On Jill Stein's arrested at Washington University in Saint Louis and other moves against solidarity with Palestine, etc.

Below is a Jill Stein campaign email from April 28th (at 7:45pm ET) and a GPUS press release sent out this morning.  See also:  twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1784599149746237794 and a satire:  www.normalisland.co.uk/p/us-police-capture-hamas-leader-at  

I think the encampment at UNC-Chapel Hill was broken up by police today.  I haven't heard that the students were doing anything more than occupying a central lawn, popular with students in warm weather anyway, and I think UNC Occupy was allowed to camp for a longer period.  Classes ended today and most students will be gone for summer break by mid-May, so why did UNC's administration feel the need to bring in the police?  The governor of NC is a 'moderate' Democrat elected with Trump, while the General Assembly is Republican-dominated and I think has made vocal and material support for Israel an issue in recent years.  Maybe UNC was told to do this, or wanted to preemptively avoid trouble with legislators and the Board of Governors, the same way Congress has pressured a few representative university administrators to repress student and faculty solidarity with Palestine (or else), no doubt cowing others.  On the other hand university administrators are in bed with the ruling establishment anyway.  I heard that UNC students once chased the CIA off Campus and out of Chapel Hill, and Democratic Congressman David Price might have moved his Chapel Hill office because of student and community opposition to the Iraq War (including one or two occupations of his office).  

What is going on at Duke:  www.dukechronicle.com/article/2024/04/duke-university-israel-hamas-war-encampments-protests-on-college-campuses-student-arrests-oct-7th-attacks-comparison  The "Durham Revolutionary Study Group" (Maoist??), SJP, and the PFLP are reference.  A Free Expression Bridge Ramadan painting defaced:  www.dukechronicle.com/article/2024/04/duke-university-free-expression-bridge-office-of-institutional-equity-student-affairs-investigation-red-cows-muslim-nation-flags-not-merciful-announcement

I haven't heard about anything happening at NCSU, but I am more familiar with their free expression tunnel under the railroad tracks than the bridge at Duke.  A few months ago the main pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the Triangle seemed to be at Moore Square in downtown Raleigh, relatively close to NC State.

The defenders of "our democracy" against Trump and MAGA "fascism" demand that "negotiations" end and "action" be taken at the universities (on the 29th Steny Hoyer, Adam Schiff, and others in Congress sent a letter to Columbia's Board of Trustees), plus more on the Stein arrest:  www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/04/29/jenj-a29.html  Remember to "Vote Blue No Matter Who."  Is it 1968 again, and what will happen at the DNC in Chicago this summer?  Are things escalating much more quickly under Biden now than under Bush in 2003, or when the Occupy movement was dispersed?  In recent years a self-declared radical Marxist academic regularly denounced the Democrats, but wanted them in power, to expose them and to prevent Trump from going after leftists. 

A permitted encampment in front of the Bundestag in Berlin was violently suppressed April 27th? -- www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/04/29/ywni-a29.html

Dear [ ],

Last night didn’t end up the way I planned.

By now you’ve probably seen the headlines reading “Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein arrested at Pro-Palestine rally” (or some less flattering variations).

Here’s the full story.

First and foremost: My team and I are okay. Bruised and battered, and with some legal issues to resolve. But we are out. We are okay. And we are undeterred.

Yesterday, my team and I were invited by students at Washington University in St. Louis to visit their Gaza Solidarity encampment. We gladly accepted this invitation.

Once there, it was apparent that tensions were escalating quickly. The student organizers asked us to intercede with university officials to try and de-escalate the coming confrontation. Again, we gladly accepted this responsibility.

But authorities were having none of it. The scene was tense from the beginning, and it was clear that a crackdown was inevitable.

The students asked us to link arms and block access to their encampment by police. And we did.

We braced for impact, but nothing prepared me for what came next.

[A photo of the human chain.]

A total of six police departments assembled on the scene. As they advanced on us, they used their bicycles as weapons against us.

[Video of the police assault on the protesters.]

One officer grabbed my arm, glared at me, and roughly pulled me towards him with a bicycle in between us. My campaign manager interceded, shouting at him that he was going to break my arm, until he let go.

We were then violently thrown to the ground, zip-cuffed, and placed under arrest.

[Two photos of arrests -- Stein's deputy campaign manager??]

In the hours that followed, I was separated from the remainder of my team. They were charged with trespassing, and I was charged with assault – despite the fact I was assaulted by police with a bicycle and then thrown to the ground.

We were arrested around 7:30pm local time and released around 1:30am. You can catch my interview with local news here.

[Jill Stein interviewed by a local news station:  www.jillstein2024.com/jill_arrested ]

Let us understand exactly what transpired here:

The students of Washington University have established an encampment to protest the school’s financial holdings in Boeing, which is producing some of the munitions being used against the people of Gaza just a few miles away in their St. Charles facility.

The students are exercising their constitutionally protected right to free expression to pressure their university to divest from death.

The university’s response is to violently assault and incarcerate anyone who dares speak out.

The students are in the right here, as they always are. I am proud to stand by their side as the ONLY pro-peace, anti-genocide, pro-worker candidate slated to be on the ballot across the country this November.

Today I am tired, I am bruised, I am battered – but I am undeterred in my resolve to stop Israel’s genocide and end their illegal occupation of Palestine.

This is not my first protest arrest, but it was unnervingly violent. What we are experiencing on university campuses across the nation right now is a pale shadow of what is to come if the twin parties of war and Wall Street are allowed to remain in power.

I urge you to contribute to our campaign today and make sure EVERY American has a pro-peace candidate on the ballot in November.

[Donation link]

If you have the opportunity to join an encampment near you, I urge you to do so. The more community support these students have, the harder it will be for university authorities or police officials to justify their actions to crush this dissent.

In solidarity and gratitude,

Jill

Green Party Outraged at Police Violence Toward Campus Protests, Treatment of Jill Stein, and Campaign Team

[ www.gp.org/gp_outraged_at_police_violence_toward_campus_protests ]

[photo]

• After Her Arrest at Washington University, Jill Stein Slams Police Repression… and the Two-Party System That Supports It

On Saturday, April 27th, campus police physically repressed and assaulted students and supporters during a peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstration on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.  Dr. Jill Stein, a  candidate seeking the 2024 Green Party presidential nomination, was among those assaulted and arrested by police. The Green Party is outraged by the violence perpetrated on students and others exercising their First Amendment rights.

---

Green Party of the United States
gp.org

For Immediate Release:
April 30, 2024

Contact:
Gregg Jocoy, Co-Chair, Media Committee, media [at gp org], 202-804-2758
Gloria Mattera, Co-Chair, Media Committee,  media [gp org], 202-804-2758

---

Gloria Mattera, co-chair of the Media Committee of the Green Party, said, "The Green Party is appalled at the level of brutality that campus administrators and local police have employed in breaking up peaceful protests by students exercising their First Amendment Rights to protest what they view as genocide by Israel in Gaza. We see yet again that free speech rights are perfectly okay in America, until someone advocates a position that runs afoul of the agenda of the two parties of war and Wall Street. When that happens, the state will respond with illegal violence and unconstitutional repression, and candidates for rival parties will not be spared."

Dr. Stein was in Missouri to collect signatures for her name to be placed on the state's ballot in November. She visited the campus to offer her support to the students and community when she was invited to join the demonstration. A frightening and disturbing video shows Dr. Stein, 73, who had linked arms with other protesters, being assaulted by the police, including one wielding a bicycle against her as a weapon, before she was arrested. Dr. Stein, who has since been released, said in an email to her followers, "We are okay and we are undeterred."

"I was there to support the students and community members who were holding a peaceful, really wonderful, gracious, educational community gathering," Dr. Stein said in a video interview. "The police basically attacked us and assaulted us as well as arrested us... Zionism is something that needs to be debated and anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism." She has called the crackdown on protesters nationwide a violation of fundamental First Amendment rights. She told an interviewer for a radio station: “This is about freedom of speech, and not just any old freedom of speech, but freedom of speech on a very critical issue that needs debate and dialogue.” 

Dr. Stein, who is Jewish, has called for an independent investigation into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his conduct during the six-month assault on Gaza and the West Bank. "The war crimes being perpetrated by Netanyahu against Palestinians... are in a league of their own and have reached genocidal proportions." It has been widely rumored that Prime Minister Netanyahu as well as others in his government may soon be served with arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

On her campaign website, under the slogan of "People Planet Peace," a statement by Dr. Stein reads, "I'm running for president with the Green Party to offer a choice for the people outside the failed two-party system. We'll put a pro-worker, anti-war, climate action agenda front and center in this election and on the ballot in November." Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, is among those who have endorsed Jill Stein for President. 

Said Margaret Elisabeth, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States, "It's very convenient that the American mainstream media have made the campus protests, as well as unsupported allegations by bad faith actors of threats to Zionist Jewish students, the big current story, which obscures the real story of war crimes being committed in Gaza, including mass burials. We would like someone in the media to explain to us how the "pain" of Zionists who are having their worldview peacefully challenged by people, including many Jews, who happen to disagree with them is in any way commensurate with the agony and anguish suffered by the people of Gaza and the West Bank during this ongoing genocide."

On its main website, the platform of the Green Party of the United States, under the heading "The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict" reads, "The U.S. Greens recognize and reaffirm the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis, and their right to live in a single undivided secular and democratic state where all residents have full and equal rights, and freedoms... We call on the U.S. President and Congress to suspend all military and foreign aid, including loans and grants, to Israel until Israel withdraws from the Occupied Territories, dismantles the separation wall in the Occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, ends its siege of Gaza and dismantles settler colonies and systemic apartheid toward its non-Jewish citizens." 

Green Party of the United States
www.gp.org
202-804-2758
Newsroom | Twitter: @GreenPartyUS

Green Party Platform
Green New Deal
Green candidate database and campaign information
Ballot Access
Facebook page
YouTube
Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States
Green Papers

PCMLE: May 1 Manifesto – United, let us continue the struggle against the enemies of the workers and the people

En Marcha #2091 from April 24 to May 7, 2024 [ pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?article13101 , occasionally articles are posted in English; The PCMLE website has been re-done?  Slightly edited.] 

Central Organ of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador

MAY 1 MANIFESTO

United, let us continue the struggle against the enemies of the workers and the people

[photo]

Workers

The streets and plazas will once again be covered with the voices of indignation and the demands of millions of workers around the world on May 1st. There are sufficient reasons for this: we live in a society in which those who work for exhausting daily hours live badly, while the owners of capital increase their wealth by the minute. Workers all over the world stand up and exclaim that the struggle for social emancipation is present and growing!

In our country, the commemoration of this exemplary day takes place in very particular circumstances. Due to the very nature of the prevailing capitalist system and the action (or inaction) of the different governments in power, Ecuador is immersed in a serious crisis of bourgeois institutions: corruption and organized crime; the drug trafficking mafias have penetrated all state institutions; they are in the Executive, the Legislature, the Justice System; they are present in the leadership of the Police and the Army, in the political parties of the right. The activity of these groups has been promoted and covered up at the highest levels, and legal frameworks have been created to prevent their punishment and guarantee them impunity.

But that is not all. Day by day, unemployment, underemployment, poverty, forced migration, school dropouts and many other serious social problems are increasing. Daniel Noboa's government has not been able to solve these problems, simply because it is not interested in doing so. He is in Carondelet [translator:  the president’s residence] to benefit his class: the big business people, the owners of capital. Didn't he forgive them about two billion dollars of debts they owed to the state, of which 80 million dollars went to the companies of his father, Álvaro Noboa? For the rich, forgiveness of their debts and tax exemptions; for the poor, an increase in the VAT, an increase in the price of gas, a reduction in the budget for health and education, minimal investment in public works!

Noboa is a president who lies and does not fulfill his campaign promises. The people have identified him as such, which is why in the referendum of April 21 he had a hard defeat where it hurts the most: on the questions that sought greater levels of exploitation of the workers and protection of international capital.

The political maneuver of the bourgeoisie and its government was to mark questions D and E in their favor in the midst of a discourse that put at the center – almost as the only element – the issue of the fight against insecurity and criminal violence. However, the people have an important capacity for discernment and did not fall into the trap; they understood that the struggle for security is one thing and it is quite another thing to allow anti-popular policies and attacks on the sovereignty of the country to be applied.

Noboa and the big business owners were defeated in the referendum, and he was defeated by the trade unions, students, teachers, merchants, youth and women's organizations, the left-wing parties and movements, and all those who voted and called for a NO vote on questions D and E.

New fights are coming, this time in the streets. The government has in its plans the increase in the price of fuel, the privatization of state companies, the increase in electricity rates, among other anti-popular measures; it is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund in exchange for receiving new loans that will be used to pay outstanding debts to international creditors, not to meet the needs of the people. The government's interest is also to economically strangle the IESS [Ecuadorian Social Security Institute], it wants to bankrupt it in order to privatize the social security system. We must prevent this.

The new struggles demand the strengthening of the unity of the workers, of all popular sectors, the left-wing political organizations that have demonstrated political consistency with the interests of the people; unity of action in a political-social front that, while raising popular demands, proposes and fights for an economic-political program that takes the country out of the crisis, without affecting the interests of the people; that has as its banner that the crisis be paid for by the rich, who are responsible for it.

Workers

The world is going through difficult times. The interests of the big international monopolies, the inter-imperialist struggles are the cause of the armed conflicts that threaten to become widespread in Europe and the Middle East. Israeli Zionism is responsible for the genocide against the Palestinian people, and has the support of imperialist powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and reactionary governments such as Javier Milei of Argentina or Daniel Noboa of Ecuador; We condemn this genocide, as well as all those who support it; We also reject the imperialist war that has Ukraine as their field of operations. The peoples of the world want peace; The imperialist powers promote war because it is also a source of conquest and accumulation of wealth for the monopolies!

Our Party salutes the struggle of the working class, of the workers of the city and countryside, the youth and women of the popular sectors who are confronting the anti-popular policies of their governments, all those who rise up against the exploitation and domination of capital and fight for revolutionary transformations. That is the meaning of the commemoration of May 1, the day of struggle of the proletariat and peoples of the world.

The PCMLE, a member of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations, raises its banners together with these struggles; it is the millions of exploited and oppressed, with their unity and struggle, who will sink capitalism-imperialism and build the society of the future, socialism-communism.

Long live the International Day of the Working Class!

Long live the struggle of the workers and peoples of Ecuador for their emancipation!

Long live the international solidarity of the peoples!

With Marxism-Leninism, for revolution and socialism

Central Committee of the PCMLE

Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador

UNAC: Solidarity with the student protesters for Palestine + other anti-war events and notices (13-year cicadas are out and calling)

13-YEAR CICADAS IN NC

Early this morning I was noticing that an old root sprout from a larger red maple looks dead, and then I noticed a brown cast-off cicada exoskeleton.  Did I miss it from last summer?  Then I noticed about 15 more, and a black, yellow, and red-eyed adult Brood XIX 13-year periodical cicada, maybe a female periodic cicada, and I probably heard some of their calls (and maybe a cuckoo as well, mowing, etc).  I definitely heard a few calls around mid-day.  Someone else saw one here on the 27th.  Given that they are already calling, they must have begun emerging around a week ago.  In past emergences I don't think I heard them until the first or second week of May.  Brood XIX (the Great Southern Brood) includes all four known species of 13-year cicada, one discovered recently, but I think only three species emerge around here.  Their appearance and sounds are very similar and all of these, both 13 and 17-year cicadas, are in genus Magiciada.  Brood XIII of 17-year cicadas (the Northern Illinois Brood) will emerge near Chicago this year, coinciding with XIX after 221 years, and these are supposed to be large broods.  Periodical cicadas are unique to the Eastern US and only appear above ground for about a month after many years underground sucking on tree roots, but apparently there are cicadas in India's northeastern Meghalaya state and Fiji that have higher abundances on even year cycles.  I think the various cryptically colored annual species, which might actually have multi-year life cycle as well, start emerging in late June, after the periodic cicadas are gone.  At least around here, periodic cicadas miss the large cicada killer wasps of late summer, solitary wasps that specialize in hunting cicadas. I hope to write more about cicadas in coming weeks. 

ANTI-WAR EVENTS

The Deir Yassin Massacre in Palestine was April 9, 1948.

Information and photos from occupations and protests in the USA, Canada, and throughout the world:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/MS5428.HTM#1

Global protest calendar (note that some of the entries are old, such as a Nakba Day protest in Raleigh, NC in 2022):  samidoun.net/2022/04/calendar-of-resistance-take-action-for-palestine/

There was Students for Justice in Palestine organized a protest at UNC-Chapel Hill April 26th and an occupation began before the 26th, apparently only passively opposed by the administration so far (PSL Carolinas:   www.instagram.com/uncsjp/p/C6Oi7TdOhaQ/?img_index=1 , references to other events: a book study group April 6th at 2pm at the PSH in Durham, the 27th at 2pm in Raleigh, and the 30th at 5:30pm at the 180 Cameron Avenue YMCA in Chapel Hill with author Richard Becker; a march at UNC on the 28th at 3pm; a protest April 27th in Columbia, SC; April 24th writing to Mumia Abu-Jamal (?); a May Day March and Rally at Durham's CCB Plaza at 5pm on the 1st ).  Commencement will be May 11th and classes end April 30th:  registrar.unc.edu/events/category/university-registrars-calendars/spring-2024/list/ There was an occupation during the Occupy movement, or maybe both UNC and a Chapel Hill occupations. 

There will be a May Day March and Rally at 5pm May 1st at CCB Plaza in Durham, demanding a $25 hour minimum wage, affordable housing, that Duke University pay its "fair share of taxes," a ceasefire, divestiture from war, etc (PSL Carolinas:  www.instagram.com/pslcarolinas/p/C6FCfoJPP6H/ ; can be viewed without joining Instagram)

UNAC is organizing a webinar "May 2:  Remember the Odessa Massacre [May 2, 2014]!  US and NATO Out of Ukraine" Thursday, May 2nd 12pm ET, with speakers Bruce Gagnon, Joe Lombardo, John Parker, Phil Wilayto, and Alison Bodine, and a member of the Uhuru 3 (related to the Biden FBI raids against the African People's Socialist Party), on trial September 3rd in Tampa (despite the raids under Obama, I don't think anyone from FRSO faced a court trial):  us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XcxaoXglQragoqh1Dc9oHg#/registration

Peace Walk 2024:  Silence the Drums of War, from Maine to DC, now beginning May 7th:  peacewalk2024.org

"1,000 Grandmothers" Song Festival:  Women's Voices for Peace May 9-10th in DC:  www.codepink.org/grandmasdc

The 19th annual Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day Ceremony May 12th at 8:30pm in Jerusalem, 6:30pm in London, 1:30m in New York City, and 10:30am in Los Angeles:  www.afcfp.org/2024-joint-memorial-day-ceremony

Nakba Days of Action May 14-15th in Washington, DC:  secure.actblue.com/donate/stop-arming-israel-action-days

Nakba Day ("Memory of the Catastrophe") is May 15th each year:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba_Day

There was a Nakba Day Protest at 12pm Sunday, May 15, 2022 in Raleigh, NC's Moore Square:  samidoun.net/2022/04/calendar-of-resistance-take-action-for-palestine/ and www.instagram.com/p/CdRPVFkp3wn/ (PSL Carolinas)

Water Melon 5K Fest for Palestine May 18th at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina:  www.gathergood.org

The first annual PaliCon May 18-19th in Dearborn, Michigan, by New Generation for Palestine:    www.ngpalestine.org and www.tickettailor.com/events/ngp1948

Naksa Day ("Day of the Setback"?) June 5th? – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naksa_Day

Israeli air and naval forces attacked the USS Liberty in international waters off Egypt's Sinai Peninsula June 8, 1967, during the 1967 War.

3rd annual global 24-hour Peace Wave June 22-23, during the annual RIMPAC exercise;  see:  24hourpeacewave.org 

No to NATO, No to War, Free Palestine July 6-7th in Washington:  "NATO will be coming to Washington, D.C. in July to meet and celebrate their 75^th anniversary.  NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, no longer is related to the North Atlantic but has redefined itself as an international imperialist organization and, as it always has been, an extension of US imperialism.  It has been an aggressive military alliance that has started wars from Afghanistan and Iraq to Ukraine and is a supporter and partner in the Israeli genocide in Gaza.  When NATO comes to the US, we will meet it with an alternative summit of our own and a demonstration.  UNAC will join with others for these events and will also hold a meeting of our own with other anti-imperialist forces.  Please mark your calendars, save the date and prepare to join us in Washington, D.C. during the weekend of July 6 – 7.  More information to follow soon or you can contact us at UNACpeace [gmail]."

The Poor People's Army March from the RNC in Milwaukee July 15th to the DNC in Chicago August 19th:  www.poorpeoplesarmymarch.com (my browser doesn't want to open this link) 

More actions and anniversaries are listed in recent calendars.  Quds Day ("Jerusalem Day") was April 5th in 2024, the last Friday of Ramadan; Israel's Jerusalem Day overlaps with Naksa Day in 2024:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quds_Day and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Day

Wake County's Bookmobile will be touring Wake parks during the summer:  www.wake.gov/departments-government/libraries/about-wcpl/library-go

A new song by David Rovics – "Boycott, Sanction, Divest:"  davidrovics.substack.com/p/boycott-sanction-and-divest-video

Send letters to multiple university administrations:  actionnetwork.org/letters/solidarity-with-university-students-for-peace  They say send a letter and then go to your local university in person, and I need to go over to the UNC campus for multiple reasons.  Maybe this week.

From the United National AntiWar Coalition's original post April 24th ( nepajac.org/solcol.htm ) and an April 27th email bulletin; slightly edited:

Solidarity with the Student Protesters for Palestine:  Divest from Apartheid and Genocide

Thousands of students in colleges across the country have continued the growing protests on their campuses despite repression by university administrations and the government to end them.  These protests have been held in order to pressure their universities to stop supporting genocide in Gaza through their investments and their support for the apartheid regime of Israel.  The protests have also called for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Zionist oppression of the Palestinian people.

[Photo:  "Columbia students  rally for Palestine"]

The campus actions come after months of protests across the country and across the world in opposition to what the International Court of Justice has called a “plausible” case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.  Despite this finding, Israel has doubled down on its war against the people of Gaza and Palestine and the US has upped its support for Israel, most recently with a new 26-billion-dollar aid package.

 

The campus protests have been happening across the country for some time but on April 17^th, the students at Columbia University upped the ante and set up an encampment on their campus to maintain a permanent presence for Palestine; a fitting action given the fact that Israel has destroyed all the universities in Gaza.

 

On the same day that the encampment was set up, Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia, testified before Congress in Washington, D.C. where she supported the false claims that the protests are antisemitic. She announced that she has fired a professor who expressed support for the Palestinian resistance, and she has since called the police onto the campus to put down the demonstrations.  Dozens of students have been arrested and many expelled.

 

Minouche Shafik herself has previously held jobs with various imperialist organizations.  She was a former World Bank vice president, former International Monetary Fund [IMF] deputy managing director, former British Department for International Development permanent secretary and former Bank of England deputy governor and is presently a 2022-appointed Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Board member. 

 

The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard had previously been called before congress for McCarthyite interrogation to pressure them to curtail freedom of speech and clamp down on campus protests at their schools.  This interrogation caused both college presidents to resign. 

 

However, the repression of the student protesters has not stopped them, and in fact the protest at Columbia has grown in size and spread to campuses throughout the country.  Occupations and civil disobedience actions on the campuses are now also happening at UC Berkeley, The New School, NYU, Rutgers, Tufts, Vanderbilt, Yale, [UNC-Chapel Hill (?), the University of Indiana-Bloomington, Emory, Washington University, the University of Michigan, MIT, Emerson, Humboldt, Smith, Pomona, Arizona, Northeastern,] the University of Minnesota and many other places as the list grows daily.   Additionally, at Columbia, Barnard and other schools the faculty has come out to defend the students, and support freedom of speech and assembly on their campuses.  

 

With the school year coming to an end and graduations happening across the country the administrations are concerned that the graduation ceremonies could be disrupted by protest.  There is also a concern that with elections coming up in November, the protests are exposing the role of the US government and the Biden administration as being complicit in supporting genocide. 

[Photo:  "Columbia 1968"]

In 1968, Columbia University decide it would knock down the homes of the people in the surrounding Harlem community to build a new gym.  This, happening in the context of growing opposition to the Vietnam war[, ] led to a student rebellion that took over buildings on the campus.  The police violently removed the protesters from the Columbia buildings as students fought back.  This was the beginning of the protest movement that swept the country and the campuses and led to the police and national guard murders of students at Kent and Jackson State Universities.  These murders were followed by protests that shut down universities across the country.  Such an event today could have much more far-reaching consequences as US imperialism and Zionism have been exposed as never before, the US and its NATO allies are being defeated in Ukraine and their economic structures are being challenged.

 

UNAC urges total support for the student actions and demands.

 

Freedom of speech and assembly on the campuses and schools!

 

End McCarthyite repression!

 

Amnesty for all students charged or expelled!

 

Free Palestine!