The People's Record

Enough is enough! Hundreds of thousands flood streets in cities across Brazil
June 18, 2013

In some of the biggest protests since the end of Brazil’s 1964-85 dictatorship, demonstrations have spread across this continent-sized country and united people from all walks of life behind frustrations over poor transportation, health services, education and security despite a heavy tax burden.

More than 100,000 people were in the streets Monday for largely peaceful protests in at least eight big cities. They were in large part motivated by widespread images of Sao Paulo police last week beating demonstrators and firing rubber bullets into groups during a march that drew 5,000.

There was some violence, with police and protesters clashing in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte. The newspaper O Globo, citing Rio state security officials, said at least 20 officers and 10 protesters were injured there.

Monday’s protests come after the opening matches of soccer’s Confederations Cup over the weekend, just one month before a papal visit, a year before the World Cup and three years ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The unrest is raising some security concerns, especially after the earlier protests produced injury-causing clashes with police.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s economic hub, at least 65,000 protesters gathered Monday at a small, treeless plaza then broke into three directions in a Carnival atmosphere, with drummers beating out samba rhythms as people chanted anti-corruption jingles. They also railed against the matter that sparked the first protests last week — a 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares.

Thousands of protesters in the capital, Brasilia, peacefully marched on Congress. Dozens scrambled up a ramp to a low-lying roof, clasping hands and raising their arms, the light from below sending their elongated shadows onto the structure’s large, hallmark upward-turned bowl designed by famed architect Oscar Niemeyer. Some congressional windows were broken, but police did not use force to contain the damage.

“This is a communal cry saying: ‘We’re not satisfied,’” Maria Claudia Cardoso said on a Sao Paulo avenue, taking turns waving a sign reading “#revolution” with her 16-year-old son, Fernando, as protesters streamed by.

“We’re massacred by the government’s taxes — yet when we leave home in the morning to go to work, we don’t know if we’ll make it home alive because of the violence,” she added. “We don’t have good schools for our kids. Our hospitals are in awful shape. Corruption is rife. These protests will make history and wake our politicians up to the fact that we’re not taking it anymore!”

Protest leaders went to pains to tell marchers that damaging public or private property would only hurt their cause. In Sao Paulo, sentiments were at first against the protests last week after windows were broken and buildings spray painted during the demonstrations.

Source (Article & Photos)

Happy birthday Che Guevara! (1928-1967)

Che was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, military theorist, major figure of the Cuban Revolution, and remains a countercultural symbol of rebellion/revolution today.

Homophobic law passed in Russia creates greater climate of fear for homosexuals; makes acknowledging queer existence illegal
June 12, 2013

Moscow’s gays and their supporters rallied Wednesday with rainbow flags — only 24 hours after Russia’s Parliament passed a law that effectively bans gay-pride parades or speaking publicly in defense of gay rights.

The gays marched amid an anti-Kremlin opposition rally that drew about 10,000 protesters to a Moscow park.

Between the red flags of the communists and the black flags of the anarchists, the gay activists walked bunched together, waving their rainbow flags, but appeared visibly nervous.  They eyed the black uniformed police that cut occasionally through the marchers.

Vitaly held a brightly colored gay-rights sign.  But he talked with a nervous stutter. “In any normal country, [there] should not be a law like this, said Vitaly, a 19-year-old computer student.  So, it is really negative.  It really makes no sense.  And my friends, who are mostly not gay, also understand the law is absurd and that something wicked is happening now in our country,” said Vitaly.

The day before, about 20 gay activists gathered outside Russia’s Parliament building to protest the vote.  Right-wing militants attacked and beat the activists.  Then, police made their move - they arrested the gay protesters.

Anna, a 22-year-old linguistics student, talked as her rainbow flag fluttered in the summer breeze. “I know that yesterday people were beaten up, and they were arrested, she said.  And I am actually very scared that this is the last opportunity for me to freely come and not be arrested.”

At the Duma, the vote was 436 - 0, with one abstention.

Ilya Ponomaryov, was the deputy who abstained.  On Wednesday, he marched in the opposition rally among the red flags of the “Left Front, a socialist group.

He said he abstained because the language of the act was vague.  He also said he saw the legislation as part of a hard-right turn taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who seeks to bolster his support among traditional conservatives.

A 51-year-old English teacher, Alexei Sinodov, was one of thousands of unaffiliated protesters who marched Wednesday.  He said the anti-gay law was just the latest in a series of restrictive laws passed since President Putin returned to the Kremlin one year ago. The same undemocratic law, he said. I have nothing against the gays, the lesbians — they can do whatever they like.

Public-opinion polls indicate large majorities of Russians are hostile to homosexuality. At best, they want it to be kept hidden away from the public.  Anna, a lesbian marcher, says the Kremlin seeks to rally popular support by attacking internal enemies. “We are easy to kick, so they are kicking us,” she said.

Source

My heart & hope is with you beautiful queer Russians. Fight for revolution & human dignity! Putin to the guillotine. 

You want demands? Istanbul has got ‘em - Ankara, Hatay, Istanbul RESIGN!
June 6, 2013

With a measure of calm returning to a city that for days has been a cauldron of antigovernment passions, representatives of a group that helped incite protests that have been roiling Turkey opened dialogue on Wednesday with the government.

It gave a list of demands to the country’s deputy prime minister as the police expanded security operations and detained several dozen people accused of provoking illegal acts on social media networks.

The demands include: the dismissal of the governors of Istanbul, Ankara and the city of Hatay; as well as the heads of the security forces in those three cities, the release of detained protesters, an end to the use of tear gas by the police, as well as the cancellation of the project that started the protests: the construction of an Ottoman-era replica that would destroy a park in Taksim Square in Istanbul.

At least two people have been reported killed and at least 2,300 injured in protests that spread to about 60 cities across the nation as people inspired by the protests at Taksim Square took to the streets to air broader grievances against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been out of the country since Monday on a good-will tour of North Africa.

At Taksim Square, a popular occupation that began Saturday took on a sense of permanence with another day of gatherings that felt festive, with music, food and the steady bursts of chants against Mr. Erdogan’s government. But many were anticipating Mr. Erdogan’s return to the country, due on Thursday, and what he might say to either calm or inflame the situation.

A spokesman for Taksim Solidarity, which led the protests to save Gezi Park in Taksim Square, held a news conference that was broadcast live after meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc.

“Mr. Arinc received our list of demands and said they would assess it,” said the spokesman, Tayfun Kahraman. The government made no comment.

Turkish police officers have already interrogated more than 1,700 people in connection with the protests. The bar association in the Aegen town of Izmir said Wednesday that 36 high school and college students there had been detained for investigation on charges that they provoked illegal acts via Twitter.

Twitter became the leading platform for information about the protests, in part because the country’s mainstream media (like corporate media around the world often are about human rights & protests) were silent as the protests broke out on Friday.

Ozkan Yucel, a member of the Izmir Bar Association, said that the police had given no information to the families of those detained, and that parents were left to simply wait anxiously in front of various police stations. “There is nothing lawful about these detentions,” Mr. Yucel said.

On Wednesday evening, undeterred Turks converged for a sixth day on Gezi Park for a gathering that has become the symbol of civic resistance, bringing together many strata of society in a showcase of anti-government solidarity.

Volunteers walked around with trays of Turkish bagels, part of a local Muslim tradition which millions celebrated Wednesday as one of the sacred days leading up to the holy month of Ramadan.

Artists lettered T-shirts, bags and pants with “capulcu” (meaning “looter,” the dismissive term Mr. Erdogan used for the protesters), and “Everyday I’m Capuling,” a formulation that rhymes with a line from the popular dance pop song “Party Rock Anthem.”

On Twitter, people exchanged the Turkish adaptation of the song and a short recording of Noam Chomsky, the American linguist and left-wing figure, saying in Turkish, “Taksim everywhere, resistance everywhere.”

Many young people in the park criticized the detentions of Twitter users as “scary” and “a violation of freedom of expression.”

Orhan Pamuk, the internationally acclaimed Turkish novelist and a Nobel laureate, came out in favor of the protests against the government-backed project to restructure Taksim Square.

“Planning major changes in this area that holds memories of millions and in the park behind it without any consultation with Istanbullites and hastily bringing it to a stage that involved cutting trees was a major mistake by Erdogan’s government,” he said, in an article posted by various Turkish publications on Wednesday. “Seeing that Istanbullites would not easily give up their right to political protest and memories gives me trust and hope for future.”

Source

Toward a Global Spring we hope is unlike anything humanity has ever seen before!
June 5, 2013

Athens. Barcelona. Tunis. Cairo. Tripoli. Sana’a. Santiago. Bahrain. Wisconsin. #YoSoy132. Indignados. Red Square. #OccupyWallStreet. Pussy Riot. Blockupy. Damascus. #IdleNoMore. #NoKXL. Istanbul. & so many unmentioned movements that have birthed a new generation of socially/politically conscious democracy fighters & has facilitated our finding each other! In this time, history is being written every day & important events are constantly unfolding. They’re laying ground work that can be built upon amidst social conditions that humanity has never experienced before.

What can we learn from the beating heart of Gezi Park, the blood soaked Taksim concrete, the barricades of Beşiktaş? One thing: the dream of a Global Spring is not dead. It is still in its infancy, kicking and screaming.

Look around! This is what democracy looks like. The future is being built as we speak. What will it be? Singularity, or Nightfall? A sane sustainable future or a 1000 year Dark Age?

Dare to dance without knowing the next step. And then take that step with others. Beijing, maybe you’re next. Or London, Moscow, Delhi, Ottawa. Then… we take New York like never before.

As the second anniversary of Occupy approaches, the indignation, the precarity — the gnawing feeling that life under modern capitalism is a dead-end, and that the future it leads to does not compute — is culminating in some kind of global big bang. The world as we know it must burst. The call is out for a new way of being… and it is being heard. A chain reaction of refusal against capitalism is underway. The global insurrectionary pulse is going steady, and now we’re racing forward. Think in a historical context – this time is mesmerizingly active.

There’s little room for bystanders at this point in the game. Let’s all get off our asses, do what we can and pitch in to build this new world.

Here at Culture Jammer HQ, we’re just about to toss another mindbomb into the mix. After many months of hard work from our Spanish translator team, we are thrilled to announce the official launch of Adbusters en español into cyberspace!

Using our independent Spanish App for iOS, you can immediately access a high-res, English-less version of Adbusters, and peruse through volumes like the Big Ideas of 2013 and the Mental Breakdown of a Nation issue and the first installment of our Epic Human Journey series.

When the revolutionary spark settles in your fingertips, submit all your reflections, mind-bombs and ideas de rebelión en español to barbara@adbusters.org — make the radical Spanish and Latin American voices a rising tide that can’t be quelled!

Meanwhile, we’re composing Part 3 of the Epic Human Journey and ordering new Corporate America flags in preparation of July 4 in the USA, where everyone deserves to be reminded of the corporations that stand behind the blinding, glittering stars. We’re also mining the cybersphere for the next generation of #Killcap players, campus-borne meme warriors, and the latest edgy jams — like this one in the UK.

We won’t stop doing what we do until our current global system heaves… Are you with us?

Time to play jazz.

For the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

Source

Changed some of the original language & added a few things. I can always count on AdBusters to either make my heart sing or my head ache. This time it was the former.  

Occupy Gezi: International solidarity for Turkey’s uprising
June 3, 2013

A relatively small protest at Turkey’s Gezi Park to prevent the ripping out of trees to make way for the building of a shopping mall has erupted into an uprising in which over 1,900 people have been arrested and reports of 1,700 more injured. Protesters say the harsh treatment by police, such as shooting tear gas and water cannons at protesters, is just one more symptom of Prime Minister Erdogan’s authoritarian rule.

Iconic images of Turkey’s uprising quickly appeared on the Internet. There was the image of a young woman defiantly kicking back a tear gas canister toward police, and a young man casually strumming his guitar as he approaches a wall of officers. Then there was the incredible photo of another youth standing upon a flattened improvised barricade, waving Turkey’s flag, reminiscent of Enjolras’ last stand. Occupy Wall Street showed its support when hundreds of protesters gathered at Zuccotti Park, a k a Liberty Park, over the weekend. The “peaceful international solidarity event” is being held “with the goal to direct public attention to Istanbul Gezi Park protests and consequent police brutality of AKP/Erdogan government!” Occupy Wall Street announced.

Overall, the social media response to the protests has been staggering. Between Friday and Saturday, at least 2 million tweets mentioning hashtags related to the protest (#direngezipark, #occupygezi, #geziparki) were sent. At one point, more than 3,000 tweets about the protest were published every minute. Even Erdogan weighed in on the Twitter factor, calling the social media tool a “menace.” “There is now a menace which is called Twitter,” Erdogan said. “The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.”

Making a small concession, Erdogan did admit the police had made “mistakes” in their initial response. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu took to Twitter to warn citizens: “The continuation of these protests…will bring no benefits but will harm the reputation of our country which is admired both in the region and the world.”

What’s clear is that Twitter is certainly a menace to unchecked power, and those who wield that power against citizens.

Al Jazeera reports that what makes this social media phenomenon especially unique is that unlike some other recent uprisings, around 90 percent of all geo-located tweets came from Turkey and about 50 percent from within Istanbul. For comparison, only 30 percent of those tweeting during the Egyptian revolution were actually in the country. Approximately 88 percent of the tweets are in Turkish, suggesting the audience of the tweets are other Turkish citizens and not the international community.

Al Jazeera speculates that Turkish protesters are replacing traditional reporting with crowd-sources accounts of the protest due to being unsatisfied with the local media’s coverage of the uprising. In addition to being a tool for reporting, Twitter has allowed activists to share information about resisting police brutality. Under the Turkey subcategory on Reddit, a user posted an Occupy Wall Street guide to defending against teargas for Turkish activists.

Over the weekend, numerous countries expressed support for Turkey’s protesters. Turkish nationals gathered in front of the EU Parliament in Brussels to protest against police violence in Turkey, many chanting anti-government protests and holding up banners. Similar rallies took place in London, Egypt, Canada, Helsinki and outside the Turkish Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus. The ripple effect continued to Amsterdam and Germany, with its significant Turkish population.

“The police were too violent with the demonstrators,” said Hakan Tas, a local councillor. “There is talk of a thousand injured, some seriously. There are unconfirmed reports of deaths. We are here to show our solidarity with the people in Turkey and in Taksim Square, and that is why we are here today in Berlin.”

Overnight in Istanbul, the situation appeared to escalate again in what the BBC called “some of the worst violence since unrest erupted three days ago.”

Protesters in Besiktas district tore up paving stones in order to build barricades, and police responded with tear gas and water cannons. Mosques, shops and a university in Besiktas have been turned into makeshift hospitals for those injured in demonstrations. Witnesses say the protesters were coughing violently and vomiting after police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd. Akin, a protester who spoke to Sky News as he camped overnight at Istanbul’s Taksim Square, said, “We are not leaving. The only answer now is for this government to fall. We are tired of this oppressive government constantly putting pressure on us.”

Perhaps offering the best summary of the events of the past few days, he added, “This is no longer about these trees.”

Source & Photosources at The Nation Magazine

Anti-capitalist protesters are taking inspiration from Mexican revolutionaries ahead of the G8 summit
May 17, 2013

No one can accuse the anti-capitalist protesters planning to disrupt the runup to next month’s G8 meeting in Northern Ireland of not being thoroughly up to date. The online call has gone out for a carnival against capitalism – curiously illustrated by a century-old photo of Mexican revolutionaries in sombreros, sitting on horseback – in London on 11 June. It’s some way away from Fermanagh where the world leaders will actually be gathering, but that isn’t going to stop them: a map pointing out “the dens of the rich” in central London has helpfully been published to assist the anti-capitalist activists in finding their way around the capital. It includes Buckingham Palace, Fortnum & Mason, “supermarket of the ruling class”, Mahiki, “cocktail bar of the feral rich” and the headquarters of Vogue magazine on the map for telling women how to look and act.

More from StopG8

amodernmanifesto:

A Daring Future by ~Party9999999

From Wikipedia: Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (December 21, 1949 – October 15, 1987) was a Burkinabé military captain, Marxist revolutionary, Pan-Africanist theorist, and President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987.^[1][2] Viewed as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution, he is commonly referred to as “Africa’s Che Guevara”.^[1][3][4][5]

His revolutionary programs for African self-reliance made him an icon to many of Africa’s poor.^[6] Sankara remained popular with most of his country’s impoverished citizens. However his policies alienated and antagonised the vested interests of an array of groups, which included the small but powerful Burkinabé middle class, the tribal leaders whom he stripped of the long-held traditional right to forced labour and tributepayments, and France and its ally the Ivory Coast.^[1][8] As a result, he was overthrown and assassinated in acoup d’état led by the French-backed Blaise Compaoré on October 15, 1987. A week before his murder, he declared: “While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”^[1]

anarcho-queer:

Syria Cuts Off Internet As Civil War Continues

Internet connections between Syria and the outside world were cut off on Tuesday, according to data from Google Inc and other global Internet companies.

Google’s Transparency Report pages showed traffic to Google services pages from the country, embroiled in a civil war that has lasted more than two years, suddenly stopping shortly before 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT). Google traffic reports continued to show no activity there about four hours after the drop-off.

“We’ve seen this twice before,” said Christine Chen, Google’s senior manager for free expression. “This happened in Syria last November and in Egypt during the Arab Spring.”

It is virtually impossible to definitely determine the cause of such disruptions unless a party claims responsibility, experts said. In the past, Syria’s government and the rebels fighting to topple it have traded blame.

Google’s data showed traffic disruptions limited to Syria and spanning the entire country. Shutting an entire nation from the Internet is possible because IP addresses, individual connections established by each device, are geographically specific and the government has control over the country’s Internet service providers.

From Anonymous: #OpSyria DialUp Access: User: telecomix | Password: telecomix +46850009990 +492317299993 +4953160941030 

OR: +33172890150 | login: toto | password: toto

MAY 1 LOS ANGELES SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

12:00pm: Long Beach Revolutionaries : Back in Actions @ Pershing Square

2:00pm: Occupy LA Meet @ Pershing Square

2:30pm: March to Olympic and Figueroa

3:00pm: Join with Occupy Fights Foreclosures to SHUT DOWN Wells Fargo

4:00pm: Join the SCIC march @ Broadway & Olympic to march for FULL legalization for all!

7:30pm OLA General Assembly @ Pershing Square

Neighboring Occupations are also holding their own events this year! For more information, please visit their Facebook pages:

• Occupy San Fernando Valley
• Occupy Venice Beach

Additional Information:

• http://occupylosangeles.org/
• http://www.immigrationcoalition.org/
• http://www.occupyfightsforeclosures.org/

This was all from that first link that was posted after the question. The other two links were for these Facebook pages:

• One for LA in general
• & one for UCLA

Thank you to everyone who submitted links to answer this person’s questions!

Chicago is having a busy, revolutionary day today. From worker walkouts due to the terrible working conditions in the service-industry sector to this:

HAPPENING NOW! Hundeds of Chicago Public School students walk-out of testing day in protest of over-testing and the impending mass school closures to happen the beginning of next school year.

SOLIDARITY!

Source

Kurdish men in Iran have launched a cross-dressing campaign to redress outmoded concepts of masculinity & femininity and outlandish, sexist punishment administered by the government.
April 24, 2013

Over the last week, over 150 Kurdish men have posted photographs of themselves in women’s clothing to campaign against the sexist nature of a court sentence which led to the public humiliation of a man by dressing him in women’s clothing.

The campaign, entitled Kurd Men for Equality is a response to a sentence given to a convicted man by the Marivan County tribunal court on 15 April. The campaign’s tagline reads: ‘Being a woman is not a way for humiliation or punishment.’ According to Saman Rasoulpour, the convicted man was paraded down the streets of Marivan in a red tchador (traditional Kurdish women’s clothing).

Rasoulpour stated that public humiliation is a common punishment for troublemakers. Rasoulpour told us: ‘[In] this way, authorities are able to both demean the accused and deliver a warning to the public.’ However, Rasoulpour emphasized: ‘This is the first time in Iran that an accused is paraded in women’s clothes in the streets to humiliate him. It is unprecedented anywhere in Iran.’

In response to the judge’s sentence, a local feminist organization of Marivan called the Marivan Womens’ Community held a protest against the misogynistic punishment. The protest brought one hundred women on the streets of Marivan in a civil resistance campaign for gender equality.

In solidarity with the women’s protest, a man named Massoud Fathipour posted a photograph of himself dressed in women’s clothing. According to Rasoulpour, ‘he ignited the spark’. Since the Kurd Men for Equality campaign has been launched on 18 April, it has quickly gained an international following of over 7,000 fans. Over 150 men have submitted photographs of themselves in women’s clothing to emphasize the message that being a woman should not be considered humiliating.

In parliament 17 Iranian MPs have signed a petition addressed to the Justice Ministry which decries this sentence as ‘humiliating to Muslim women’. Supporters of the campaign have written messages in support of the gender equality on the Facebook wall.

Ala M writes: ‘For many years, women in my country have been side-by-side with men, wearing men’s clothes, struggling. Tonight I am happy and honored to wear women’s clothes and be even a small part of the rightful struggle of people to express gratitude and excellence to the women of my country.’

Another supporter, Namo Kurdistani writes: ‘We should gather together and condemn this stupidity, brutality and inhumanity against women. This is the least I can do to support women.’

In one of the protest images posted on Facebook, two LGBT rainbow flags can be seen on the wall in the background. People have commented on the image supporting homosexuality. Women have also supported the campaign by posting photographs of themselves wearing men’s clothing.

Iran claims it treats transgender people well but an expert told GSN the punishment in this case also indicates the stigma and discrimination trans people still face in the country as well as being a sign of simple sexism. According to Rasoulpour, no public apology has been made by authorities and security forces in Iran have strongly criticized the campaign.

Source

Chicago fast food, retail workers strike today - workers walk out at some McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Macy’s in push for higher wages, union
April 24, 2013

Community organizers said they expect hundreds of fast food and retail workers in Chicago to walk off the job Wednesday in a campaign to push for higher wages.

The Fight for $15 campaign, named for its goal of securing $15 an hour for workers, said it expects McDonald’s, Subway, Dunkin Donuts, Macy’s, Sears and Victoria’s Secret store in the Loop and Magnificent Mile to be affected.

The rolling strikes began at 5:30 a.m. as workers walked off the job at some McDonald’s restaurants and Dunkin’ Donuts. Strikes are expected later this morning at some retailers. A rally is planned for 4 p.m. at the St. James Cathedral near Huron and Rush streets. A McDonald’s spokeswoman said that while the company believes “a few workers may have walked off the job,” it was “not a high number at all.” Basically, they are daring you to boycott them and daring their workers to strike because they feel like they can do anything they want to their workers and have no consequences. Let’s call their bluff.

“Our downtown restaurants remain open, and it remains business as usual for us,” she said.

Representatives for Dunkin Donuts and Subway said that hourly wages are set at the discretion of franchisees who operate their restaurants.

“Fight for 15, seeks to put money back in the pockets of the 275,000 men and women who work hard in the city’s fast food and retail outlets, but still can’t afford basic necessities,” the group said in a release. “If workers were paid more, they’d spend more, helping to get Chicago’s economy moving again.”

Wednesday’s action follows a nationwide Black Friday strike by Walmart workers and comes just weeks after 400 fast-food workers walked off their jobs in New York City.

“Fast food and retail workers bring more than $4 billion a year into the cash registers of the Magnificent Mile and the Loop, yet most of these workers earn Illinois’ minimum wage of $8.25, or just above it,” the group said.

In addition to higher pay, Fight for 15 says it is pushing to organize a union for workers. Among those participating will be Aimee Crawford, 56, who said she has worked for 14 months at a downtown Protein Bar restaurant for $8.75 an hour.

“I’m using my retirement funds and my savings to bridge the gap between what I bring home and what I need to survive,” Crawford said.

Source