two people on a train. Many right wing commenters have either failed to condemn Christian’s actions or offered often-anonymous endorsements of his deadly violence. At a so-called “free speech rally” this past weekend in Portland, police violence, euphemistically called “closing” a park and “seizing” items to include a large, harmless puppet that was central to the protest, incited self defense measures by activists, to include throwing projectiles. Mainstream media has widely been vilifying antifascist counter-protesters while ignoring the fact that Portland police have actual Nazis in their ranks, such as Captain Mark Kruger.
On the Facebook event page for the Proud Boys DC rally, they are encouraging attendees to bring “protective gear” while one person asked what would be the “legal blade size I can carry on my hip In DC”, to which the main organizer Colton Merwin told the person he would message him privately. Another poster noted later in the post that police will confiscate any knife they find. Concerns for the safety of families and visitors to DC in light of this have been raised.
The speakout at police headquarters is being organized by an ad hoc group consisting of dozens of experienced organizers in the Washington DC area, to include anarchists, communists, socialists, antifascists, and other left-leaning and anticapitalist individuals. Those who have been invited to speak include members of marginalized communities who face extreme repression every day on the streets, have been targeted by hate crimes, and are facing a crackdown on dissent from the state.
“The struggle against fascism, and the protests at the events of the far right, this has never been about free speech,” said Lacy MacAuley, member of the DC Antifascist Coalition and new Program Director at One People’s Project. “We resist precisely because they have already spoken, and we have listened, we have heard them, and we recognize that they are mobilizing to violate our rights. Protesting them is not an act of violating their rights, it is an act of defending our own rights – such as our basic right to exist.”
The speakout is planned for Sunday, June 25, 12 PM – 3 PM at DC Metro Police headquarters in Judiciary Square, Washington DC, and will feature speakers, music, and entertainment.
# # #
CALL TO ACTION – Released by organizers
We won’t let the right-wing steal our free speech. We won’t let the police steal our right to protest. We won’t let the state steal our right to exist. Marginalized people, activists, and workers face escalating state repression. Communities combating capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression need freedom of speech and protest to protect themselves. Take away our ability to exist and organize openly, and the door to fascism opens wider.
In January, over 200 activists were arrested and are facing unjust and outrageous charges as a result of the #DisruptJ20 protests at Trump’s Inauguration. Freedom of expression for marginalized communities has never been guaranteed in the United States, and state repression is only getting worse—nationally under Trump, and locally under the newly confirmed police chief, Peter Newsham.
Join us for a speakout against fascism and state repression at Washington DC Metro Police Headquarters on Sunday, June 25, at 12:00 PM.
Who are antifa? Antifascists are all those who oppose authoritarianism and totalitarianism. We are people of color who resist the injustice and oppression of racism every day. We are the Kurdish grandmothers who bake bread for the resistance in Turkish Kurdistan. We are LGBTQIA and gender-nonconforming people whose lives have become a battleground. We are the immigrant communities who raise our voices against the deafening anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country and elsewhere. We are the indigenous people who have been fighting oppression since the first invaders arrived in this hemisphere. We are women who struggle against inequality every day. We are activists arrested, charged, and persecuted for speaking out against oppression. We are everyone facing repression under newly-appointed DC police chief Peter Newsham. We are everyone who believes in freedom and consent. We all have a common interest in opposing fascism.
As antifascists, we must stand together to confront state repression in our own communities. We are the ones who are in danger of having the state take away our free speech, as they raise the price of dissent to an impossible level. We are the ones being brutalized by police as they wage their wars on drugs, on the poor, on being black in Amerikkka. We are the ones who face threats from the militarized right wing, as shown by the tragic death of Richard Collins III on the campus of University of Maryland, the shooting of antifascist Josh Dukes, a Trump fan outside a Milo Yiannopoulos event in Seattle, and the brutal police killings of black Americans throughout the year.
The right wing can have their sham “free speech” rallies, but we know they are mobilizing to deny even the right to exist to those who don’t look like them. They can wave their flags, as if they have forgotten that their stars are stolen indigenous land and their stripes are the blood of the poor and the enslaved. Unlike the right wing, we actually are facing state repression and we have a legitimate fear of our speech being taken away—repression that the fascists hypocritically endorse. We must rally together to show all that we won’t be silenced, and we won’t let the state or the right wing mobilize to take our right to assemble, our right to protest, or our right to exist. We will rally at the headquarters of one of the worst suppressors and deniers of speech—the police.
All of those who struggle against fascism, against racism, against state repression are invited to join us!
Freedom of Speech! Freedom from Police! Resist Fascism!
NOTE: The speakout at police headquarters is being organized by an ad hoc group consisting of dozens of experienced organizers in the Washington DC area, to include anarchists, communists, socialists, antifascists, and other left-leaning and anticapitalist individuals. This Call to Action was created by a media committee of that ad hoc group and consented on by the larger group. Those who have been invited to speak include members of marginalized communities who face extreme repression every day on the streets, have been targeted by hate crimes, and are facing a crackdown on dissent from the state.
For the record, there are some neo-Fash that want to come and hassle this event, to which antifa put out a call to oppose them if they try anything. From the organizers:
WHY WE MARCH
Donald Trump has been in violation of the Constitution from the day he was sworn into the office of President.
We cannot abide a Congress that turns a blind eye to the constitutional breaches of our Commander in Chief. We demand that Congress does its job and commences with impeachment proceedings immediately.Donald Trump’s extreme disregard for the Constitution is a profound subversion of the Office of the President. Neither do we feel our country is in safe nor able hands, and we will not quietly ride out a tenure that threatens our democracy and way of life. We demand that Congress stop enabling President Trump through an embarrassing and potentially catastrophic charade of normalcy. The future of American Democracy rests in their hands.
On Sunday, July 2nd, we march to demand Congress DO THEIR JOB and remove Trump from The White House.
WHAT: IMPEACHMENT MARCH
WHEN: SUNDAY JULY 2, 2017 10AM
WHERE: PEOPLE’S PLAZA NEAR LIBERTY BELL (Market Street Side)
If you’d like to help make this march happen please visit:https://goo.gl/forms/
#ImpeachmentMarchPhilly #ImpeachmentMarch #Impeach45
————————–
GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT
President Trump must be impeached under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution for Treason, Bribery, or High Crimes and Misdemeanors, in particular:
(1) Obstruction of Justice. Article 2, Section 1.8. of the Constitution Sets forth the oath of office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will do to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
In his conduct of the Office of President of the United States, Trump in violation of his oath faithfully to execute the Office of President of the Unites States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice in that he:
1a. Interfered with the Department of Justice of the United States and Federal Bureau of Investigation by dismissing officers and investigators conducting investigations as to his illegal activities, including Preet Bharara the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Salley Yates, the Deputy and Acting Attorney General of the United States, and James Comey, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
1b. Made false and misleading statements the people of the United States to deceive the people that investigations as to his misdeeds and those of his subordinates were and are being conducted thoroughly and completely with regard to his misconduct and the misconduct of his subordinate
1c. Failed to provide information regarding General Flynn’s dealings with the Russians to the House Intelligence Committee.
(2) Violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause Article I, Section 9, Clause 8
[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.
The framers of the Constitution created this clause to ensure that US officials would not be corrupted by gifts or payments from foreign powers, yet President Trump receives a constant stream of cash and favors from foreign powers and their agents.
Inconsistent with the practice of all modern era Presidents and the expectations of the public, he has refused to place his business assets into a blind trust in which he would have no control over the assets and decision making of his businesses, but instead, directly and/or through his family continues to control his businesses and receive business revenues. The single largest tenant of Trump Tower is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a wholly state-owned company. The Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority office holds a lease with Trump Tower. Foreign diplomats and foreign embassy events at Washington’s Trump International Hotel. More than an obvious conflict of interest, receipt of any monies by him or his businesses under his control of him or his family from any foreign government or representative of a foreign government is a present or emolument in direct violation of the United States Constitution.
Trump has financial relationships with businesses and governments throughout the world, including Turkey, the Philippines, India, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Brazil, Bulgaria, and Viet Nam. Most importantly, he has financial dealings with Russia and China, the extent of which are largely unknown and will remain so as long as he refuses to release his tax returns as has been done by all modern era Presidents, a promise upon which he reneged.
These conflicts of interest have not only enriched Trump, buy have undermined our national security.
(3) Violation of the Free speech rights of the citizens and the press.
Has denied access to the White House by certain members of the press and publicly villified the press by calling them enemies of the people in violation of the First Amendment Rights of the people and his duty to protect the Constitution of the United States.
(4) Treason. Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution defines treason in part as giving “Aid and comfort” to our enemies.
By condoning hacking by the Russian Government of a major political party and encouraging dissemination of hacked materials for purposes of political gain and by condoning unauthorized, unsecured meetings with Russia and other governments he has breached the security of the United States.
(5) Libeled and slandered the former President of the United States with criminal intent.
Trump maliciously and intentionally maligned President Obama by accusing the former President of wiretapping him. Making a false allegation of a crime is a crime.
(6) Issuance of a travel ban in Violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment and the due process clauses of the fifth and fourteenth amendments.
6a. The order singles out persons because of their religious preference in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
6b. Because the order bans individuals from specific Muslim countries, it establishes a religious test in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
6c. The travel ban gives the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security almost unlimited powers without procedural protections in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Please check back for more updates.
Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour are three names that just flat out give the right wing nightmares. That’s because they are the ones who organized the Women’s March last January and that was a shot across the bow towards a lot of conservatives who can’t seem to get over the fact that they need to start leaving people alone. Well, after one time teabagger Dana Loesch starred in an National Rifle Association (NRA) video that came off as a declaration of civil war in the United States, it became pretty obvious that leaving people alone is the furthest thing from the conservative mind, and that video pissed people off particularly given how it came after people called on the NRA to at the very least make a statement regarding Philando Castile, a black gun owner, was shot and killed by police with the officer responsible not seeing any punishment – something that we would expect the NRA would jump up to decry in the first place but now seemingly intent to ignore this time around. In fact, the NRA is doubling down on their Declaration of War video, making more videos in defense of it while attacking those that have called them out on it. So now Mallory, Perez and Sarsour got something for their asses. They are taking this shit offline and making it IRL. On Friday a march and rally against the NRA will be start in Fairfax at their HQ which will be the beginning location for a 17 mile march to DC that will take 18 hours and will end with a rally at the Dept. of Justice HQ. No this is not about gun control, because let’s face it, these recent issues with the NRA suggest that issues in general with this organization are much bigger than that. Contrary to what Loesch said at the end of her hate video, Wherever these women are is truly freedom’s safest place!
Friday, July 14th
9:00 am – gather at NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, VA
10:00 am – Rally will begin
12:00 pm – Marchers will step off
*the march will be approximately 18 miles and take several hours.
Saturday, July 15th
10:00 am – Vigil and rally at U.S. Department of Justice, Pennsylvania Ave NW
BEER! PIZZA! SOLIDARITY!
More than 230 people were arrested during an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist march in Washington DC on January 20 (J20), Inauguration Day. Many of those arrested, including members of the Industrial Workers of the World and its General Defense Committee, are now facing up to 80 years in prison. Fighting these charges comes at considerable expense, but we will not allow state repression to proceed without resistance.
In order to raise funds for the J20 defendants, the New York City General Defense Committee is hosting a radical pizza party at Rebecca’s in Bushwick. Come for the solidarity, stay for the drinks, pizza and jamz. There’ll be FREE PIZZA from Norbert’s from 4 to 5 PM, so show up early!
If you can’t make it in person, please consider donating online and sharing this event and appeal widely: https://www.crowdrise.com/gdc-bail-fund-for-j20?pc=fb-pc-code
The most satisfying thing to come out of Charlottesville is Christopher Cantwell of Keane, NH. This guy, who runs a Nazi podcast out of Keane, New Hampshire, was all about the shit talk in a video posted by Vice hours after Charlottesville blew up on Aug. 12. Scheduled to be one of the speakers, he boasted about being a racist and called for more violence on the part of himself and his fellow boneheads. In fact, he all but cheered on the death of Heather Heyer during the rally, saying “I think that a lot more people are going to die before we’re done here.” For a refresher, this is the full video:
And when he got news about a warrant for his arrest and this gem was placed in everyone’s laps:
On Aug. 24, Cantwell surrendered to authorities and was charged with two felony counts of illegal use of tear gas and one felony count of malicious bodily injury by means of a caustic substance. Denied bond, he has been locked up ever since in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail and will more than likely be there until at least a preliminary hearing on Oct. 12, his next court appearance. We can only hope that he gives us even more tears as this case goes along, especially since he is looking at twenty years!
Celebrating it’s 15th anniversary, the Pocono Mountains Film Festival honors the iconic and creative genius in the entertainment industry, affording the opportunity for future filmmakers to network with the best of the best. It’s mission statement states its objectives and goals to be to increase self-esteem and positive role models, provide choices and a vision on how to secure a viable socioeconomic status, remove the uninvited stereo types that enter our homes through television and media out-lets and eliminate the option to join a gang and replace it with the option to succeed. DLJ will be receiving the Daniel Pearl Multimedia Award this year, so named for the Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter that was kidnapped and murdered by members of Al-Qaeda in 2002. Past Daniel Pearl honorees have included syndicated journalist Kam Williams, “Cocoon” author David Saperstein and photographer Catherine Bauknight.
Other honorees for 2017 will be:
Special Ed, rapper “Entertainment Career Achievement Award”
Jennifer Wise “Advocate for a Better America”
“Special Surprise Honoree “Lifetime Career Achievement Award”
15th Annual Pocono Mountains Film Festival
Honorary Awards Dinner 6:30 p.m.
Mount Airy Resort & Casino
312 Woodland Road, Mount Pocono PA
Saturday, October 21st 2017
Red Carpet Meet & Greet 5:30p.m.
P.O. Box 871, Tannersville, PA 18372 www.PoconoMountainsFilmFestival.com 570.234.6713
Pricing Schedule
Honorary Awards Dinner Tables Seats 10 people $650.00
Honorary Awards Dinner individual seats $65.00 per person
Includes Meet & Greet- Red Carpet, Photo-Op with Celebrities and Filmmakers.
Screening Tickets
$6.00 Individual Film Screening Pass $30 All Day Screening Pass
$65.00 Awards Ceremony / Meet & Greet with celebrities and Filmmakers
$80.00 All Inclusive Awards Ceremony Dinner and Screenings
Make checks payable to: The Pocono Mountains Film Festival.
P.O. Box 871, Tannersville, PA 18372
If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, help is available. Email [email protected]
Now III%ers are trying to make this sound like this is the start of the next civil war, but that will only be if they start it. This is what #RefuseFascism has to say:
ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017
Take To The Streets And Public Squares
in cities and towns across the country continuing day after day and night after night—not stopping—until our DEMAND is met:
This Nightmare Must End:
The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!
A Nightmare:
Immigrants living in terror—their next step could mean detention, deportation, being torn from children and loved ones.
A Nightmare:
Muslims and refugees demonized, banned and cast out.
A Nightmare:
Millions—children, the elderly, disabled, the sick, the poor—denied healthcare, food assistance, the very right to live.
A Nightmare:
Women objectified, degraded, and denied the basic right to control their own reproduction, with fundamentalist Christian fascism increasingly being made law.
A Nightmare:
LGBTQ people stigmatized, ostracized, and denied civil rights recently won.
A Nightmare:
Black and Latino people openly threatened by the President, with maximum sentencing, stop-and-frisk going national, intensified police brutality and murder of our youth with no holds barred.
A Nightmare:
People all over the world facing bombings, occupations, war and the threat of nuclear war with Donald Trump’s “America First” finger on the nuclear trigger.
A Nightmare:
The truth bludgeoned—lies and more lies—critical thinking being destroyed in education and public discourse.
A Nightmare:
The whole planet in peril from a regime that denies global warming and shreds all environmental protections.
A Nightmare:
A regime step by step discarding basic democratic rights, targeting group after group, and suppressing dissent and resistance. A regime unleashing the violence of white supremacists, anti-semites, and fascist thugs. This is fascism—a qualitative change in how society is governed. History has shown that fascism must be stopped before it becomes too late.
THIS NIGHTMARE MUST END. Millions feel this and ache with the question of how to stop this unrelenting horror. The stakes are nothing less than the future of humanity and the planet itself.
Who will end this nightmare? We will. Only the determined struggle of millions of people acting together with courage and conviction can drive this regime from power.
ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017:
We will gather in the streets and public squares of cities and towns across this country, at first many thousands declaring that this whole regime is illegitimate and that we will not stop until our single demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
Our protest must grow day after day and night after night—thousands becoming hundreds of thousands, and then millions—determined to act to put a stop to the grave danger that the Trump/Pence Regime poses to the world by demanding that this whole regime be removed from power.
Our actions will reflect the values of respect for all of humanity and the world we want—in stark contrast to the hate and bigotry of the Trump/Pence fascist regime.
Our determination to persist and not back down will compel the whole world to take note. Every force and faction in the power structure would be forced to respond to our demand. The cracks and divisions among the powers already evident today will sharpen and widen. As we draw more and more people forward to stand up, all of this could lead to a situation where this illegitimate regime is removed from power.
Spread the word and organize now. Be a part of making history. Don’t let it be said that you stood aside when there was still a chance to stop a regime that imperils humanity and the Earth itself. Join in taking to the streets and the public squares day after day and night after night demonstrating that In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.
On November 4, 2017, we will stand together with conviction and courage, overcoming fear and uncertainty, to insist that: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must GO!