FIST launches in Detroit

By Derek Thacker
Detroit

Detroit FIST

The founding meeting of the new Detroit chapter of Fight Imperialism, Stand Together — FIST — was held on July 22.

Detroit has not had an active branch of the militant youth organization for about a year. But since late 2010, new youth have begun taking an interest in activism and have gravitated to work with the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs, and Workers World Party.

Some of these youth moved to form a new FIST branch in Detroit in order to combat the effects of imperialism at home and abroad. The attendance was excellent at the initial meeting and the discussions were meaningful. Introductions were conducted, and the revolutionary program of FIST was introduced and reviewed.

Workers, community converge at Southern Human Rights conference

By Dante Strobino
Birmingham, Ala.

Under the theme “From Exclusion to Power,” hundreds of workers and community members gathered in Birmingham, Ala., from Dec. 10 to 12 for the eighth Bi-Annual Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference.

FIST photo: Dante Strobino March on opening day of Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference, in Birmingham, Ala. Carrying lead banner are Daniel Castellanos; Pamela Brown, Community Voices Heard; and Araceli Herrera Castillo (left to right).

Jaribu Hill, conference founder and executive director of the Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights, opened up with a call for human rights and social justice activists from across the country “to retool and rethink, plan and build. In these critical times of unjust wars and economic decline, it is urgent that we forge unity based on common struggles and experiences.”

The gathering opened with a press conference — on International Human Rights Day — that highlighted the work of the Excluded Workers Congress and announced a new report that examines the plight of workers barred from labor protections and the right to organize.

The report said that in 1983, 20.1 percent of the U.S. workforce was unionized, whereas in 2009 that proportion was only 12.3 percent. In so-called right-to-work states, union density now averages 6 percent. (www.excludedworkerscongress.org)

Included in the press conference were the congress’s nine sectors, including domestic workers, farmworkers, taxi drivers, restaurant workers, day laborers, guest workers, workers from right-to-work states, workfare workers and formerly incarcerated workers.

F.I.S.T. at USSF 2010 in Detroit!‏

Dear Friends of F.I.S.T.,

We are very busy preparing for the United States Social Forum next week in Detroit! We have three great workshops planned, as well as a social event we wanted to let you know about. Here they are listed at a glance, and below you can find full descriptions of the events.

• Wednesday June 23rd, 1pm-3pm workshop, Youth and Students to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal in Woodward Academy, room 1437

• Wednesday June 23rd, 1pm-5:30pm workshop, Capitalism is Killing Us. Fight for Socialism! in Cobo Hall room O2-44

• Friday June 25th, 1:00pm-3:00pm workshop, The Fight for Education Rights: March 4th and Beyond in in Cobo Hall room D3-18

• Friday June 25th, 5:30pm-7:30pm Meet F.I.S.T. social, free dinner at 5920 Second Avenue, near Wayne State University

‘Capitalism is killing us’, U.S. Social Forum meets in Detroit June 22-26

By Bryan G. Pfeifer
Detroit

Momentum is growing internationally for the United States Social Forum to be held June 22-26 in Detroit. Tens of thousands of progressive activists are expected to attend.

According to the USSF website, the days-long event is a movement-building process. “It is not a conference but it is a space to come up with the peoples’ solutions to the economic and ecological crisis. The USSF is [an] important step in our struggle to build a powerful multi-racial, multi-sectoral, inter-generational, diverse, inclusive, internationalist movement that transforms this country and changes history.” (www.ussf2010.org)

Adele Nieves, communications coordinator for the USSF, stated that over 1,000 workshops are scheduled and numerous demonstrations are being planned. Cultural contributions will be a central focus, with artists such as Dead Prez scheduled to perform. There will also be a tent city, tables for literature, grassroots food vendors, people’s movement assemblies and much more, including various art venues where progressive and revolutionary artists such as Antonio Guerrero of the Cuban Five will have their work displayed. The opening march on June 22 will have organizational contingents from all over the world.