LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
AGITPROP NEWS
7.18.99
In this issue:
1. Mural Is Lesson in Life...and Death
2. Wanted: Cultural Workers, Artists, and Activists
3. Fun Facts About Capitalism
4. Corporations are All Heart I
5. Corporations are All Heart II
6. Stay Dumb
7. Stop Navy Strikebreaking
8. Solidarity Needed for Halifax Strikers
9. Armed Hunters Are Ready
10. Protest at KPFA
11. Our Man in Chile
12. Iraq: Under Sanctions
13. Warmobile
14. Workers and Revolutionaries: The Jewish Labor Movement
15. Dangerous Piano Tuners
16. Zapatista
17. Still Wagging the Dog
18. Dog Commandments
19. You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive
20 You Need A New Lawyer When...
21. Save the Whales
22. This Weak in History
_________________________________________
1. Mural Is Lesson in Life...and Death
Labor Artist Perpetuates Lodi's Napp Explosion
by Brendon January
Herald & News
Lodi - In April 1995, then 13 year-old Sara Chapilliquen awoke in the
middle of the night when the shock wave of an explosion from the Napp
Technologies factory shook her from her sleep. She later learned that
the blast killed five workers.
Only in the past year, however, has Chapilliquen understood the human
impact of that explosion.
Through a program called Link the Community to the Classroom, she and
other high school students have spent the year tracking down relatives
and survivors of Lodi industrial accidents.
"I've lived here so long," she said. "But this was a good chance to
really learn about the town. I couldn't believe that little Lodi had
such industry. It was exciting to hear the stories."
Now the stories will be woven into the final piece of the project: a
giant mural. The program has hired 48-year-old labor artist Mike
Alewitz to design and paint the mural. Library Director Anthony
Taorima, who was very involved in the project, offered the library as a
site.
The 17-foot-by-16-foot painting is nearing completion. Beneath a wall
of scaffolding in the library, Alewitz discussed the meaning of the
mural and the link between labor and art.
"My art is agitprop - agitation and propoganda," he said. "It's
designed to bo part of a discussion that's goin on in the labor
movement. I want to tie this mural in with the general carnage that
goes on in the workplace."
Alewitz's art is part of a tradition in which labor unions recognized
that while man may work to live, work is not life. He pointed to the
top of the mural, where a loaf of bread and a bouquet of roses were
outlined in black.
"'Bread and roses' is a slogan from the Lawrence Textile Strike," said
Alewitz. "They knew that workers need spirit and culture as well as
work."
The mural is filled with such symbolism. A glow of white and yellow
paint, representing the searing heat of the Napp explosion, sits at the
center of the painting. Five men are silhoutted against the flash,
catching the instant of their death. To the left sits a fire hose with
a sack of money beneath it. swhich notes the Napp management's
decision to rfuse the use of the fire hose. Pulling the hose would
trip an alarm and call the fire department, and management repotedly
did not want to pay for the call.
"That's typical, " said Alewitz.
Two figures stand at each end of the painting, onew representing the
natural world and the other the urban. Their contributions weave into
a river that stretches across the mural. At the bottom, the river
meanders through the wreckage of the Napp plant and is choked with dead
fish.
Alewitz painted the river in several colors after Taorima described his
mothers experience working at United Piece Dye Works. Every morning
the river gleamed a different color when the factory dumped dyes into
the water.
The story is a good example of how Alewitz has used the anecdotes
collected by high school students.
The artist is also invitibg relatives and friends of those who have
suffered in industrial accidents to contribute by submitting a design.
The design will be painted into one of 60 boxes that border the mural.
Alewitz is confident that all the boxes will be filled.
"There's no lack of people slaughtered on the job, " he said.
Alewitz taught himself billboard painting and began sign lettering in
the 1970s. He then went to Massachusetts College of Art to take a
course in mural painting. His time spent painting billboards proved to
be an excellent experience. Soon, he was teaching the course.
Alewitz's love of painting and the cause of labor has taken him all
over the world. He has painted mural with labor themes in Mexico City,
Baghdad, and the devastated region surrounding Chernobyl, where workers
knowingly went to their deaths to smother the smoldering nuclear core
with concrete.
The mural's design resonates with Jim Gannon, a survivor of the Napp
explosion.
"Those guys at Napp who died were close friends of mine," said Gannon.
"I didn't want them to fade into obscurity. Anyone who walks in the
library will see the mural and be touched. If they don't know what
it's for, they're going to ask."
_________________________________________
2. Wanted: Cultural Workers, Artists, and Activists
WHERE: Seattle, for the WTO (World Trade Organization) Seattle Round
WHY: The WTO, a group of primarily Multinational Corporation
representatives, is responsible for gutting labor and environmental
regulations which have taken decades to win and have cost many lives.
This is the first (and maybe last, depending on actions taken to show
popular outrage) time the WTO is meeting in the US.
MORE: Begun as GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO
has become an elusive, secretive body, with absolutely no accountabiility
to people anywhere in the world.
CONTACT: Details are currently being worked on in many areas. Local
contacts for information and to help find accomodations will be announced
in a future AGITprop Newsletter. A toll-free number that may provide some
help is People for Fair Trade at 1-877-STOPWTO
From: John F Ruhland <bh...@scn.org>
_________________________________________
3. Fun Facts About Capitalism
The annual UN Human Development Report 1999 is available online at:
http://www.undp.org/hdro/report.html
It's a large document in PDF format. Below are some interesting facts
my dark and brooding psyche selected:
"The world's 200 richest people more than doubled their net worth
between 1994 and 1998 to more than 1 trillion dollars. "
"The assets of the 200 richest people are more than the combined income
of 41 percent of the world's people. "
"The assets of the top 3 billionaires are more than the combined GNP
[Gross National Product] of all least developed nations and their 600
million people.
More generally:
By the late 1990's the fifth of the world's people living in the
highest income countries had: 86 percent of the world's GDP [Gross
Domestic Product]--the bottom fifth had one percent of the world's GDP.
The middle sixty percent had thirteen percent of the world's GDP.
Food production per capita increased by neaarly 25% during 1990-97,
BUT...
"Nearly 1.3 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, and close
to 1 billion can't meet their consumption requirements." "850 million
people are malnourished. " "Nearly 160 million children are
malnourished."
Education such as it is and isn't:
"One percent of the assets of the richest 200 people could provide for
universal access to primary education for all."
"850 million people are illiterate."
"In industrial countries more than 100 million people are illiterate."
"More than 260 million children are out of school on the primary and
secondary levels."
"More than 250 million children are working as child labourers."
Women:
"340 million women are not expected to survive to age 40."
"A quarter to a half of all women have suffered physical abuse by an
intimate partner."
johnk
_________________________________________
4. Corporations are All Heart I
This is the ultimate in corporate sponsorship. You click a button, and
a corporation donates food to people dying from starvation. You see who
the corporation is, so you associate them with VERY positive action (or
so they hope). And someone receives a meal because you took a moment
and showed interest. You commit nothing but 30 seconds or so.
Now, there is a web site which is sponsored by several
corporations. Every time that you go to the site and click
on the "Donate Free Food" button, one of those corporations
will make a donation to feed a starving person for one day.
You can do this once a day, and it costs nothing to you personally.
Are you interested? Click the link below.
http://www.thehungersite.com/index.html
From: "Charles Brown" <Char...@CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
_________________________________________
5. Corporations are All Heart II
INDEPENDENT (London) June 30
BETWEEN ONE-THIRD and a half of emergency medical aid shipped to the tent
cities of Macedonia and Albania at the height of the Kosovo refugee crisis
was useless and will have to be destroyed, the World Health Organisation
has revealed.
Shipments of drugs and medicines, much of it donated by multinational
pharmaceutical companies - who were able to write off their gifts against
tax - contained tubes of Chapstick lip salve, Preparation H haemorrhoid
ointment and anti-smoking packs rather than syringes, antibiotics, and
other essential drug supplies.
_________________________________________
6. Stay Dumb
Researchers in Detroit say the more you learn, the better your
protection against the loss of brain function as you get older...but
that won't keep your brain from shrinking.
It's inevitable: the human brain shrinks about two-and-a-half percent
each decade beginning in a person's 20s. Scientists at Henry Ford Health
System have found that people with higher education levels have more
pronounced age-related brain shrinkage than those with fewer years of
schooling. So getting smarter may actually cause the brain to shrink,
but education helps those people better tolerate the changes and gives
them more protection against mental impairment and dementia.
_________________________________________
7. Stop Navy Strikebreaking
Is the United States Navy fostering inequality in the Defense
shipbuilding industry? Look at the facts:
Workers at the Northern shipyards - Electric Boat and Bath Iron Works
- enjoy substantially better wages and benefits than workers in
Southern shipyards - Newport News, Ingalls, Avondale and Norshipco.
Unlike the Northern shipyards, all four Southern yards have largely
minority workforces.
In at least two instances - at Newport News and Avondale - the Navy
has reimbursed management's efforts to either break a union or break a
strike.
At Newport News - where workers have been on strike since April 5 to
protest the company's violations of federal labor law and to improve
their lives - the Navy has given the company new work in spite of the
fact that the shipyard has missed three major deadlines because of work
being done by inexperienced replacements.
On Friday, July 23, striking Steelworkers from Newport News, members of
other unions and our supporters will converge on Washington, D.C., to
spotlight the role of the Navy in strikebreaking and fostering
inequality in the defense shipbuilding industry.
Join us on July 23 to send Washington a message:
End Inequality at Navy-funded Shipyards!
Protest 11:30 a.m. Navy Memorial
Pennsylvania Ave. between 7th and 9th Streets, N.W.
March Noon to the Capitol
Rally 12:30 p.m. West Steps of the Capitol
For more information, call (757) 896-9045.
United Steelworkers of America Local 8888
Newport News, Virginia
Cindy Hahamovitch <cxh...@mail.wm.edu>
_________________________________________
8. Solidarity Needed for Halifax Strikers
Nova Scotia Union of Public Employees/Local 13
Privatization is our struggle right now. The senior management of
the Halifax Regional Municipality in Halifax, Nova Scotia seems
hell bent on contracting out the entire public sector except for
fire and police as was done in Indianapolis.
We have been on strike for 7 working days now and no end in site. They
have hired in about 50 scabs so far, is the rumour and there are 500
inside municipal government workers on strike. My best to all of the
other unions that are currently striking. It is a big fight but, we are
fighting for the future of our children and our society!
In solidarity,
Audra Abbott
NSUPE Local 13
EMAIL SOLDIARITY MESSAGES TO:luv...@mail.acncanada.net
_________________________________________
9. Armed Hunters Are Ready
Strikes in Russian Carelia
Recently Finnish newspapers reported about a paper mill strike in
Sovjetski, Russian Carelia. The strike had continued for about 6 weeks,
so it is almost 8 weeks old. Workers had occupied the factory, voted for
unpaid director to hold the chair, and rejected an offer to let new,
foreign owners step into the factory until 2 year's unpaid back wages
are paid. In the beginning of the strike, strikers also tried to block
the Helsinki - Saint Petersburg motorway but they didn't manage the task
as officials threated them with special police forces. Workers responded
that there are over 300 armed hunters ready at Sovjetski.
_________________________________________
10. Protest at KPFA
Dozens of protestors were arrested tonight by over 50 Berkeley
police in riot gear in a massive five hour
protest inside and outside KPFA. Pacifica had taken local KPFA
programming off the air shortly after 6 p.m. and substituted taped
programs from the archives, run by an engineer, Mark Torrres,
brought in from the Pacifica Program Service in Los Angeles.
The takeover operation was supervised by Pacifica Houston station
manager Garland Ganter, who a year and a half ago cancelled almost
all of KPFT's community programmers and installed a nearly all
music format, "The Sounds of Texas."
The last words heard on KPFA were those of KPFA news co-director Mark
Mericle describing "Flashpoints" host Dennis Bernstein being dragged
out of the studio by the armed security guards who have been inside KPFA for
a month. Bernstein could be heard in the background.
More than 500 people blocked both downtown Berkeley streets leading
to KPFA, and several dozen, along with KPFA staff people, refused
to leave the building. They were arrested - sometimes with painful
arm holds used - and taken to the nearby police station, where
most were cited and released.
_________________________________________
11. Our Man in Chile
WASHINGTON, July 4 (AFP) - Chile's secret police used medieval torture
methods on political opponents and answered solely to former dictator
Augusto Pinochet, according to recently declassified US documents.
"Their techniques are straight out of the Spanish Inquisition and often
leave the person interrogated with visible bodily damage," according to
one of the 5,800 documents on the Pinochet regime.
Moreover, the papers show that the National Intelligence Bureau (DINA),
under the leadership of Colonel Jose Manuel Contreras, operated with an
autonomy close to that of Nazi Germany's feared Gestapo secret police.
"Since establishing the DINA as the national intelligence arm of the
government, Colonel Contreras has reported exclusively to and received
orders from President Pinochet," read one 1975 Pentagon document.
Human rights advocates and relatives of the estimated 3,000-10,000 victims
killed by Pinochet's military death squads had long called on Washington
to release the classified materials to help bring the former dictator to
justice.
The US State Department last week declassified and released more than
25,000 pages from US government documents relating to events in Chile from
1973 to 1978.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
_________________________________________
12. Iraq: Under Sanctions
IRAQ: UNDER SANCTIONS
Featuring a photo exhibit by Alan Pogue
And Iraqi food and music
Tues., July 20 at 6:30 p.m.
39 West 14 St., Suite 206, Manhattan
donation requested
On April 2, 1999, U.S. warplanes struck Iraq with 82 missiles and
bombs. Did you hear about it? No, because it was almost totally
ignored. The front page was dominated by the bombing of
Yugoslavia_which the IAC organized protests against.
But the U.S. is also waging a silent but still deadly war against
Iraq. Bombing of Iraq goes on routinely_often day after day. But the
bombing is not the worst of it. The economic sanctions on Iraq will
have lasted nine years this August. More than 250 people perish every
day from hunger, malnutrition-related disease and the absence of
medicines. Over 1.7 million Iraqis have died as a direct result of the
sanctions.
We are organizing opposition to the ongoing war against the people of
Iraq. Join us on July 20 at the offices of the IAC and learn how you
can get involved.
_________________________________________
13. Warmobile
Two Los Angeles artists, Mark Housley and Daniel Bogunovic, organized an
art event titled "WAR." It was a group show that took place on July 10th
of around 25 artists whose works dealt with the subject of war.
Held in a section of Echo Park that now houses a row of Art Galleries...
"WAR" took a novel approach to bringing art to the people. Mark and Daniel
rented a large truck and turned it into an Art Gallery! ^_^
The rented truck was fitted with lights (running off a generator), and
HUGE Target signs were affixed to it's outside. The paintings, drawings,
sculptures, and other artpieces were hung on the inside... and people were
encourage to enter the truck to appreciate the artworks!
With the permission of the PHOTONIKA GALLERY (1500 Echo Park Ave.), the
"WAR" mobile gallery was parked outside at curbside to take advantage of
the THREE Art Gallery openings taking place on Saturday evening along
"Gallery Row."
A few hundred people turned out, mostly art scene people, and bohemian
types... but many people from the mostly Latino community also ventured
into the party like atmosphere to check out the art. The huge Target
bullseyes on the sides of the truck made many a passerby curious enough to
pull over and take a look around.
I entered a few things... the large DOVE/SKULL street banner I've been
carrying around for months was draped over the entry to the
truck/gallery... but my recent poster for the LOS ANGELES PEACE CENTER was
the entry I was most excited about. I made sure to supply a pile of them
and some THIRTY were given away! It was wonderful to see an "art crowd"
getting excited over a political poster... and unlike the other works in
the show... the poster calls for and encourages action by giving contact
information for the Center!
Overall, the evening was another fine example of the cultural/political
turmoil bubbling just below the surface in the City of the Angels. There
are a thousand and one areas for us to intervene in... the "WAR" show
proved that even a truck parked at curbside can become a political
battleground in our struggle for justice and peace.
Mark Vallen
ART FOR A CHANGE!
mva...@primenet.com
http://www.primenet.com/~mvallen/
_________________________________________
14. Workers and Revolutionaries: The Jewish Labor Movement
Exhibit Opening in Chicago, July 29th
You are cordially invited to the opening night of a special
exhibit coming to Chicago's Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies
and staying from July 29 thru November 28.
-- Workers and Revolutionaries: --
-- The Jewish Labor Movement --
Mike Perry, Chair of the Chicago Jewish Labor Committee and
Education Director of AFSCME District Council 31, will be the
Guest Speaker on opening night.
WHEN: Thursday, July 29 / Reception 5:30 pm, Program 6 pm
WHERE: 618 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago
RSVP: (312) 322-1747 -- Admission is free, but reservations are required.
From: "ANDREW H. LEE" <le...@elmer4.bobst.nyu.edu>
_________________________________________
15. Dangerous Piano Tuners
The US Government has decided that three Cuban piano experts constitute
a threat to US national interests and has denied them permission to attend
the Piano Technicians Guild convention in Kansas City next month. They had
been invited by the project Send A Piana To Havana to present videos and
photos of that group's work in Cuba, and to schmooze with North American
tuners in a week-long exchange of tuning techniques.
The Cubans have been working with the piano project for five years,
helping organize the delivery and distribution of pianos from the US (60
so far). They had been working long hours for months on their
presentations to the Convention. From Havana they expressed amazement,
then deep disappointment with the US Interests Section's decision.
_________________________________________
16. Zapatista
BIG NOISE FILMS AND THE MEDIA BOUTIQUE ANNOUNCE THE VIDEO RELEASE OF
ZAPATISTA!
At last, the definitive look at the Zapatista uprising is available on
video to individuals and institutions. Copies of ZAPATISTA! can be ordered
off of our secure web-site: www.bignoisefilms.com or by calling toll-free
877-773-3773.
ZAPATISTA! is the definitive look at the uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. It
is the story of how a few thousand Mayan peasants have held the entire
Mexican army at bay for five years, and of how they have transformed the
political culture of Mexico forever.
Filmed behind the lines of battle, it is the account of a guerrilla
struggle unlike any other. With narration by Darryl Hannah, Edward James
Olmos, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Geronimo Pratt Ji Jaga, interviews with
Subcomandante Marcos, Noam Chomsky as well as rank and file Zapatistas and
American activists, music from Rage Against the Machine and Neil Young &
Crazy Horse, and an agile, multilayered editing style, ZAPATISTA!
translates this ancient story of resistance into the language of popular
culture.
All profits from ZAPATISTA! will return to the people of Chiapas in the
form of humanitarian aid, providing much needed food and medical supplies
to the indigenous communities.
_________________________________________
17. Still Wagging the Dog
Disinformation and Serbia: U.S. Media Bias
A major news story about Serbia, not covered in the American press, was
published in Covert Action Quarterly (CAQ) last Fall. The story detailed
how a famous photo from 1992 in Omarska, Bosnia showing an alleged
Serbian death camp was in fact a phony. The original photo, taken by
Independent Television (ITN) from Great Britain, showed an emaciated
Muslim man with his shirt off behind barbwire with his imprisoned comrades
behind him. This photo ran worldwide and was just used again June 14th by
Time magazine. It was the first significant emotional presentation of the
Serbian military as nazi-like thugs. Presidential candidate, Bill Clinton,
making reference to the photo promised military action against the Serbs
if elected. According to CAQ this photo was a gross misrepresentation of
the situation. The men in the picture were not behind barbwire, but rather
were standing outside of a small fenced enclosure next to a farm house in
an open field that had been serving as a refugee transit site. The
photographers shot the photo from within the fenced enclosure looking out
on a open field. The Hague Tribunal confirmed in 1994 that there was no
barbwire surrounding the camp at Omarska in 1992.
excerpts
By Peter Phillips (Director of Project Censored)
_________________________________________
18. Dog Commandments
Thou shalt not act half starved whenever thou watches me eat.
Thou shalt not roll in any smelley stuff thy finds in the yard.
Thou shalt not lie down next to me and commence making licking
and popping noises.
Thou shalt not dig up my favorite rose bush.
Thou shalt not treat my shoes as if they were thy chew toy.
Thou shalt not drink out of the toilet.
Thou shalt keep thy nose out of the cat's litter box.
Thou shalt not pass gas in my presence, and then walk away as if
thou has been offended by me.
Thou shalt refrain from coughing and gagging while we have
company.
Thou shalt not sneak up on me and lick me in the mouth while I
am sleeping.
_________________________________________
19. You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive
Seth Tobocman & White Collar Crime
tour to celebrate the second edition of
You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive
by Seth Tobocman (Soft Skull Press)
Founder of magazine World War Three Illustratared, artist/author Seth
Tobocman, to tour US with postpunk popsters White Collar Crime.
The Hard-to-find underground art/radical comix classic You Don't Have to Fuck
People Over to Survive is now back in print from Soft Skull.
Info: http://www.softskull.com
JULY
15 -Philadelphia, PA, @ Stalag 13
16 - Harrisonburg, VA, Little Grill
17 - Sat Kenny working on it? 540 675 3637
??? Northern Virginia ? ? ?, Winchester? Front Royal?
July 27, 1999 Fireside Bowl, Chicago
18 - Morgantown, WV, 123 Pleasant Bar
19 - Richmond, The Warehouse
w/ THE BANNED(NY), Chump Change, Daycare swindlers (DC), point blank,
20- Winston-Salem, NC Borders
21 - Asheville, NC / Oh My!
23 - Atlanta, Art Gallery
24-Athens, High Hat Music Club
25-Three Oakes, Michigan @ Vickers Theatre
26-Milwaukee, @ Neighborhood Arts Center
27-Chicago @ Fireside Bowl, w/ Shuttlecock
28 - Charleston, Il, Ted's Warehouse
29-Cleveland, Arabica Coffee House
30- Pittsburgh Peach Pitt
From: Seal...@aol.com
_________________________________________
20 You Need A New Lawyer When...
During your initial consultation he tries to sell you Amway.
He tells you that his last good case was a "Budweiser."
When the prosecutors see who your lawyer is, they high-five each other.
During the trial you catch him playing his Gameboy.
A prison guard is shaving your head.
Every couple of minutes he yells, "I call Jack Daniels to the stand!"
and proceeds to drink a shot.
He frequently gives juror No. 4 the finger.
He places a large "No Refunds" sign on thedefense table.
He begins closing arguments with, "As Ally McBeal once said ..."
He keeps citing the legal case of Godzilla v. Mothra.
Just before he says "Your Honor," he makes those little quotation marks
in the air with his fingers.
Whenever his objection is overruled, he tells the judge, "Whatever."
He giggles every time he hears the word "briefs."
_________________________________________
21. Save the Whales
Mexico City, Mexico -- 12 July
Thirty-four of the world's most distinguished scientists, including many
Nobel laureates, have joined together in an unprecedented stance against
Mitsubishi's plans to build a massive salt factory in Laguna San
Ignacio, on the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. Laguna San Ignacio
was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993, and is the last
pristine birthing lagoon for the Pacific gray whale as well as home to
many endangered species of flora and fauna.
The prominent group calls Mitsubishi's plans -- to pump 6,000 gallons
out of the lagoon per second, and to flood over 116 square miles to
create evaporation pools -- "an unacceptable risk" to the environment.
Their powerful scientific statement refutes Mitsubishi's eco-friendly
claims, and appears this week as a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times
and New York Times, and as a double-page spread in Mexico's La Reforma
and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Dr. Roger Payne, the world renowned whale biologist who co-discovered
that humpback whales sing, drafted this significant scientific
declaration. According to Payne "Mitsubishi needs to recognize the
weight of scientific opinion against their plans to turn the California
gray whale's last pristine breeding ground into a salt factory." Laguna
San Ignacio is home to the only remaining population of gray whales and
Payne believes that "It makes no sense to threaten such a unique Mexican
and global treasure by converting 116 square miles of critical habitat
into an industrial zone."
excerpts
From: mspa...@ucsd.edu (Mark J. Spalding)
_________________________________________
22. This Week in History:
1097 - Capture of Jerusalem (first Crusade) 10,000 massacred, in
the traditional christian manner.
1862 - Ida B Wells lives, Holly Springs, Mississippi. Launches
her nation-wide anti-lynching campaign after the murder of three
black businessmen in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1896 Mary Church
Terrell , Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Margaret Murray Washington, Fanny
Jackson Coppin, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Charlotte Forten
Grimké, & former slave Harriet Tubman meet in Washington, D.C.,
to form the National Association of Colored Women (NACW).
http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/barnett.htm
1877 - Great Railroad Strike begins, eventually spreading from
West Virginia to cover the whole US, leaving over 100 dead &
thousands of rail cars destroyed.
1917 - US: 50,000 lumberjacks strike for 8-hour day.
1917 - Beginning of "deportation" of IWW (Industrial Workers of
the World) miners from Bisbee, Arizona by vigilantes into the
Sonoran desert. http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/images/iww/
http://cyberfair.gsn.org/bisbeehs/iww.html
1934 - US: Beginning of the San Francisco General Strike. 127,000
workers participate. A longshoreman's strike spreads to become a
two-day general strike paralyzing the area, leading to a
successful settlement.
http://www.shapingsf.org/labor/genstrike/genstrike.html
http://www.dnai.com/~figgins/generalstrike/index.html
1938 - Douglas (Wrong Way) Corrigan leaves NY for LA, wound up in
Ireland.
1951 - Dashiell Hammett sentenced to six months imprisonment for
refusing to cooperate with anti-communist witchhunt inquiry.
President of the League of American Writers, 1942, & Civil Rights
Congress of New York, 1946-47.
1967 - A week of riots/revolt begins in Newark, New Jersey,
eventually leaving 26 dead, 1,500 wounded & over 1,000 arrested
amidst widespread charges of police brutality.
1979 - Nicaragua: Anti-Somocista popular revolution successful;
no apologies to US government, CIA & other avid supporters of the
dictator.
1984 - Coneheads?: Ice cream vendor Ebenezer Obomanu calls for
help after being shot on his route in Chicago. His cries attract
100 youths -- who help themselves to his wares while leaving him
bleeding in the streets for over an hour.
1986 - Ed Meeseąs Commission on Pornography links hard-core porn
to sex crimes, & hard-pore corns to suicide. Wonder what the Big
Ed thinks of pornographic links now, as masturbation pumps the
internet.
Standing in front of a naked woman at the Justice Department, Ed
accepts the 1,960-page report from his $500,000 porno commission.
Available in two volumes from the government for $35, the report
becomes something of a cult item for its 100-plus-page of book,
movie & magazine titles (łTeenage Dog Orgy, Cathy's Sore Bottom,
Lesbian Foot Lovers -- The Movie˛) & 200 pages of detailed
descriptions & excerpts from said material.
BleedMeister <rec...@eskimo.com>
____________________________________
ARTISTS AND WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE...
YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT BAD TASTE!
Email: la...@igc.apc.org - Website: http://www.igc.apc.org/laborart
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LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
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Spanning the Globe to: ORGANIZE - AGITATE - EDUCATE - INSPIRE
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Mike Alewitz, Artistic Director