Thousands march for immigrant rights

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5) Reduce the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay, and cut the retirement age to 55. Provide unemployment and retirement payments at We propose an EMERGENCY CONGRESS OF LABOR to discuss and 6) To combat inflation: A sliding scale of wages and pensions that match­ 1) Bail out the people, not the bankers! Open the account books of the es the rises in comsumer prices. To combat high medical costs: A free, banks to full public inspection. Nationalize the banks to be supervised by 7) Immediate citizenship for all undocumented workers. No job discrimi­ 2) No foreclosures! No forced evictions! Cancel usurious debt payments, nation; equal pay for equal work — regardless of gender, sexual orienta­ and reduce mortgage payments in proportion to their capitalist-caused 8) Nationalize manufacturing, big agribusiness, energy, and transporta­ 3) Full employment at union wages! An emergency public works program tion corporations and place them under the control of elected committees to employ all jobless workers and youth! Employ people to build what we need — low-cost quality housing, efficient mass transportation, cheap and 9) To mobilize support for the demands it adopts, the EMERGENCY renewable sources of power, schools, clinics — and to conserve our water, CONGRESS should organize ACTION COMMITTEES in every workplace and neighborhood threatened by the crisis. These committees can draw up 4) Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries from Iraq & Afghanistan! No war on Iran! Close all U.S. bases abroad! No money for 10) To put all these measures into effect, we need a LABOR PARTY — the military — use funds instead for public works! Convert the war indus­ based on a fighting union movement and all people who are oppressed tries to making products for people’s needs and to combat global warming.

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On Oct. 5, thousands of immigrants in 40 states marched in support of the compre­ hensive immigration reform bill that has been sitting stagnant in Congress since this spring. The marches were part of a Na­ tional Day of Dignity and Respect, which was endorsed by religious groups, NGOtype groups including Presente.org and the ACLU, and many of the big unions, such as SEIU, the AFL-CIO, UFCW, AFSCME, and UNITE HERE.

The actions culminated in a march on the national mall in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, during which 200 people, including several Democratic politicians, were arrested for civil disobedience.

Legalization is desperately needed for the 11 million undocumented workers cur­ rently living in the United States. Despite Obama’s promise to pass immigration reform legisla­ tion, over 1100 people are being deported every day, even during the partial government shutdown. Immi­ grants are daily being pulled over, jailed, and deported by racist cops, and undocumented workers endure ex­ ploitation, abuse, and the lowest wages in the country.

And yet, the “immigration reform” being offered by the Democrats and the reformist leadership of the trade unions doesn’t offer a real solution to the crisis being faced by undocumented immigrants. Instead, it offers more of the same—millions of dollars to in­ crease the militarization of the border, a mandatory biometric E-verify system that would be implemented nationwide, and an expanded Bracero-style guest­ worker system.

And the “pathway to citizenship” being offered to Editor: Michael Schreiber Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder designed, and laid out entirely by volunteer labor.

­— $37 for two years Name Address City State Phone E-mail undocumented immigrants is so long, so expensive, and so difficult to comply with that it has been esti­ mated that 4-5 million immigrants will not qualify for any kind of legal status. In short, the system be­ ing proposed ensures a legalized exploitation of the undocumented workers who will be given a tempo­ rary status, while life becomes even more difficult for everyone else who gets left “in the shadows” because they can’t meet income standards or pay thousands of dollars in fines.

So why are immigrants supporting the reform bill by the thousands? The answer is evident in the tone of the protests. In Minneapolis, where over a thousand marched in the streets on Oct. 5, the speaker’s stage was dominated not by local immigrant leaders who fight deportations in their communities or organize immigrant workers to fight for better pay, but by re­ Zip • Ashland, Ore.: [email protected] • Boston: [email protected] (781) 630-0250 • Carrboro, N.C.: (919) 967-2866, [email protected] • Chicago: P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657, [email protected] • Connecticut: (860) 478-5300 • Duluth, Minn.: [email protected]. www.thenorthernworker.blogspot.com • Kansas City: [email protected] (816) 221-3638 • LOUISVILLE, KY.: [email protected], (502) 451-2193 • Madison, Wis.:

[email protected] • Mankato, Minn.:

[email protected] • Minneapolis/St. Paul: (612) 802-1482, [email protected] • New York City: (212) 781-5157 ligious groups, the Chamber of Com­ merce, and the AFL-CIO.

When you speak with immigrants about immigration reform, it be­ comes clear that many don’t under­ stand what the comprehensive im­ migration reform bill would really mean for them and how it would af­ fect their lives. What they hear every day is the misinformation provided by their churches, their unions, and the Spanish-language media. Faced by a lack of independent community leadership, they tend to follow the reformist voices that are now domi­ nating the movement, acting on a desperate need for change.

It is clear by the thousands of peo­ ple who marched in the streets that immigrants want an end to the de­ portations, to the separation of their families, and their exploitation at work. They have shown in the past that they have the power to demand that change. The challenge in the coming months will be in educating immigrants about what the proposed legislation actually contains, and then building an in­ dependent movement in the streets to demand an end to the deportations and unconditional legalization for all—a legalization without chains. n William Way LGBT Center, 1315 Spruce St. Sponsor: Socialist Action https://womensliberationforumsocialistaction. eventbrite.com • Philadelphia: [email protected] • Portland, Ore.: (503) 233-1629 [email protected] • Providence: [email protected] (401) 592-5385 • Salem, Ore.: [email protected] • San Francisco Bay Area:

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Malalai Joya tour marks longest U.S. war Afghan women’s rights and antiwar fighter Malalai Joya toured the U.S. for three weeks in October on be­ half of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) and the Los Angeles-based Afghan Women’s Mission. Joya’s national tour included 10 cities: New York, Bos­ ton, Amherst, Albany, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

The tour focused on mobilizing opposition to the continuing U.S. war and occupation in Afghanistan, now in its 13th year—the longest war in U.S. history— and to increase awareness of the plight of Afghan women.

Joya, who survived seven assassination attempts during her near underground work in Afghanistan, ex­ plained to packed audiences that the U.S. government has no intention of leaving her country, regardless of the news media reports of “agreements” that the occupation is slated to end in 2014. Nine permanent U.S. military bases attest to U.S. intentions to maintain a strong military and geo-political presence in this critical Central Asian region and to be first in line to exploit Afghanistan’s estimated $3 trillion in copper and rare earth metals. Afghanistan’s reserves of these critical elements are among the largest in the world.

Joya insisted that the Afghan people faced three le­ thal opponents: the U.S. occupation forces, the corrupt “mafia and puppet” Hamid Karzai warlord “govern­ ment,” and the fundamentalist Taliban, whose misog­ ynist practices result in the degradation of women to a degree virtually unmatched in the world today. Af­ ghanistan, Joya points out, is rated as the second most corrupt nation on earth and in the top 10 of the poor­ est nations as well.

She pointed out in detail that criminal elements in the Karzai government included the nation’s leading drug lords (opium dealers), acting in collusion with the CIA, as well as fundamentalist warlords who dif­ fered little from the misogynist forces of the Taliban Islamic fundamentalists.

U.S. public statements labeling the Taliban as terror­ ist, for the public record, according to Joya, are contra­ dicted by U.S. efforts to negotiate the imposition of a new government including the Taliban’s elite capital­ ist warlords.

At 35, Joya has experienced war and intervention in her country for her lifetime, beginning with the 1979 invasion of the Soviet Union, when her family was driven into refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan where she was raised as a child under extremely diffi­ cult conditions and as a teenager became a teacher of women in underground schools supported by unreg­ istered and essentially “illegal” NGO’s. These are re­ counted in detail in her heartwarming 2009 book, “A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice.” Hundreds of copies were sold in the course of the UNAC/AWM tour.

Malalai Joya’s secular father lost a leg after stepping on a land mine at the time of the Soviet war, when tens of thousands of Afghans were brutally murdered by the would-be Russian conquerors. Following the So­ viet withdrawal, Joya’s family was again driven to seek refuge in Pakistan as a civil war erupted among op­ posing warlords for control of the nation’s resources.

This was followed by the post-9/11 U.S. invasion and war, accompanied by a still-unending war against the Rachel WIlliams (Photo) Prof. Noam Chomsky with Malalai Joya after they both spoke in Boston.

Afghan people including the deployment of the larg­ est privatized, mercenary army in U.S. history. Deathsquad private teams accompanied by bombings are the norm in Afghanistan today.

Joya described the almost unbelievable oppres­ sion, murder, rape and torture of women who do not comply with fundamentalist standards that relegate woman to near sub-human status. Along with that brutal mistreatment, pervasive poverty and the lack of adequate medical treatment make Afghanistan the worst place in the world for women, according to in­ (continued on page 5, in “A salute to Herman Wallace”)

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