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Category: Strategize!

  • Students And Faculty Denounce Genocide And Resist Repression

    Today Brooklyn College showed the strength of student-worker unity.

    And today Brooklyn College showed the brutality of university administrators and the NYPD.

    On May 8 CUNY-PSC — the union representing 30,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York — organized an action to support adjunct faculty, the most precarious and lowest-paid faculty who struggle to make ends meet each month.

    At the same time, students organized an action in solidarity with Palestine to denounce the ongoing genocide, the bombardments, and the forced starvation of Palestinians by the brutal Zionist state of Israel, as well as CUNY’s continued investments in Israel.

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  • Imagine You Are A Poor Nation, Trapped By Debt And Strangled By Climate Change

    Imagine you are a low-income country. You suffer from a heavy debt burden. You’ve been trying to catch up to the more affluent countries for decades, but you’ve been unsuccessful, mainly because of that debt hanging around your neck like a giant millstone. And you are spending more and more of your precious resources dealing with the effects of climate change, from rising waters to superstorms, a crisis that you played only a small part in creating in the first place.

    You face a terrestrial version of the three-body problem. These three “bodies”—debt, development, and climate change—impact your country in difficult-to-predict ways.

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  • Putting Reentry Out Of Business

    About a decade ago, Richard Trumka, then president of the AFL-CIO, told a crowd gathered at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles that ​“the theme of this event is mass employment, not mass incarceration.”

    A year earlier, the AFL-CIO had committed to addressing mass incarceration as a labor issue. In his speech at the jobs and reentry organization, where he was introduced by labor leader María Elena Durazo, Trumka described why: ​“When some people are forced to work for close to nothing, all workers’ living standards are pushed down.”

    Then, Trumka repeated the refrain ​“it’s a labor issue because,” followed by explanations about mass incarceration’s impact on families, communities, the economy and voting, among others, until finally: ​“because labor rights and social justice and civil rights are intertwined.”

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  • Vietnam: A Victory Never To Be Forgotten

    It’s a historic anniversary that the U.S. ruling class and its allies around the world wish we would forget. Fifty years ago, on 30 April 1975, U.S. imperialism suffered the worst military defeat in its history as troops of the North Vietnamese Army and South Vietnam National Liberation Front took complete control of Ho Chi Minh City (then called Saigon) and the few scattered areas of the south that had not yet been liberated.

    The Vietnamese victory was the culmination of more than three decades of struggle against Japanese, British, French and American imperialism. At the time, the United States was, as it still is today, the world’s leading military power. And yet that incredible power was defeated by a small, underdeveloped, mostly rural society.

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  • Home Is Where The Union Is

    Hartford, CT — Three years ago, Dave Richardson was spending half of his monthly income on an apartment with rats, roaches and a broken elevator. A stroke had made climbing the stairs difficult, forcing him to limit trips outside of his third-floor home. Other wheelchair-bound tenants had to be physically carried up and down.

    The landlord was ignoring phone calls, Richardson says, but one day in 2022, a group of organizers came to his door with a pitch to build a tenants union.

    It didn’t take much to convince Richardson. Before his stroke, he had spent nearly two decades as a member and elected officer of the carpenters’ union. The prospect of mobilizing neighbors to demand a working elevator, for starters, made intuitive sense.

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  • Meet Fired Employees Challenging Microsoft’s Complicity In Genocide

    Last fall, Microsoft fired software engineer Hossam Nasr and data scientist Abdo Mohamed after they held a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza outside the company’s headquarters.

    Nasr and Mohamed are members of No Azure for Apartheid, a group calling on Microsoft to stop providing its cloud computing to the Israeli military.

    “As technology workers, we are hyper aware of the fact that our work—especially with the advancement of AI and cloud technologies—has the potential to enable any company and any organization to inflict harm and violate human rights,” reads a petition circulated by the organization.

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  • From Permanent Precarity To Permanent Power

    In Florida, the carceral system coerces workers with records into low-wage, precarious jobs by tying their freedom to employment. Background checks bar them from stable work, leaving only the jobs others avoid, quit, or fight to change. At the same time, probation agreements make employment and the payment of court fines and fees a condition of release. Workers with records are destabilized by an economic system that withholds continuity, protections and dignity by design.

    No other institution — not schools, employers or prisons — invests in the leadership potential of workers with records.

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  • We Must Adhere To The People-Centered Development Philosophy

    During the New Democratic Revolution, the Chinese trade unions united and mobilised the broad masses of workers to bravely throw themselves into the revolutionary torrent against imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism with a fearless revolutionary spirit. They fought bravely and made important contributions to achieving national independence and people’s liberation and establishing the new China.

    During the period of socialist revolution and construction, the Chinese trade unions united and mobilised the broad masses of workers to actively participate in the construction of New China with a sense of ownership and passion, worked hard and built enterprises with arduous efforts, and sang the strong voice of the times that “we workers are powerful”.

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  • Ready For The Revolution But Unable To See It

    The snowflakes that began to pelt Chicago on an early January weekend in 1979 were bigger and wetter than anyone could remember, eventually burying the city under two feet of snow, shutting down O’Hare International Airport for only the second time ever, and producing snowdrifts that resembled a lumpen Sahara of marshmallow-white sand, swallowing cars, collapsing roofs, and disabling “L” trains.

    The transit cars that remained operational, however, were just as problematic, skipping stops in the city’s African American neighborhoods and whizzing off to the lily-white northwestern suburbs, stranding Black commuters and reducing public transportation to a taxpayer-funded private shuttle service for whites.

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  • Italy Shows How Amazon Can Be Forced To Bargain

    Is Amazon so formidable that it can’t be beaten? Three years after Staten Island warehouse workers won a union election, Amazon’s legal machinations have blocked all bargaining. Amazon delivery drivers and warehouse workers at a handful of sites have demanded direct recognition and bargaining — only to be fired or ignored by the company. Earlier this year, Amazon deployed a full range of union-busting tactics to beat down workers in a union election in North Carolina.

    Union organizers in the U.S. and elsewhere struggling to build worker power might look to their Italian counterparts for a bit of encouragement.

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  • Inside The Indigenous ‘Land Back’ Movement In Colombia

    Sharing a border with Ecuador and Peru, the southern Colombian department of Putumayo takes its name from the Quechua term for “gushing river.” For some, its landscapes are a sacred doorway to the Amazon rainforest, a world unfathomably greater than the human. For others, however, this land looks more like oilfields and military bases, optimized waterflood assets and strategic trafficking corridors. This difference in worldview is at the heart of peacebuilding in Putumayo and the Indigenous struggle to reclaim ancestral territories across the Amazon basin.

    The post Inside The Indigenous ‘Land Back’ Movement In Colombia appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Trade Wars: The Decline Of America

    Not a day goes by without a new shock to Americans and our neighbors around the world from the Trump administration.

    On April 22, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgraded its forecasts for global growth in 2025 from 3.3 percent to 2.8 percent and warned that no country will feel the pain more than the United States. Trump’s policies are expected to drag U.S. growth down from 2.7 percent to 1.8 percent.

    It’s now clear to the whole world that China is the main target of Trump’s trade wars. The U.S. has slapped massive tariffs — up to 245 percent — on Chinese goods. China hit back with 125 percent tariffs of its own and refuses even to negotiate until U.S. tariffs are lifted.

    The post Trade Wars: The Decline Of America appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • Trade Wars: The Decline Of America

    Not a day goes by without a new shock to Americans and our neighbors around the world from the Trump administration.

    On April 22, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgraded its forecasts for global growth in 2025 from 3.3 percent to 2.8 percent and warned that no country will feel the pain more than the United States. Trump’s policies are expected to drag U.S. growth down from 2.7 percent to 1.8 percent.

    It’s now clear to the whole world that China is the main target of Trump’s trade wars. The U.S. has slapped massive tariffs — up to 245 percent — on Chinese goods. China hit back with 125 percent tariffs of its own and refuses even to negotiate until U.S. tariffs are lifted.

    The post Trade Wars: The Decline Of America appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • The Creative Playbook Behind Turkey’s Mass Protests

    In late March 2025, Turkey was rocked by its largest protests in a decade after Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu — a leading rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — was detained on corruption and terrorism charges. Outrage over his jailing and the subsequent closure of city services (such as metro and bus lines) under a protest ban quickly spilled into the streets. Yet alongside anger and defiance, an unexpected element emerged: humor and creative spectacle.

    Protesters of all ages, led by waves of university students, converged on city halls and public squares across Turkey, not only waving flags and chanting slogans, but also wielding costumes, memes and symbolic performances as tools of resistance.

    The post The Creative Playbook Behind Turkey’s Mass Protests appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

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  • UAW Reformers Close Caucus, Launch New Organization

    Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), the reform caucus in the Auto Workers, voted to dissolve at its quarterly online membership meeting April 27.

    “It was a heartbreaking decision to come to,” said UAWD founder and chair Scott Houldieson, a 36-year electrician at Ford. “UAWD had become a caucus that is ‘resolutionary,’ and focused more on caucus discipline than on actually organizing workers. Meetings had become dreadful. We can have differences as long as we make a decision and move on.”

    A majority of the group’s steering committee had brought a resolution calling for the dissolution. It was hotly debated. About half of the caucus membership attended the meeting.

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  • The SEIU Strike Is An Opportunity To Build Collective Struggle

    On Monday, April 28, more than 55,000 Los Angeles County workers, members of my union, Service Employees International (SEIU-721), began what is planned to be a two-day strike in response to unfair labor practices by the county. The SEIU represents workers who provide a huge range of vital services to the county, from sanitation and parks and recreation workers, to mental, public health, and homeless outreach workers. The union membership authorized the strike by 99%. The union leadership called the unfair labor practices (ULP) strike because the county has failed to fairly negotiate a new contract for months now

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  • Trump’s Reinstatement Of Student Visas Shows Power Of Mobilizing

    In the face of mounting opposition and outrage to his reactionary program, Trump has been forced to reinstate thousands of visas of international students that his administration has tried to revoke. This policy reversal puts important limitations on his administration’s attempts to repress dissent from universities (especially from the Palestine movement), and carry out mass deportations. It is a testament to the power and importance of mass resistance from below, and speaks to the fact that Trump never had a mandate for his reactionary agenda.

    Opposition to Trump’s authoritarian policies has been increasing ever since Trump began his second term.

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  • Community Struggles For Self-Governance In The Global South

    Are we really free? With this seemingly straightforward yet provocative question, Vijay Dethe from Pachgaon village in the Chandrapur district of Maharashtra, India, opened several philosophical and political questions. Vijay belongs to Dalit community and works with the Gond adivasis (indigenous peoples in India) and other marginal communities of Pachgaon towards self rule and overall governance in the village. He further added “the ones who destroyed their forests, polluted their waters, are now telling us what ‘vikas’(development) is! Do they really know what ‘development’ is!?”

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  • Grocery Workers Vs Goliath

    In early February, when temperatures in Denver plunged to seven degrees below zero and snow dusted the sidewalks, Martin Bonilla, bundled in two jackets and a neck warmer, walked a picket line 1,000 miles from his home of Fillmore, Calif. Bonilla works in the produce department at Vons and had flown to Colorado in the early morning after finishing an 11-and-a-half-hour shift.

    Over the next eight days, Bonilla picketed five of the 77 striking Kroger-owned King Soopers stores in Colorado, in support of 10,000 members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7, putting in 16-hour shifts each day before going back to his hotel, exhausted.

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  • US And Israel Gangsterism Has Created A Hobbesian International State Of Nature

    Eighteen months of genocidal horror in Gaza has finally swept away to the dustbin of history the myth that the West was ever committed to so-called enlightenment ideas of human dignity, the rule of law and human rights. And we say good riddance to this mendacious mythology.

    Israel’s daily bombardment accompanies the daily horrific imagery of Israeli attacks on schools, hospitals, tent cities and broken and mangled Palestinian children, images that still fail to move public opinion in the U.S. and Europe to demand an end to the slaughter. Why? Because Gaza has finally stripped away the veil of civilization that masked moral contradictions and rationalized barbarism that has always occupied the heart of European civilizational relations with the non-European world.

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  • If International Trade Reverts To The ‘Law Of Jungle,’ All Will Be Victims

    Speaking in an informal meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, April 23 China’s permanent representative Fu Cong questioned the unilateralism pursued by the US in international trade claiming it “severely infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of all countries” and violates the rule based multilateral trading system.

    Cong claimed a multilateral approach remains the only option for the advancement of all countries and affirmed “no country has the right to put itself above international law” and dictate terms to others. He offered Chinese cooperation in dealing with the situation to the countries which are willing to stand for free and fair international trade.

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  • Department Of Homeland Security Targets Black Muslim Activist

    On Tuesday, April 8, I was unlawfully detained and interrogated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the Tampa airport while returning to the United States from international travel. I was told that “most of your rights are suspended,” because “this airport is a border crossing,” including my right to a lawyer. I was interrogated by a counterterrorism agent and treated like a criminal and a terrorist — synonyms this empire has long made interchangeable with being Black, Muslim and politically active.

    For roughly over three hours I was held without access to legal counsel, aggressively questioned, patted down and subjected to an invasive groin search.

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  • Death Doula To A Dying Empire

    A while ago, my partner LiZhen turned me onto a TEDx talk by Deborah Frieze. In this talk, titled “How I Became a Localist,” Frieze said something that really made me think: “You can’t fundamentally change big systems. You can only abandon them and start over or offer hospice to what’s dying.”

    She went on to explain that systems — our educational systems, economic systems, criminal justice systems — are nonlinear and incredibly complex. These aren’t machines but living systems. And as with anything alive, they go through a natural cycle of rise, peak and decline. It’s the nature of life. In breath, out breath. Expansion, contraction. Birth, death.

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  • Three Times Workers Resisted Fascism In Minnesota History

    Workers and unions across the U.S. are raising the alarm about the Trump administration’s attempts to divide the working class.

    “They want us to be distracted by attacking the working class on innumerable fronts, but we must stand united,” said University of Minnesota Twin Cities graduate worker Greyson Arnold at a recent rally organized by AFSCME 3800, which represents clerical workers, and GLU-UE Local 1105, which represents graduate workers.

    The Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1 located in Staten Island, New York, released a statement on immigrant solidarity, saying they refuse to be divided: “By standing together across all lines of difference, we are building a movement stronger than their fear tactics, stronger than their threats.

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  • The Tools Of Repression

    For people organizing against state violence and carceral expansion, state repression is not just a possibility—it is a certainty. Criminalization of dissenters has been a throughline of recent years. From mass arrests during the George Floyd uprisings to the brutal repression of pro-Palestine student protesters, police have consistently been the state’s go-to response, shielding power from accountability and attempting to crush movements before they can gain momentum. This has always been true in the United States, but as fascism increases its hold on state power, so does the repression’s scale and intensity.

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  • Unleashing The 89% Of People Who Want Climate Action Could Lead To ‘Social Tipping Point’

    A whopping 89 percent of people globally want stronger action on the climate crisis, but feel trapped in a “spiral of silence” because of the mistaken belief they are in the minority, according to research.

    Experts say making people with pro-climate viewpoints aware that they are in the majority could unleash a social tipping point that could drive leaders to take necessary climate action, reported The Guardian.

    “One of the most powerful forms of climate communication is just telling people that a majority of other people think climate change is happening, human-caused, a serious problem and a priority for action,” said Anthony Leiserowitz.

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  • If Fear Is The Goal, Then Solidarity Is The Antidote

    Many of us are angsting these days about the mounting repression coming from the White House. 

    In my community, many are worried about rumors of possible executive orders targeting climate and other nonprofit groups. The concern is well-founded. As Bloomberg reports, these executive orders — expected on Earth Day — would try to strip some groups of their tax exempt status, similar to the threats the president has made to Harvard.

    I’m now thinking about the many teachers, students, nonprofit staff, lawyers, university staff and faculty and beyond who are worried, concerned and uncertain about what is coming.

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  • Finding And Keeping Our Balance: Elders At The Crossroads

    I long for peace and ease as stress and anxiety overtake me. How can I be an active part of the resistance against the fascist regime bludgeoning my people and still hope for some comfort along the way?

    Many of us elders who are seasoned activists are halted at rocky crossroads: Do we put on our protective masks, dig out our marching boots and join the protests flooding the streets of our towns and cities? We’re not those sure-footed, fearless, feisty, determined warriors we once were.

    We have osteoporosis, bronchitis, vestibular imbalance, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis. … We’re vulnerable and afraid.

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  • Michigan And Neighbouring States Should Stand Up For Canada

    For more than 100 years, the United States and Canada have benefitted from a peaceful 5,500-mile (or 8,900-kilometre) border and co-operation on many issues of common concern. Michigan has benefitted from this relationship and without Canada, restoration efforts in the Great Lakes would not have begun in the 1970s to transform the region’s Rust Belt legacy of industrial pollution.

    Michigan officials, and those of the seven other Great Lakes states, are fully aware of this history, so it is puzzling that they’ve been silent in the wake of a stream of suggestions by President Donald Trump that Canada should become the 51st state.

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  • Labor Union Lessons In Solidarity Are Fueling Tenant Organizing

    When Christina Jackson first started talking with her neighbors living in a Denver apartment building about their shared concerns about elevators not working, water being shut off, and roaches in their apartments, the response was guarded. “A lot of the tenants were scared to complain because they worried they would get evicted if they spoke up,” Jackson said.

    The worry is not an unreasonable one. My students and I represent low-income tenants facing eviction, and most of our clients have little protection from landlord retaliation. Even if a state’s laws block the landlord from openly citing a tenant’s complaints as the grounds for eviction, landlords can and do find other pretenses for forcing tenants out before their lease expires.

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