On December 1st, 2011, a determained group of activists set out from the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument in Washington D.C. and walked, 750 miles, to Atlanta, Ga.  Their goal was to teach, and listen to people, about the occupy movement, income inequality, who really controls congress, and what can be done to regain control of our democracy and the future.  After 60 days on the road, they arrived in Atlanta.  After spending the night at Peachtree and Pine shelter, they attended the Sunday Sermon at Ebinezer Baptist Church, and received a heartwarming applause from those in attendance who heard about their journey.  Then, they stepped across the street to the Martin Luther King Jr. Tomb, their finial destination, and gave a press conference about their experiences on the road between Washington and Atlanta.  This film is our report from that press conference.

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More: Tribe Thanks Secretary Salazar For Righting Wrongs Of The Past by David Laughing Horse Robinson

Video: The Kawaiisu people and legal history of land by Kernvillekate | | More Information and videos: Kawaiisu Tribe of the Tejon (Blogspot)

While middle classes can afford to take airplanes for the holiday, for average Chinese migrant workers and students, the less expensive railroad trip could be their only chance in a few years to return their home for the holidays. Train tickets are always very difficult to buy during the holiday seasons, and the trip could be very long. Some people could take up-to10-days trip from far nothen China to far southern China to meet their family.

Holidays also mean the need to bring year-long savings from work to families; however, not everyone is so lucky. Many workers also need to fight for their back-wages as well, right before the new year many company bosses also could cheating their worker's wages, they need to fight to get their money back.

The author also comments on the impact of international politics in China, including the steady rise of China's right wing pro-US/anti-communist neo-con/neo-liberal forces. From the newswire: Journey to My Home--Happy Spring Festival (AKA Chinese New Year)! by Lee Siu Hin

Related: Austin Indymedia 2011 Year in Review

[Related: William Singletary, 65, Courageous Witness of Mumia's Innocence | Mumia Abu-Jamal's "Why There is No Iran War on the Horizon"]

freemumia.com

The Great Debate

NDAA Protest in Portland Oregon 2.3.12 [one minute video]

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. It contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. The dangerous new law can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.

He signed it. Now, we have to fight it wherever we can and for as long as it takes.

This is a 20 minute mini-documentary about the Rochester City School District Board of Education contracting with Ray & Associates, Inc.--an expensive, corporate superintendent search firm with ties to the Eli Broad Superintendents Academy--and the community's struggle and response to such attacks on public education.

• Read more about MIC CHECK: Parents and Community Disrupt Superintendent Search Committee Meeting
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In this 4 minute piece, Ryan Acuff talks about negotiations between the City of Rochester and Occupy Rochester to continue the occupation of Washington Square Park for another two months as per the contract signed by Mayor Richards on November 10, 2011 allowing occupiers full legal right to occupy the park in downtown.

• Read more about Acuff Talks About Occupy Rochester's Contract Renewal with the City
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Local filmmaker and journalist--Davy V.--wrote an article, in Minority Reporter, calling out Rochester radio station 103.9FM WDKX for not supporting communities of color in Rochester. On January 12, 2012, Davy decided to hit the streets to bring his criticisms of the station to the people.

• Read more about VIDEO: Davy V. Calls Out 103.9FM WDKX
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More than 345,000 students are currently enrolled in various adult education programs including English as a second language, high school graduation, occupational programs, and many others.

Efforts are underway to save these critical programs. So far thousands of signatures have been collected, hundreds of phone calls made, and various other means of trying to convince the LAUSD Board to save Adult Education have been employed. Moreover, it isn't just the students at these schools and community activists supporting adult education. Indeed, many local business support LAUSD Adult Education for reasons including providing workers from the community better prepared for positions.

Supporters are asking for signatures on the on-line petition, as well as for support at a demonstration this Thursday, February 9, at 1:30 at the LAUSD offices, 333 S Beaudry Ave in Los Angeles, 90017.

From the newswire: Even Local Businesses Support Efforts to Save LAUSD Adult Education by Robert D. Skeels

Please share this video widely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlkpT7zJfP8&feature=youtu.be

This last Saturday the Green Party and the Foundation hosted a tour that also included a Tongva blessing of the land. Fresh potable water is bubbling out of the ground and into small streams and pools. The water is said to have healthy restorative powers.

In 1992 a group of local environmentalists working together with Tongva descendants formed the Gabrienlino/Tongva Springs Foundation. The foundation was able to secure a lease for the land from the Los Angeles Unified School District for one dollar a year. The Foundation found funding, both private and public and has restored much of the site. The work goes on and there is still much to be done to preserve and protect the springs.

The foundation’s current lease expires next year and they are hoping to secure a new long-term fifty-year lease from the school district. Supporters are urged to contact the school district and encourage them to extend the lease and ensure the continued protection and ongoing restoration of this sacred site.

From the newswire:Protecting Sacred Sites: The Kuruvungna Springs by A

Related from DC-IMC: Reportback from protest against war in Iran | from NYC-IMC: Oppose War on Iran: Fight for Peace in the World!

Coming up: UFPJ Occupy Peace Summit | UNAC National Conference

Below are links to videos on our IndyTV.blip.tv video channel that you may have missed while Rochester.Indymedia.org was being redesigned! Just click the titles to take you to the videos and enjoy!

• Read more about FOUND: Missing Videos!
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Mikhail Lyubansky, who writes and teaches about restorative justice, said, "Jail is just one strategy, not the only one" to public safety and called on the County Board to look into alternatives to incarceration.

Peter Campbell of the GEO Solidarity Committee said, "To argue that we should expand a jail in order to treat prisoners better is perverse: any public official who makes this argument is trading on the lives of the most vulnerable in our community for their own political gain."

Chris Evans spoke about the history of the public safety quarter cent sales tax, passed by voters in 1998. The sales tax ought to be brough back to voters, he said.

The classes are for the CAREGIVER, not the person with mental illness. There are other classes for them.

I encourage you to send this with the poster attachment to anyone who you think might benefit from such classes. We ask for a 13 week commitment. There is a lot of material including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the latest info on treatments for all kinds of disorders.

It's been a while, but Rochester IMC is back, here to stay, and hopefully better than ever.  We've upgraded our server software and are excited to start building up the new site with all of you.  Let's talk about some of the new features!

New Frontpage Layout

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Eloise Pittman was given a predatory loan on a home that she and her family have lived in for over 50 years. She passed away in November, and her family is facing eviction. Since December 6th, 404 Glen Iris has been occupied in an effort to stop eviction. read more & video

Past Features:An Update and Call to Action from #GlenIris #OccupyAtlanta | The Pittman Family vs Chase Bank-Round 3

Cascadia Forest Defenders are heading to Salem on the 14th to confront the State Land Board--Governor Kitzhaber, Secretary of State Kate Brown, and Treasurer Ted Wheeler-- about their direct hand in the destruction of Oregon's public forests.

Tuesday Feb 14 7:30am until 12:00pm Oregon Department of State Lands Office, 775 Summer Street, Salem!

for more info visit forestdefensenow.com
[ rides from Eugene and Portland being organized on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/246432292102522/ ]

On Tuesday, February 7, 2012, members of Occupy Rochester, Occupy Wall Street, formerly incarcerated people, and community allies demonstrated outside of Wells Fargo in Pittsford, NY demanding that the bank divest all of its holdings in The GEO Group, Corrections Corporation of America, and other companies in the private prison industry.

• Read more about Wells Fargo! Dump Your Prison Stock!
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A blogger for Time magazine revealed on Feb. 2 that from 2007 to 2010, the Sierra Club, under former Executive Director Carl Pope, had accepted $26 million in donations from individuals and subsidiaries linked with Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest gas drilling companies in the U.S. heavily involved in the controversial drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The funds were donated for the express purpose of funding the environmental group’s Beyond Coal campaign. The Sierra campaign has succeeded in stopping the construction of 160 proposed coal-fired power plants and is now targeting existing coal-fired plants for closure.

"He's been in prison for over 30 years for a crime that he did not commit; his health is extremely bad," said Corine Fairbanks of AIM (American Indian Movement) Southern Cal, who was involved in two of the three events on February 4. "It was wonderful to see people going out of their way to participate in these events. I believe we definitely need to continue to educate people, especially young people, as to who Leonard Peltier is. I think there's a concentrated effort made by various governments for us to forget who he is. When I say educate, I'm saying that people need to be aware of not only who he is and the sacrifice he and his family have made being that he's a prisoner of war, but people also need to put more pressure on President Obama, put more pressure on the U.S. government for his release."

The charges against Peltier have been deemed illegitimate by Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and many others. Peltier has received six Nobel Peace Prize nominations. His activism includes selling his painting, proceeds of which have benefited the Lakota people. Story and photos: International Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier: Clemency Now! by RP, photos by Isabel Avila

Related: Protecting Sacred Sites: The Kuruvungna Springs Tribe Thanks Secretary Salazar; Repricussions on Land Dispute

As we planned this sit-in February 9, the Occupiers of 404 Glen Iris Drive, we stayed up nights at a time gathering and putting ideas together. For some odd reason, I couldn’t really stay up listening to ideas and planning a night or so behind bars, so I left the meetings to pray to God, talk to my grandma, and go on off to sleep while the occupiers stay up from sun down to sun up planning any type of win for my house. Thursday night at 12 turns into Friday, the day of the action. I can’t sleep with my mind running off almost everything.

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Attached is the 2011 jail inspection of the Champaign County jails by criminal justice specialist Brad Bresson of the Illinois Department of Corrections. Despite claims by Sheriff Dan Walsh that the downtown jail is uninhabitable, it passed state inspection.

Attorneys representing some 700 arrestees and detainees in the famed March 20, 2003 antiwar protest on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive announced that they have won a multi-million dollar settlement with the City of Chicago over the illegal crackdown of that protest by the Chicago Police that night.

It is a win nearly nine years in the making -- first to get all charges against Chicago peace protesters dismissed, then to wait three years before achieving class certification of the lawsuit (Vodak v. City of Chicago), then to fend off a spurious police countersuit, then to appeal a summary judgment in 2010 dismissing the lawsuit altogether, finally winning an appeal in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirming the protesters' rights and restoring the suit.

Prisons have become a metaphor; the shadow-side, if you will, of America. With oceans of words about freedom, and the reality that the U.S. is the world's leader of the incarceration industry, it's more than time for the focused attention of the Occupy Movement. Audio from prisonradio.org | Photos from freemumia.com

 On Valentine's Day, 2011, CWA members, Teamsters, Jobs with Justice, Clergy, Union supports, and Occupy Atlanta members paid a visit to AT&T in Atlanta to ask for a Valentine gift, "Show some Love, Stop the Layoffs!".  AT&T had recently announced that they will be laying off 740 union workers in the South East region, 95 of those layoffs here in Georgia. At the same time, AT&T CEO Randall Stevenson received $27,000,000 in compensation in 2011.  At a time when Georgia is facing double digit unemployment and has one of the nations highest foreclosures rates, layoffs of good paying union jobs is the last thing the state needs. So on Valentines Day, CWA supports came together to demand that AT&T stop the lay offs and show their employees the dignity they deserve.

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On February 12th, 30 hooligans descended on DeKalb County Jail. We came to scream and cry out in solidarity with a jailed comrade who's bond had been posted the previous day but who was, nonetheless, still incarcerated; all of this in the face of the general asphyxiation which characterizes the prevailing Social Peace.

• At first there were only a few of us...

Upon approaching the Jail, we were met immediately with the waving of just a few inmates. The faint knocking on the glass was exciting. The large bass drum picked up a beat as the 15 of us began chanting.

"Burn this fucker down, Atlanta wants a free town!"

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Two activists with the animal rights group "Negotiation Is Over" (NIO) have been arrested at a protest in Florida. Group founder Camille Marino was arrested on an out of state warrant, and is awaiting extradition to Michigan.

In Michigan, NIO is campaigning against an animal experimenter at Wayne State University named Donal O'Leary, who uses dogs in heart experiments. One of the dogs, the Dalmation pictured above named Queenie, was forced to run on a treadmill with a device implanted in her heart, catheters protruding from her body, and open wounds leaking fluids. Doctors have urged the federal government to investigate O'Leary's violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

[Related: US, Iran inching toward talks (Asia Times)]

Both Lopaur and Hedges made some critically weak, flawed, at times somewhat disingenuous or self-contradictory and, in Lopaur's case, often specious arguments in their radio debate. This so, even though I politically agree with Hedges, and although Hedges' recent commentary, "The Cancer in Occupy," seemed poorly supported journalistically. But, Hedges is dead on about, 'Go do violence under your own name, not the Occupy movement's.'

Read more: daveyd.com | hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com

[ Related: | How violence protects the State | On The Nature of Violence and Nonviolence | Organized Non-violent Civil Disobedience vs. OWS ]

About the Court Argument on the 29th of February(From Lynne's Website)

By Lynne Stewart...

A protest outside the infamous twin towers jail in Downtown LA, where the ACLU was instrumental in exposing prisoner abuse by LA County Sheriff's deputies late last year, drew large numbers of protesters, and a smaller facility at San Bernardino County's West Valley Detention Center, where inmates participated in the solidarity hunger strike during it's peak last year, likewise drew a loud demonstration.

From the newswire: Occupy for Prisoners by Rockero

Occupy Rochester Denounces Threats to Evict the 7-Year "Railroad Encampment"

February 23, 2012

Amtrak Empire District Manager, Howard G. Noll
Mayor Tom Richards, City of Rochester
Dear Amtrak and the City of Rochester,

• Read more about Occupy Rochester Denounces Threats to Evict the 7-Year "Railroad Encampment"
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A rally was held at a local verizon location to bring attention to Verizon's abysmal record of paying state and federal income taxes.  Despite Verizon making profits of $33.4 billion between 2008-2010, Verizon paid only $866 million in NYS taxes or a rate of 2.6% and actually received a $951 million rebate from the federal government or a rate of -2.9%.  If Verizon had paid the basic NYS income tax rate, they would have paid an additional $1.5 billion to the state between 2008-2010.

• Read more about Rally Targets Verizons Tax Dodging
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In order to justify this clearing out, the city council approved an ordinance banning vending, but also extended a previous ordinance closing the beach between midnight and 5am to include the Venice boardwalk. Advocates have opposed the beach-closing ordinance on the grounds that it was created and enforced without the required California Coastal development permit.

The LAPD's Pacific Division is further attempting to justify the removal of people by claiming that Venice is not subject to the terms of the Jones settlement, which prohibits police from enforcing the ban on sitting and sleeping on sidewalksduring certain hours.

Forcibly removed from their customary locations, the homeless were recommended to go to skid row.

From the newswire: More War Against Venice Street People by Venice Justice Committee | | Power Comes From The Barrel Of a Gun by Calvin E Moss

Workers with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America have occupied Serious Materials (formerly Republic Window & Door) in Chicago. The company had said it is closing operations at its Chicago plant due to "ongoing economic challenges in construction and building products, collapse in demand for window products, difficulty in obtaining favorable lease terms, high leasing and utility costs and taxes, and a range of other factors unrelated to labor costs[...]"

http://libcom.org/news/workers-occupy-factory-chicago-24022012

Susan Herman, president of the ACLU, discusses the impact on the war on terror on average Americans. Post 9/11 programs such as the Patriot Act and other surveillance provisions have reversed the balance of power between the government and the people, allowing the government to abuse this power. The government now swims in a ocean of public data to which it has no desire to return back.

More information on the film

This year's [PIELC / ELAW] theme is New Frontier: The Political Crossroads of Our Environmental Future

Conference Schedule

 The National Day of Action to protest war on Iran was held on February 4, 2012. Austin protesters gathered at 6th St and Lamar to voice their opposition to engaging in another foreign conflict.