Tag: Party for Socialism and Liberation

The fire is lit and the students of City College of San Francisco and their supporters are brilliantly adamant about what they will and will not accept in creating the futures they see for themselves and those who will follow. As stakeholders in the reformation of a deeply broken system, their vision is clear and their collective voice will be heard.

A diverse crowd of around 500 mostly young activists turned out for a rally Aug. 25 at San Quentin Prison. Most came from Oakland, many in two chartered buses, but sizable contingents traveled from San José, Santa Cruz and San Francisco as well. Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, a key organizer of the rally, along with Prisoners Human Rights Coalition, CA, and many other Bay Area activist groups, including Party for Socialism and Liberation, helped publicize the action. The idea for the strike originated with Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, an incarcerated group of prisoner rights advocates.

Hundreds of anti-fascists confronted a coalition of far-right extremist bullies in Seattle on Aug. 18. The fascist event was part of the “National March Against Far-Left Violence” that was scheduled to take place in several cities one week after “Unite the Right II” in Washington, D.C. In Seattle, the far-right event was only confirmed two weeks prior. A local coalition came together quickly and called for a “unified, militant and orderly” counter-protest at City Hall with the theme of “Unite against fascism: Remember those lost to far-right violence.”

May Day – International Workers Day – is celebrated around the world, including in the United States, honoring the fighting spirit and struggle of all working and oppressed people. It is a time when workers show their strength, demand their rights and forge global solidarity. Its roots are in the struggle for the eight-hour day in 1886 in Chicago. Only in the United States, whose working class gave birth to May Day, have the powers that be managed to conceal that history, erase the memory of May Day, and suppress the class struggle that it represents. ILWU Local 10 shut down all Bay Area ports on May Day for the fourth consecutive year.

The mass of roughly 1,000 protesters, which included representatives of the Black Panthers, gathered in Oakland’s Latham Square at approximately 7 p.m. Saturday evening before taking to the streets. Demonstrators were angered over events which had taken place earlier that day in Charlottesville, Virginia, where alleged Nazi sympathizer, James Alex Fields Jr., mowed down several people with his car in an incident similar to recent terrorist attacks in London and Nice, France. One person was killed and 19 others were injured in Charlottesville.

It happened today in downtown Charlottesville, Va., on the second of a planned three-day rally dubbed “Unite the Right.” Thousands of counter-protesters summoned by Black Lives Matter and an allied white group, Showing Up for Racial Justice, surrounded about 500 neo-Nazis, including former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke. “Witnesses said a crowd of counterdemonstrators was moving up Fourth Street, near the mall, when a gray sports car came down the road and accelerated, mowing down several people and hurling at least two in the air.“

“Kaepernick’s action was a righteous protest against the epidemic of racism and police brutality in this country,” said Gloria La Riva. “As a socialist and proud, long-time resident of San Francisco, I salute the stand taken by SF 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who refused to stand for the national anthem at Friday night’s game. La Riva spoke from her San Francisco office in California where she is running for U.S. president as the Peace and Freedom Party candidate.

There was an ocean of signs in a sea of banners of struggle and liberation in front of Anaheim’s City Hall and the adjacent park on July 21, 2013. The signs held faces of those cut down in the prime of their lives in loving memory and detail. There were informational signs and signs with slogans of liberation, with demands, statements of fact and advice – such as “Fuck the system” and “FTP” (“Fuck the police”).

With a banner reading “From the Mission District to the whole Bay Area – Stop Racist Police Brutality,” over 300 community members rallied against the most recent case of police violence in San Francisco. The event was prompted by a video that became widespread showing 18-year-old City College student Kevin Clark being brutalized by two San Francisco police officers.

With 54.42 percent of a record-turnout vote, Hugo Chávez has won a fourth term as president of Venezuela, in a race widely recognized as a crucial struggle between the progressive forces of the “Bolivarian Revolution” and the right-wing opposition of U.S.-backed Henrique Capriles.

On Sept. 18, many people in the Bay Area came together to support one family’s struggle for justice. Hundreds of supporters joined Jerilynn and Adam Blueford and many of their relatives as they confronted Oakland City Council to demand that it pressure the police department to investigate the death of their son, Alan.