Violence, Healing and 500 Years of Anti-capitalist Resistance

JOIN US March 3-4 for a TWO-PART lecture and discussion series featuring autonomist, feminist, activist and writer, Silvia Federici.

...THURSDAY MARCH 3, 7:00pm
"Women, Witches and the IMF: The True Nature of Global Capitalism"
Wooden Shoe Books, 704 South St
http://woodenshoebooks.org/home.html

This discussion will focus on the true nature of global capitalism, including the way that "primitive accumulation" is actually an ongoing process, and that this process is generated and maintained, at least in part, through violence against women. Federici will touch on the major themes in her book "Caliban and the Witch," which explores the violent origins of capitalism in the Great Witch Hunt of Europe, and draw parallels between the new land grabs and simultaneous return of witch-hunting in Africa and India. She will also discuss the necessity for a feminist analysis of capitalism and the importance of women's struggle over reproduction as part of anti-capitalist movements.

An interview with author Staughton Lynd

January 3, 2011

In 1993, the maximum security Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio was the site of an historic prisoner rebellion, where more than 400 prisoners seized and controlled a major area of the prison for eleven days. Nine prisoners alleged to have been informants and one hostage correctional officer named Robert Vallandingham, were murdered. Following a negotiated surrender, five key figures in the rebellion were tried and sentenced to death. Known since as the Lucasville Five, they are Namir Abdul Mateen (James Were), Siddique Abdullah Hasan (Carlos Sanders), Bomani Hando Shakur (Keith Lamar), George Skatzes and Jason Robb.

Maroon needs your help now to get into general population! 

DECEMBER 17TH SHOW:Portland and Homeland Security: An Interview with Dan Hendelman of Portland Copwatch

PA Prison Report Headlines.
-Historic prisoners' strike in Georgia shuts down six prisons.
-Jailhouse lawyer held in freezing cell; stripped of legal property in solitary confinement.

Interview.
In the wake of the arrest of 18-year-old Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud on charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Portland, we speak with Dan Hendelman of Portland Copwatch about --Portland's status as a city that has rejected becoming a partner of the FBI in its National Joint Terrorism Task Force --Recent FBI surveillance of Hendelman and Portland Copwatch --The fear that the arrest of Mohamud might lead to a stronger collusion between the FBI and local Portland police in future law enforcement efforts in the city.

DECEMBER 24TH SHOW: Police Brutality Case 11.27.10: Naimah Jones

PA Prison Report Headlines.
-Prisoner transferred out of state in retaliation for filing grievances
-Continued solitary confinement torture at SCI Coal Township

Interview.
On today's show, we continue our documentation of police brutality incidents occurring in the United States with this post of an interview with Inas Shabazz about the recent acts of police brutality against her sister, Naimah Jones, on November 27th. In the early hours of the second day after Thankisgiving, Naimah Jones was choked, thrown to the concrete, and tasered several times in front of her home in North Philadelphia as her children looked on. Her sister asserts that Naimah did not physically resist arrest and the attacks were unjustified.

The attacks were preceded by a verbal exchange between Naimah and a police officer regarding the children she had left locked in her car as went into her home to retrieve some items.

She is facing felony assault charges. Her sister, Inas Shabazz, tells the story.

Please spread widely.

www.ontheblockradio.org

Yesterday (November 28, 2010) Ireland’s multitudes took the streets to protest proposed reductions in pensions and the minimum wage as well as massive layoffs, all repercussions of a “bailout” deal with the EU which, as elsewhere in Europe, means cuts to health care, education, social security and infrastructure. Let’s call it the post-Reagan “US Model.” The continuing global Crisis created by out of control, runaway banks and real estate developers in sycophantic relationships with governments who then step in to guarantee the bank debts, while the rest of us are, as the Irish would say, “fecked.” Debts incurred, US economist Paul Krugman points out in a recent column “Eat the Irish,” “not to pay for public programs, but by private wheeler-dealers seeking nothing but their own profit – yet ordinary Irish citizens are now bearing the brunt…”

Radical sociologist and anti-capitalist writer John Holloway's latest work Crack Capitalism (Pluto Press 2010) continues to explore the fundamental themes of how best to combat capitalism and change the world anew. Following on from his widely read and contentiously debated book Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today (Pluto Press 2002), Crack Capitalism explores the key question - what now is to be done?

A high school pipeline program offered by Penn Medicine draws students from West Philadelphia schools with promises of opportunity. Predictably, Penn is looking after its own interests rather than trying to improve lives in the communities it claims to care about.

Askia’s beating and the ensuing protests took place in the shadow of a number of other highly publicized moments of State violence.

A little over a year ago, the Daily News reporters broke a story on a series of robberies by a gang of cops, who entered Dominican corner stores, flashed their badges and subsequently cut cables to security cameras before making off with the contents of the cash register.

Police thief Joseph Sulpizio on the Narcotics Strike Force made the front page of the Daily News on December 10th, in a report which cited numerous accounts of the cop robbing homes and individuals in Kensington. After numerous accounts of money being stolen by Sulpizio were reported to the police, he was put under investigation by Internal Affairs only to be released back onto the streets after being interviewed. Instead of charging him with theft (the original charge) Sulpizio was charged with “neglect of duty” for not following proper procedure when detaining someone he had robbed. Sulpizio drives a cruiser marked N142.

On September 3rd police approached Askia Sabur in the doorway of a Chinese Restaurant at 55th and Landsdown where he was waiting for food. Police threw Askia to the ground and subjected him to a storm of violence. For nearly 3 minutes, 6 cops swung down on him with clubs, cracking his skull and breaking his arm in the process. A video recorded from a cell phone shows Askia on the ground, handcuffed by one hand, blows raining down with no indication he was even physically resisting the abuse, let alone attempting to fight off the cops. One cop in an apparent frenzy of rage and violence pulled his gun and pointed it at individuals in the crowd including the person filming. Police then did what they always do after sending someone to the hospital: they pressed charges. For being a victim of the beatdown, Askia was charged with assault on an officer as well as attempted robbery (of the cops baton).

MAYOR NUTTER CLAIMS HE “CAN’T COMMIT” TO ACT UP’S PLAN TO “SAVE LIVES, SAVE MONEY” BY ENDING AIDS HOUSING WAIT LIST;
AIDS ACTIVISTS DIE-IN TO PROTEST MAYOR’S INACTION

Philadelphia – Members of AIDS activist groups ACT UP Philadelphia and Proyecto Sol, along with graduate students in the University of Pennsylvania’s Urban Studies Program and medical school, met with Mayor Michael Nutter on Monday, November 8th. Readers of The defenestrator will recall that ACT UP has been engaged in a long campaign to ensure housing for people with AIDS in Philadelphia and have been repeatedly denied the opportunity to even meet with Mayor Nutter. (see “Over our dead bodies,” fall 2010).