organizing

 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)

While building solidarity between activists in the U.S. and Iran can be a powerful way of supporting social justice movements in Iran, progressives and leftists who want to express solidarity with Iranians are challenged by a complicated geopolitical terrain. The U.S. government shrilly decries Iran’s nuclear power program and expands a long-standing sanctions regime on the one hand, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes inflammatory proclamations and harshly suppresses Iranian protesters and dissidents on the other. Solidarity activists are often caught between a rock and a hard place, and many choose what they believe are the “lesser evil” politics. In the case of Iran, this has meant aligning with a repressive state leader under the guise of “anti-imperialism” and “populism,” or supporting “targeted” sanctions.

  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!

Uses of a Whirlwind is not your father's book on social movements, harping back to another time and another world, as so many works on radicalism are inclined to do. This essay collection offers valuable accounts and analyses of how contemporary movements are responding to the dizzying era of neoliberalism so many of us are continually trying to understand better. The Team Colors Collective declare up front that “our personal radicalizations came about through participation in strands of the alter-globalization movement at the tail end of the twentieth century.” Accordingly, the struggles and ideas in these writings reference such world-changing touchstones as the Zapatista rebellions in Mexico in 1994, the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999, the anti-war movement, and the recovery efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans. This is very much a book about the here and now.

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.

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.

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.