Cleveland FIST

Workers World Party on the Tucson Massacre

2011-01-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

Workers World statement: The forces behind the massacre in Tucson, Ariz.
Published Jan 9, 2011 9:17 PM

Jan. 9 — Twenty people were shot, and six of them died, while attending a political rally for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., on Jan. 8. The authorities are now saying they have evidence that the shootings were an attempted assassination of the Democratic Congresswoman, who is in critical condition.

The shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was captured on the spot by people attending the rally in a supermarket parking lot and turned over to police. He is reported to be a mentally deranged person with a recent history of fascination with right-wing rhetoric.

At this point, no evidence has surfaced in the media or from the authorities that Loughner had accomplices in the massacre of so many people. However, evidence of a conspiracy may turn up later. Let’s not forget, all information is in the hands of the FBI and the Arizona authorities — the capitalist state.

But whether Loughner acted alone or with accomplices, this was a political act. It was not another Columbine. Its target was a politician who had already been verbally attacked and threatened by the far right. It must be seen in the context of the poisonous anti-worker, anti-immigrant, sexist, racist, anti-Muslim, anti-gay and anti-Obama offensive of the Republican right, working through the Tea Party, that has allowed a neo-fascist movement, even further to the right, to ride on its coattails.

Arizona has been the epicenter of this movement. Even the sheriff of Pima County, Clarence Dupnik, said that Arizona had become “the capital for prejudice and bigotry.” John McCain, the Arizona senator who ran for president in 2008 with Sarah Palin, is a war hawk for the Pentagon, which practically owns the state. However, McCain isn’t right-wing enough for Palin, who on her website during the 2010 elections showed a map with Representative Giffords’ district behind the crosshairs of a rifle accompanied by the words, “Don’t retreat, RELOAD!”

But this appeal to violent reaction is not just an Arizona phenomenon. Dozens of states are planning to model their immigration laws on Arizona’s infamous SB1070, signifying that powerful forces in the ruling class are getting behind this anti-immigrant racism.

The right and far-right — and often the “middle,” too — have been using the capitalist economic crisis to scapegoat immigrants, Muslims, unions — anyone but the super-rich who have milked not only workers’ wages and benefits but government social funds to keep their profits coming in despite the crisis.

The ultimate responsibility for this bloody act lies with the millionaires and billionaires who have financed the right in the recent period, beginning with the racist “town hall” meetings against the weak health care bill. They poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the last election to promote Tea Party candidates and the right wing in general.

At a time of economic crisis and mass unemployment that has lasted for more than three years, this kind of divisive, scapegoating politics serves the interests of the entire ruling class, all the way up to the summits of finance capital.

The FBI has now taken over custody of Loughner and the case. This is the same FBI that has been lawlessly raiding the anti-war movement and persecuting solidarity activists.

The FBI stood passively by when armed vigilantes calling themselves the Minuteman Project formed what amounted to a fascist militia along the Arizona-Mexico border and openly hunted down undocumented workers. The capitalist state was totally complicit in this crass violation of bourgeois legality. And on Jan. 6, a member of the Border Patrol fatally shot an unarmed Mexican youth, 17-year-old Ramsés Barrón Torres.

The FBI, Homeland Security and other government agencies spy on and monitor groups and individuals all over the U.S. Reportedly, the killer mentioned the American Renaissance Party, a known fascist group, on his Facebook page. This together with his behavior and other signs, such as recommending Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” would have made him a suspect to be watched — if that’s what the capitalist state was looking for. But they close their eyes to the activities of ultra-right and fascist groups.

The Obama administration has responded weakly to this massacre, trying to reduce it to a non-political event — in the same way that Washington stood by while the semi-fascist Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County was creating a police state for undocumented workers. While this resurgence of reaction is pushed mostly by Republicans, it also feeds on the weakness of the Democratic leaders, who have compromised and retreated on every issue, from health care to Social Security to workers’ rights.

This atrocious act is a wake-up call. The people cannot rely on the capitalist government to protect them from the ultra-right and the fascists. Progressive organizations, community groups, unions and all fair-minded people need to unite in a massive response to the hate and prejudice spewed forth every day in the political establishment and the media. They can be turned back. Now is the time.

Activists Study Revolutionary History

2011-01-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

By Jay Rothermel
Cleveland
Published Jan 8, 2011 7:25 AM

Readers and supporters of Workers World newspaper, Workers World Party and the revolutionary youth organization Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) held a 12-week educational class series this fall called “200 Years of Revolution.”

The daunting scope of the classes was more than matched by the interest and enthusiasm of the participants, who met at a local independent bookstore that had earlier featured readings of Fred Goldstein’s “Low-Wage Capitalism” and Karl Marx’s “Capital.”

The classes began with an overview of the development of scientific socialism in the 19th century by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Two weeks each were devoted to the USSR and China. Eastern Europe, Cuba, Latin America, Africa and Asia were covered. Two classes covered U.S. labor and Black liberation struggles. The class on Black liberation was led by a guest speaker from the New Black Panther Party who had participated in many of the struggles discussed.

WW newspapers and books provided reading on each week’s topic. Books by Mao Zedong, Sam Marcy and Che Guevara, and FIST’s “What is Marxism all about?” were snapped up as the classes progressed.

A presentation of 30 or 40 minutes by the class leader, Caleb Maupin of FIST, would be followed by lively discussion periods lasting anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes. The presentation was recorded each week and posted to Cleveland FIST’s YouTube channel. The classes, which can be accessed from anywhere, can prove useful to anyone beginning to study the revolutionary continuity of Marxism.

The liveliest and best-attended class was “History has absolved Cuba.” Participants eagerly shared their excitement, knowledge and long experience defending and supporting that country’s communist course. They also related many useful and constructive personal anecdotes about local and national solidarity efforts. A class participant who had been to Cuba gave some concrete insights into daily life in that country.

Common to all the classes were the basic need for revolutionary mass work in existing working-class institutions (unions, oppressed peoples’ organizations); the importance of independent working-class political action apart from and opposed to the capitalist parties; and the need for workers’ organizations to build alliances with the struggles of nationalities, women, youth and the lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer communities against oppression.

The classes were advertised by leafleting on a local college campus and sending e-mails to contacts made at other local political activities. A Facebook page was also created. All these efforts attracted young people becoming interested in politics.

The scope, knowledge and confidence gained by looking at the world from a working-class perspective will be irreplaceable as we combat Fox News-style ruling-class slanders and move forward with a campaign to abolish capitalism and reawaken the struggle for world socialism.

Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Statement from WWP Cleveland Branch

2010-12-17T17:12:00.001-08:00

ON THE OCCASION OF THE 40th YEAR OF THE DETROIT BRANCH OF WORKERS WORLD PARTY.

We in Cleveland, take great inspiration from the Detroit branch.

The Detroit Branch has historically shown vision, leadership, and understanding of the class struggle. It has been the center of mass campaigns bringing slogans such as “Food Is A Right”, “A Job Is A Right”, Moratorium Now!, and “Oil Belongs to the People!” to the masses, and then translating them into mass actions, confronting the ruling class and calling into question the capitalist bosses right to rule over the people.

Through its excellent educational programs, the Detroit Branch has stressed the need to not only overthrow capitalism, but to replace it with socialism.

Fight on Detroit Comrades! Let your revolutionary efforts never be forgotten, and let them blossom into a center of working-class power. The workers and oppressed will move forward to their rightful place as rulers of society, and a new socialist world will bloom into being, amidst the ruins of this rotten cesspool of exploitation.

CONTINUE TO WAGE WAR AGAINST THE CAPITALIST CLASS AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY!

FIGHT FOR A SOCIALIST DETROIT, A SOCIALIST UNITED STATES, AND A SOCIALIST WORLD!

Cleveland Branch of Workers World Party

Keep The Trauma Center Open! Save Huron Road!

2010-11-05T01:45:00.000-07:00

Workers World: What The Elections Weren't

2010-11-05T01:44:00.000-07:00

Editorial From The Latest Issue Of Workers World

The election returns are still coming in as we write this, so we reserve comment on those questions that can be clarified once there is more data. However, there are several important observations that can be made, even at this early hour.

This midterm election came as workers in the United States were trying to deal with a third year of major job losses, foreclosures and evictions, and a significant rise in poverty.

At the same time, the Wall Street billionaires claim to have turned the corner — on profits, not on hiring workers or on the general state of the economy. And so we can read once again about the millions and even billions of dollars channeling into the pockets of the already very rich, even while at least 30 million unemployed and underemployed workers literally don’t know when they’ll ever get a decent paycheck again and tens of millions more are fearful that they, too, can fall into the abyss. With their families, this adds up to a third of the population.

Where was this expressed in the election? If we look at the campaigns run by both Republicans and Democrats, how much hope could be gleaned from what they said?

Did any of them even whisper about the need for a government jobs program that would take the huge government revenues amassed from taxes on workers and spend them on hiring people into real jobs at real wages? That would have gotten a response. But who can get excited about promises that tax breaks to corporations and the rich will somehow produce jobs? Isn’t that what both Democrats and Republicans have prescribed over the last two years — and it hasn’t worked? So only the corporations that stand to make millions from these tax breaks are excited — and they’ve funded this election like money was water.

Considering all the hope expressed by the majority of voters in 2008 that racism could be overcome and discrimination and oppression be a thing of the past, did any of the “major” party candidates take a strong stand against the fear-mongering and scapegoating by Fox News and the Tea Party types? Did they stand up for the rights of immigrants, women, Black people, Latinos/as, Native people, Muslims, lesbian, gay, bi and transgender people? Or were they running for cover from the racist and xenophobic lies of the right-wing, even as the economic crisis takes its fiercest toll on people of color, devastating once-booming cities like Detroit and Cleveland?

The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are still under the gun, their countries occupied by foreign troops using futuristic weapons to keep the people from exercising their right to real self-determination — which can never be imposed by invaders and their political puppets. Does either “major” party admit to what so many people already know in their bones — that these are wars for oil; that Wall Street and the Pentagon have a vested interest in the region and will spend our young people’s lives and trillions of our dollars pursuing fabulous profits while budgets at home are cut to the bone and the environment is degraded even further?

Much has been written about how potential voters in this election, especially young people who were the strongest supporters of Obama in 2008, are disgusted, demoralized, anxious, disillusioned and scared. It has not been reported yet how this affected the turnout at the polls. Did many formerly Democratic voters switch to Republican — or did they just stay at home? Did some workers even wind up opting for Republicans out of fear and anger with the incumbents?

Either way, they will have their eyes opened soon. Whether it’s Republicans or Democrats who control the House and Senate, the layoffs will continue. The foreclosures will continue. Capital will continue to run to where wages are lowest and profits are highest. This crisis of capitalism is not going away and neither big business party has an answer for the working class.

In New York state, this election saw the emergence of a promising new party, the Freedom Party. It represents a break with the Democrats by Black and Latino/a forces that is reaching out to the masses on the question of self-determination for these oppressed nations. The party got tens of thousands of signatures to be on the ballot. Hopefully, it will continue to challenge the racist powers that be.

The way ahead is uncharted. But all of history tells us that material conditions determine consciousness. It was the wretched conditions for labor in the 1800s that led to the development of Marxism, scientific socialism, the first unions and the first international organizations of the working class. It was the whip of racist reaction that led to the movements for civil rights and Black liberation. It was the oppression built into capitalism that led to the struggles for women’s rights and LGBTQ liberation.

Now the whole working class in this country, including all its specially oppressed sectors that take the lead in consciousness and organization, faces a long, hard struggle against a vicious capitalist, imperialist system in decline. Breaking out of the political straightjacket of the two-party system becomes imperative as this class struggle intensifies.

In New York, three upcoming events will help push the envelope of struggle. The first two occur Nov. 6 at St Mark’s Church on the Bowery. From noon to 4 p.m., activists will meet for a regional conference building for an April 9, 2011, anti-war mobilization. Then, from 6:30 to 8:30, the first national meeting of the National Committee to Stop FBI Repression will be held. (see iacenter.org)

Threading through these problems and looking at what comes next will the focus of the Workers World Party’s National Conference on Nov. 13-14 in New York. We hope to see you all there.

Mayor Jackson Files Injunction Against Cleveland Clinic In Response to Protests!

2010-10-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

Video from Oct. 22nd Rally in Cleveland - "Stop Police Brutality!"

2010-10-23T16:27:00.001-07:00

Student Protester Acquitted in Cleveland Juvenile Court

2010-10-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

By Caleb T. Maupin
Cleveland
Published Oct 14, 2010 10:07 PM

DeAsia Bronaugh, a Black high school student, was acquitted on all charges on Oct. 7 in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court.

The charges, including felonious assault on a police officer, stemmed from an incident on May 13 when she and fellow students walked out of Collinwood High School to protest plans to close more than 40 Cleveland schools and lay off hundreds of teachers.

DeAsia and her sister, Destini, assembled on the sidewalk to demonstrate with classmates and community members who had come to support the student-organized protest.

A school security guard testified that inside the school a crowd of approximately 200 students were trying to join the demonstration outside. Fearing that the student protest could turn into a much larger confrontation with the powers that be, he called the cops.

Three police cars met the small crowd of students rallying outside the school. A video taken at the scene showed that the officers began roughly grabbing students and arresting them for violating Cleveland’s daytime curfew law that applies specifically to school-age youth.

DeAsia was arrested, although she was not in violation of the curfew, since she was being escorted by her older sister, who was 19 years old. She was therefore legally outside of school. When DeAsia, who was 16 at the time, was grabbed by an officer, she embraced her sister as Destini attempted to explain the situation.

Rather than listen, the police roughly pulled them apart. Destini called out, “We were protesting at our school, and they’re trying to arrest us!”

They were both slammed against a car. Then they were thrown to the ground. Officers shoved their knees into the necks of both young women. Destini cried out, “I’m having an asthma attack.”

The officer responded, “You’re about to get tased!”

Both young women sustained serious injuries as a result of the violent arrest.

Two organizers from Cleveland FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) had heard about the walkout and came to support the students. One videotaped the entire confrontation and alerted the media. Soon the images of police brutality were widely circulated by local television and newspapers.

A defense committee was established. The International Action Center set up an online petition that alerted the press, local officials and others that thousands of people around the country were greatly concerned about the events at Collinwood.

Terry Gilbert, a well-known radical attorney who has famously represented Leonard Peltier and other members of the American Indian Movement, took the case of the young women. The Oppressed People’s Nation, a local group of young community organizers, came to the aid of the family as well.

At the trial of DeAsia Bronaugh on Oct. 6 and 7, it came out that Officer Robert Taylor, one of those who brutalized DeAsia, had also shot a 16-year-old boy in the back in 2002. The family of Ricardo Mason, the young man Taylor had killed, sued and won a settlement of more than $1 million.

The video of the confrontation was a key piece of evidence at DeAsia’s trial. The prosecution tried to claim that while both her feet were in the air, DeAsia had tried to kick the police officers.

Magistrate Jeffrey Ehrbar wasn’t buying it. Right after the prosecution finished presenting its case, he dismissed all the charges on a motion from Gilbert.

Ehrbar told the prosecutor, “I watch professional wrestling.” He said he found it extremely unlikely that young DeAsia had carried out a dropkick, a difficult feat of athleticism when confronted by three police officers each weighing more than 200 pounds.

After the charges were dismissed, DeAsia and her mother, Tina Bronaugh, embraced with tears of joy.

On Nov. 15 Destini Bronaugh will face charges of resisting arrest and obstructing an official proceeding in Cleveland Municipal Court.

Organizers in Cleveland are gearing up for another victory, when this young woman is also acquitted and the Cleveland police are once again called out for their brutality.

Maupin, a member of Cleveland FIST, took the video used in DeAsia Bronaugh’s trial.
Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Victory for DeAsia Bronaugh! Acquitted on all charges!

2010-10-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to all of those who signed the online petition set up by the International Action Center, attended the demonstrations in support of Bronaugh Sisters, and did not allow the media's slanderous claims to get in the way of the truth. The victory in the courtroom belongs to the entire working class. It was the result of the mass pressure and refusal to back down on the part of countless individuals who supported DeAsia and her sister, as well as a great deal of bravery on the part of the sisters and their mother. We must now move forward, and fight for a similar victory for the Whitby family, and for DeAsia's older sister, Destini, also facing charges.

"Power Concedes Nothing Without Struggle!" - Frederick Douglas.

From Scene Magazine:

http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2010/10/08/deasia-bronaugh-wins-in-juvenile-court

DeAsia Bronaugh Wins in Juvenile Court

by Kyle Swenson

Throughout the summer we’ve kept readers dialed-in to the fates of Destini and DeAsia Bronaugh, the teen sisters who tangled with Cleveland Police at a protest outside of Collinwood High School in May. The girls were subject to a rough arrest, and the entire incident was caught on tape by Scene’s favorite Marx-toting community organizers, Caleb Maupin and Adam Gluntz. The clip, below, was shown on media outlets across the city, stirring up talk of police brutality. After some uncertainty, county prosecutors went ahead and charged the two with felonies, and the younger girl — 17-year-old DeAsia — went on trial this week in juvenile court.

DeAsia was looking down the barrel at two felony counts of assault on a police officer. The proceedings went before Magistrate Jeffrey Ehrbar and were held in a dank, cramped courtroom of the Juvenile Justice center. Juvenile proceedings are usually closed to the public, but due to the high-profile nature of the case, the family asked and was granted an open trial. Flanked by her mother Tina and backed by a small group of supporters, DeAsia quietly sat at a desk in the courtroom throughout two days of testimony.

The trial only got as far as the state’s case. Key to the charges was the prosecution’s assertion that during the struggle with police DeAsia attempted to kick one of the officers in the face. The prosecution called school security guards and the arresting police officers on the stand to bolster the claim.

Well-known courtroom vet Terry Gilbert handled the defense. With his amped-up cross-examinations, he pretty much tapped danced over testimony of police; much of the back and forth focused on whether or not DeAsia actually intended to kick the officer or if her foot just happened to be dangling in the vicinity. Maupin’s video was repeatedly played in slow-motion. Things got wonky, like an extended bit on what may exactly constitute a “kick.”

By the time the state was finished, Gilbert made a motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the prosecution failed to make its case against the girl. Ehrbar agreed and tossed the charges.

“ We’re exuberant,” Tina Bronaugh told Scene in the hallway after the trial. “We’re just so happy for our DeAsia. Now we have to worry about Destini.”

Destini, 19, goes on trial later this month.

Stop FBI Terror - Protest Tuesday!

2010-09-26T16:05:00.000-07:00

Friends and Comrades,

In response to the brutal and unjustified FBI raids on the homes of leader of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a call for a day of protests around the country has been made for Tuesday, Sept. 28th.

On Tuesday, Sept. 28th, at 4:00, the Bail Out The People Movement, Workers World Party, Cleveland FIST, and the People's Fightback Center have called a protest.

We will begin at E. 9th and Lakeside in front of the Federal Building, at 4:00. We will march to the FBI office at 4:15.

We must not allow these attacks on progressive activists to continue.

Investigate Banksters, not Socialists!

Hand off Activists!

Down with FBI Terror!

An injury to one is an injury to all!

Jobs Not Jails!

Fighting for Justice is not a Crime!

Money For Schools, Homes, and Jobs, NOT FBI TERRORISM!

For info, call: 330-347-5473

or e-mail: pfcenter@gmail.com

Thousands March for Jobs, Justice, & Peace

2010-09-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

By David Sole
Detroit
Published Sep 1, 2010 6:31 PM

Some 5,000 protesters marched and rallied in downtown Detroit on Aug. 28 demanding jobs, peace and justice. A coalition of unions, community groups and churches, called together by United Auto Workers international union President Bob King and Rainbow/PUSH leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., backed the action.

Workers and the unemployed throughout southeast Michigan were joined by delegations from Cleveland; Chicago; Toledo, Ohio; and other Midwest locations to express their anger and frustration at the economic crisis and social injustice. This was also the first time in anyone’s memory that the largest unions marched against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Union delegations were prominent from the UAW; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, including many city of Detroit workers facing tremendous attacks; Service Employees; and other area unions.

Many community groups participated. Arab and Muslim delegations marched along with Latinos Unidos/United of Michigan. Members of Planned Parenthood, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and the Coalition of Labor Union Women were in the streets. Warriors on Wheels, a local disability-rights activist group, led the march just in front of the lead banner carried by the dignitaries.

The official march signs of “Rebuild America: Jobs, Justice, Peace” were supplemented throughout the crowd with hundreds of signs produced by activists from the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs and the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice.

Marchers from all over grabbed up these signs, which proclaimed “Jobs Not War!” “We Need a Massive, WPA-style Public Jobs Program Now!” “Money for our Cities, Not for War!” “Moratorium NOW! to Stop Foreclosures!” “Bring the Troops Home Now!” “Overturn Arizona Apartheid, Jobs Not Racism!” and “Bail Out the People, Not the Banks!”

As the thousands of protesters gathered on Detroit’s riverfront, activists from Moratorium NOW! and MECAWI conducted a spirited rally from the back of a pickup truck mounted with a huge loudspeaker.

Fighters against foreclosures called on the crowd to get involved in direct action against evictions and to march on the banks.

Anti-war activists explained how the cost of a jobs program, health care and education for all could be paid for by the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from around the world. A speaker from the immigrant rights struggle urged U.S.-born workers not to be fooled into thinking that immigrants were the problem.

The sound truck then positioned itself in the front of the thousands of marchers and led chants along the entire route. The crowd picked up slogans calling for jobs and education, not war, as well as many other demands.

The closing rally at Grand Circus Park featured mainly prominent religious leaders and politicians. Many urged the militant crowd to vote Democratic in the November elections. But others who were very well received by the people made it clear that waging a struggle is needed. Congressperson Maxine Waters announced, “It’s time to move. It’s time to get up and fight. Banks — we’re coming after you!”

Detroit attorney Vanessa Fluker fired up the crowd with her denunciation of the banks and the federal and state programs supposed to help workers and poor people avoid being foreclosed upon. She called on the crowd to get into the streets to directly stop foreclosures and evictions and announced a Sept. 1 demonstration at Bank of America in downtown Detroit to save the home of Michelle Hart, who was in the crowd.

Workers World Party activists passed out hundreds of leaflets for a Sept. 11 forum featuring Fred Goldstein, author of Low-Wage Capitalism, and the Sept. 18 WWP Midwest conference in Chicago. Six hundred copies of Workers World newspaper were eagerly grabbed up by marchers.

Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Thousands Rally Against Hate

2010-09-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

Subways Belong To The People!

2010-09-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

Gavrielle Gemma Testifies before the NYC Transit Authority.

Adam Gluntz on Iran and the U.S.

2010-07-31T20:09:00.001-07:00

Leilani Dowell of NYC FIST: Imperialism at home and abroad

2010-07-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Cleveland Scene: The Commies Next Door...

2010-07-27T23:45:00.000-07:00

by Kyle Swenson

(from the latest issue of Cleveland Scene)

Caleb Maupin would like you to know he's not a super-villain, despite what you may have seen on TV. A communist? Sure. But he's not out to indoctrinate your children. Not yet.

The 22-year-old is chatty and affable, a skinny pale kid with a burning bush of unruly red hair. When it comes to talking politics, he's obviously done his homework: facts, dates, obscure legislation, the fates of forgotten labor leaders, snippets of protest songs — in conversation he drops all forms of arcana from the annals of the American left. In part, he's learned the game as a careful student of history, but he also sees himself as an inheritor of the radical tradition.

Maupin is the leader of a small group of like-minded communists called Cleveland FIST, the local arm of a national youth organization. Maupin's sidekick is Adam Gluntz, a stocky blond philosophy student from Baldwin-Wallace College. Together, they're a straight-faced Laurel and Hardy of liberal radicalism: two white guys from suburban and rural backgrounds who have inserted themselves at the forefront of the local far-left.

While most young Marxists may be content to rap about Mao in the dorm room between bong rips, these guys take a more sober and proactive approach to kick-starting their revolution. They attend nearly every public demonstration held in the area, from immigration rallies to protests against police brutality. This is not necessarily an easy world to inhabit: Far from big-budget political establishment, the radical left is a mix of old-school union types and inner-city activists, groups that can be distrustful of anyone new, mainstream, and — in many cases — white. But Maupin and Gluntz have quickly become fixtures in this crowd. By the end of the month, they plan to leave their Berea stomping grounds and move into a house in Collinwood. It gets them closer to Cleveland's working class — and to the scene of their first mainstream attention.

In mid-May, the pair got wind of a student walkout at Collinwood High School and showed up with a video camera in time to see two young girls arrested by Cleveland police. After their clip of the rough arrest went public, the TV news and community leaders suggested Maupin was some kind of agent provocateur out of a '50s comic book, orchestrating the protest and using the kids as pawns in his Marxist agenda.

"They acted like I was some communist Snidely Whiplash twirling my mustache," Maupin says. "We're trained in this country from the time that we're little to believe that communism is a devilish, evil ideology — that communists are all just big and scary — not to engage the actual political beliefs."

Maupin and Gluntz admit their group is small — fewer than ten active members — but the two aren't afraid to dive headfirst into the class and race issues still brewing in Cleveland. At times it seems they might be the only ones paying attention.

Maupin grew up in red, white, and blue-blooded Orrville, the oldest son in one of the only liberal families on the block. Politics was a common topic of conversation in the household, and a young Maupin got an early taste of the picket line when his mother and other Stark County librarians went on strike. As he got older, he spent most of his free time reading, eventually cracking open The Communist Manifesto in the fifth grade. Hooked on the message, Maupin read his way through other communist staples and began contacting local socialist groups about how he could get involved. By 19, he was a member of the Workers World Party, one of the largest communist groups in America.

In 2006, Maupin took up political science at Baldwin-Wallace. But once classes began, he became disappointed with the beer-bong dilettantism and unengaged attitude of most of the student body.

"I came to college because I wanted to learn — political theory, international politics, all of it. Other students weren't there to learn; they were there to get their grade and get a job . . . and they're going to be lucky if they have a job at this point," he says.

Shortly thereafter, Maupin met Gluntz, a B-W music student from Hudson. The two shared an interest in politics, despite Gluntz's conservative leanings at the time. They spent long nights talking politics at a nearby Denny's, and eventually Maupin drafted his friend into the communist ranks. Now boasting a Trotsky to his Lenin, Maupin founded the local chapter of FIST and dropped out of school to focus full time on activism.

Their timing may have been right on. Marxism today — more than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall — is enjoying a bit of a new vogue on the American scene. The philosophy has become the favorite boogieman of the right-wing media, and as anyone who's spent time at a Tea Party or two can tell you, the denizens of that particular corner of the spectrum are convinced that Obama has swapped every Bible in the White House for a copy of Das Kapital.

Despite the negative attention, socialist groups believe their message is ripe for the times. Tagging the Great Recession as the endgame of the capitalist project, they claim they've seen fresh interest in socialism and Marxist theory, especially among young people who've come of age amid bank bailouts, a manic stock market, and record unemployment.

Frances Dostal is one of the ideology's old-timers with confidence in a communist future, thanks largely to a new youth movement. Now in her eighties, she's spent the lion's share of the century working the frontlines of social causes from civil rights to the anti-war movement. Dostal says she's seen a growing number of younger socialists become involved in hard-hit Rust Belt cities like Detroit; she believes Maupin and Gluntz could be the spark of a wider local resurgence. "[Maupin's] energy is just incredible," she says. "I have hopes they'll continue to bring in interest."

Maupin and Gluntz say their presence in Cleveland's inner city and working classes has drummed up curiosity in their philosophy. There are obstacles, they admit. For one, they say many in the working class don't see that liberal political organizations and unions have lost touch with the people they purportedly serve. Such groups, they believe, only lubricate the interests of the mainstream political and business machine.

"ACORN's goal is to get Democrats elected and raise money for the party," Gluntz says. "They may benefit people in the process, but ultimately their interest is for themselves. Their job is to capture people's anger they have about economic and political issues, and channel it into the party." He believes unions have fallen into a similar situation, with the ruling caste in bed with the bosses, rather than openly fighting for workers' rights.

"That's what being a communist is about: organizing our class — the working class — to organize along their own interests," he says.

That disconnect between liberal groups and the people they claim to serve may have been spotlighted with the Collinwood incident. On May 13, Collinwood students staged a walkout — a bit of social disobedience tied to recent budget cuts. Maupin and Gluntz say they were contacted before the event on Facebook by a student organizer. The pair attended in a show of support, but say they had nothing to do with the planning.

But while there, the two captured video of Cleveland police arresting two teenage girls, Destini and DeAsia Bronaugh, ages 19 and 17. The video shows four officers slamming the girls against a cruiser and dropping them face-down on the pavement. (The girls both face charges stemming from the incident.) Maupin and Gluntz took their footage to area TV stations; the next day, a protest was held outside the school calling for the Bronaugh sisters' release. TV crews showed up.

The WKYC report that ran later that day clearly suggests Maupin was the mastermind behind the events. Anchor Ramona Robinson says the protest included "some adults, whose motives for being there have been questioned." At one point in reporter Dick Russ' clip, Maupin is introduced with a slow-motion shot, as if he were an action-movie evildoer marching toward a showdown. The segment also includes clips of a clearly agitated Maupin denying any role in the walkout; nevertheless, Russ later mentions suspicions that the Marxists had "duped and manipulated the Collinwood kids."

Community leaders echoed the accusation. In the segment, NAACP Executive Director Stanley Miller states that he thought "there are some other people out here with different intentions that are trying to take advantage and direct the thinking of these kids. And that's a problem."

Maupin believes he was fingered because the media and community leaders would rather blame a Red for the incident than talk about police brutality. Tina Bronaugh, the mother of the two girls, agrees.

"[The police] beat up my girls, they threw them in jail, and now they're putting them through these charges," she says. "I can't see how this goes on and nobody says anything. [Maupin] saw something that was unjust, and he stood up," she says. "I don't see a lot of other people doing that here."

Send feedback to kswenson@clevescene.com.

Mass Protests Against School Re-Segregation in North Carolina

2010-07-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

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Rally for Destini & DeAsia Bronaugh

2010-07-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

Rally for Rebecca Whitby

2010-07-10T03:51:00.000-07:00

Glenn Beck Champions U.S. Pro-Nazi Text

2010-07-10T00:00:00.001-07:00

By Caleb T. Maupin
Published Jul 9, 2010 11:12 PM

Glenn Beck, an extreme right-wing pundit of television and radio, has shown his outrageous racism and anti-working-class sentiments once again when he told us that Barack Obama “has a deep-seated hatred for white people” and that a massive “invasion” by undocumented workers “threatens our America.”

Beck’s anti-communism is not new, either. But he made clear his dedication to the capitalist system and racism on June 4 in a pseudo-historical lecture on his radio show. Proclaiming that the author “was doing the same things that we are doing now,” Beck promoted “The Red Network,” a book written in 1934 by virulent anti-communist Elizabeth Dilling.

The book is a tract of conspiracy theories attempting to link high government officials in the Roosevelt administration with the U.S. Communist Party and the Soviet Union. It is full of confused logic, giant leaps and baseless presumptions.

Dilling would have you believe that the very government that had just sent the National Guard to mow down communist-led strikers in Minneapolis and San Francisco was itself controlled by the Kremlin. Dilling’s text stands out, however, for its unapologetic racism and support for the newly installed regime of Adolph Hitler in Germany.

It apologizes for the massive repression and arrests of Jews by the Nazi regime, saying that most of the victims were only “Russian Jews” bent on “Red terrorist revolution” and that “German nationalist Jews” would remain untouched. Dilling portrayed the Black liberation movement as communists manipulating oppressed people to inflame them against whites.

Later in life, Dilling wrote another book called “The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today.” Originally entitled “The Plot Against Christianity,” it blamed Jewish people for all the world’s problems. Dilling toured the U.S. in 1940 as part of the “America First Committee,” a group of fascist sympathizers who opposed war with Germany. Dilling herself was very supportive and most likely a member of the German-American Bund, a U.S. Nazi group that used the swastika as its official symbol and marched in full brown-shirt regalia.

Was Glenn Beck correct in stating that Elizabeth Dilling was “doing the same thing” he is doing? Absolutely.

In the 1930s the global capitalist economy had collapsed, and millions were cast into poverty and misery. However, a strong and powerful movement of the working class finally erupted.

Unemployed workers staged mass hunger marches and even burst into the Capitol building, challenging members of Congress to provide them with jobs or an income. Southern textile workers, organizing their workplaces with the help of the interracial, communist-led Trade Union Unity League, armed in self-defense against gun-toting company goons.

In Harlem, Black artists and writers like Langston Hughes raised the demands of racial equality and self-determination for the Black community. Mass women’s organizations demanded a constitutional declaration of gender equality, which already existed in the Soviet Union.

The capitalists could not smash these heroic uprisings with their usual bag of tricks. Many began throwing money and other support behind the fascist movement. They attacked the administration of Franklin Roosevelt as “soft on communism,” even though Roosevelt’s reforms were in fact aimed at saving capitalism.

Many describe fascism as “capitalism in decay.” The fascists were ideologically trained racists and defenders of the capitalist class. However, their propaganda pretended to be “revolutionary” and, in some cases, “anti-capitalist.”

Fascists recruited alienated individuals by channeling their rage into attacks on oppressed people and the revolutionary movement. For example, while pretending to be “revolutionary,” the fascist Citizens’ Alliance and Black Legions attacked striking autoworkers in Flint, Mich., who were demanding that the millionaire bosses recognize their right to unionize.

The Dillings of our day

Today, at a time when long-term unemployment is at its highest level since the Depression and millions are losing their homes, the movement directed by the Glenn Becks and the “Tea Party” is calling for “liberty” and an end to “big government.” Instead of attacking the capitalist class and the banks that have impoverished the workers, its target are social programs and the millions who receive very minor assistance in place of a job or livable income.

After first coming out — with much support from the medical corporations — to oppose even the meager health care reform introduced by the Obama administration, these right-wingers soon switched their focus to anti-immigrant racism. These “champions of liberty” defend the racist Arizona law that allows police to search “suspected” undocumented workers and demand proof of legal status at any time. They also try to block women’s right to reproductive choice.

While White House journalist Helen Thomas was accused of anti-Semitism and forced to resign for defending the Palestinian people, Glenn Beck can openly champion the writings of a Nazi and continue to earn millions. What better exposes the two-faced capitalist ruling class and media?

Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Pro-Palestine Rally in Cleveland

2010-07-02T20:14:00.002-07:00

Comedians Plans For Cleveland Aren't Funny

2010-07-02T20:14:00.001-07:00

By Caleb T. Maupin
Cleveland
Published Mar 25, 2010 8:17 PM

Cleveland, like many other industrial cities in the “rust belt,” has suffered terribly in the economic crisis. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment in Ohio is at 10.8 percent. (bls.gov) The Cleveland Police Department wages a reign of terror against oppressed people, and seeks to jail young Rebecca Whitby for daring to file a complaint after suffering a police assault in her own home.

Cleveland has just closed 16 school buildings in an effort to reduce costs and deal with funding cutbacks. Neither the communities near the schools nor the students’ parents were consulted, sparking community outrage and protests.

Former Cleveland resident Drew Carey, now a million-dollar entertainer in Los Angeles, proclaims he has the solution. This former sit-com star and current host of “The Price is Right” has produced a four-part documentary called “Reason Saves Cleveland.” In it Carey proclaims that the answer to the woes of his former hometown is extreme cutbacks, privatizations and charter schools. (reason.tv)

Carey’s condescending film gives a distorted history of Cleveland, littered with factual omissions. He claims the boom in Cleveland’s economy following WWII was due to “a business friendly climate.” He never mentions how the Cleveland auto workers occupied General Motors’ Fisher Body plant as part of the 1937 sit-down wave, which started nearby with the Akron rubber workers, and how these strikes won decent wages and union rights for workers and their families.

Carey never mentions the struggles of oppressed people in Cleveland, who rose up heroically against racism numerous times, such as in 1968 when Ahmed Evans did battle with the brutal, racist Cleveland Police Department, or the famous Hough rebellion when the Black working class took to the streets after a restaurant owner hung an illegal Jim Crow-style sign in front of his business establishment.

Cleveland was hardly pro-business when it was the site of the Ohio Industrial Organizing Council, part of the CIO, a grouping of unions that at the time was a radical departure from the AFL. This largely Cleveland-based union was known for its militancy and fighting spirit. Cleveland also was the site of the founding convention of the Trade Union Unity League, a coalition of trade unions which proclaimed the overthrow of capitalism as one of its founding principles.

The TUUL led numerous strikes among Kentucky miners, southern textile workers and countless other groups of workers who were left abandoned by the right-wing AFL. Unlike the other unions of the time, both the TUUL and the CIO made a point of not participating in racist demagogy as was common among their rivals in organized labor.

The TUUL was known for appointing Black communist Harry Haywood to lead the strike of mostly white Pennsylvania miners in order to make a strong stance against racism. The CIO refused to back or defend “hate strikes” by white workers who opposed workplace integration, and was a key ally of the emerging Civil Rights movement.

Carey’s solution to the educational woes of Cleveland seems to be the destruction of the public school system, replacing it with schools run for profit, also called charter schools.

Cleveland resident Kadie Huntsman told Workers World about her experiences as a student at “Life Skills,” one of the city’s charter schools. She said that instead of being taught, she sat at a computer clicking through screens of information while nonunion, low-paid teachers sat silently watching at the end of the room, without a contract and subject to “fire at will” employment.

Greg Owens, another veteran of an Ohio charter school, told WW of how the schools routinely fail students in order to receive more tax dollars to fund teaching “troubled youth.” This practice is sometimes worth three times as much in profits for the school-corporation.

Carey’s “Reason Saves Cleveland” series calls for massive deregulation, cutbacks and destruction of nearly all the gains won by years of struggle on the part of Cleveland workers and oppressed people. The producers of his film, associated with Reason magazine, are openly anti-working class.

The answer for workers and oppressed people in Cleveland is not the economic self-mutilation of Drew Carey’s plan to “save” Cleveland, or the racism, sexism and extreme bigotry of the right-wing elements who funded this “documentary,” revising Cleveland’s history and extolling the virtues of poverty, deregulation and attacks on working people.

The answer is for the workers and oppressed people of Cleveland to join together and fight back in their own interests, demanding their basic human rights to employment, health care, quality education and freedom from repression.
Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Muslim students targeted after anti-Zionist protest

2010-07-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

By Caleb T. Maupin
Published Jul 2, 2010 8:18 AM

The University of California at Irvine is a hotbed of opposition to the Israeli government. Four months ago, the administration and the world looked on with amazement as student after student disrupted the speech of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Video was circulated on YouTube.com and other media sources showing Muslim students call out Oren to his face about the crimes of the Israeli government against the Palestinian people.

Oren, who is U.S. born, began his career in the service of Israel as a paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Forces. In his teens, he had been indoctrinated by various Zionist youth organizations and temporarily lived on a kibbutz in Israel while away from his family’s home in upstate New York. As an Israeli soldier, Oren participated in the invasion of south Lebanon in 1982, during which 1,500 Palestinians and an estimated 17,000 Lebanese were killed. Much of his published writings are devoted to bragging about his role in the invasion.

Oren recently defended Israel’s brutal attack on the Freedom Flotilla bringing aid to Gaza. He has smeared the organization of Turkish supporters of Palestine as “terrorist.” He continues to repeat the lie that the flotilla was bringing guns, not aid, to the Palestinians.

Oren has also dismissed the Goldstone Report, a U.N. investigation documenting Israeli crimes against Palestinians and Lebanese during the 2008-09 invasion of Lebanon, comparing it to Holocaust denial.

Eleven Irvine students were arrested for their activities protesting Ambassador Oren. One was grabbed after shouting out to him, “How many Palestinians did you kill?”

After a mass campaign on their behalf, all criminal charges were dropped. However, the university administration has responded harshly to the student protest, declaring that it intends to ban the Muslim Student Union for one year. The MSU, a campus organization of more than 300 young people, was key in leading the protest.

Campus President Mark Yudof, who openly calls himself a Zionist, supports the administration’s ban. Furthermore, the Zionist Organization of America and other supporters of Israel have called for all Jewish donors to halt contributions to the university unless the students are repressed and punished to their satisfaction.

The MSU students consider this an attack on their freedom of expression and plan to protest it further, demanding that the ban not be implemented. In an article published online, Omar Kurdi, a former member of the MSU and an alumnus of UC Irvine, compared the tactics to McCarthyism. He hailed the planned next wave of aid flotillas to Gaza and added that the students “will continue to speak truth to power, no matter what price they have to pay.”

Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Plain Dealer: Charges Dropped Against Collinwood Students

2010-06-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

From: The Plain Dealer

by Everdeen Mason, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County prosecutors have dropped charges against one of two sisters arrested at a student protest in front of Collinwood High School.

Destini Bronaugh, 19, and her 17-year-old sister were arrested May 13 during the protest over school closings and teacher layoffs. The sisters struggled with four police officers who slammed them against a police car and the sidewalk while handcuffing them.

Bronaugh's charges, assault and resisting arrest, were dropped June 23. Prosecutors and city officials said the charges could be reinstated after more investigation.

"The investigation is continuing," said Andrea Taylor, city spokeswoman. "It should be completed any day now. At the end of the investigative process is when a determination will be made."

Bronaugh's younger sister was charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, aggravated disorderly conduct and violating daytime curfew. The family did not know the status of the girl's charges. No one at the Juvenile Court was available to comment on the case.

Tina Bronaugh, the mother of the arrested students, said her daughters did nothing wrong.

"I believe Cleveland police attacked my daughters in retaliation for student-organized protests," she said at a Monday afternoon rally for the sisters at Collinwood High School.

She was joined by about a dozen members of local grassroots organizations such as Cleveland FIST, the Imperial Women and the Oppressed People's Nation.

"We are glad that the charges have been dismissed against Destini and we hope this case is done," said Kathy Wray Coleman of the Imperial Women, which organized the protest.

Tina Bronaugh said she did not want her children to be used as pawns between the Cleveland Teacher's Union and the city over the schools transformation plan.

"As a mother, I beg them to leave my children alone," she said.

Protestors said that students often complain about police brutality. They also called for the protection of students' right to free speech.

Letter to Workers World Newspaper: "Being Sacrificed on the Altar of Corruption"

2010-06-15T19:57:00.001-07:00

Published Jun 10, 2010 12:08 PM

On April 25, 2009, a concerned father dialed 911 and requested Cleveland police mediation because he feared his adult daughter would drive her vehicle after coming home from a dinner date where she’d consumed alcohol. CPD responded to the call — with two officers which increased to 10-12 later who were all Caucasian — the family is African-American — in the Collinwood area by punching the daughter in the face and body, kicking, body slamming, and tasering her. They then charged Rebecca Whitby with assault on them and a myriad of other felonies while charging the mother (also named Rebecca) with multiple charges including obstruction of justice for attempting to use her body as a shield to protect her daughter from the vicious beating.

This abridged version of these events, which Caucasian neighbors corroborate, is explained in detail on the family’s website at thealhambraincident.ning.com. The purpose of this narrative however, is to explore a different aspect of this case.

Firstly, despite GOP opinion, this is not a post-racial society and every racial discrimination claim is not an unjustifiable playing of the “race card.” There are powerful people in law enforcement, government, business (and the judiciary) who believe their perceptions of minorities fueled by generational odium, superiority complexes, long-standing racial entitlements forged by hundreds of years of accepted societal practices, as well as other associated malignancies, give them the latitude to augment the rights and liberties of others in a manner inconsistent with evaluations of similar circumstances involving their own family members or those who reside in areas resembling “their neighborhoods.”

Prosecutors would have you believe that a 125-pound, 23-year-old female college student with no criminal record and no reason to throw her freedom away, attacked two police officers each weighing nearly two hundred pounds and was able to take both their weapons. This despite the fact that police officers are specifically trained in submission tactics designed to subdue assailants much larger than young Rebecca.

Additionally, one of these “stellar” public servants allegedly lied on a Bureau of Workman’s Compensation claim saying young Rebecca was high on “wet” when she supposedly attacked him although the toxicology report clearly showed only alcohol in her system. If this officer can make such statements to obtain Workman’s Compensation payments, why would I (or any juror) believe he wouldn’t do the same under oath?

Police brutality is rampant in America. Even Paul Craig Roberts, the former assistant secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan Administration wrote an article in 2007 entitled “America’s Police Brutality Pandemic.” Roberts said police are often guilty of “unprovoked gratuitous violence against persons offering no resistance such as the elderly, women, students, and elected officials. Americans are not safe anywhere from police. Police attack Americans in university libraries, in public meetings, and in their own homes.” Young Rebecca was a student and both mother and daughter endured this travesty “in their own home.”

Another powerful conveyance by Roberts targets the sidestepping of responsibility by police. Roberts states that rather than own up to their misdeeds, “Instead the cops cover up their own crimes by arresting their victims on false charges that are invented to justify the unprovoked police violence against citizens.” He went on to add, “No matter how gratuitous and violent the police brutality, a ‘free’ American citizen can defend himself only at the expense, if not of his life, of a long stay in prison.”

A local journalist, Kathy Wray Coleman, wrote an intriguing article on May 22 tying together common threads of concern with respect to legal incongruities in the Whitby case, the case of Joaquin Hicks — who received 61 years for a crime his family and activists say it was impossible for him to have committed — and the Collinwood students arrested during a protest over teacher layoffs and school closings.

Coleman states that Judge Kathleen Sutula’s appointment to the Whitby case after Judge Stuart Friedman recused himself for fear of being perceived a “racist” is more than a bit suspect. Coleman goes on to say Administrative Judge Nancy Fuerst handpicked Sutula rather than using the conventional “judge’s pool” mechanism of selection.

Was this abuse of process? The evidence clearly points in that direction. Sutula has since recused herself as well and openly apologized to the Rebeccas.

In an imperfect world we have to tolerate imperfect systems, and yes that includes our criminal justice system. This is not to say, however, that we are to accept the notion that an honest mistake should ever be considered synonymous with premeditation and malice conveniently masked as error. It is said that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link; likewise, a criminal justice system that a society must depend on is only as honorable and just as the least ethical component within the framework of its practical application.

Dave Patterson
Former union leader,
a civic activist in Cleveland
Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

David Sole: The Difference Between Fascism and Communism

2010-06-15T19:52:00.000-07:00

A class given by David Sole, leader of Workers World Party in Detroit.

More on videos on youtube. 17 videos total from discussion.

Martin Luther King was a Socialist

2010-06-02T22:38:00.000-07:00

Something that those who think they can "expose" or malign Cleveland FIST by pointing out that we are socialist organization in the media.

The Unraveling of Capitalism

2010-05-27T00:23:00.001-07:00

Editorial From the Latest Issue of Workers World
Published May 26, 2010 1:38 PM

Capitalism just doesn’t work. A recent Pew Research Center poll illustrated this reality when the results showed that fewer and fewer people in the U.S. view capitalism in a positive light, especially among the younger generation. Consider the following facts: Workers by the tens of millions are being downsized out of their jobs or never have had a job to begin with; they cannot afford health care and nutritious food; they are losing their pensions; and they are being foreclosed and evicted out of their homes, all while global warming and pollution, as the BP oil disaster reflects, run amok.

Young people in particular are losing faith in capitalism as public high schools are being closed in alarming numbers, especially in large urban areas. College tuition is out of reach for the vast majority of poor and working-class youth.

And what are the alternatives for young people when education is not an option? The economic military draft and jail. Studies show that a growing number of U.S. states are railroading more Black and Latino/a youth to prison, especially for drug convictions, than are graduating them from state universities. In reality, a whole generation of young people is being criminalized.

And since capitalism is a worldwide system that is sustained by making profits for a small clique of multimillionaires and billionaires, it needs a well-oiled repressive apparatus to try to keep the workers and oppressed disunited and disempowered. This apparatus, also known as the state, includes the mainstream media; all branches of government including local, state and federal; the prisons, jails and courts; the Pentagon and military; and much more.

The ruling class controls these repressive institutions with bourgeois laws and funds them. It uses them as a buffer between themselves — the rich — and the masses.

The most glaring repressive institution is the police. From the first day that children go to school in the U.S., it is engrained into their psyche that the police are there to “protect and serve” the people. But in reality the police as an armed body exist to serve and defend the private property and profits of the capitalist ruling class.

Just as the U.S. military and its puppets oppress the world’s people from Iraq to Afghanistan to Somalia, the police in all their forms oppress the masses at home. For immigrant workers, particularly if they are undocumented, this repression comes in the form of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its armed border patrols carrying out raids and terror in the Southwest and elsewhere.

Millions of youth are stopped and frisked by the cops all over the country for no other reason than for being Black or Latino/a in a poor neighborhood. In New York City alone, 55 percent of the 575,000 people stopped by the police in 2009 were Black. An estimated 25 percent of the overall New York population is Black.

Aiyana Jones, a 7-year-old African-American girl, was fatally shot by Detroit cops after they threw a grenade into her home while she was sleeping with her grandmother. Two Black high school students and sisters, DeAsia and Destiny Bronaugh, were protesting against school closings in Cleveland when they were physically attacked recently by racist police and then arrested.

Ask any striking worker trying to stop a scab from crossing the picket line which side the police are on and they will nine times out of 10 answer, not theirs.

Police may have unions but workers they are not. Workers produce a product or service that is useful and necessary for the whole of society. The police serve as an armed, repressive force above the same laws that exist to keep the workers and oppressed down.

The same Pew poll showed that more and more people are viewing socialism in a less negative way. This encouraging shift in thinking within the most powerful imperialist country bodes well for forwarding the class struggle. But thinking must turn into action and organization in the radical process of replacing capitalism and its rotten class of rich parasites, root and branch, with a socialist system that will empower the workers and meet all of the needs of the people.

Only revolutionary workers’ power can realize a new society that will provide jobs, housing, health care and education as rights and bring an end to police and state terror once and for all.

Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Larry Holmes: "What is Fascism?"

2010-05-27T00:21:00.000-07:00

Community outraged over teen arrests at Collinwood

2010-05-25T12:33:00.001-07:00

Note: we plan to send a correction making it clear that we did not start the protest, but merely went to support it. But aside from this factual error this articles does a good job of not demonizing FIST and is the first media to actually note we are part of national organization.

By James W. Wade III, Call & Post
May 19, 2010, 9:53AM

CLEVELAND – Many are outraged at how Cleveland Police handled the arrest of a 16-year-old girl and a 19-year-old woman at a protest at Collinwood High School over the layoffs in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Collinwood students are screaming for justice saying they were “brutalized” after walking out of school in a form of protest.

Police were called to the high school at 11:30 a.m. and saw two women protesting the layoffs. Police and two students began to argue when police tried to take them into custody for not being in school. The argument turned physical as two police officers tried to put the girls into a police cruiser. There was a struggle and two more officers joined in handcuffing the girls and placing them in the patrol car.

Police charged Destiny Bruno, 19, with obstruction of justice, resisting arrest and aggravated disorderly conduct. A 16-year-old girl was charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and aggravated disorderly conduct and violating daytime curfew. Other students were also given citations for violating daytime curfew and were suspended from school for five days.

“We know for sure that one of the girls was a student at Collinwood, we’re not sure the other one went there,” Police Sgt. Sammy Morris said. “They were outside with the protesters when they should have been in school.”

School officials said 20 students participated in the protest. Officials warned them that if they did not go back inside the building they would be suspended. Six refused and were suspended, officials said.

The group that organized the protest, Cleveland FIST, said in an e-mail that they went to support “a student walk-out at Collinwood High School, which was called by the students to protest the massive school closings.” Fight Imperialism–Stand Together (FIST) is a national group of young activists committed to fighting racism, sexism, oppression of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people, and exploitation of the working class, all of which result from imperialism and capitalism.

The video of the arrest is all over the Internet and shows police using force on the women. The community has been outraged over the treatment. A rally is being planned as a form of demonstration against the brutality used by the police.

The Cleveland school district will close 16 buildings in June and plans to lay off more than 650 teachers and support personnel. The cuts will help avert a $53 million deficit next school year.

In a written statement on the FIST website it stated “The impending layoffs and closure of 16 schools will result in class sizes as high as 45 students in a room. The walkout was a courageous effort to build solidarity between students and members of the Cleveland Teachers Union and other school unions. The brutal assault was a deliberate attempt to intimidate students and crush the potential for labor-student-community solidarity and was a racist attack on the African-American community of Cleveland. We cannot stand for this.”

Teresa Gutierrez "Fighting Racism & Fascism in a Global Capitalist Crisis"

2010-05-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

Larry Hales: "Racism and Fascism in a Global Capitalist Crisis"

2010-05-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

National Leader of FIST, Larry Hales.

Student protest met with police brutality

2010-05-19T14:22:00.001-07:00

By Caleb T. Maupin
Cleveland
Published May 19, 2010 4:25 PM

While leafleting outside Cleveland’s Collinwood High School in support of police brutality survivor Rebecca Whitby, some activists met 16-year-old student Seth Bartlekamp. He announced a student walkout on May 13 to oppose the impending closing of 16 city schools and layoffs of 800 teachers and other school employees across the city’s school district.

With the goal of organizing an action intended to build solidarity among students, teachers and other school workers, Bartlekamp contacted the Cleveland Teachers Union and community organizations about supporting the walkout.

Despite threats Bartlekamp says were made against him and other students by school authorities if they carried out the walkout, he sent out a Facebook message announcing the action. Many students signed on in support and pledged to walk out on May 13, to call for a stop to the school cutbacks, layoffs and closings.

On the morning of the walkout, this writer and Adam Gluntz, organizers for Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST), which also works with Bail Out the People Movement, greeted students who had walked out of school and joined with them.

All the students who participated in the walkout, except Bartlekamp, are African American, as is the majority population at Collinwood High School and throughout the Cleveland school district. They were concerned about the impact of the school cutbacks on the quality of education in their school and their community.

Inside the school, the hallways filled with hundreds of students who wanted to join the walkout. Students reported that in order to prevent them from leaving, the doors were chained shut by school security guards.

Outside the school, the vice principal walked down the steps to speak with those who had walked out and told them he had called the police. When the police arrived, they grabbed the shirts of protesting students and handcuffed them.

Students say that police officers, moving to arrest sisters DeAsia and Destiny Bronaugh, slammed them against a police car and then onto the ground. They say that a police sergeant thrust his knee into Destiny Bruno’s neck and smashed her face into the pavement while she moaned in pain and said she was having an asthma attack. Another officer threatened to use a Taser against her.

She called out, “We were protesting at our school and they’re trying to arrest us!”

As protesters called for the police to let the women go, even the vice principal agreed and called out to the police.

A police officer threatened to arrest those who were videotaping the attack and told them that protests were “unacceptable.”

Maupin, who had videotaped the police assault, and other FIST members posted the video on YouTube and informed area media about it. Organizers were interviewed on radio station WTAM and asked listeners to call the police station to demand the women’s release.

Inside the high school, Bartlekamp reports he and another student were brutally interrogated by the police without a parent or guardian present or even being notified. Bartlekamp says he was threatened with institutionalization if he did not answer their questions and that his mother was threatened with arrest if the protests continued and if she defended her son.

Outrage spread throughout the city as the video of the racist assault became public. About 40 students and other activists defiantly marched to the police station, chanting all the way. Many told of police abuses which occur regularly outside the school and nearby.

An after-school protest against the brutal arrests was called for the next day, when more than 200 students joined the protest as school ended. They loudly chanted, “Save our schools!” and “Money for schools, not the banks!” One student held up a sign reading “Youth need jobs, not jails!” when asked by reporters why he was there.

Some news media red-baited FIST members instead of focusing on the police attack. Martha Grevatt, an autoworker and organizer for the Cleveland chapter of the Bail Out the People Movement, criticized the media for red-baiting the organizers, who had come to the defense of the students being assaulted.

Speaking to the media, Bartlekamp thanked FIST for its support of the student-initiated walkout. Other community members thanked FIST as well.

Cleveland FIST member Maupin said that, “I came here to stand against an injustice and it’s shameful that the media are attacking me for my political beliefs.”

That evening, attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and local civil rights attorney James Hardiman obtained the release of the Bronaugh sisters, after a lengthy meeting with the Cleveland Police Department’s internal affairs section. The women are being charged with assault on a police officer, aggravated disorderly conduct, truancy and resisting arrest.

Support is growing for those arrested. A Collinwood Defense Committee is being organized on behalf of all 12 of the students who joined in the walkout and have been suspended for five days. Also, local and national worker-activists, including educators, have signed a call for trade unionists to support the students.

Organizers request calls to the Fifth District police station at 216-623-5618 and 216-623-6500 to demand all charges against the students be dropped and to protest the police attack against them. They also ask that calls be made to the Cleveland Board of Education at 216-574-8000 and Collinwood High School at 216-451-8782 to demand that the suspensions be rescinded and that Seth Bartlekamp not be expelled.

The Bail Out the People Movement has posted an online petition supporting the students. It asserts that the “Brutal attack was a deliberate attempt to intimidate students and crush the potential to build labor-student-community solidarity and is a racist attack on Cleveland’s African-American community.” Sign on at www.bailoutpeople.org.

Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Larry Hales, National Leader of FIST

2010-05-18T20:33:00.001-07:00

Fred Goldstein on the Economic Crisis in Europe

2010-05-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

Larry Holmes: "Issues in the Mayday Struggle"

2010-05-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

Bronuagh Family Speaks Out Against Brutal Arrests

2010-05-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

Sign Online Petition for Collinwood Students!

2010-05-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

Sign The Online Petition for Collinwood Students

SIGN ONLINE PETITION TO DROP ALL CHARGES AGAINST CLEVELAND
COLLINWOOD HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

RESCIND ALL DISCIPLINARY ACTION INCLUDING SUSPENSIONS AND THREATENED EXPULSIONS

DROP ALL THE CHARGES AND DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS NOW!

STUDENTS COURAGEOUSLY PROTESTING SCHOOL CLOSINGS AND TEACHER LAYOFFS
MUST BE SUPPORTED, NOT PUNISHED

Tell Cleveland Mayor Jackson, Cleveland Police Chief McGrath, Cleveland Schools CEO Sanders, Collinwood H.S. Principal Deborah Moore, Cleveland City Council, Cleveland Board of Education, Ohio Governor Strickland, the Ohio Legislature, the Ohio Congressional Delegation, Education Secretary Duncan, President Obama and members of the Ohio and National media you want ALL CHARGES DROPPED and ALL PUNISHMENT RESCINDED NOW!

Cleveland high school students attacked for protesting layoffs and school cutbacks

On May 13, at 10:30 AM, a small group of Collinwood High School students walked out to protest the layoffs of 800 teachers and other school workers. They were joined by two activists with Fight Imperialism-Stand Together (FIST) who also work with Bail Out the People Movement and were carrying a BOPM banner. By 10:45 Cleveland police had arrived on the scene, most likely after being called by the prinicipal. Cleveland FIST leader Caleb Maupin videotaped the police assault (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpmjnDW-Ys8) The video shows an African-American male being shoved against a police car and a vicious attack on a 19-year old African-American female and her 16-year old sister. The two young women were arrested; the 19-year old has been charged with obstruction of justice, resisting arrest and aggravated disorderly conduct. The 16-year old has been charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, aggravated disorderly conduct and violating daytime curfew. Other students were also given citations for violating daytime curfew and were suspended from school for five days. Walkout organizer Seth Barlekamp and another student were brutally interrogated inside the school by police, who threatened to have Seth institutionalized. Seth’s mother was threatened with arrest if the protests continued. All of the students who participated in the walkout, with the exception of Seth, are African-American, as are the majority of students at Collinwood High and in the Cleveland Public School District. The impending layoffs and closure of 16 schools will result in class sizes as high as 45 students in a room. The walkout was a courageous effort to build solidarity between students and members of the Cleveland Teachers Union and other school unions. The brutal assault was a deliberate attempt to intimidate students and crush the potential for labor-student-community solidarity and was a racist attack on the African-American community of Cleveland. We cannot stand for this!

Call the Fifth District Police station, 216-623-5618 & 216-623-6500 to demand all charges against the students be dropped and to protest the brutal treatment of the students. Call the Cleveland Board of Education, 216-574-8000 and Collinwood High School, 216-451-8782 to demand the suspensions be rescinded and that Seth Barlekamp not be threatened with expulsion.

Youth Need Jobs Not Jails - Photo From Collinwood

2010-05-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

Collinwood High School Stands Up! Video of May 14th Protest

2010-05-15T19:28:00.000-07:00

While Channel 3 Reporter, Dick Russ, attempts to paint a Glenn Beck style portrait of the May 13th Student Walkout as students being "duped" by Marxists, Seth Bartlekamp sets him straight.

Note: I apologize for the shaky footage. It was taken amidst a crowd of over 200 high school students and community supporters, and as I was filming I was being pushed from behind by volunteer security forces mobilized by the local elected officials to contain and diffuse the students.

This video shows students from Collinwood High School gathering in a crowd of several hundred chanting “save our schools!” Later, Martha Grevatt is shown responding the media attempts to claim the protest was part of Caleb Maupin’s “communist agenda.” Devin Branch, a local organizer with the October 22nd Coalition, is seen engaging in a discussion with a leader of the local SEIU. Devin Branch says “I am ready to accept a level of disorganization the part of the youth to make up for the lack of militancy and the complacency of the adults.” Devin Branch makes it clear that he feels the attacks on local Marxists and Cleveland FIST for supporting the student led protest are hypocritical, when NAACP and other forces ignored the students demands and have done very little to stop the destruction of the Cleveland Public School system.

HELP THE STUDENTS!

Call the Fifth District Police station, 216-623-5618 & 216-623-6500 to demand all charges against the students be dropped and to protest the brutal treatment of the students. Call the Cleveland Board of Education, 216-574-8000 and Collinwood High School, 216-451-8782 to demand the suspensions be rescinded and that Seth Barlekamp not be threatened with expulsion.

Labor Support for the Collinwood Students

2010-05-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

Emergency Labor Call-in Campaign

Defend pro-labor Cleveland high school students attacked for protesting layoffs and school cutbacks

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

On May 13, at 10:30 AM, a small group of Collinwood High School students walked out to protest the layoffs of 800 teachers and other school workers. By 10:45 Cleveland police had arrived on the scene, most likely after being called by the principal. This video by Caleb Maupin, a supporter of the students, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpmjnDW-Ys8) shows an African-American male being shoved against a police car and a vicious attack on a 19-year old African-American female and her 16-year old sister. The two young women were arrested; the 19-year old has been charged with obstruction of justice, resisting arrest and aggravated disorderly conduct. The 16-year old has been charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, aggravated disorderly conduct and violating daytime curfew. Other students were also given citations for violating daytime curfew and were suspended from school for five days. Walkout organizer Seth Barlekamp and another student were brutally interrogated inside the school by police, who threatened to have Seth institutionalized. Seth’s mother was threatened with arrest if the protests continued. All of the students who participated in the walkout, with the exception of Seth, are African-American, as are the majority of students at Collinwood High and in the Cleveland Public School District.

The impending layoffs and closure of 16 schools will result in class sizes as high as 45 students in a room. The walkout was a courageous effort to on the part of the students build solidarity between students and members of the Cleveland Teachers Union and other school unions. The brutal assault was a deliberate attempt to intimidate students and crush the potential for a grass roots labor-student-community movement to defend public education and stop layoffs—in both the public and private sector. The proliferation of private, non-union “charter schools” makes such a movement all the more needed. We need to bail out the schools, not the banks. Labor must also protest what was clearly a racist attack on the African-American community of Cleveland. We cannot stand for this! Labor must stand behind those in the community who stand behind us—especially our youth!

Call the Fifth District Police station, 216-623-5618 & 216-623-6500 to demand all charges against the students be dropped and to protest the brutal treatment of the students. Call the Cleveland Board of Education, 216-574-8000 and Collinwood High School, 216-451-8782 to demand the suspensions be rescinded and that Seth Barlekamp not be threatened with expulsion.

A support demonstration took place Friday, May 14, at 2:30 PM outside the school received wide media coverage.

Further updates will follow. Please help build labor support for these courageous teenagers by spreading the word to your union sisters and brothers—let the anti-union, anti-youth forces in Cleveland know that labor is watching them. Please email Grevatt.m@gmail.com if you want your name added to this appeal.

In Solidarity,

Martha Grevatt, Chair, Civil and Human Rights Committee, UAW Local 122*

Susan Schnur, Board member, Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 268*

Sharon Danann, American Federation of Government Employees, Local 2089*

John Catalinotto, member Professional Staff Congress, NYSUT, (Bronx Community College)*

Susan E. Davis, National Writers Union, UAW 1981*

Steve Gillis, Vice President, USW Local 8751, the Boston School Bus Drivers' Union

Bryan G. Pfeifer, Staff Organizer, Union of Part-Time Faculty (UPTF-AFT), Wayne State University, Detroit*

Joan Marquardt, Unemployed legal office support worker

Dan La Botz , National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981

Merrie M. Felder, Milwaukee, WI.

Gabriel Camacho, member of UNITE HERE Local 66L*

Sara Catalinotto, member, United Federation of Teachers Local 2, NYC*

Chuck Mohan, President Guyanese American Workers United

Carole A. Kronberg, Detroit

John Freeman

Brenda Stokely, Million Worker March Movement*

Jeffrey Segal, Louisville, KY

MichiganEmergency Committee Against War & Injustice

Michigan Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and UtilityShut-offs.

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire.

Frank Hammer, Former President, UAW Local 909*

Joseph Balkis, Teamsters*

*for id purposes only

News Channel 3: "Student Walkout Draws Marxists"

2010-05-15T17:27:00.000-07:00

Stanley Miller of NAACP has attempted to present FIST as if we are responsible for the attack on these innocent young women. All who know the facts can see this is a lie.

Seth Bartelkamp faces expulsion. Destiny Bruno and her sister face criminal charges. A fight for justice is needed more than ever.

The fact that the media is reduced to political name calling shows weakness on the part of the establishment. An injustice occurred yesterday in Collinwood, and the people's rage must be heard.

EMERGENCY DEMONSTRATION TO PROTEST ATTACK ON STUDENT WALKOUT AGAINST TEACHER LAYOFFS

2010-05-13T19:52:00.001-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MAY 13, 2010

On Friday, May 14, at 2:30 PM, outside the Fifth District police station at 881 E. 152nd, the Cleveland chapter of Bail Out the People Movement will join Collinwood High School students in protesting the attack on them by Cleveland police on May 13. Twelve students were attacked after they walked out of school to protest plans by the Cleveland Board of Education to lay off 546 teachers.

“This was a vicious attack on students who were peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights,” said BOPM spokesperson Caleb Maupin, who witnessed and videotaped the incident. “They were only defending their right to a decent education and their teachers’ right to a job.

“The walkout began at 10:30 AM, but by 10:45 the police were arresting all twelve students after being called by the principal. I saw one African-American male thrown against the squad car, but the worst brutality was directed against a 19-year old African-American female and her 16-year old sister. As they embraced one another the police forcibly separated the two, threw them to the ground, handcuffed them, put their knees to the students’ heads, and took them downtown. They have been wrongly charged with resisting arrest and face other charges as well. The other ten students were given citations and ordered back to school.

“I later learned that walkout organizer Seth Barlekamp and another student were detained and brutally interrogated by police inside the school, and that Seth was threatened with expulsion.

“Bail Out the People Movement condemns the racist, sexist and anti-youth conduct of the police and the school. This was an attempt to intimidate students and break up their solidarity with the 800 members of the Cleveland Teachers Union and other school unions who stand to lose their jobs, and to force students to accept over a dozen school closings and classes of up to 45 students in an overcrowded room.

“It’s time to bail out public education, not the banks!

“Bail Out the People Movement urges anyone concerned about this incident to call the police station immediately, 216-623-5618 & 216-623-6500 and demand all charges against the students be dropped! Call the Cleveland Board of Education, 216-574-8000, and Collinwood High School, 216-451-8782, and demand the suspensions of the students be rescinded and that the threats to expel and otherwise punish Seth Barlekamp cease.”

Video: Capitalism, an "Ideal"?

2009-05-27T16:16:00.001-07:00

Video: What We Need!!!!!

2009-05-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

Drop The Charges Against Kathy Wray Coleman!!!!!

2009-05-25T23:08:00.000-07:00

UAW Rally For Jobs in Twinsburg!

2009-05-25T22:51:00.000-07:00

Martha Grevatt and Adam Gluntz rile up the crowd!

More Footage from the Protest

A UAW Member Confronts a Spokesperson for Congress

George Galloway Speaks in Cleveland

2009-05-25T22:13:00.000-07:00

This Clip Shows The Introduction

This shows clips from his speech, including responses to the accusation of Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism, as well as the crimes of Zionism.

In This Clip He Speaks of Building the International Aid Brigades to Gaza.

In this clip he answers a question from a Fascist who maintains that Isreal's existance was secured because "the Jews control America." Galloway rips this fascist lie, perpetuated by the Ron Paul/John Birch Society Fascists, to shreds, and exposes it as a tool against the people.

B-W Students Protest Against "Ex-Gay" Speaker

2009-04-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

The B-W Chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ invited an "Ex-Gay" speaker to preach about why homosexuality is a "disease" that must be "cured." Nearly 30 students protested the event, with only about 50 attending in support.

The Picket Line Outside of the Event

A Leader of Campus Crusade for Christ Gives Anti-LGBT and Anti-Woman Rant saying women exist simply to "help men."

A Lesbian B-W Student Challenges the Speaker

Interview with Lesbian Student After the Event is Over

Cleveland FIST Marches With Working People On Wall Street

2009-04-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

Caleb T. Maupin and Brittany Dulay march on Wall Street with the Bail Out the People Movement on April 3rd, 2009.

Other Footage:

Speeches:

Larry Holmes, Workers World Party

Lynne Stewart, Radical Attorney

Charles Barron, Socialist Member of New York City Council

B-W FJC: WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!

2009-03-18T14:18:00.001-07:00

Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council

Emergency Communiqué

WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!

Tonight is an interesting night. We, in the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council, have been distributing leaflets announcing our meeting on this coming Thursday. Through our leafleting, we have found out some interesting facts.

1. We have almost universal support on campus. Not a single person has challenged us, or said they disagree with us. As we were leafleting through one fraternity hall, a crowd of Fraternity Brothers were whipped up into a frenzy of cheers as they saw us leafleting. They told us that they were mad as hell about the prices, and happy that somebody was doing something about it.

2. Our leaflets have been banned by the college administration. As one member of our group was printing out more leaflets in the computer lab, we noticed a lab monitor throwing them away as they were being printed out. We questioned her about it, and she informed us that she had been told by the college administration to throw leaflets with “Food Justice Council” on them away. She said this was because “only official student organizations may post fliers.” This is false. B-W’s campus is decorated with leaflets promoting all kinds of off campus events. Rap concerts, Vector Marketing, Quickstar, rooms for rent, and other non-campus organization advertising covers the campus. The B-W Food Justice Council is the only one subject to be ripped down. This is an outrage.

3. We Have Been “Documented.” As the campus has directed its employees to rip down our signs, we found it best to slip them under student’s doors, as to best reach them without being interfered with by the administration. For this “crime” or “advertising” which is frequently done by Fraternities, Sororities, Charities, and Vector Marketing, one of our members has been “documented” and could be subject to disciplinary action.

We wish to announce that we will continue to leaflet and spread our message, and fight for fair food prices. The Baldwin-Wallace Student Handbook and the United States Constitution defend the right of students and other human beings to peacefully petition authority with grievances. We will not be silenced and suppressed by the administration. We will continue to speak. We will not be shut down. We are human beings. We are not “brats”, “kids”, “punks” etc. We are adults paying $30,000 a year to attend an institution of higher learning. We will not surrender.

Contact Us At: foodjusticebw@gmail.com

Join Us on Facebook!

Workers World: Students Demand Food!

2009-03-13T00:03:00.001-07:00

by Caleb T. Maupin
Berea, OH

Richard Durst, president of Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, claims to have served in Vietnam alongside Bob Kerrey, the president of New School University. Both went on orders from the U.S. government to repress the Vietnamese people and their resistance.

Durst and Kerrey are once again repressing justified resistance—this time from students at the institutions of higher education they have directed.

New School students who opposed Kerrey's policies occupied the cafeteria for 30 hours in December. The students demanded more involvement in decision making and recognition of the campus workers’ union. The students’ demands were met and Kerrey resigned from his post as interim-provost.

Durst is now the target of a campaign organized by B-W students for a basic human right: the right to eat. Instead of having a meal plan, like most colleges in the U.S., through which students are assured three decent meals a day, Baldwin-Wallace deposits an amount of money on a campus debit card known as the Jacket Express Card.

When this money runs out, students must pay out of their own pockets for any additional expenses. Financial aid cannot legally cover the additional costs. Students are expected to eat for $4 a day. If the food prices were reasonable, this would be realistic, but they aren’t. The director of auxiliary services at B-W, David Jensen, even confirmed in an e-mail that the average cost of purchases during meal times is sometimes as high as $5.56 and this average includes students who buy only beverages or single items.

Students whose cards have run out and whose parents do not have the resources to add more money have had to steal food. The response of the college to the food stealing has been punishment. When some concerned students approached the cafeteria regarding the problem, they were told that the youth needed to “take responsibility for their actions” and that the $4 allowance was somehow reasonable.

In response, several students—including three members of the B-W chapter of Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST)formed the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council. The group recruited using the Internet and, within 48 hours of announcing its existence, had 142 online supporters, all of whom were B-W students, faculty or alumni.

Members of the council got unanimous support when they distributed leaflets to other students face to face. Students happily grabbed stacks of leaflets to give to their friends. Every dorm on the campus was covered.

Attempts were made on the Internet to redbait one of the group’s founders for being an “anti-Zionist communist.” This failed to stop the group’s growing support. The council still maintains over 140 members on Facebook.

A meeting has been called for March 19 at 9 p.m. in Ernsthausen Hall at Baldwin-Wallace at which students will discuss plans to challenge President Durst when he gives his address on the college budget at an upcoming date. A petition is being circulated among the student body that will be delivered to the campus authorities in a future mass demonstration.

The B-W Food Justice Council has also unanimously voted to endorse the Bail Out the People marches on Wall Street on April 3 and 4.

Just as the Vietnamese people drove Durst and his fellow imperialist occupiers out of Vietnam, the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council hopes to be victorious and win the basic right to eat for the students at Baldwin-Wallace College.

The Food Justice Council can be contacted at foodjusticebw@gmail.com.

Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

3rd Communique - BW Admits We Are Right, But the Struggle Continues

2009-03-05T11:22:00.001-08:00

We in the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council have had an interesting week. Following our first meeting, and its announcement www.mrzine.org we have been contacted by several B-W alumni who support us and our efforts. We have also faced continuous harassment from the College Administration.

In the cafeteria, one of our members always makes sure that when he gets a free glass of water from the beverage fountain, that as he walks by the check out counter, he is sure to point out that he only has a free glass of water, as not to be accused of stealing. He does this in light of the fact that college bureaucracy has attempted to paint the Council as a food stealing conspiracy.

One day, in response to this justified precaution, a woman, not a cafeteria worker, but a college bureaucrat who polices the student union screamed at the member harshly. “Don’t make a big deal out of it!” She screamed at high-pitched tone and loud volume making a scene, and causing many to pause nervously. “It’s not bad anymore!” She screeched at him.

The phrase “it’s not bad anymore” raises many questions about the Union’s water. Was it bad at one time? Is that what this woman meant? We shall be investigating this further. Contamination of Water at Baldwin-Wallace would a matter that if it existed, all students should have been informed of. Is more foul play afoot at B-W than just price gauging?

A member of the Council was personally e-mailed, without solicitation by David Jenson, director of Auxiliary Services at Baldwin-Wallace College. Though he may have been attempting to make the case that we were wrong, the information he provided in his e-mail confirmed what the Council has been arguing since our first communiqué.

Jenson, in a graph he sent us, showed the average total of union of purchases on various recent dates. Not a single one of the averages was below $4.00. On top of that, these averages include all purchases made during the times he chose to highlight. If someone got a cup of coffee or other beverage for little over a dollar, this brought the averages down significantly. According to Jenson’s own statistics, we in the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council are correct about the fact that 4.00 meals are impossible on the union budget, even including the statistical outliers of small purchases.

As the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council grows in strength and numbers daily, the Union has stripped all critical comments, especially those involving food prices, from the comments board. A single, anonymous comment in sloppy handwriting telling the staff “don’t listen to the food justice council.” Does the College intend make it look as if this were the opinion of the vast majority of the students? We in the Council find this to be hilarious, and thank whoever wrote this note attacking us for the free publicity.

It is clear that college administration and its officials, which constantly lecture us “kids” about taking “responsibility” for our actions, are not ready to do so themselves. Their response to our pointing out their dishonesty has been harassment and abuse, from screaming in lunch lines, to disruption of our internet activity, and a slew of personal insults against several of the groups founders which can be found across facebook.

How ironic it is, that to so many of the college bureaucracy’s members, we are “brats” and “kids” who need to “grow up.” There is nothing more mature than seeing an injustice, and not cowering in fear, but standing up like a human being and fighting back. Likewise, there is nothing more immature than to intimidate, threaten, and degrade those who point out your faults, rather than merely correcting them for the good of all parties involved.

We, in the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council wish to announce our second public meeting. This meeting will be held on Thursday March 19th in the lounge of Ernsthausen Hall located in the C wing. The meeting will begin at 9 PM.

As many of us are skipping meals and hungry, and our supporters in the community and the general area have been generous, free Pizza will be provided to all in attendance. Join us and eat, as we plot how to make sure we can do so for the rest of our college experience.

Various community activists and organizations have come out in our support. We recognize that justice is something that must be won. We will fight for food justice, and we will win. We will eat! See you there on March 19th, at 9 PM.

Contact Us At: foodjusticebw@gmail.com

Cleveland FIST Humiliates Bryan Kemper

2009-02-26T11:04:00.001-08:00

Humiliating Bryan Kemper
by Caleb T. Maupin
www.calebmaupin.blogspot.com

As a communist, and someone who is militantly pro-choice, I was outraged when Bryan Kemper of “Stand True” ministries was scheduled to speak on my campus. Perhaps my outrage was unjustified. Kemper is no James Dobson or Pat Robertson. He has no mass following. He’s merely one of probably a few thousand flim-flam men, who makes their career telling Jesus-Camp alumni what they want to hear, and letting them think it is rebellious because he has an ear piercing and limited electric guitar playing ability in addition to being good at preaching “feel good bigotry.”

It was probably not worth protesting his event, because even the facebook event had a whooping 28 confirmed guests, most of which didn’t show, as usual.

Kemper was there, near the Baldwin-Wallace cyber café, with his Christian rock t-shirt, his ear piercing, and his oh-so-badass “unshaven” facial hair. He saw my comrades and I, seven us of total, who were there to picket his event. He walked up to us giving us his usual “I’m a happy peace-loving Christian” smile acting like he wanted to be our friends. (Interesting how on his blog he refers to us as “mass murderers.”)

We blew him off, which is usual. We figured we wouldn’t let him bait us into a debate, since this man has made a career for himself preaching against women. My position was as usual. I protest these fucks, and I ignore them, since any dialogue you have with these fools just gives them more credibility.

So, he walks past our picket line outside of the pro-life club’s event, and he makes a snide comment at my girlfriend’s sign which read “We won’t return to back alley butchers!”

Kemper snidely said to her, a woman, someone he views as his biblical inferior, saying “More women die now in legal abortion clinics than ever died before it was legal.” (A lie, of course, but something the Jesus Camp Alumni Association will nod and accept without a thought.)

Then, one of my comrades made the mistake of responding. He said “That sounds like a medical issue, not a moral issue.”

Then Bryan had exactly what he wanted, dialogue! He was able to have a confrontation in front of his flock.

“Only the worst doctors who have flunked out of medical school perform abortions, because it’s the only thing they can do, no one else will hire them!” (A lie, again, Bryan knows how to pump out whoppers…)

I then figured, because a confrontation had started, I would do my best not to let him get the “I’m so peaceful and loving Christian” front while he baited us.
I loudly told him “Maybe that’s because people like you kill them!”

“I’ve never killed anyone. I just want love…” He continued blathering.

I then held up one of his “Stand True” pamphlets I had picked up from inside his event.

“Interesting how you quote Langston Hughes, someone you would have executed for being gay!”

“I oppose the death penalty.” He said. I could see the fire burning within him, his “Jesus in sandals” act was starting to wear off.

I then began to verbally berate him. “Why aren’t you protesting for Mumia Abu Jamal? What about the political prisoners in this country the government is murdering?”
He then exploded, walking close to me and pointing at me like Bill O’rielly does with his guests who have leftist political views and are therefore not worthy of respect.

“Don’t quote the Bible to me kid, I know the Bible!”

“Get the fuck out my face!” I screamed at him, as he continued to do his best to physically intimidate me with his loud voice and pointing fingers. “Leviticus, it says when a man lies with another man he shall be put to death.”

“No!” He screamed. “It says it’s an abomination.”

“and he shall be put to death…” I said quoting the exact verse to him. (LEVITICUS 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.)

“No…. No… No…” He started to say. I loudly shouted “I know the Bible better than you do.” Prompting laughter from a number of on-lookers.

He was so furious, his head could have exploded.

“Look….” He said, starting to back away, finally, “I… I… I oppose the death penalty…”
“So, you oppose the Death Penalty, even though the Bible supports it!” I screamed at him, prompting more laughter.

At that point Bryan just walked away humiliated, and defeated. I made a fool out of him, in front his own flock, with his own Bible. He then called campus security on us.

We then decided to leave. As we left, suddenly, the humiliated Bryan Kemper is chasing after us with childish tears in his eyes, holding out his blackberry.
He snaps a picture of one of us with a pro-choice sign: “I’m gonna put this on my facebook, and my myspace, and my twitter!” He screams in rage.

“Good.” My comrade, an older guy, responds calmly. “I’m proud to be pro-choice.”
Byran stormed off in a rage. We made a fool out of him, and rightly so.

Communique #2 - Our Plan of Action

2009-02-26T11:03:00.001-08:00

We, in the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council have had our first meeting, and discussed the strategy and tactics we plan on using in combating the insanity and greed of the college administration’s food policies.

We then declared the following: we will be circulating a petition among the student body. Once a large number of signatures have been gathered, we plan to hold a demonstration outside of the Strosacker Student Union, and then deliver the petition by hand to the director of the building in which the main cafeteria is located.

We also are issuing President Richard Durst the following challenge. We challenge him to eat nothing but food from the Student Union, do his laundry only in B-W sanctioned laundry machines paying full price, buy all coffee and other relaxing beverages from the cyber-café, and spend in one week, less than $90.

If the administration is adamant that one can eat 3 meals a day, do laundry, and buy the occasional coffee of tea for this cost, President Durst, and other college officials should prove that it can be done.

We plan on asking President Durst for a personal meeting in which we will present him with this challenge.

Also, the B-W Food Justice Council, at our Tuesday meeting voted to endorse the Bail Out the People March on Wall Street on April 3rd & 4th, called by the International Action Center and the Bail Out the People Movement. We in the B-W FJC, believe that the economic crisis merits a government response that benefits all the people, not just bankers and capitalists, and that a lack thereof is contributing the problems we are combating here at Baldwin-Wallace.

We plan on distributing informational leaflets, and asking for signatures on our petition at various places around the campus to lead up to our demonstration.

The Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council Will Not Surrender! No Justice! No Peace! We Will Eat!

foodjusticebw@gmail.com

As Seen in Monthly Review Zine:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bw250209.html

We Will Eat! First Communique of the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council

2009-02-20T22:27:00.001-08:00

1st Communiqué of the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council

We, the founders of the B-W Food Justice Council wish to issue this communiqué to state our goals and purpose in founding this group.

Two of our members witnessed someone in the Cafeteria be caught and punished for stealing food. One of us asked an anonymous cafeteria worker about this, and we discovered that this is a crisis.

Food Prices have long been an outrage among our circle of friends and others. However, with the economy in a state of collapse, and students stealing food, we decided something had to be done.

We understand that vendor prices may affect the food prices negatively. However, we also know that B-W, unlike any restaurant, is given subsidies for all its work-study employees. We also know that if one divides the total of money we are expected to spend on food in the union, without adding additional funds to our Jacket Cards, the total comes to less than $12 a day, not including laundry, school supplies, and other expenses.

Anyone who can eat three solid meals in the Cafeteria at B-W every day and not spend any more than $12 is not within the norm.

The myth that reducing food prices will cause cafeteria workers to be fired is disgusting. Perhaps the college administrators can sacrifice some of their huge salaries. Perhaps the college could lobby the government for more financial aid. Perhaps the college could raise the amount given to Jacket Cards at the beginning of the semester, in order to allow students to use financial aid for such costs, rather than having to pay out of their own pockets, or the pockets of their parents, many of whom are laid off, unemployed, and possibly in the process of home foreclosure.

We are not trying to cause drama, or chaos. We are, exercising our rights as given to us not only by the U.S. constitution, but also the B-W Student Handbook, which allows us to petition the college administration and the government with grievances.

The college's response is already shameful. Two agents have already been sent to disrupt our internet activity. One was directly employed by the Cafeteria, and the other was a high ranking member of the Student Government and friend of the administration. Both blamed the students for the problem, one accusing us of eating too many donuts and not buying our books without our Jacket Cards, and the other lecturing us and talking down to us, and directly attacking two of the groups founders.

We, as college students and human beings, must eat. If being able to eat means a struggle, we are ready for it. This is not an attack on the college, the food service staff, or other entities. This is a struggle for food.

When food theft is going on, as it clearly is, there is a problem. The problem is not that we are "brats" and "kids" -- the problem is a college policy which we feel must be changed.

We wish to call our first meeting for Tuesday, Feb. 24th at 12:00. The meeting will be held at Book and Bean Coffee Shop, off campus. This meeting is not for Student Government, College Administrators, or others who oppose us. This meeting is for students who seek to change a college policy and discuss how to do so.

We will eat. We will win.

Join us at Book and Bean to discuss how to stop the insanity of unacceptable food conditions.

From: Monthly Review Zine http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bw200209.html

Commentary: Free Speech, Palestine, Capitalism, Socialism

2009-02-03T10:24:00.000-08:00

Devin Branch of the Oct. 22nd Movement Speaks on Mumia Abu Jamal

2009-01-14T09:15:00.001-08:00

Abdul Qahhar of the New Black Panther Party on Mumia

2009-01-14T07:00:00.001-08:00

FIST Wages Campaign Against Fascism

2008-12-06T03:06:00.000-08:00

Russia, Socialism, and Revolution

2008-11-02T04:15:00.001-08:00

Video: "America" in Decline

2008-11-02T02:18:00.001-08:00

Cleveland Meeting on Foreclosures

2008-10-28T14:23:00.001-07:00

How I Spent My Summer - Caleb T. Maupin

Reading From "They Shall Not Pass" - Sharon Danaan

Larry Holmes on "The Economy & The Fightback" (In Five Parts, only part one posted here, click on link to youtube.)

Forum: The Chinese Revolution Lives!

2008-10-20T02:44:00.001-07:00

Women in China by Sharon Danaan (Part One)

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Long Live the Chinese Revolution by Caleb T. Maupin (Part One)

Part Two

Revolution 101: What is Marxism-Leninism?

2008-09-25T14:38:00.001-07:00

Introductory Remarks by Caleb T. Maupin

What is Marxism-Leninism? by Adam Gluntz

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

FIST Forum: What's Behind the U.S. War Drive?

2008-09-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

Speakers are Martha Grevatt and Caleb T. Maupin. The forum was held Sept. 3rd, 2008.

We Will Not Be Silenced - Cleveland FIST Communique

2008-08-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Cleveland FIST Statement on the Suppression of Our Free Speech Rights

Cleveland FIST wishes to publicly raise its voice in opposition to the fact that the College Democrats violated the free speech rights of Brittany Dulay and Caleb T. Maupin on August 28th.

Caleb T. Maupin, and Brittany Dulay, two members of Cleveland FIST went to Findley Hall at Baldwin-Wallace College, where they are both enrolled. They went to the hall in order to distribute literature for the upcoming Cleveland FIST forum entitled “What’s Behind the U.S. War Drive?”

The literature in no way attacked Barack Obama or the Democratic Party. The single leaflet merely contained information about the upcoming event.

The event hadn’t started yet, and Maupin and Dulay were distributing literature throughout the area where people were gathering, which was a public area in the Findley dorm. In no way did Maupin or Dulay disrupt the event, which hadn’t even started yet. Dulay and Maupin merely distributed their literature exercising their “right to free speech.”

However, a leader of the College Democrats told the two FIST members that they couldn’t distribute literature claiming that it was “their event.”

When Maupin pointed out that the literature in no way attacked Barack Obama or the Democratic Party, the democrat responded that it was “confusing causes.”

The event started to begin and Maupin and Dulay left.

Confusing Causes

The democrat was dead wrong when he said we were “confusing causes.” Cleveland FIST is clear in that it does not endorse any candidate from the Democratic Party. Our literature contained the words: Stop the War Machine. Though the democratic bureaucracy on campus may be confused, this runs contrary to the program of the Democratic Party, which is a program of harsh imperialism.

In the speech, from which’s broadcast the FIST members were rudely ejected, Obama promised to raise the military budget and send MORE TROOPS to Afghanistan.

The issue of “confusing causes” is a talking point of the popular front. The campus democratic party bureaucracy is convinced that electing Barack Obama and stopping the U.S. war drive are somehow the same, but that the focus should be on the former, because emphasizing the later may alienate people from the goal of electing democrats.

They are dead wrong. Pro-War Republicans are not going to vote for Obama because they think he is just as much a war monger as Mccain. No one is going to be tricked into voting for Barack Obama by being convinced he is more right-wing than Mccain. Literature advertising a forum entitled “What’s Behind the U.S. War Drive” will not alienate anybody from electing Barack Obama.

The Democratic Party of Baldwin-Wallace College believes that they can trick people into voting for Barack Obama, and his “agenda to stop the war”, by abusing and neutering all leftist activity and create the illusion that Obama is not as radical as they think he is. What they fail to realize is that Barack Obama has no “Stop the War Agenda” , but rather an agenda tied to Imperialism and Reaction. Also, they fail to realize that any movement based on tricking people, and saying one thing and meaning the other, will fail at moving forward.

Nothing New for Democrats

The tradition of suppressing free speech is nothing new for the Democratic Party, especially not in recent history.

We can recall how the dogs sicked on civil rights activists in the 1950s were sent by leaders of the Democratic Party i.e. “Dixiecrat” establishment in the old segregated south. We can recall how COINTELPRO, the violent, free speech repressing wing of the FBI was in full practice under the administration of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. This government program carried out policies that lead to the death and suppression of various leftists and communists, as well as black revolutionaries and nationalists.

When the Ku Klux Klan murdered five members of the Communist Workers Party in 1979 in the infamous Greenboro Massacre, and a racist southern court found the Klansmen not guilty of the videotaped assassinations, Jimmy Carter, then President, refused to bring federal charges. It was later revealed that there was an FBI informer within the Klan at the time of the assassination, who pushed the Klan to carry out the murders.

President Bill Clinton presided over the attempted state murder of innocent man Mumia Abu Jamal. He even appeared on stage with Maureen Faulkner, widow of the man Mumia was accused of killing, showing sympathy for her cry for Mumia to be killed regardless of the mounds of evidence that Mumia is innocent of the murder. Clinton did not intervene to prevent the racist and anti-communist execution of Mumia. The democrats never intervene on the people’s defense. It was a movement of millions in the streets that prevented the execution, and keeps Mumia alive to this day.

The Presidential Campaign of John Kerry pushed all leftists from the ballot in the State of Ohio. In Ohio, if one wanted to vote for the Socialist Party, the Workers World Party, the Green Party, or the Socialist Equality Party, all of which had gathered enough petitions, one could not, because of the legal harassment by thug lawyers of the Democratic Party, who harassed the campaigns with excessive frivolous legal action.

Even Ralph Nader was removed from the ballot, after the ballots had already been printed. Every voting booth in Ohio contained signs reading “Votes for Nader Will Not be Counted.”

In Ohio in 2004, the electorate had the choice of voting for right-wingers, the Democrats and the Republicans, or fascists, the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party. These were only options thanks to the “Democratic” Party of Ohio.

No Surrender

The Democratic Party has failed to stop the crimes of U.S. Imperialism. The Democratic Party has failed to stop the attack on the working class. The Democratic Party likewise will fail in its assault on the Cleveland Chapter of Fight Imperialism – Stand Together, and its right to free speech.

FIST members continue to fight back against injustice. At all Obama events which we are able to attend, we will be there with literature distributing it, even if we are forced to do so outside of the event. Genuine Socialist Revolutionaries like FIST refuse to be forced to march lockstep behind Imperialist Parties like the Democrats. We will continue to let our voices be heard, regardless of the Democratic Party’s delusions that it will harm their credibility with imperialism.

We will be respectful. We will not disrupt events. We will not harass those who harass us. We will not attack the historic candidacy of Barack Obama and what it means to the nationally oppressed communities.

However, we will not be silent. While the Democratic Party’s agenda of imperialism may have succeeded in fooling some people in obedience, it has not fooled FIST members.

We will continue to fight back. We will stand up to all oppressors, Democrat or Republican, and we will make a revolution in this country.

Long Live the Struggle for a Better World!

Caleb T. Maupin in Detroit Protesting Home foreclosures

2008-07-19T18:04:00.001-07:00

Speeches from May Day at Baldwin-Wallace

2008-05-03T20:36:00.001-07:00

Adam Gluntz on Neurodiversity

Martha Grevatt on the History of May Day

Caleb T. Maupin - Forge the New State

Opening Statement on Youtube

2008-03-16T17:55:00.001-07:00

Debate: Socialism v. Capitalism

2008-03-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

Part One

Part Two

Call for International Working Women's Day

2008-02-23T19:02:00.000-08:00

2008-02-23T14:34:00.000-08:00