AUSTIN: City Council Declares ‘Andrew Dobbs Day’ for Local Revisionist
By Ed Dalton
On Thursday Austin City Council Member Leslie Pool presented Andrew Dobbs with a distinguished service award and the proclamation of ‘Andrew Dobbs Day’. Dobbs is a notorious local revisionist and a former leader of the Austin Socialist Collective (ASC), which he was instrumental in rebranding as the Austin Revolutionary Organizing Collective (AROC), but which folded just last month. Dobbs attended the proclamation ceremony at City Hall to accept the award himself and give a speech.
While the Austin City Council mobilizes the police to arrest dozens of genuine revolutionary anti-gentrification activists, essentially eliminating their democratic rights to free speech and assembly, they feel it appropriate to award revisionists like Dobbs. Worst of all is that Dobbs sees no issue with accepting the award from such bourgeois cretins, he remained silent on the fact that the City Council was bribed by developers in spite of his posturing opposition to gentrification.
Instead, he told the council, “I charge you Mr. Mayor, and Leslie, and all the other council members…to please stay the course on representing the public interest, please listen to the community advocates like Texas Campaign for the Environment.” Read the full story @ incendiarynews.com
#Austin #gentrification
CHARLOTTE: Distribution Plant Workers Join National Strike
By Gabriel Roshan
At midnight on September 15, a group of auto workers began a picket outside of the General Motors (GM) Service Parts Operations in Charlotte on Westinghouse Blvd. The day before, the contract expired between GM and United Automobile Workers’ (UAW) after 96% of workers authorized a strike demanding a pay increase among other items.
The plant in Charlotte includes 121 workers that are represented by Local 2404. On Monday morning at the height of the picket, there were 35 workers and retirees outside the Westinghouse plant.
Throughout the night it was quiet, with mostly workers talking to each other in groups and the local president Mark McQuillen giving two speeches about the plans for the strike. McQuillen stated, “This is a marathon, not a sprint, so far our leaders in Detroit are saying they are not close.” One worker named Chris raised his hand to ask, “How long are we going to be out here for?” McQuillen responded, “No idea, but they are estimating anywhere between a few days and two weeks.” “It’s their right to bring in replacement workers,” McQuillen said, referring to scabs, “but by law after the strike is over they are required to hire us back and we are not allowed to touch the replacement workers but we can impede their path.” This was met with audible sighs.
Read the full story @ incendiarynews.com
#charlotte #uawstrike
AUSTIN: Banner Drop Against Domain on Riverside
By Jakob Stein
This morning, a banner was dropped on Riverside Dr. over Interstate-35 highway in Austin during heavy traffic. The banner reads, “No Domain on Riverside, Combat and Resist Gentrification.” Community members are rallying today at 6:30pm at Austin City Hall, as City Council takes its final vote on the luxury project known as the “Domain on Riverside.” The project has the potential to displace thousands of workers and students, and has been struggled against for the past year and a half by residents of the Riverside area.
Read more stories @ incendiarynews.com
#Austin #NoDomainOnRiverside #gentrification
AUSTIN: Tenants Protest Against Displacement at Council Member’s House
By David Martinez
On Wednesday night, tenants, students, and workers, alongside revolutionary organization Defend Our Hoodz-Defiende El Barrio (DOH), held an action outside of the home of District 3 Council member Sabino “Pio” Renteria to protest his support for the “Domain On Riverside,” a massive luxury project that developers are trying to build in the last working-class neighborhood in central Austin.
Renteria arrived home on his bike to a crowd of tenants and activists agitating and chanting outside his home in the East Austin barrio next to Martin Middle School. He was taken completely by surprise and was visibly nervous at the sight of the protesters, stumbling as he tried to get his bike through his back gate.
As protesters approached him, Renteria gave a thumbs up and grinned at the activists, telling them, “It’s going to happen,” in reference to the project passing. The council will take the final vote on the rezoning applications for the project at today’s council meeting. If built, the project will demolish 1,400 low-rent housing units and displace thousands of workers and students.
Renteria hurled accusations that the protesters were “racist” and demanded that DOH take their “white friends out of here.” The Chicano protesters in attendance laughed Renteria off, telling him that he didn’t represent them, and mocked his past membership as a Brown Beret, which he opportunistically uses to claim radical credibility.
The activists chanted, “Renteria, you’re a sham, we fight back when you steal our land!” and, “Pio, Pio, Pinche Vendido” (Pio, Pio, Goddamn Sellout). They held banners that read, “Workers of Riverside, Unite! Combat and Resist Gentrification,” and, “Developers, Council, Cops, Enemies of the People!” One sign parodied the popular Mexican loteria bingo game, showing a laughing head of Renteria hovering over a bag of money, labeled as “El Vendido.” Read the full story @ incendiarynews.com
#Austin #NoDomainOnRiverside
HOUSTON: Greenpeace Activists Stage Protest to Shut Down Ship Channel
By Jennifer Kelly
On the morning of the Democratic debate last week in Houston, a group of protesters with Greenpeace USA, an affiliate of the international environmental nonprofit, attempted to shut down the Houston Ship Channel for 24 hours. Several activists suspended themselves from the Fred Hartman Bridge, forcing a section of the ship channel to shut down. All protesters were arrested within 18 hours.
Greenpeace’s stated goal was to “confront Trump and the oil industry” by shutting down one of the busiest ship channels in the world and the largest petrochemical complex in the country. They also wanted to “challenge every candidate on stage tonight [at the Democratic debate in Houston] to promise to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable if they become president,” and championed the so-called “Green New Deal.” The Democratic candidates at the debate for their part made no comment on the action, and it is unclear whether any were aware of it. The Green New Deal itself is a bourgeois scam, a reformist proposal that will do nothing to end US imperialism, which is principally responsible for the plunder and pollution of the Earth.
Various reports from bourgeois officials have stated that the shutdown caused no appreciable economic impact, that the facilities keep supplies on hand to last for several days and the shipping schedules allow for delays of days or even weeks.
According to the president of the Greater Houston Port Bureau trade organization, any shutdown of the ship channel for a short period “is not going to put us in any position that we can’t recover quickly from.” Some contest that claim, however, as one Harris County prosecutor said, “this action cost our community many, many millions of dollars in lost commerce.” Read the full story @ incendiarynews.com
#Houston
BRAZIL: Army and Military Police Evict Peasants in Porto Velho
By Jakob Stein
Last week, the reactionary Army, the National Force, and the Military Police Tactical Force evicted 400 peasant families from the Boa Esperança Camp in Porto Velho, Rondônia. The residents report that the military acted violently and set fire to the area, arresting Delson Pinto de Souza, a peasant who had been harassed and persecuted for years and has legal ownership of the Boi D’Água area where the Boa Esperança camp is located.
De Souza allowed the peasants to build the camp on his land but says that land grabbers in the region have persecuted him as a result. In the past, agents of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio, administrative arm of the Ministry of Environment) have threatened the camp in attempts to force the peasants off their land.
The lawyer representing the displaced families, Ermogenes de Souza, has also been accused of being a mastermind in the land occupation simply for providing legal guidance. According to him, the displaced peasants were taken to a school in Rio Pardo after being evicted, displaced from their only means of subsistence and not knowing how they will eat.
A neighboring peasant exposed the reactionary old state’s priorities perfectly in an audio clip sent to revolutionary newspaper A Nova Democracia: “I am concerned about these things because we need so much , and what we hear is the whining that you have no money. And suddenly, for these things [eviction] you have plenty of money. For repression you have money. But there is no money for education, no money for meals, no money to help in [small] agriculture, no money for land regularization, but for repression there is money. I do not understand this!” Read the full story @ incendiarynews.com
#Brazil #newdemocracy
