It is a significant milestone for marriage equality advocates. As of March 9, same-sex couples are now able to marry in Washington, D.C.  Same-sex couples were allowed to apply for marriage licenses starting on March 3. The day before, the Supreme Court had refused to block the District’s gay marriage law.

This makes Washington, D.C., the sixth place in the country—and the first jurisdiction below the Mason-Dixon Line—that allows same-sex couples to marry. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont also issue licenses to same-sex couples.

“Today the love that you have recognized all along is recognized by the District of Columbia,” said Rev. Dwayne Johnson of the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington as he married Darlene Garner and Candy Holmes of Laurel, Md., one of the first same-sex couples to marry in D.C. (Associated Press, March 9)

On March 3, same-sex couples had lined up outside the Moultrie Courthouse in downtown D.C. to apply for marriage licenses. According to the Associated Press, 151 couples applied that day, most of them same-sex couples.

Media coverage described poignant scenes outside the courthouse as couples obtained their marriage licenses. According to the Washington Times, Sinjoyla Townsend cried, she was “overcome by the emotion of the day.” Townsend and her partner, Angelisa Young, were the first same-sex couple in line to apply for a license to marry.

Victory, however, is no reason to let our guard down. Recent events have proven that, in the fight against deep-rooted bigotry, victories can be rolled back. On Nov. 5, 2008, California stopped issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples due to Proposition 8 and on Nov. 4, 2009, Maine’s gay marriage law was repealed.

The Washington Post reported that gay marriage opponents in the U.S. Congress may try to block funds needed by the District to implement the law as part of the appropriations process this spring. The federal government does not allow the D.C. government to spend local tax dollars without Congressional or presidential approval.

Opponents are also looking to put a ban on gay marriages before voters, a move similar to California’s Proposition 8 well-financed campaign of bigotry and disinformation.

However, for now the mood is celebratory. The Party for Socialism and Liberation honors this triumph. It’s a victory for all people who struggle for equality.

United action forces bookstore to cave in

After a determined struggle, on March 2 Atticus Bookstore Café repealed its racist “English only” policy that prohibited workers from speaking in foreign languages within earshot of customers. Faced with the outrage of community members, the owner of the New Haven, Conn., bookstore issued a written apology to the workers and praised them for their ability to speak in multiple languages. 

The initial policy sent to Atticus employees in November opened, “Here we speak English.” The manager threatened to send employees home for a week without pay and fire them if they were caught speaking Spanish to each other outside of the kitchen. The manager himself, it should be noted, frequently spoke French in the store.

To help organize against management, Atticus workers contacted the New Haven Workers Association and members of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). A letter was distributed to alert the community of the racist policy, and demand that there be “no discrimination against Spanish-speaking employees.” Joe Rodrigues, a local alderman and advocate for immigration rights called the policy “troubling, divisive and discriminatory.”

In late January, the bookstore claimed the policy had been “misunderstood” and would be “reviewed,” but the movement continued.   Deb Malatesta, an ANSWER activist and PSL member in New Haven, said that a review “does not go far enough. The intent of the policy posted in the store was explicit and it should be overturned immediately.”

While many workers were afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs, the community displayed outstanding unity in opposition to the English-only policy. Organizers leafletted in front of the store, called for a boycott and initiated a letter-writing and call-in campaign to make clear that the community would not stand for this discriminatory and racist policy. At one point, business was reported to have declined by over 30 percent.

After a little over a month of struggle, the owner issued an apology and repealed the policy.

This was a small but important victory. It shows that there is something we can do about the wave of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. We can unite and take action.

Johnny Weir took sixth place in the men’s figure skating finals during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Though the Olympics are over, the 25-year-old athlete has remained in the spotlight due to the homophobic assault unleashed by capitalist media.

During Weir’s run on Feb. 18, Réseau des Sports commentators Alain Goldberg and Claude Mailhot unleashed vicious verbal assaults on Weir’s gender expression as well as his presumed sexuality. The pair “joked” that Weir should compete in the women’s events instead of the men’s, and denigrated him for being a “bad example” for male figure skaters. They further suggested that Weir be forced to undergo tests to determine his gender. Several major media outlets in the United States, including CNN, have raised the question whether Weir is “too gay” for figure skating.

Professional sports in the United States have historically been a battleground for issues of oppression. During the 1968 Olympics, two Black athletes raised their fists in the Black power salute during their medal ceremony drawing attention to national liberation movements. There were bitter struggles to integrate major league baseball and football. Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 allowed women more access to sports.

Last year, Caster Semenya, a decorated South African runner, was subject to vicious bigotry and gender testing to verify that she was “legally female” despite her birth certificate and her right to define her own gender.

The attacks on Weir illustrate the role of corporate media in defining the acceptable limits for gender expression in capitalist society. On one hand, the ongoing and militant LGBT movement has succeeded in opening up some space for athletes who are not heterosexual or do not fit traditional gender norms. On the other hand, there will be a culture of homophobia and heterosexism as long as capitalism exists.

The roots of LGBT oppression and the fight for equality

The traditional nuclear family and its component gender roles are presented as fixed and natural. Frederick Engels’ “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State” uses anthropological evidence to expose this myth.

Engels describes how the family has evolved over time in correspondence to different modes of production. Originally, early human kinship was organized in loose affiliations called gens. The scarcity of food and resources necessitated that women and men work cooperatively. Accordingly, same-sex couples, or “pairings,” were viewed no differently than their heterosexual counterparts.

Over time, technological advances altered social relations. The accumulation of surplus-value required a transformation in the organization of society. The oppression of women arose with the emergence of the first class societies, those based on slavery. As men asserted control over the means of production and the resulting surplus, women were confined to the home, reduced to the property of their husbands. Women became valued for the children they could bear, not for their intrinsic value as human beings. Matriarchy gave way to patriarchy.

The development of the nuclear family based on the heterosexual couple thus accompanied the development of class society. The oppression of LGBT people and all who fell outside the framework of the nuclear, heterosexual family, too, emerged with the development of class society.

In modern capitalist society, bigotry against LGBT people, much like racism and sexism, is a wedge that divides the working class. Not surprisingly, corporate media sows these divisions at every opportunity. Though hate violence and other abuses against LGBT people may receive occasional condemnation, the media actively promotes the very bigotry that is the root cause of these crimes.

This is the context in which the attacks on Weir must be understood. The media message to the rest of society is that there are acceptable and unacceptable ways of expressing one’s gender or sexual orientation, which does nothing but perpetuate the bigotry that divides the working class. The Party for Socialism and Liberation fights for free gender expression and for LGBT liberation.

Using expedited procedures, the Greek parliament approved a rigorous austerity program March 5, just two days after the government announced it.

The program calls for deep cuts in public workers’ wages, pension freezes, hiring freezes, cuts in education and other services and increased taxation on basic commodities, fuel, electricity and more. These measures are the harshest passed by any Greek government since the end of a military dictatorship in 1974, and are effective immediately. (Wall Street Journal, March 4)

European Union officials, domestic and international banks and corporations, the IMF and Wall Street all hailed the approval of the package.

The austerity package was passed with the votes of the ruling social-democratic PASOK party and the ultra-right LAOS party. The deputies of KKE, the Communist Party of Greece, left the parliament and joined a protest outside the building.

People enraged over measures

The measures have enraged working and poor people in Greece. Immediately after the announcement of the program, hundreds marched to the parliament building in downtown Athens. Rallies and protests took place in neighborhoods across Athens, as well as in other cities and towns across the country. In the southern city of Patras, members of the All-Worker’s Militant Front (PAME) occupied all four local television stations and broadcast clips calling for the workers to resist.

PAME called for a general strike on Friday, urging workers to rise up and resist the government’s assault. It appealed to all city labor councils, industrial union federations, union locals and workers everywhere in Greece to fight back and join the strike.

The pro-government union forces that control the leadership of the general confederations of workers refused to join Friday’s general strike, and only called 4-hour work stoppages. They called for a strike on March 11, almost a week after the announced date of the parliament’s vote. In their literature and slogans, they provide backing to the government by blaming “foreign speculators” for the crisis.

The government is using the same argument to portray the measures as “necessary” and “patriotic.” Prime Minister George Papandreou even claimed that poor people have stopped him on the streets to express their support and readiness to “sacrifice for the motherland.”

The working class, however, is stepping up its resistance. Thursday, March 4, saw massive protests and rallies in more than 50 cities and towns all over Greece. PAME activists occupied the Ministry of Finance and dropped a massive banner calling on workers to rise up and strike. Across the country, workers staged sit-ins at government buildings.

Friday’s strike was joined by wide sectors of the working class. The workers defied the government’s propaganda and the bosses’ intimidation campaign to send the message that they will not accept the austerity program.

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in various actions nationwide. PAME held rallies in 60 cities and towns, which were attended by young and old, women and men, immigrants and Greeks, workers, peasants, the self-employed and students.

Workers digging in for prolonged struggle

It was known that the measures would be approved, given that the government holds a majority in the parliament and is supported by all capitalist parties. However, this wave of measures is only the first of many to come.

The government has plans to extend the wage cuts on all private-sector workers, raise the retirement age while lowering pensions, initiate a new wave of privatizations, overhaul labor relations and reform the education system. All these measures were agreed upon at the EU level many years before the onset of the current global crisis. It was up to each member country to pursue these measures at home, and the Greek capitalist class is using the economic crisis as an opportunity to rapidly increase the pace of this anti-worker agenda.

The workers, too, must plan their resistance and escalate their struggle before the new measures are implemented. The approval of this wave of measures has not demoralized the working class. On the contrary, it has been a wakeup call for many who were hoping that the burden of the crisis would be shared by rich and poor alike.

The goal of the Greek capitalist class, like that of capitalists around the world, is to let the workers bear the burden. As the government was finalizing the austerity package, it revealed it would go ahead with a planned purchase of six French frigates at a cost of 2.5 billion euros ($3.4 billion ). For comparison, the whole austerity program is expected to result in 4.8 billion euros in savings.

The next action of the Greek labor movement, which is expected to draw thousands of workers, will be the rally of PAME and the Women’s Federation of Greece (OGE) on March 8, commemorating the 100th International Women’s Day. The general strike of March 11 will be another important step up for the workers’ struggle against the capitalist offensive.

Through a determined struggle, Greek workers can void the government’s measures and block the new ones that are coming. What is needed is a massive, radical, organized movement, rooted in every workplace and neighborhood. The Party for Socialism and Liberation extends its solidarity to our sisters and brothers in Greece.

Long live the workers’ struggle!

The author is a member of March Forward!, an organization of veterans and service members who stand against war and racism.

The Pentagon generals have warned that we should be braced for hundreds of U.S. casualties every month in this new phase of the war in Afghanistan.

We are told that we must risk life and limb—that tens of thousands of us must flood into Afghanistan, where U.S. casualties have skyrocketed year after year. The generals and politicians tell us we must die and be maimed to defeat an enemy, the Taliban, that threatens our "freedom" and our "way of life."

And this is the main explanation and justification for why we must fight and die endlessly in Afghanistan: to drive the Taliban from any chance at political power, for their unacceptable Islamic extremism, anti-U.S. hatred, repression of women and friendship with al-Qaeda.

Why, then, at the same time we are being sent to kill and be killed in Afghanistan, are the politicians sitting down to dinner with the same people we are being sent to fight?

Are the Taliban and al-Qaeda the real reasons for the war on Afghanistan?

When President Obama announced the vast escalation of the war in Afghanistan, his speech made clear that the fate of the United States, and its allies around the world, rested with a U.S. victory in Afghanistan.

He invoked the 9/11 attacks and the fear of another al-Qaeda attack.

General Petraeus, General McChrystal and other Pentagon brass have openly admitted to the media that al-Qaeda is no longer operating in Afghanistan.

Although al-Qaeda claims to operate in approximately 100 different countries, the generals and politicians maintain that controlling Afghanistan is the key to preventing another al-Qaeda attack.

As former-President Bush explained in his announcement of the invasion of Afghanistan, it was not only al-Qaeda that needed to be defeated, but the Taliban government, which was supposedly equally responsible for the attacks. We were told by Bush, and now told the same story by Obama, that if the Taliban is not defeated they will allow al-Qaeda to return and launch more attacks against the United States.

The Taliban was once a friend of the U.S. government, emerging as an outgrowth of the brutal U.S.-funded and trained "Mujaheddin," and continued to receive U.S. funding up until the 9/11 attacks. They had absolutely no role in the attacks, and in fact offered to extradite bin Laden to face trial. In their short history, the Taliban has never expressed any desire to attack the United States, and even today its leaders maintain that they have no interest in launching attacks against the United States—they are fighting to drive out what they rightfully see as a colonial-type occupation by foreign invaders.

We are expected to believe that it is just a coincidence that Afghanistan is an enormous economic prize for Wall Street and oil giants, and a significant geopolitical and military prize for the Pentagon. President Obama went so far as to state on national TV during his escalation speech that the United States is not an empire, not a colonizer.

But the U.S. relationship with the Taliban exposes the truth about U.S. foreign policy and military intervention: The war on "terrorism" is a war for colonial-style control of Afghanistan and Iraq and many other countries deemed important to a U.S.-dominated network of global domination. We live in the era of capitalism, which has as its natural extension the oppression of workers and whole peoples in the pursuit of profit and control of resources, markets and trade routes. Plain and simple: The United States is an imperialist country.

In 1996, when the Taliban was locked in a civil war with other factions vying for state power, U.S. officials began visiting the country. Among others, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel met with Taliban leaders. Her meeting reveals the true nature of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

She stated to those she met with that "we are … concerned that economic opportunities here will be missed, if political stability cannot be restored." At that time it was unclear which faction would succeed in the civil war, and while the United States was supporting the Taliban, they wanted to chum it up with all factions—it is not the nature of the government that concerns U.S. imperialism; only whether or not the victors will be welcoming of the proposed "economic opportunities."

The "economic opportunities" that Raphel was sent to Afghanistan to work out was a proposed gas pipeline that the oil giant Unocal wanted to build, that would spell hundreds of billions of dollars in profits for Unocal, countless other businesses that would cash in, and their paid representatives in Washington and in the Pentagon.

Afghanistan itself is rich in natural resources, and is in a key location for hugely lucrative oil pipelines. But more valuable is its positioning in the region, giving U.S. imperialism a crucial foothold to exert dominance over Central Asia, shifting the balance of power in favor of U.S. interests.

Permanent military bases in Afghanistan would allow Washington to dominate the region, in particular the natural gas-rich former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan’s western border is the Caspian Sea coast directly across from Azerbaijan, also brimming with oil profits. Each of these countries has a wealth of natural resources to be plundered by U.S. capital.

When the Taliban won state power, it eventually became clear that the vast "economic opportunities" that U.S. officials fantasized about would not be realized. The 9/11 attacks provided a pretext to seize control of the country.

The Bush administration arrogantly thought that Afghanistan would fall easily and become a new bastion of U.S. interests. Military bases in Afghanistan would secure those "economic opportunities" within its borders, and give the United States a launching pad to gain access to the economic opportunities throughout the region. But the excitement about the new balance of power in Central Asia was premature, as mounting resistance in both Afghanistan and Iraq began to crush the dreams of the Wall Street CEOs and their functionaries in the White House and the Pentagon.

Year after year, the resistance grew, as more and more Afghans were compelled to fight the occupation in response to endless bombings, raids and dead civilians.

By last year, it was clear that the U.S./NATO force was being defeated at the hands of not only the Taliban, but over 140 different armed organizations that sprouted out of the horrific conditions of living under occupation. When General McChrystal issued his assessment of the war effort after he took command, it was exceedingly grim, and predicted a complete U.S. defeat if there was not a dramatic shift in the size and scope of the operation.

Pentagon’s frustration leads to escalation

The new phase of the war will more than triple the size of the occupation, and focuses on storming urban centers and occupying the cities, as we have just witnessed in Marja. The generals have admitted that this new phase will be extremely bloody, as droves of young men and women will return from Afghanistan dead, maimed or psychologically disabled.

But the official posturing in relation to the Taliban has shifted significantly. The first phases of the war were characterized by chest-thumping slogans of "smoking them out of their caves" and "no mercy" for those who "harbor terrorists." The media pumped out stories of the Taliban’s brutality to justify thousands of civilian deaths at the hands of the U.S. occupation.

In this new phase, however, the tone has changed. General McChrystal said recently that "if [the Taliban] want to fight, then obviously that will have to be an outcome. But if they don’t want to fight, that’s fine, too, if they want to integrate into the government." A far cry from "no mercy." (New York Times, Feb. 4)

On Jan. 8, a U.N. official met with several senior Taliban officials to discuss a deal with the U.S./NATO occupiers that includes giving the Taliban a place in the Afghan government. In addition to that meeting, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials are taking the first steps to push those talks forward.

Afghan puppet-President Hamid Karzai has also publicly confirmed that, acting as a functionary of Washington, he will begin begging the Taliban to make a few concessions in exchange for awarding them political power.

Over 1,000 U.S. troops have now perished in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands have endured life-changing injuries—they all died because they were told that driving the Taliban from the government was crucial to the safety of the United States.

So why the change? How come after eight years of ruthless battle, after thousands of dead civilians, after more than 1,000 dead GIs—all under the justification that the Taliban was unacceptable and had to be driven from any sliver of political power or influence—why now do the generals and politicians want to award them seats in the Afghan government?

Even with the 30,000 additional troops, the United States will not be able to defeat the Taliban. That is the reason for the change. Washington and the Pentagon are faced with the reality that they cannot win militarily in Afghanistan.

Because the real aim in Afghanistan is to create an area friendly to U.S. business interests and to secure military bases for future imperialist wars, a deal with the Taliban is on the table. The only political position that the U.S. government cares about is whether or not U.S. capitalism is allowed access—so if the Taliban will take seats in the government in exchange for making some concessions to U.S. interests, then the U.S. politicians and the Taliban can become friends once again.

But getting the Taliban to agree to a deal is not possible now—the Taliban are clearly winning the war, so it has no need to make concessions.

As Afghan puppet-President Hamid Karzai put it, striking a power-sharing deal with the Taliban is the new goal, but cannot happen "without an atmosphere conducive to it." (McClatchy News, Feb. 8)

That "conducive atmosphere" means getting the Taliban into a defensive military position, where they are more likely to be receptive to a deal. That is what is behind the troop surge and the new strategy in Afghanistan.

We need a new independent fighting movement

The new strategy in Afghanistan, both the massive troop surge and attempts to rekindle the friendship with the Taliban, is a move of desperation on the part of the United States. It is the admission that the United States is losing the war, with fading hopes of regaining control.

The quagmire in Afghanistan, coupled with the devastating and deepening economic crisis here at home, puts the U.S. ruling class in an increasingly fragile position. It is now, when the ruling class is in crisis, that a fighting mass movement of the people must emerge in order to take advantage of Washington’s plummeting credibility.

The current situation puts the people in a possibly much more advantageous position to force the war to end and win jobs, health care and more. Now is the time to capitalize on the mounting resistance to U.S. imperialism abroad and growing frustration with the capitalist system here at home.

Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) was a Russian communist organizer. She was exiled for conducting underground political work in 1908, but returned to Russia after the February 1917 revolution.

To commemorate International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8, PSLweb.org publishes excerpts from Kollontai’s 1920 article, "International Women’s Day," written just over two years after the October 1917 socialist revolution in Russia. The entire article can be found at http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/.

Women’s Day, or Working Women’s Day, is a day of international solidarity, and a day for reviewing the strength and organization of proletarian women.

But this is not a special day for women alone. The 8th of March is a historic and memorable day for the workers and

peasants, for all the Russian workers and for the workers of the whole world. In 1917, on this day, the great February revolution broke out. It was the working women of Petersburg who began this revolution; it was they who first decided to raise the banner of opposition to the Tsar and his associates. And so, working women’s day is a double celebration for us.

Purpose of Women’s Day

[Women’s Day] turned out above all to be an excellent method of agitation among the less political of our proletarian sisters. They could not help but turn their attention to the meetings, demonstrations, posters, pamphlets and newspapers that were devoted to Women’s Day. Even the politically backward working woman thought to herself: "This is our day, the festival for working women," and she hurried to the meetings and demonstrations. After each Working Women’s Day, more women joined the socialist parties and the trade unions grew. Organizations improved and political consciousness developed.

These are the results of working women’s day of militancy. The day of working women’s militancy helps increase the consciousness and organization of proletarian women. And this means that its contribution is essential to the success of those fighting for a better future for the working class.

"Working Women’s Day" was first organized ten years ago in the campaign for the political equality of women and the struggle for socialism. This aim has been achieved by the working class women in Russia. In the Soviet Republic the working women and peasants don’t need to fight for the franchise and for civil rights.

Rights alone are not enough

But rights alone are not enough. We have to learn to make use of them. The right to vote is a weapon which we have to learn to master for our own benefit, and for the good of the workers’ republic. In the two years of Soviet power, life itself has not been absolutely changed. We are only in the process of struggling for communism and we are surrounded by the world we have inherited from the dark and repressive past. Working women and peasant women can only rid themselves of this situation and achieve equality in life itself, and not just in law, if they put all their energies into making Russia a truly communist society.

After the experience of the Russian October revolution, it is clear to every working woman in France, in England and in other countries that only the dictatorship of the working class, only the power of the soviets can guarantee complete and absolute equality, the ultimate victory of communism will tear down the century-old chains of repression and lack of rights.

Only the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Soviet power will save them from the world of suffering, humiliations and inequality that makes the life of the working woman in the capitalist countries so hard. The Working Woman’s Day turns from a day of struggle for the franchise into an international day of struggle for the full and absolute liberation of women, which means a struggle for the victory of the soviets and for communism!

On March 4, students all over the country walked out of class and took to the streets to defend education. Actions took place in over 30 states.

In California many schools were effectively shut down for the day and numerous cities were the scene of street and school building takeovers. There were reports of sit-ins, police repression and arrests in California, New York, Maryland, Arizona, Wisconsin and beyond.

The national day of demonstrations follows on the heels of massive statewide protests in California in December against budget cuts at the state’s colleges. Both statewide university systems voted to criminally increase tuition by over 30 percent. Budget cuts, layoffs, fee increases and tuition hikes, many drastic, are taking place in virtually all U.S. public schools. Public education is under a nationwide assault.

Reports were filed by: Andrew Castro, Chris Gonsalves, Dylan Wilkerson, Marcel Cartier, Nicholas Powell, Sarah Carlson and Sean Pavey 

Northern California

In the Bay Area, March 4, the national day of action against sweeping and deep cuts to education was expected to be a success, but no one really knew the extent of that success. Across the Bay Area, the day started off with planned pickets and protests on individual college campuses, as well as teach-ins, leafleting and sign-making on K-12 campuses.

Chants of "They say 'Furlough', we say 'Hell No!'" were heard by all who walked by the picket line at the entrance of San Francisco State University. More than 500 students, faculty and supporters gathered to demand an end to the state's budget cuts to education in the form of tuition hikes, mandatory furloughs and layoffs. Protesters connected the state's priorities of supporting prisons, bank bailouts and military recruitment to the massive cuts to primary and secondary education.

For several minutes, students blocked the intersection at 19th Ave and Holloway, chanting, "Rise Up, SF State! Shut it down like '68!"

Similar actions took place at City College of San Francisco, Ocean Ave. campus, where the noontime rally was kicked off with food and a drum circle to energize the gathering students. At its peak, the rally held over 300 students. One by one the, speakers stepped up to the mic to demand that the government, on a state and federal level, use public money and resources to fund education, health care, public transportation and jobs. This writer spoke on behalf of the ANSWER Coalition, calling on all to join the student/teacher contingent in the March 20 anti-war protest where we will demand money for education, not war and occupation.

The high point of the day was a march of more than 5,000 through the Mission District to the San Francisco Civic Center, followed by a mass rally that grew to more than 15,000 people. A majority of the marchers were K-12 students, teachers and parents. Many teachers helped students organize to join the march. College students joined the march in large numbers, including students from De Anza College, who mobilized 10 buses from their campus, as well as contingents from SF State and City College.

Marchers chanted "They say cut back, we say fight back!" and "Money for schools, not for war!” In many contingents, chants were led by high school, middle school and elementary school students.

In the East Bay, 139 adults and 10 juveniles entered I-880 and blocked traffic in both directions for almost an hour before they were arrested. Thousands of students and teachers from UC Berkeley, other colleges and high schools in the East Bay came together for a demonstration at Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland.

When 300 demonstrators at UC Davis attempted to take over a highway they were met by police in riot gear and armed with pepper spray. UC Davis and Santa Cruz students effectively shut down their campuses. Thousands of students marched through the Central Valley city of Fresno, and more than 1,000 demonstrated at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

In dozens of cities large and small across the greater Bay Area, including San Jose, Cupertino, Pleasanton, Pacifica and Pleasant Hill, students, teachers, parents and supporters took to the streets.

The March 4 national day of action against the cuts to education was a huge success across the San Francisco Bay Area and the country.

Southern California

Thousands of union workers, teachers, and students rallied across Southern California on March 4 to protest fee hikes, the underfunding of education, and the devastating budget cuts that are crippling the state’s once-celebrated system of higher education.

A rally at California State University Long Beach brought over 3,000 students and faculty members to the campus. At the University of California Los Angeles, hundreds of students participated in various actions, including occupations of school buildings and offices, teach-ins and rallies. There were similar protests at community colleges, universities, primary and high schools throughout the region.

At a mass rally at California State University Northridge, more than 2,500 students protested. A mass march was attacked by the Los Angeles Police Department as it took over Reseda Blvd. Students and a 74-year-old CSUN professor, Dr. Karren Baird-Olson, were pushed to the ground by the cops, who broke her arm.

In downtown Los Angeles thousands marched and rallied to decry the state government’s horrible mismanagement of the current economic crisis. Aldrich, a Los Angeles City College student, described the reasons that he chose to participate, "We’re out here today, not only for the students, but for the professors and the staff at the schools as well. Both the workers and the students are effected by these budget cuts."

The event was able to bring out a vibrant and diverse cross-section of the community. Militant students chanted, "They say ‘cut back’ we say ‘fight back!’" "Education is under attack. What do we do? Stand up fight back!" "Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation!"

The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Students Fight Back helped lead contingents at each of these actions, speaking at the downtown L.A. event and other actions in L.A., Long Beach and Orange County.

Chicago

Hundreds of students, members of the Service Employees International Union, faculty and community members marched on the quad in the east campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) on March 4 in solidarity with the actions around the country and against the proposed cuts at the school.

"Chop from the top!" was demanded by the demonstrators as well as, "They say furlough, we say hell no!"

The State of Illinois is using its own budget crisis as an excuse for not paying out the three-quarters of a billion dollars that it still owes to the University. But instead of taking the shortfall out of their pockets, the administration has decided to pass the bill onto students and teachers by forcing 11,000 workers to take unpaid furlough days, cutting student organizations, raising the cost of campus housing and by possibly pushing the cost of tuition by almost 20 percent.

One UIC student, Brit Reed, said, "It's outrageous that because of the economy people can't afford an education-which is a basic right. Capitalism is not working. Workers and students need to rise up and change the way our government works. Everyone needs an education; low income, working people and people of color."

Baltimore

On the morning of March 4, members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation joined hundreds of young students, teachers, and community activists in a vigilant march and rally from Camden Yards through downtown Baltimore all the way to the Juvenile Detention Center, known to the community as "Baby Booking," where 13 activists courageously staged a sit-in.

The march was jointly led by the Peer-to-Peer Coalition and the Baltimore Algebra Project, two youth-led one-on-one tutoring and mentoring organizations waging the "End the School to Prison Pipeline" Campaign against Maryland’s Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley’s decision to allocate $300 million towards the construction of three brand new juvenile detention centers.

While taking to the streets and shutting down traffic protesters chanted "If you don’t want us to fail, don’t put money in our jails!" "Arrest O’Malley!" "We don’t want your pity we want money for our city!" and "No Education, No Life!" while demanding youth empowerment in schools, that education be a constitutional right, and that $100 million of the funds toward juvenile centers be diverted towards a plan of $800 million for education and education-based youth jobs.

"I’m out here fighting for education. I don’t see why the state can put so much money towards something negative and not something positive," said a student from Western High School. "I really thought about it and … they really want more of us to go to jail," commented another.

Boston

On March 4, over 100 students participated in a successful rally for education at UMass Boston.

On March 3, activists, teachers, union members, and community members rallied outside of a budget hearing of the Boston School Committee. The press conference and picket was organized by the Coalition for Equal, Quality Education, demanding full funding for Boston Public Schools and an end to the corporate takeover of education. Coalition members called for money for education, not for war and Wall Street.

The Boston School Committee is set to vote on its budget on March 24—a budget that has at least a $33 million gap.　 The BSC has proposed "solutions" to this gap that include turning the heat down in schools and cutting bus transportation for students. The cuts in transportation would lead to a further segregation of the school system, a possibility that members of the community fought against in the spring, when the school committee threatened to rezone the school district.

As the group rallied outside of the committee meeting, some of the chants included, "They say cut back, we say fight back!" and "Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation!"　

Speakers at the rally included City Councilor Chuck Turner, a representative of the Bus Drivers' Union, BPS educator and activist Sandra McIntosh, and Emily MacMillan, ANSWER Coalition organizer and member of the PSL.

MacMillan said, "Students are going to suffer because of this $33 million gap. And yet the U.S. government spends close to $500 million a day on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is almost $1 billion every two days that is spent on war, occupation, and destruction. The budget gap of BPS could be closed for what it costs to wage war for less than 2 hours. And these budget gaps in BPS and in countless other public school districts will only continue to widen if we allow the attack on public education and the privatization of education to continue."　

As Sandra McIntosh, a leading member of CEQE said of the March 3 action, "This is just a dress rehearsal," as we will be back in the streets for a large march and rally on March 24.

New York

The streets of mid-town Manhattan were alive March 4th with militant chants of "Mike Bloomberg, the Mayor, the Public School Slayer!" and "Save Our Schools!" as roughly 1,000 students and workers rallied and marched to oppose cuts to public schools.

The New York City event was organized in response to a national call for a day of protest to defend public education. It came on the heels of the recent announcement that 19 public schools in predominantly African-American and Latino communities would be closing. The rally began in the late afternoon at Governor Patterson's office, and the energy was soon electric as hundreds of young people began arriving in large groups. City Councilman Charles Barron spoke passionately about the necessity of viewing education as a right, and attacked capitalism itself as the cause of the education crisis. Organizers from various CUNY schools from a cross the five boroughs also took the podium to share their views on how the budget cuts have affected their campuses.

Members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition distributed hundreds of flyers for the March 20th March on Washington, making the connections between the cuts to education and the roughly $8,000 per second that are spent on the criminal imperialist occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the large crowd began marching through the streets of Manhattan, many onlookers applauded and some actually joined the march, inspired by the energy of the people. The demonstration of strength by students and workers shows that poor and working people will not sit idle while greedy politicians go about the business of privatizing education.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency heard public comment on Feb. 26 regarding a proposed 50 percent fare hike on the Fast Pass for seniors, youth and disabled. Also on the table was a proposal for another 10 percent service cut to MUNI.

The cost of a Fast Pass has already shot up to $70 (for a pass that includes BART trains) from $45 less than two months ago, and on Dec. 5, 2009, San Francisco MUNI cut or reduced service on over 40 bus lines.

In the weeks prior to the hearing, the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now Stop War and End Racism) in alliance with People Organized to Win Employment Rights had been mobilizing the community to attend the hearing and demand, "No Cuts, No Hikes!" and "MUNI Drivers and Riders United." Nearly 400 community members filled the hearing and overflow rooms and waited for their chance to speak their two minutes.

Before the board heard any comments, MUNI Board Chairman Tom Nolan took several minutes out of everyone’s day to pit rider against driver in a campaign to blame the union, TWU Local 250-A, explaining that the board would not have to make the "difficult decision" on the cuts if the drivers would just take another round of layoffs, pay cuts, and benefit reductions. What Mr. Nolan neglected to mention was the irresponsible management of MTA funds (including his $308,000 annual salary).

It is safe to say that the board was surprised that in spite of the chairman’s attempt to turn the hearing into an outright brawl over the scraps that had been left at the table, speaker after speaker walked up to the microphone and denounced the board for mismanaging MUNI funds and scapegoating the workers. Audience members also held up signs stating "No Cuts, No Hikes" and "Tax the Rich."

Because of the public outrage, the SF MTA voted to not adopt the proposal and not raise the senior, youth and disabled Fast Pass from $15 to $30 (although the vote will have no effect on the already planned $5 increase in May). They did adopt the proposal for a 10 percent service cut.

MTA’s executive director, Nathanial Ford said, "It’s going to be a smaller system, but it needs to be a much more reliable system." It is obvious from that statement that Mr. Ford has not been on MUNI at any point in the recent past. He apparently hasn’t seen the already-stuffed buses on the previously reduced lines from the rearview mirror of his car.

The ANSWER Coalition will continue to mobilize and fight against these cuts and attacks on the unions, workers and the poor.

On Feb. 20, Matthew Morgan and Emmanuel Winston were walking to their cars in downtown Austin, Texas, wearing jerseys for their all-gay softball team when four men brutally assaulted them from behind, shouting anti-gay slurs.

By the time they were able to regain their bearings and fight off the bigots, they had bruised faces and bloody clothes. The attackers laughed proudly and continued to make homophobic remarks as they fled the scene.

Immediately, members of the Austin community began to respond with outrage and solidarity in face of the hate crime committed against Morgan and Winston.

Austin is usually regarded as an eclectic, progressive city, but it is no stranger to bigotry-motivated violence. According to a recent FBI report, there have been over 1,800 documented hate crimes in Texas since 2001, and Austin ranks in the top four Texas cities for such crimes.

The community’s support for the two victims culminated in a large demonstration on Feb. 27. Over 1,200 people showed up on Saturday afternoon to unite against bigotry.

Members and supporters of the Party for Socialism and Liberation attended the demonstration, handing out hundreds of leaflets and leading some of the most militant chants. From the start, the energy in the crowd was very high. Many participants were loud and angry, demanding an end to homophobia, racism and sexism. This energy only continued to build as demonstrators began their march to City Hall.

Morgan and Winston made impassioned speeches calling on progressives to stand together against hate and bigotry. "We walk together so that we can feel safe again," Morgan said. Winston, who was in the closet only a week prior, displayed remarkable courage by coming out publicly, saying, "I realized that this was bigger than me."

The march demonstrated that many Texans are ready and willing to stand up and fight against bigotry of all kinds.

Shuhada Street, a busy commercial and residential center in the Palestinian City of Hebron, is closed and blockaded by Israeli Defense Forces. For over a week, the street has been the scene of protest, boarded up storefronts and the resistance of Palestinian youth who have come out to confront the heavy Israeli military presence.

Israeli forces have used tear gas and rubber bullets against the Palestinian protesters. One report states that a Palestinian youth has been detained during an attempt by Palestinians to hold a march on Shuhada Street.

The previous day, 300 Palestinians were joined by several dozen Israelis at a demonstration at a historic site that was added to Israel’s "heritage list." In 1994, a U.S.-born Zionist opened machine-gun fire on Muslims praying at the mosque, killing 29 people and injuring hundreds.

On Feb. 21, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu included the names of the sites in Hebron, a city of 170,000 Palestinians in occupied territory in the West Bank, held by Israel since 1967, to a new "national heritage" list. Hebron is about 20 miles south of Jerusalem.

Israel is making claims to sites that are not inside Israel according to international law, violating the sovereignty of the Palestinian people and creating provocation with continued construction of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

"Our objection to this lies in the fact these sites are on Palestinian land that was occupied in 1967, precisely the lands upon which the independent Palestinian state will be established," said Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayed Feb. 26.

The sites include two tombs called the "Cave of Patriarchs" and known to Muslims as Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque. The sites have historic significance for all three Abrahamaic religions.

It is the newest of examples of the Israeli policies to annex Palestinian land through its apartheid settler policies in occupied territories. Already there are 800 Israeli settlers in a heavily guarded outpost in the center of Hebron.

"By calling these places part of their historical heritage, they are trying to confirm their historical ownership of the land … their illusionary heritage on our land," stated Deputy Mayor Tawfiq Salah al-Kader, outside of Bethlehem.

On Feb. 24, a former New Orleans police supervisor pleaded guilty to a federal obstruction charge, confessing to participating in a conspiracy to justify the shooting of six unarmed people after Hurricane Katrina. The confession has shocked and angered residents living in a city already notorious for the racism and brutality of its police force.

On Sept. 4, 2005, just days after Katrina had devastated much of the city, seven NOPD officers opened fire on a group of people crossing the Danziger Bridge trying to reach a supermarket. Two men, 40-year-old Ronald Madison and 19-year-old James Brissette, were killed. Four others were injured: Susan Bartholomew, whose right arm was partially shot off, and her husband, daughter and nephew.

An FBI investigation was eventually opened after media reports of holes in the police’s official story began to spread. In the original report, police claimed to have shot Ronald Madison, a disabled Black man, once. Two separate autopsies invalidated this claim, showing Madison was shot seven times—five in the back as he was running away.

On the day of the shooting, police further attempted to cover up the incident by arresting Ronald Madison’s brother, Lance, and charging him with eight counts of attempted murder of police officers. A Louisiana state grand jury found no evidence to indict Madison, and the charges were later dropped.

In January 2007, the seven officers were indicted and charged with murder and attempted murder, but by August 2008, a district judge dismissed the charges.

Facing charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, Lohman admitted he failed to order the collection of evidence or canvassing of witnesses, helped craft police reports filled with deliberately false information, participated in a plan to plant a gun under the bridge and then repeatedly lied to investigators who questioned police actions.

In fact, racist violence was widespread in post-Katrina New Orleans, as the NOPD and private security firms like Blackwater were under explicit "shoot to kill" orders. Reports of "looters" and armed people in the street always focused on the poorest Black residents of New Orleans, while racist white vigilantes were openly arming and organizing.

Following the guilty plea, Lohman has been painted as a "bad seed" in the NOPD, and excuses have been made for the seven officers that the police department was "overworked." These are hollow excuses for the capitalist state, which systematically targets the poorest and most oppressed sectors of society with police violence and brutality.

Justice must be fought for—and can be won—for Ronald and Lance Madison, James Brissette, and everyone on the bridge and across New Orleans who suffered violence at the hands of the NOPD at precisely the moment it should have been helping them survive a disaster of a historic magnitude.