by Sam Sitrin and members of ACT UP

ACT UP Philadelphia (AIDS COALTION TO UNLEASH POWER), the AIDS activist group, is inciting action in response to the City of Philadelphia having the worst record for housing sick people with AIDS in the continental United States. The only cities that are part of the United States with more people homeless with AIDS are in Puerto Rico and Guam.

The first labor party in the United States was formed in Philadelphia in 1828. Called the “Working Men’s Party,” the short-lived party supported skilled artisans and craftsmen in challenging their master. They called for a 10-hour workday, free public education, and the abolition of debtor prisons. The party formed in New York as well in 1829, although factional disputes lead to its dissolution in 1833.

Thanks to a 1996 deregulation of electric companies in Pennsylvania, we all will soon pay at least 10% more on electric bills starting in January. PECO has made an offer with their Early Phase-in Program: we can start paying more now. Aren't they generous? As the matter stands, it seems that the rate increase is a done deal. However, that may not be so.

The Philadelphia security guards that defied company pressure and formed their own independent union last year are now pushing to grow further.  In late August guards working for the Scotland Yard security company said they filed a petition to vote on union representation with the Philadelphia Security Officers Union (PSOU). 

The A-Space needs your art! The A-Space, an anarchist community space & art gallery in West Philly, is currently creating our calendar of art shows.

For nearly 30 long, tortuous years, Marilyn Buck was a political prisoner of the state, a captive in the federal prison system for her role in the liberation of former Black Panther, Assata Shakur. She wrote gripping lines of radical poetry, often about the lives and plights of her fellow imprisoned women, as well as of prisoners who were active in the Black Freedom and Nationalist movements.

 Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing on Solitary Confinement

Former prisoners in solitary Nathaniel Lee and LuQman Abdullah

On Sunday July 10th, the Team Colors, a millitant research collective, gave a great talk about their recent book, Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States. This edited volume of essays and interviews inquires into the current state of radical movements and social struggles in the United States.

This July 2010 marks 10 years since Philadelphia was the site of the 2000 Republican National Convention. The week of August 1, 2000, thousands of activists took to the streets of Center City Philadelphia for direct action against police brutality and the prison industrial complex.

Audio interviews from the U.S Social Forum that took place in Detroit from June 22nd to June 26th, 2010.

Naeema Kelly and Paul Newman: Teenagers from Durham, NC that work with a non-profit called Spirit House that does work against the Prison-Industrial Complex.