Buffalo Indymedia

It has been a couple months now since the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh that justifiably resulted in a large amount of protesters flocking to the area. The issues that were addressed by the protesters were vast, including: globalization, human rights abuses in Tibet, capitalism, debt in developing nations, etc . . .

The amount of arrests on Thursday and Friday while the G20 meeting was taking place, were fairly low compared to prior G20 meetings in Seattle and London. There were a few small clashes with the police, but most of them did not get out of hand and there were minimal arrests. Riot police lined many of the streets during permitted and unpermitted marches, blocking those that were unpermitted. Long Range Acoustic Devices (developed for military use in Afghanistan and Iraq) were used on protesters, which can easily cause permanent ear damage. The police were so successful in unconstitutionally quelling free speech and assembly long before protesters could get anywhere near the utlra-high security perimeter around the convention center, that there weren't many conflicts that were able to rise to the level of arrests.

(Posted originally by Trenton Anti-Racist Action)
David Irving’s Holocaust-Denial Speaking Tour: The Show that Must Not Go On, Part Two!

This October and November, David Irving, a British neo-fascist and fraudulent historian, goes on the road in the United States, planning to hold dozens of speaking engagements over the course of two months. As militant anti-racists and anti-fascists, we are making a public call for resistance at each stop along the way of this tour. In his earlier tour of July--focusing on western states--Irving encountered protest at approximately one quarter of his tour dates. Irving’s current tour contains dates on the East Coast, in the Midwest and the South. We urge all communities in which the tour passes through, to send a clear message that fascist organizing is not welcome!

Who is David Irving?

David Irving is a British writer who has been involved with the fascist political scene since the 1960s. Always known for the pro-Hitler bias of his books, approximately two decades ago Irving made the transition to being a fully-fledged Holocaust-denier, when he testified at the trial of neo-Nazi Ernst Zündel in Canada, and also arranged the publication of Fred Leuchter’s widely-refuted report on gas chambers at Auschwitz. In addition to spreading blatant historical lies, Irving has publicly stated that “The Jews are the architects of their own misfortune.” Unsurprisingly, Irving was a popular speaker at neo-Nazi rallies in Germany (until he was banned from the country.)

In the British libel case Irving v. Penguin Books and Lipstadt, the final ruling in favor of the defendants confirmed that Irving “is an active Holocaust denier” and that “he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.” In 2006, Irving was jailed in Austria after pleading guilty to a charge of “trivializing the Holocaust,” which is a crime in that county. Since his release, Irving has been marketing himself as a former “political prisoner.”

[This was originally posted on the Homeless Alliance of WNY's blog.]

That may seem like a ridiculous question. Part of the reason I came to Buffalo was because I thought it was probably the most affordable place to live in the state*. But the Center for Housing Policy’s recently released report entitled Paycheck to Paycheck serves to remind us that for many working people, owning a home or even renting a 1BR apartment in Buffalo is unaffordable.

The report compares the wages of 60 occupations with the wages necessary to afford the cost of an average home ($100,000 including all associated costs) or the Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartment in different states and metropolitan areas. Housing is usually considered affordable if it amounts to 30% of your budget. For example, CHP calculates the income needed for a one-bedroom apartment by multiplying the Fair Market Rent for a one bedroom apartment by 3, which would roughly give you the income needed for that month to afford the apartment. That monthly number is then multiplied by 12 to get the yearly income necessary.

The report found that while the wage necessary to afford a home decreased (much of that having to do with declining home prices) the wages for many occupations, construction-related occupations in particular, still are not high enough to afford a home and in severe cases a two-bedroom apartment. Fair Market Rents continued to increase in most areas, which is very troubling given the big increases in unemployment and that renting is usually the more affordable option for low-income people.

In Detroit, on October 24-25, the organized North American anarchist movement met at the 2009 Class Struggle Anarchist Conference. The second annual conference brought together 9 different anarchist organizations that work to engage within mass movements to help provide a revolutionary anarchist perspective. In part, the conference was a space for these organizations to talk about the possibilities of a future unified anarchist organization throughout North America that could help to broaden a struggle against capitalism and for a world where every day people control the resources in their community and workers control their workplaces.

Members from Buffalo’s local anarchist-communist organization, Buffalo Class Action, participated in the conversations. They attended with an interest in learning from some of the longer-lasting anarchist organizations, their successes and challenges. These local anarchists also went with the purpose of spreading the idea of City Wide Tenants’ Unions beyond their efforts to organize such a group here in Buffalo.

Reposted from a mass defense email

Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists
Posted by Declan McCullagh

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Kristina Clair, a 34-year old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the Justice Department's subpoena. (The Independent Media Center is a left-of-center amalgamation of journalists and advocates that – according to their principles of unity and mission statement – work toward "promoting social and economic justice" and "social change.")

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

"I didn't think anything we were doing was worthy of any (federal) attention," Clair said in a telephone interview with CBSNews.com on Monday. After talking to other Indymedia volunteers, Clair ended up calling the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which represented her at no cost.

Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, (www.vcnv.org) a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. As a co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, she helped form 70 delegations, from 1996 - 2003, that openly defied economic sanctions by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq. Kathy and her companions lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing.

More recently, she has visited Gaza and Pakistan, writing eyewitness accounts of war’s impact on civilians.

Kathy was sentenced to one year in federal prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites (1988-89) and served three months, in 2004, for crossing the line at Fort Benning’s military training school.

She and her companions at the Voices home/office in Chicago believe that non-violence necessarily involves simplicity, service, sharing of resources and non-violent direct action in resistance to war and oppression. Kathy hasn’t paid federal income taxes since 1980.

She recently spoke at the Western New York Peace Center Dinner. Audio of that speech can be found here.

Many University at Buffalo students and their allies from the Buffalo community organized to protest a talk by notorious Israeli fascist Effie Eitam on campus on Monday November 2nd. The lecture was sponsored by Hillel of Buffalo and the Jewish National Fund despite calls from students and faculty to have it canceled in order not to promote an inciter of hatred and racism on the UB campus.

Eitam, who served for 30 years in the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and who held few cabinet portfolios, is known for his fascist pronouncements and actions against the Palestinians of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, but also for his views concerning Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. He is an advocate of more illegal colonialist theft of Palestinian lands and actually lives in the illegal settlement of Nov in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. When he was minister of Housing and Construction, the building of Zionist colonies in the West Bank increased dramatically, an action that did not deviate from his repeated calls to expel its Palestinian population and have it annexed to Israel’s proper. He defended the use of Palestinian civilians in Gaza as human shields against a 2005 ruling by the Supreme Court of Israel that banned IOF soldiers from engaging in similar practices.

With hopes of rebuilding a community-based, social justice media outlet in Buffalo a public forum for the rebirth of Buffalo Indymedia was recently organized. A panel discussion with presenters from Rochester Indymedia, a former Bay Area Indymedia editor, and Buffalo activists began a powerful conversation about the possibilities and challenges that lie in the road ahead for local media activists.

Hannah Dobbz, from Pittsburgh, spoke about her involvement in the Bay Area Indymedia newspaper Fault Lines and the importance it had in garnering attention to local activist efforts. Andy Dillon and Ted Forsyth from Rochester Indymedia shared their experiences with Indy TV and a their work on distributing a print version of much of their website content. Local activists Joe Schmidbauer and Colin O'Malley talked of their inspiration to re-build local Indymedia in a way that would challenge the official story of those in power and help to build the voice of everyday people and their movements.

In coming years, Buffalo Indymedia hopes to build that voice in the region and report those stories that effect people's lives in huge ways that are often left unreported by local and national corporate media outlets. There was some discussion about the possibilities of not only maintaining the website, but also working on radio, print, and film efforts for Buffalo IMC. If you'd like to get involved in Buffalo IMC, you can register and begin writing and commenting on stories immediately on this site. To get further involved, or to inform the organizing group of an important story, please contact them at BuffaloIMC@gmail.com

When: TUESDAY NOVEMBER 3, 2009 at 5 P.M.
Where: 107 ALLEN HALL (THEATRE), UB SOUTH CAMPUS

2009 marks the 40th Anniversary of the Department of African & African American Studies at UB! We're marking this extremely important occasion with a Reunion Speaker and further series of events in the Spring semester.

In 1969, Dr. James Arthur Miller, now a Professor of English and Chair of American Studies at George Washington University, became the first Director of what was then the Black Studies Program while a doctoral student in the English Department.

Dr. Miller will join UB faculty, staff, students, and local alumni on November 3rd to share his experience building the Black Studies Program as a student, with students, as well as demonstrate the continued necessity for Black Studies programs today.

Please join us to celebrate 40 years of Black Studies at UB - and please share this event with your friends, family, and colleagues so we can make sure African & African American Studies is around for another 40 years!

By José Antonio Gutiérrez D.
June 28, 2009
Article taken from www.Anarkismo.net

The flashing sabers have once again shown their edge in Latin America: the coups d'etat and destabilization processes orchestrated from Washington have succeeded in countries where governments are implementing reform that may be uncomfortable for the digestion of the hemispheric elite-Venezuela 2002; Haiti 2004, Bolivia 2008. This time Honduras' turn has come, a country whose president Manuel Zelaya was overthrown by the military and exiled to Costa Rica. While Zelaya was kidnapped by soldiers in Congress a letter written by Zelaya was read (which turned out to be false) in which he renounced his position as president. At the same time, and while several MPs complained that the conduct of the president put at risk the "rule of law" and accused him of multiple violations of the Constitution real and imaginary, he was removed from office, which was assumed by the Congress president , Roberto Micheletti (who is also from Zelaya's Liberal Party).

The coup happened on the same day that a non-binding public consultation, called by Zelaya would have taken place regarding the need to change the Constitution, drafted in 1982, when the country was just emerging from an extremely brutal military dictatorship supported by U.S. who wielded power from 1972 to 1981. If the results were favorable to constitutional change a Constituent Assembly would be convened in November.