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November 3, 2010 - No. 185

U.S. Midterm Elections

A System in Need of Renewal

U.S. Midterm Elections
A System in Need of Renewal
Fund the Process Not the Candidates and Parties - Voice of Revolution

Brazil
Dilma Rousseff Elected President: Brazilians Vote for Consolidation of Pro-Social Reforms and Against Neoliberalism
Dilma Elected to Move Forward on Reforms - Vermelho

United Nations
Another Anniversary without Reform - Victor Carriba, Prensa Latina

Lisbon, Portugal
Anti-War Activities Planned to Oppose Upcoming NATO Summit
World Peace Council and Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation Appeal Against 2010 NATO Summit in Portugal

Coming Events
Gatineau: Free the Cuban Five Solidarity Assembly
Toronto: Labour-Community Discussion -- No More Deaths: People's Resistance to Undocumented and Precarious Work
Windsor: Mavi Marmara Freedom Boat to Gaza -- Testimony of a Canadian Survivor


U.S. Midterm Elections

A System in Need of Renewal

On November 2, the U.S. held midterm elections. Being contested were all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 37 of the 100 seats in the Senate, as well as 38 state and territorial governorships, 46 state legislatures (all except Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia), four territorial legislatures and numerous state and local races.

The Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives as the Republicans won 239 seats, an increase of 60. Thus, the Democrats lose the position of House Speaker held by Nancy Pelosi (although she retained her seat), who will be replaced by Republican John Boehner. Prior to the election, the Democrats had controlled the House with a 255-178 majority, with two vacancies. In the 100-seat Senate, the Democrats lost six seats (the had a 57-41 majority prior to the election), but will likely retain a narrow majority. Results are still coming in.

While the U.S. ruling circles portray their notoriously corrupt political system as being the bastion of democracy to justify arrogantly interfering in other countries' elections and internal affairs, they cannot hide their own illegitimacy, decay and reaction. None of the so-called election issues raised was for purposes of actually sorting out the problems facing the working class and peoples of the U.S., let alone the world. All the so-called issues were designed to create hysteria to keep the working class and people from discussing and developing their independent thinking. In this way, the ruling circles block the people from changing the situation while exerting maximum pressure to line them up behind their reactionary schemes at home and abroad.

Voice of Revolution, a publication of the U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization points out:

"The 2010 mid-term elections are being presented as a 'choice' between the Democrats and Republicans, the pro-war parties of the rich. Every effort is being made to create an atmosphere of fear and distrust, so as to block any political discussion on the problems facing voters. These include escalating aggressive wars and threats, unemployment, poverty and destruction of the environment. These are serious matters that require a calm atmosphere for thinking about solutions. Instead, not only are negative attack ads worse than usual and they account for more than 50 percent of all ads, but efforts to promote fear and chauvinism are also widespread. Racist ads attacking immigrants are common, as are those claiming China is going to 'steal' the elections. We have a situation where almost $4 billion is being spent, the vast majority by the military and financial monopolies that rule the country, yet we are supposed to be afraid of China! These ads whipping up fear of China and Iran have far more to do with U.S. war preparations and plans targeting both countries. Instead of the elections serving as an opportunity to discuss building fraternal relations with the peoples of the world and to stand together against war, they are used for U.S. war-mongering by Republicans and Democrats alike.

"These same efforts to create an atmosphere of fear and distrust are also being fomented in relation to conditions at home. President Barack Obama has been campaigning across the country [...] emphasizing that voting for Republicans will bring disaster, attempting to generate a 'sky is falling' atmosphere. People are to be panicked into voting for Democrats in a situation where the large majority, consistent with their experience, has negative views about both parties. The effort is to generate such fear and disgust that people are blinded to the alternative of building up the people's opposition to the war parties and strengthening efforts to empower the people to govern and decide.

"The language used by Obama is significant. For example, in speaking about immigration reform on Univision October 25, to an audience mainly of Latinos, Obama said, 'And so the problem that we have is, is that until I can get some cooperation from the other side, then people who are anti-immigration reform can continue to block it. And that's why this election coming up is so important because we essentially have to say that those who are politicizing the issue, who are supportive of the Arizona law, who talk only about border security but aren't willing to talk about the other aspects of this, who don't support the Dream Act, who are out there engaging in rhetoric that is divisive and damaging that -- those aren't the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.' He added, 'If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2.'

"Obama, as President and Commander-in-Chief, is again promoting the concept that he can determine who does and does not 'represent our core American values.' That is, he is deciding who is and is not American or 'un-American' as his administration has been putting it. And he takes this further, labeling those that he determines do not 'represent our core American values,' as 'enemies' to be punished. It is easy to dismiss the language as merely campaign rhetoric, but put in the context of what the government has been doing, it must be recognized as statements of where Obama stands on these issues.

"The government organized anti-Muslim hysteria generated around September 11 and now again being fomented with reports about 'terrorists' from Yemen; the recent raids in Minnesota and Chicago by Joint Terrorism Task Forces, including the FBI; mass round-ups and terrorizing of immigrant communities -- all are part of these efforts to impose the dictate of the President as to who is and is not American, while also emphasizing that those deemed 'un-American' are 'enemies' to be punished. The campaign statements are consistent with these government actions, which all serve the war drive of the imperialists and their efforts to impose fascist measures at home.

"The U.S. rulers are seeking a quiet homefront, with a divided and docile workforce and a silenced and pacified movement. Increased executive power and government impunity to commit any crime -- whether directed against Muslims or immigrants and other workers, or organizers opposing war and attacks on rights -- is being unleashed with greater force so as to paralyze resistance and force the peoples to submit. And if Obama can brand fellow Republicans as "enemies" to be punished, then all others can be as well. And further, Obama's comments indicate that contradictions within the ruling circles are at such a height that the various factions may not be able to prevent outbreaks of violence within their ranks."

Despite the midterm elections being essentially concluded, the contradictions with the ranks of the ruling class are sharper than ever. They will not only spill over into the Congress and Senate but could erupt into violence at any time. The American people will have to remain extremely vigilant. Meanwhile, the central problem facing the people remains how to empower themselves. They must reject the false choice of two war parties -- the Democrats and the Republicans, including the Tea Party. As VOR points out:

"We need a modern democracy of our own making, one that empowers the people and their anti-war, pro-social agenda. [...] Political empowerment is the necessity."

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Fund the Process Not the Candidates and Parties

A main feature of U.S. elections is the massive amounts of money spent, and the character of the advertising as negative, often racist, and serving to disinform the public, not inform them. This election is taking place at a time of continuing wars abroad, economic crisis and major crises on issues impacting society as a whole, such as unemployment, poverty and destruction of the environment. These problems and solutions for them are what people want discussed and debated as part of the elections. A program of solutions and identifying the candidates that best represent those solutions is needed content for modern elections. Yet 2010 sees negative ads, with their character assassination and dirty smears at higher levels than ever. The ads are not geared toward informing the public and putting them in a position to calmly and rationally work out is needed to move society forward. Indeed this is what is kept off the agenda at all costs. The aim of the massive advertising and its negative, petty and "promises made to be broken" content is to disinform the public, to generate disgust and rejection of politics -- when politics and being political are urgently needed to solve problems. The public, as a polity, the body politic of society, defending the interests of society, its collectives and individuals is to be torn apart; its form disintegrated so as to preserve the rule of the rich.

This year almost $4 billion has been spent on campaigning. This includes large increases in the number of ads, up about 27 percent from 2008, a presidential year and their cost, up by almost 90 percent. The large majority of campaign spending is done by the candidates, together with their parties and what are called "coordinated ads," which combine funds from candidates and Party campaign committees. As an example, from September 1 to October 20, the candidates and parties together accounted for about 85 percent of ad spending. Outside interest groups accounted for about 15 percent.

The productive forces in the U.S. are modern and highly developed. They require a democracy that is also modern and highly developed. Yet as spending and negative ads and empty campaigns indicate, it is a backward and corrupted democracy. At a time when the full energies and ingenuity of the people are required to solve problems, we face an electoral process designed to keep the people out of power. An important and immediate means to change this is to demand that an independent electoral commission, funded with public dollars, organize elections and fund the process. No party, candidate or outside funding would be permitted. Instead, information concerning the problems to be solved, the programs of candidates to solve them, the interests served by various proposals, etc. would be the content of election campaigns. Every candidate would have equal time and opportunity to present and elaborate their program. The process would provide space for information, debate and ability to identify which candidates best represent the needs of the people. By publicly funding the process and gearing it towards informing the public, elections could contribute to solving problems rather than serving to disinform and disorganize the public while wasting billions of dollars. It also opens space for working people to elect and be elected, rather than only the servants of the rich being chosen by the rich for office.

The recognition by many of the need to put ordinary working people in power was revealed in a recent poll. People were asked if they had the option on election day to vote to get rid of the entire Congress and start over with new people, would they do so? About 65 percent of likely voters said yes. About half also said people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress. While the poll is being promoted as a means to discredit Congress and use anger with Congress to make elected governance the problem, the response shows something different. It shows that many recognize that ordinary working people, which are what the majority of those randomly selected from the phone book would be, are needed to govern. Funding the process with the aim of informing and uniting the public on a program of solutions to the problems we face is a step in this direction of politically empowering the people.

* Voice of Revolution is a publication of the U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization.

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Brazil -- Dilma Rousseff Elected President

Brazilians Vote for Consolidation of Pro-Social Reforms and Against Neoliberalism


Left: Brazilians celebrate the victory of Dilma Rousseff in the capital Brasilia, October 31, 2010.
Right: President-Elect Rousseff is congratulated by supporters at a victory rally. (Agencia Brasil)

On October 31, Brazilians went to the polls for the country's presidential runoff election. As expected, Dilma Rousseff, candidate of the Workers' Party of Brazil (PT) and former Chief of Staff for outgoing president Luis "Lula" da Silva, defeated José Serra of the conservative-backed Social Democratic Party of Brazil (PSDB). Rousseff received 56.05% of the vote, compared to Serra's 43.94% of the vote. Rousseff and her Vice President-elect Michel Temer, president of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, will take office on January 1, 2011.

TML sends its warmest congratulations to President-Elect Dilma Rousseff, President da Silva, the PT, the broad coalition of parties supporting the PT, especially the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) which is in the van of consolidating the people's unity, and the Brazilian people for this victory. Rousseff’s election as Brazil's first woman president is an achievement in itself, and will permit the progressive social forces to consolidate and advance the changes required by the masses of the Brazilian people to solve the problems they are facing and to gain control over their affairs.

Since the 2002 presidential election, the wealthy elite supporting Serra have used their ownership of monopoly media to lower the level of political discourse in the hope that this would serve their narrow interests. The first round of the election was marked by slanders and other unprincipled attacks by these forces. This hooligan activity continued in the second round, but was repudiated once again with Serra's defeat.

In Vermelho, a publication of the PCdoB, Umberto Martins notes, "Serra allied with the most reactionary sectors and attitudes of the [Catholic church], mobilizing priests, pastors and bishops for a dirty campaign against Dilma." Even the pope entered the fray in the homestretch of the election, preaching against what he called "the abortion candidate," Martins says. However, the election results show this religious obscurantism was defeated, Martins states.

Martins described the role of two of the mouthpieces for Anglo-American imperialism -- The Economist and the Financial Times -- in the campaign.  "In the final stretch of the campaign, The Economist and the Financial Times, which had maintained a prudent distance from the polls in the first round, with the resurrection of the possibility of victory in the second round decided to play the field and declare their support for Serra." He noted the two publications "reflected the choice of foreign capital and spun the situation in the hope that the program of privatization would be resumed by the PSDB. [...] They were defeated."


Brazil's President-Elect Dilma Rousseff is received by President Luis "Lula" da Silva at the presidential palace in Brasilia, November 3, 2010. (Agencia Brasil)

The presidential election on October 4 brings to a close Brazil's 2010 general elections, which elected 54 of the 81 seats in the Senate, all of the members for the 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and all 1,035 seats in the 27 state legislatures.

In the Senate elections, the governing coalition (comprised of the bloc of left-wing and bloc of centrist parties) gained seven seats, while the opposition coalition lost 11, and the three independent parties won four more seats.

In the Chamber of Deputies, the governing coalition also increased its seats by 14, while the opposition lost 20. Between them, the independent parties gained another six seats.

In the state legislatures, the governing coalition had a net gain of 73 seats, while the opposition lost 96, with the independent parties gaining many of their seats at the latter's expense.

The results show that the election of Dilma Rousseff as President of Brazil embodies the demand for continued progress and change and the rejection of reaction and neoliberalism reflected in the elections overall.

(Vermelho, Prensa Latina, Xinhua, Daily KOS)

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Brazil Elects Dilma to Move Forward on Reforms

The Brazilian soul is awake and alert -- this is one of the conclusions from today's victory of Dilma Rousseff for the presidency. Giving her more than 55.5 million votes (more than 56% of total), the Brazilian people reaffirmed at the ballot box the option for change and the progress they had made in 2002 and 2006 to elect Lula for the highest office in the nation.

Dilma represents the continuation of the project that in two previous elections, was approved and confirmed by the electorate, which rejected the neoliberal conservatism of the Toucans [the nickname of the Social Democratic Party of Brazil -- TML Ed. Note ]. It is a new step, and steady, toward the consolidation of change and progress. If in 2002, Lula's victory was the choice of hope against fear, Dilma is the affirmation of truth against falsehood, fraud and brutality. It is the defeat of obscurantism, backwardness, undemocratic arrogance, a campaign unable to admit that the anti-people and anti-national program of the neoliberal right was based on slanders and calumnies.

If Lula's election in 2002 turned a page in history and began a new phase in Brazilian life, Rousseff's election confirms the validity of an era of democratic consolidation. We must move forward, and the defeat the right in all bodies of elected political power -- in the Senate, the House of Representatives and now president -- is a historic opportunity as the foundation for the rapid advance and consolidation of the changes that must not be wasted.

Brazilian democracy embodied in active form, huge numbers of people who, until recently, were at the periphery of national decisions and given the political role of passively responding to calls of the self-interested elite constituted by so-called opinion leaders. That changed, despite the ruthless efforts of the right and the conservatism and neoliberal media, whose lunatic preaching found limited response from the Brazilian electorate.

There are democratic gains that need to be consolidated and strengthened. This Sunday, October 31, 2010, the electorate placed in Rousseff's hands the historic responsibility of carrying forward the reforms that will give consistency to democracy and modernity to our country.

Among the advances that Brazil's new president hopes for are democratic political reform to strengthen popular participation in political life; land reform against the unproductive large estates; urban reform to ensure decent homes, safety and sanitation; education reform to wipe out illiteracy and other projects designed to advance Brazilian society; the universalization of the SUS [public health system] ensuring health for all; tax reform to exempt workers' income; investments and production, and making the rich pay more taxes. Abroad, her priorities are to keep strengthening continental integration, solidarity among peoples, national sovereignty and Brazil's multilateral relations with all nations. Finally, especially after the election campaign where the [private] media participated with an unfair monopoly, Brazilians expect Dilma to confront the power of the families who control newspapers and television and ensure the democratization of the media that the country is calling for.

Now, with a woman president, the struggle against backwardness, the oligarchy and subservience to foreign powers throughout the entire Republican period until the election of Lula in 2002 will go further. It's what everyone expects of President Dilma!

(Translated from original Portuguese by TML Daily)

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United Nations

Another Anniversary without Reform

In urgent need of a deep-going reform that would make it possible to revitalize a General Assembly lacerated by the actions of its Security Council, the United Nations celebrated its 66th anniversary.

Created on Oct. 24, 1945 in the U.S. city of San Francisco, the basic goals of the United Nations are to preserve peace and security, encourage economic and social development, and defend human rights.

The brand-new organization comprised 51 countries, about one-fourth of the current 192 members, most of whom are demanding a deep-going change, both in form and content.

The most recent demand in that sense was made one month ago by the outgoing president of the General Assembly, Libyan Alí Treki, who voiced support for efforts to reform the Security Council, which has not changed for decades.

"If we do not want the UN to be on the periphery of the principal challenges of today, its working methods must be improved, and its authority strengthened to its maximum potential, in line with its Charter," he said.

Since 1945, the Security Council has had five permanent seats, reserved for the United States, Russia, China, the UK and France, all with veto power.

It is precisely these unchanging conditions and supreme power for the last 65 years that are at the center of the unceasing, growing demand for reform.

Also, demands have been raised to end Security Council actions that overstep the boundaries of the powers and functions it is assigned by the UN Charter, and which constitute interference in the affairs of the General Assembly, the top authority of the United Nations.

For many country's representatives, some of the permanent Security Council members use their prerogatives to promote their own national interests, beyond the principles of impartiality and non-selectivity. During the recent general debate of the Assembly, dozens of presidents and ministers insisted that the Security Council should reflect the needs and interests of developed and underdeveloped countries in an objective, rational and non-arbitrary way.

At the same time, they demanded changes in its composition and the number of its members, as well as the categories of its members and veto power.

The example of Africa was held up several times: it makes up almost 30 percent of the UN membership, and its problems occupy about two-thirds of the organization's activities; nevertheless, it does not even have a permanent seat.

In that sense, the various regions are demanding one or two seats of that kind, without ruling out the possibility of granting veto power.

However, the issue of reform did not appear in the message released for the UN's anniversary by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The message was limited to highlighting the need to face climate change, prevent a nuclear disaster, expand opportunities for women, combat injustice and impunity and reach the so-called Millennium Development Goals.

These are a whole range of interrelated problems, with common roots in the current economic and political international order, which has precisely as one of its pillars, maintaining a power scheme that emerged 65 years ago in San Francisco.

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Lisbon, Portugal

Anti-War Activities Planned to
Oppose Upcoming NATO Summit


Worldwide demonstrations against NATO in 2009.

Peace and disarmament are incompatible with NATO the network "No to War -- No to NATO" says. More than 650 organizations have worked together since the preparation for the NATO summit in Strasbourg in 2009, the network points out and at its annual meeting in Berlin in October 2009 it decided to use the Lisbon Summit where the new NATO strategy is to be adopted, for intensified actions against war and militarism.

In Portugal, a national coalition has formed, the members of which are of the national anti-NATO alliance PAGAN, as well as other anti-war and peace organizations, environmental, human rights and social initiatives. This alliance has support of NGOs, and of "Bloco" -- an alliance of left parties and movements. The anti-NATO alliance has come into the public more with the first successful events in the recent weeks (see http://antinatoportugal.wordpress.com) and seeks to further support the participation of more organizations and initiatives.

The International Coordinating Committee of the network has worked along with the Portuguese organizations on a proposal for a roadmap for the NATO Summit.

This includes:

1. Regional and local actions from November 15 - 21, 2010. For this, a permanent public peace centre for multiple activities will be set up on a central square in Lisbon;

2. A counter summit on Friday November 19 and on Sunday November 21, which will end with an International Anti-War Assembly. Opposition to NATO and its war-mongering strategy are the focus of this congress, along with an international analysis of the same. The organizations are to "intensely discuss peace alternatives. Actions of the peace movement are to be presented and further agreements for more and more intensive international cooperation should be obtained. There is also lots of place for discussion of our different positions; we want to learn from one another, so as to act more effectively together."

3. Support for a large international peaceful demonstration on Saturday November 20 in Lisbon.

Already an international action conference was held in Lisbon from October 14-17 to prepare and coordinate the international participation.

Details for the entire program are being worked out now and will be discussed further, including at the European social forum in Istanbul. More information and an exact timetable will be placed on the website www.no-to-nato.org where the first announcements of the protests can also be found.

The organizers call for all participants to think about the preparation in each of the nations, how to increase the pressure on national governments and to get the topic of NATO more visible in the public sphere. " NATO and peace stand as complete opposites; whomever wants a peaceful and just world must reject NATO," says Reiner Braun, member of the International Coordinating Committee "No to War -- No to NATO" and executive director of the IALANA, International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms.

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World Peace Council and Portuguese Council
for Peace and Cooperation Appeal
Against 2010 NATO Summit in Portugal

The World Peace Council (WPC) and the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC) salute the peace loving people of the world and the peace movements which stand up and continue denouncing imperialist wars, illegal occupations and social injustice, and call upon them to continue and reinforce the common efforts and struggles against imperialism and its mechanisms, particularly against NATO, the biggest war machinery in the world.

The WPC denounces to the peoples of the world the crimes NATO has committed and goes on committing against humanity with the pretext of either the protection of "human rights" or the fight against "terrorism" according to its own interpretation.

NATO since its foundation in 1949 has been an aggressive alliance. After 1991, with its new military doctrine it became the world "gendarme" of the imperialist interests. It has been often connected to bloody regimes and dictatorships, reactionary forces and Juntas. It participated actively in dismembering Yugoslavia, in the barbaric bombardment of Serbia for 78 days, in the overthrow of regimes through "orange revolutions," in the occupation of Afghanistan. NATO continues its plans for the "Greater Middle East," enlarging its range of actions through the "Partnership for Peace" and "special cooperation" in Asia and Latin America, the Middle East, North Africa, as well as the "European Army."

All governments of the member states share responsibility in NATO, regardless of the leading role of the U.S. administration. Despite different approaches on some issues which reflect particular views and rivalries they always lead to the common aggressive confrontation with the peoples.

We condemn the policy of the European Union, which coincides with NATO's and with the Lisbon Treaty that goes hand in hand with it in the political and military fields. The Military expenditure of the EU in missions abroad has increased between 2002 and 2009 from 30 million Euros to 300 million Euros.

The peoples and peace loving forces of the world do not accept NATO in its role as world "gendarme." They reject any effort to incorporate NATO into the United Nations system. They demand the dissolution of this offensive military war machine. Even the pretext of the existence of the Warsaw Pact does not exist any more today.

The World Peace Council and its members will organize various national and international initiatives in dozens of countries against NATO and the new strategic concept it intends to adopt at the Lisbon Summit in Portugal. We shall organize, together with the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC), events and conferences in Portugal and central mass activities before and during the days of the NATO Summit.

Under the slogan: NATO -- Enemy of the Peoples and of Peace -- DISMANTLE IT! the WPC is calling upon all organisations in NATO member States and the entire world to endorse this appeal underlining the following aspects:

NATO has been an aggressive and reactionary force since its founding in 1949. The Warsaw Treaty was created later and was dissolved earlier.

NATO's hands have been soaked in the blood of many peoples for 60 years and cannot constitute "a peacemaking force" within the UN framework.

Despite the domination of the USA, aggressions are waged together with other imperialist forces, which do not change the character of NATO.

NATO is directly bound to the EU and viceversa, as a large number of EU countries are also members of NATO, as well as through the militarist traits and commitments embedded in the "Lisbon Treaty."

All governments of NATO member countries bear responsibility for its action; they support its imperialist plans.

The NATO war against Yugoslavia in 1999 was a milestone for the new dogma at the time of its summit in Washington 1999. The fact that the EU was never a "democratic counterweight" to the USA was revealed then.

NATO acts as a global policeman with collaborators on all continents, carrying out its plan for a "Greater Middle East" and actively intervening in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and elsewhere.

We fully support and endorse the Portuguese campaign "Yes to peace, No to NATO" which unites dozens of movements and social organisations. We call upon all peace loving organisations to unite our voices and forces under this appeal and meet in November 2010 in Lisbon.

World Peace Council (WPC)
Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC)

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Coming Events

Free the Cuban 5 Solidarity Assembly in Gatineau



Click image for fullsize poster (PDF).

Wednesday, November 3 -- 7:00 pm

Outaouais Cegep, 333, Boul. Cité-de-jeune, salon étudiant
Organized by the Association d'amitié Outaouais-Cuba and
the Salvadoran Women's Association of Ottawa-Gatineau

Featuring a discussion with the Cuban Ambassador to Canada, Her Excellency Teresita Vicente Sotolongo on the importance of the solidarity movement between the Quebec and Cuban people and the liberation of the five Cuban heroes imprisoned in the U.S. Everyone welcome!

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Toronto
Community-Labour Discussion

No More Deaths: People's Resistance to
Undocumented and Precarious Work



Click image for fullsize poster.

November 4 -- 6:00-8:00pm

OPSEU Union Hall, 31 Wellesley St. (across from Wellesley Station)
Hosted by: No One Is Illegal -- Toronto
Supported by: Justicia for Migrant Workers, Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario, OPSEU Workers of Color, Caregiver Action Centre, Labor Education Centre, Workers Action Centre, Health for All, Latin American Trade Unionist Coalition, Coalition for Change: Live in Caregivers and Temporary Workers
Email nooneisillegal@riseup.net to endorse

Speakers:

FRANCA IACOVETTA is Professor of History and author of "Such Hardworking People: Italian Immigrants in Postwar Toronto" that focused on the Hoggs Hollow disaster.

TZAZNA MIRANDA LEAL is an organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers

MOHAN MISHRA is an organizer with No One Is Illegal -- Toronto

Also remarks by Cosmo Mannella (Director of The Labourers International Union of North America (LIUNA) Canadian Tri-Fund); Elizabeth Ha (OPSEU Workers of Colour & OFL VP Workers of Colour); Jessica Ponting (Community legal worker with Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario); Pura Velasco (Caregiver Action Centre); Jojo Geronimo (Executive Director, Labor Education Centre) and members of the Workers Action Centre.

On September 10, 2010 two migrant workers Ralston White and Paul Roach died after inhaling toxic fumes at Filsinger's Organic Foods appleorchard and processing facility near Owen Sound, Ontario. On December 24, 2009, Aleksanders Bondarevs, Aleksey Blumberg, Fayzullo Fazilov, Vladimir Korostin, migrant workers without full status, fell to their deaths when the scaffolding they were working on collapsed in half. Though these deaths made the mainstream news, migrant workers and undocumented workers continue to be hurt, to get ill and to die both in Canada or upon being deported to countries they have citizenship in. This injustice must end.

50 years ago, five Italian construction workers, Pasquale Allegrezza, Giovanni Correglio, Giovanni Fusillo, and Alessandro and Guido Mantella, died while working in a dangerous tunnel near Yonge Street in Toronto, remembered as the Hoggs Hollow disaster. Knowing that workers without full status were facing flagrant workplace violations, negligent employers and little legislative protection from occupational hazards, workers across the city rose up, and carried out a series of actions and strikes in a fight to organize the building trades.

Today as migrant workers continue to die, labour activists and community groups must gather together, to reignite a new fight. A fight that creates far-reaching changes and challenges the very root of people's inability to access real safety -- immigration status and racism.

Join community groups and labour activist to discuss and demand:

- Moratorium on deportations for all workers with WSIB claims and MOL complaints
- Access to Health and Safety without Fear
- Status for injured workers and their families
- Status for All!

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Windsor

Mavi Marmara Freedom Boat to Gaza --
Testimony of a Canadian Survivor


Sunday, November 7 -- 6:00-8:00 pm
Caboto Hall, Caboto Club, 2175 Parent Ave.
For information: Wendy Goldsmith, 519-619-6766; David Heap, 519-859-3579; info@canadaboatgaza.org

In May 2010 an international flotilla of peace activists, carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza, set sail on the Mediterranean. The Mavi Marmara, a ship bearing a Turkish flag but carrying activists from around the world, was boarded and brutally attacked by the Israeli military.

This one-sided attack, which violated international law, claimed the lives of nine innocent peace activists. Canadian Kevin Neish was on board and is now sharing his first-hand account of that horrible night, embarking on a pan-Canadian tour with stops in Halifax, Hamilton, London, Windsor, Regina, Yellowknife, Edmonton and Vancouver.

On the subject of the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara, Neish recounts, "They were humanitarian aid workers. A lot of them were pot-bellied fellows, balding, glasses, looked a lot like me. They weren't fighters."

Join us as we bear witness to Neish's experience and also hear about our latest initiative to launch a Canadian Boat to Gaza, www.canadaboatgaza.org which will set sail with the next Free Gaza flotilla in the spring of 2011. We will join efforts from the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia and parts of the Middle East in sending ships to the port of Gaza with the goal of breaking the siege on the only Mediterranean port which is closed to shipping.

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