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| I saw this film tonight at SilverDocs. It was fantastic. I also got to speak with the Director and the surgeon himself.
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| http://www.theenglishsurgeon.com/thefilm.htm
THE FILM What is it like to have God like surgical powers, yet to struggle against your own humanity? What is it like to try and save a life, and yet to fail? This film follows brain surgeon Henry Marsh as he openly confronts the dilemmas of the doctor patient relationship on his latest mission to the Ukraine. Henry is one of London’s foremost brain surgeons, but despite being a pioneer in his field he stills rides an old pushbike to work and worries himself sick about the damage he can inflict on his patients. “When push comes to shove we can afford to lose an arm or a leg, but I am operating on people’s thoughts and feelings…and if something goes wrong I can destroy that person’s character ……forever”. |
Day 29 – Hunger strike suspended after huge political gains
From http://nolaworkerscenter.wordpress.com
Congressman Dennis Kucinich speaks before an audience of 150 workers and supporters today at the Department of Justice rally. Details here:
NEW ORLEANS WORKERS’ CENTER FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
www.neworleansworkerjustice.org
*** JUNE 11, 2008 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***
Indian trafficking survivors suspend hunger strike on Day 29 after huge political gains
Workers celebrate support, vow to fight on as allies hold solidarity rallies in 10 US cities
WASHINGTON, DC – On Wednesday, June 11, 2008, about 150Indian labor trafficking survivors and supporters rallied at the US Department of Justice headquarters, where the workers suspended their hunger strike on Day 29 after an unprecedented outpouring of support from US Congressmen and leaders from labor, civil rights, and religious communities.
“Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act because we recognized that modern day slavery exists and that workers trafficked into the United States should be able to place their faith in the United States justice system,” US Congressman Dennis Kucinich said at the rally, one week after he and 17 Congressional colleagues sent a letter to the Department of Justice urging legal protections for the workers while it investigates their case. “Today, we must make sure we don’t betray their faith in us.”
Indian Member of Parliament S.K. Kharventhan (Tamil Nadu, Congress Party) also pledged his support to the workers after flying from India to meet with them and attend the rally, saying:“This issue needs to be taken up as an international crime in India. I pledge my support to you. Meeting with you personally has opened my eyes to the seriousness of the problem and the fact that the Indian government should help you bring the traffickers to justice.”
“After 29 days, we are suspending a hunger strike that has brought us more power than any group of H2B guest workers in the United States has ever had,” said Sabulal Vijayan, an organizer with the Indian Workers’ Congress. “We have the confidence to suspend our hunger strike today because we have faith in these allies to fight alongside us until the traffickers are brought to justice.”
The vast support for the workers’ fight for justice against the labor trafficking chain of Signal International and its recruiters was clear from the speakers at Wednesday’s rally, which included:
- US Congressman Dennis Kucinich
- Indian Member of Parliament S.K. Kharventhan, Tamil Nadu, Congress Party
- Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickeled and Dimed
- Rev. Graylan Hagler, Senior Minister, Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ
- Jon Hiatt, General Counsel, AFL-CIO
- John Cavanagh, director, Institute of Policy Studies
- John Flynn, President, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers
- Sarita Gupta, Executive Director, Jobs With Justice
- Indian Workers’ Congress organizer Sabulal Vijayan
- Saket Soni, director, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
In addition, labor rights group Jobs With Justice held solidarity actions in 10 cities across the US on Wednesday: Atlanta, GA;Boston, MA; Portland, OR; Knoxville, TN; Richmond, VA; Chicago, IL; Salt Lake City, UT; New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; and San Francisco, CA. Last week, Jobs With Justice members wrote over 9,000 letters to US Congress in support of the workers.
“But our victory today is not yet complete,” Vijayan added, referring to the Department of Justice’s failure to release the labor trafficking survivors from the terror of deportation by granting them continued presence in the US, as requested by Rep. Kucinich and his 17 colleagues.
“We live in constant terror of deportation. We cannot work. We cannot see our families. We cannot provide for our families. We are listening to our children grow up over long distance phone calls. Because of the DOJ’s inaction, our lives are in limbo,” Vijayan said.
After the workers broke the fast in a ceremony blessed by Rev. Graylan Hagler and other faith leaders, a delegation of ten workers’ allies went into the Department of Justice and met with Constituent Relations Associate Director Julie Warren, who agreed to set a meeting between the workers and the DoJ Civil Rights Division for the week of June 16th.
“Scripture says: ‘Is this not the fast which I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, and to let the oppressed go free?’” Rev. Hagland said, before he and other clergy distributed pieces of bread to the workers. “That is what we’re standing here to do, to loose the bonds of wickedness, and to let the oppressed go free.”
The hunger strike followed nearly 18 months of organizing by the workers, who paid US and Indian recruiters up to $20,000 apiece for false promises of permanent residency and green cards. Instead they received 10-month temporary H2B guest worker visas and worked at Signal’s Gulf Coast shipyards under deplorable conditions. A total of 20 workers participated in the strike, five of whom were hospitalized. One of them, Paul Konar, fasted for 23 straight days before being stopped by health problems.
The workers escaped Signal’s labor camps in March 2008 and made a 10-day “journey for justice,” largely on foot, from New Orleans to Washington, DC. They launched their hunger strike on May 14 to demand temporary legal status in the US, Congressional hearings into abuses of guest workers, and talks between the US and Indian governments to protect future guest workers.
“The Department of Justice, like the Indian government, has remained cold while these workers have taken extraordinary risks to open the world’s eyes to the reality of guest worker programs,” said Saket Soni, workers’ advocate and director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. “This suspension of the hunger strike gives them both one last chance to fulfill their responsibility to combat the brutal reality of human trafficking.”
The Indian Workers’ Congress is an affiliate of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice.
Must have applications (an RSS Reader and a personalized Homepage)
There are many RSS readers, but my favorite is Google Reader. If you do not have an RSS reader, give it a try. Here is some info about Google Reader:
Stay up to date
Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Whether a site updates daily or monthly, you can be sure that you won’t miss a thing.
Simplify your reading experience
Google Reader shows you all of your favorite sites in one convenient place. It’s like a personalized inbox for the entire web.
Use Google Reader on any computer
You can access your Google Reader account from any computer with online access. Whether you’re at home, at work or abroad, your subscriptions stay with you.
See http://www.google.com/help/reader/tour.html
While I am evangelizing for Google, I might was well point out igoogle, another must have personalized homepage application:
See http://www.google.ca/ig?hl=en
and
lifehacker.com-igoogle contest results
Tags: Rss, Reader Google, Personalized, Homepage, technology
A must see video: What is wrong with our democracy
2008 National Conference for Media Reform
Watch and Listen
Tune in to freepress.net/conference for webcasts of the plenary and keynote events.
Audio of panels and workshops
Audio archives of all the conference sessions and panels will be available shortly after they are given. Just browse the program, click on the panel or workshop you’d like to listen to, and click on the audio link.
H2B hunger strike update
I have been unable to follow the progress of the H2B workers from India. However, updates can be found at these sites:
http://www.neworleansworkerjustice.org/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nolaworkerscenter/
Very good video clip at:
http://newsproject.org/node/52
I believe the Indian H2B workers are on day 21 of their hunger strike.
So far, on Regulations.gov I see no comments yet
submitted on DOL’s recently published proposal to amend and streamline the H2B process which can be found here: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-11214.pdf.
The period for public comment will close July 7..
H-2B Workers Launch Hunger Strike
Workers allege they were lured to the U.S. under false pretenses.
From ImmigrationProf Blog
May 12, 2008
[Indian Guest Workers, Survivors of Labor Trafficking Launching
Hunger Strike in Front of White House to Demand Protection Under the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act]
On Wednesday, May 14th, a group of Indian guest workers
who broke an 18-month US-Indian labor trafficking chain earlier this
year launched a hunger strike to demand that the US government grant
them Continued Presence in the United States under the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act to participate in an ongoing Department of
Justice investigation into alleged labor trafficking by Northrop
Grumman subcontractor Signal International and US and Indian recruiters.
************
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More details at
http://www.mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=77948
A group of five Indian workers have launched a hunger strike in
front of the White House demanding a US Congressional investigation
into their “exploitation” by American companies.
The five workers who began the “water only” protest at Lafayette
Park opposite the US presidential mansion Wednesday were among more
than 500 Indian welders and pipe fitters who allegedly paid up to
$20,000 apiece for false promises of green cards and work-based
permanent residency in the US.
Seeking “justice from their former employer Signal International and
Indian and US recruiters”, the workers union claimed the support of the
American Federation of Labourers-Congress of Industrial Organizations
(AFL-CIO).
“The AFL-CIO and its 10 million members are proud to support the
hunger strike by these Signal workers, and their campaign to shed light
on the abuses of the US Government’s H2B guest worker programme,” Jon
Hiatt, general counsel for the AFL-CIO, was quoted as saying.
“We know the US is a powerful country, and we know that Signal is a
powerful company. That is why we are asking the Indian government to
support us as we stand here with our lives shattered,” said hunger
striker Muruganantham Kandhasami.
The protesters will move to the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in front of
the Indian Embassy here Saturday. On May 21, 15 more hunger strikers
will join the fast, followed by another 15 on May 28, the organisers
said.
“If we, the workers of India, can have the courage to talk to US
Congressmen and US federal authorities, then surely the Indian
government can do the same so that no other Indian worker suffers as we
did,” the workers’ statement said.
“The Indian government needs to show the kind of courage with the US
that it showed in labour talks with Malaysia and Bahrain,” said Sony
Sulekha, who is on hunger strike. “If we could sit down and talk with
the US Congressmen, we believe our leaders can too.”
“This hunger strike is a last resort,” said Saket Soni, a worker’s
advocate who directs the New Orleans Workers’ Centre for Racial Justice.
The workers are demanding that Indian parliamentarians press their
US counterparts for a Congressional investigation into abuses in the US
guest worker visa programme.
They also want the ministries of foreign affairs and overseas Indian
affairs to press the US State Department to secure the workers’ right
to participate in a human trafficking investigation into Signal
International and its American and Indian recruiters.
“Indian envoy to the US Ronen Sen offered the workers only symbolic
reassurances and apologies for protocol. Now they are risking their
lives in the hope that the Indian government will find the courage to
pressure the US government to grant them dignity, and protect future
workers,” Soni said referring to a meeting with the envoy in March.
They had among other things demanded a Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) probe into their case. Sen gave the workers a
patient hearing and promised to take up their grievances but only
though appropriate and established channels.
Coming to Washington, after a nine-day satyagraha, or “journey for
justice” from New Orleans, the workers had in March taken their protest
to the White House where they raised slogans and tore up photocopies of
their H-2B visas in a symbolic rejection of the guest worker programme.
IANS
Trafficking Victims Launch Hunger Strike
Workers allege they were lured to the U.S. under false pretenses.
From ImmigrationProf Blog
May 12, 2008
[Indian Guest Workers, Survivors of Labor Trafficking Launching
Hunger Strike in Front of White House to Demand Protection Under the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act]
CONTACT:
Stephen Boykewich, Media Director, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice: (504) 655-0876, spboykewich@gmail.com
On Wednesday, May 14th, at 10 a.m., a group of Indian guest workers
who broke an 18-month US-Indian labor trafficking chain earlier this
year will launch a hunger strike to demand that the US government grant
them Continued Presence in the United States under the Trafficking
Vicitims Protection Act to participate in an ongoing Department of
Justice investigation into alleged labor trafficking by Northrop
Grumman subcontractor Signal International and US and Indian recruiters.
Six of the more than 500 workers will launch a water-only hunger
strike in Lafayette Park in view of the White House on Wednesday with a
press event including allies from US labor unions and civil rights
organizations. Approximately 30 more workers will be joining the hunger
strike over the next two weeks. The workers are members of the Alliance
of Guest Workers for Dignity, a grassroots project of the New Orleans
Workers’ Center for Racial Justice [NOWCRJ]
(www.neworleansworkerjustice.org).
WHAT: Launch of hunger strike by Indian labor trafficking survivors
WHEN: 10 a.m., Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
WHERE: Lafayette Park, 16th Street and Pennsylvania Ave, north of White House
bh
Remarkable French Film
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
A must see if you like sad poignant movies. Almost as good as the Spanish film, “The Sea Inside.”
From Library Journal
On December 8 1995, Elle magazine
editor-in-chief Bauby suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. He
awoke 20 days later, mentally aware of his surroundings but physically
paralyzed with the exception of some movement in his head and left eye.
Bauby had Locked-in-Syndrome, a rare condition caused by stroke damage
to the brain stem. Eye movements and blinking a code representing
letters of the alphabet became his sole means of communication. It is
also how he dictated this warm, sad, and extraordinary memoir. Bauby’s
thoughts on the illness, the hospital, family, friends, career, and
life before and after the stroke appear with considerable humor and
humanity. Actor Rene Auberjonois’s narration adds to the poignancy of
the story.
From L.A. Times Opinion Page on the May Day holiday (not recognized in the U.S.)
[To put this in context, at the turn of the century the L.A. Times was notoriously anti-labor. When some labor leaders actually bombed the L.A. Times, Clarence Darrow , defended them in a trial that almost landed the lawyer in jail. If you have not read Irving Stone’s Biography of Clarence Darrow, I recommend it highly. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_hour_day ]
‘Let’s everybody dance’ — May Day editorials past
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2008/05/lets-everybody.html
Previously I noted what the editorial board said of the past two May Days. Today I’m going further back, when May Day was an occasion not for marches, but for labor-bashing, springtime celebrating, and making up new holidays.
On April 30, 1906, the board attacks French anarchists for subverting what would otherwise be a fine celebration of labor:
Every right-thinking man is sincerely desirous of increasing the earnings of the working classes…diffusing comfort, happiness and the sunshine of life over the very widest area that is possible. So when the artisans of Paris march by in peaceful parade, there are only hearty huzzas to greet their passing.
But the trouble lies in the fact that the annual demonstration has been seized on by those members of society who have the least right to call themselves honest workingmen. May first is the chosen day for the anarchists to display their red flags, and for the Socialists to declaim their subversive doctrines.
The following year, the board was a lot crueler:
This is the day that “organized labor” — that is, labor organized not to labor but to put all possible obstacles in the way of peacefully doing the work of the world — has selected as its own. This is the day the totemites have parades as an adjunct of strikes and general disturbance in the labor world….
[A]ll got together on May Day, and vied each with the other in the attempt to show who could make most noise, and show most contempt for law, for order, for industry, for any man’s rights.
And it didn’t end early in the century. On May Day 1962, the board declared in its editorial headline: “May Day is Law Day U.S.A.” That designation — and the creation of a separate American Labor Day — is sometimes considered a direct rebuke to the worldwide celebration Labor Day on May 1. Americans had previously declared it “Loyalty Day” and “Americanization Day,” and many presidents past (and one current) have underscored the point.
The board tried its hand at declaring days, too. In 1909 they suggested “Tag Day” — a charitable concept that would have had Angelenos buying ten-cent tags to wear on their clothes on May 1, with all money going to charity. Apparently it didn’t happen, as by 1912, the board was suggesting a Children’s Day:
Each succeeding year, as May Day approaches, it will be looked forward to with increasing joy by all the little ones, the poor, the parentless, the afflicted, scattered throughout our growing metropolis. What more suitable celebration for the unfolding of nature’s blossoms? What more perfect device for Christianizing the ancient flower festival of heathen days?
Children’s Day is in fact celebrated on various days by various countries and international organizations around the world; Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush have both proclaimed it. But according to Wikipedia, no one currently celebrates it on May 1.
In any case, boards saved their best efforts for May Day editorials that stuck to the old-time purpose of the holiday — celebrating the season. In 1909 (perhaps in case Tag Day didn’t go off), the board recommended honoring spring in Southern California each May Day:
[R]eflect upon the bright skies, the calm airs that overspread Southern California, the wealth of floral bloom…the jubilant song of the mocking-bird and the cheerful chirp of the lark upon the fence…if you would realize what an inestimable, inexpressible blessing the climate of California is to all of us who are privileged to live amid such scenes of beauty, and to revel in an atmosphere so salubrious and so comfortable to animal life as to be an everlasting luxury enjoyed universally by every creature that breathes the breath of life…[M]ore precious than the gold mines of California or the wealth of millionaires is the climate we enjoy in this land of all delights. May Day should not be neglected in a country like this.
And in April 1911, The Times put out an initially sweet call for a May Day celebration that descends, perhaps only to corrupt contemporary minds, into creepiness:
Come on, oh, you kiddies! Come, boys and babies, and even you who are foully named by grumpy race suiciders as “brats.” Come you fatherless and motherless tots…. Come, you little boys who are clad just now in short frocks, and who are anxiously awaiting the hour when breeches shall adorn your nethermost parts. Come, you dear little girls, whose bright eyes fill with tears of joy when a little pink or blue sash is pinned around your waists. Come with your ebony tresses or your hair of fine-spun gold. Come with your Teddy Bears or other dolls pressed against breasts that even in infancy unconsciously long for the sweet tyranny that accompanies motherhood…. Come, you little fellows, breeched and unbreeched….oh, now, dear girls and boys, when blessed May Day comes you shall climb in or be lifted into great Cyclops-eyed scarlet, and white, and green, and gray autos that will honk with delight as they carry you….
But the call worked. The paper held May Day parties in Los Angeles and Venice, and congratulated itself on May 2:
“Forever and forever,
So long as the river flows,
So long as the heart has passions
And so long as life has woes,”
each recurring May Day will bring a memory of the day of joy that The Times is glad it was able to help its kind friends give the kids.
Even as late as 1959, The Times was trying to convince everyone to party. The board expressed the sentiment with simpler words:
Today (hurray!) is the First of May.
Not a nicer day could happen to the human race. You don’t have to do anything about May Day. No parades. No presents to buy or tax returns to file or battle anniversaries to celebrate. Just breathe and be glad. Pick a flower…. May is effervescent and catching. Little boys climb trees. Little girls gather flowers in baskets. Larger people leave their stuffy parlors for the piny out-of-doors. Young men pop the question.
The troubled old world hangs suspended in a golden moment, like a great champagne bubble floating in the air.
Let’s everybody dance.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: MayDay, L.A. Times, labor, Clarence Darrow,
Worthy Mouse Clicks 