Philly

 If Occupy Philly is raided by the police, come to city hall ASAP; bring friends, signs, & support; spread the word. Then meet the following day at 4 p.m. at Rittenhouse Park (19th & Walnut in center city Philadelphia)

Yesterday Tuesday April 12th 2011, Askia Sabur and Tanya Yates, 2 victims of recent violent attacks by 19th district cops went to court for a pretrial hearing. After waiting for over four hours for the judge to even show up, the court session started with business as usual. Case after case all involving drugs, their consumption and their sale. Like a plea deal factory worker on a bureaucratic assembly line, Judge Means rubber stamped every coerced plea, sending folks from the most struggling neighborhoods away with the necessary paperwork to facilitate whatever deal the DA chose to offer them.

Hydraulic fracturing (often called fracking) is a form of drilling for natural gas that releases dangerous chemicals and radioactive toxic waste. Gas companies throughout Pennsylvania have been dumping this waste into our rivers and streams – our drinking water! There is currently a loophole that allows gas companies to drill without obeying the Clean Water Act, and they are not required to research the effects of their drilling or clean up the waste they cause.

The Delaware River Basin Commission is currently considering a draft that will allow for more unregulated fracking in the Marcellus Shale—a gas-rich rock formation which is also known to contain radioactive substances. These plans don’t address health and safety regulations to keep radioactive, carcinogenic chemicals out of the water that Philadelphia, New York, and all cities and towns downstream rely on for clean drinking water. Reports are already coming in from across Pennsylvania of wells being poisoned by toxic chemicals as a result of fracking. On March 8th, hundreds of people gave testimony before Philadelphia’s City Council in opposition to this draft – several were mothers who worried for their children’s health, some were scientists who argued for the need for safety measures and regulation prior to considering future drilling.

Since last year, the state governments of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, along with Del Monte, a fruit and vegetable company, have tried to break the International Longshoremen's Association. In a move of blatant union busting, Fresh Del Monte Produce, which is owned by business tycoon Leo Holt, moved their business of unloading fruit from the port of Philadelphia to the “less costly” LLC Gloucester port downriver in Gloucester, N.J., which is privately owned by the Holt Family with a low-wage company union Dockworkers Local 1 (this fake union has its offices in a building owned by the Holt family). The workers receive less pay than they do at the plant in Philadelphia, which is publicly owned and unionized with the ILA. Before the company moved, Del Monte demanded that ILA Local 1291 take a 25%+ wage and benefit cut and that the State of New Jersey give it $25 million to improve its Camden, N.J. pier or else they would move  operations. Del Monte gave the state and the union four days to make a decision. Apparently, both the state and the union agreed to the cuts. Despite this agreement Del Monte moved anyway, resulting in the loss of 200+ ILA jobs.

  Members of Jericho & ICFFMAJ are joining with other activists and organizations to create an event connecting the struggles for War Resisters and Political Prisoners. We are currently sending out the following letter to many organizations and individuals. Be a part of this effort! Use this international energy of resistance-- from Egypt to Wisconsin-- to continue building and connecting our common cause of LIBERATION!

 When: Friday, March 4th,

7:30 to 9:30 pm

Where: A-Space,

4722 Baltimore Ave, West Philly

Free! Donations Appreciated

The Substance Group Presents:

• Discussion of what is the Substance Group

• Discussion of what is Harm Reduction theory and practice by Gus Grannon and Emily Gibble from Prevention Point

• A brief introduction to Narcan Training

 Gender EDGE performance event

The black working class is currently leading the way in the development of new forms of revolutionary organization in Philadelphia. This is reflected in the community based People’s Courts that formed in response to the near death beating of Askia Sabur in West Philadelphia on September 3rd, 2010. Askia had not complied with police orders to leave a street corner as he was waiting for his food at a Chinese store in his community, on 55th and Lansdowne.

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.