Joint statement from Miami autonomy and solidarity and the Batay Ouvriye Haiti Solidarity Network

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01/14/09- A natural disaster has descended upon Haiti whose scope we only are seeing the surface of at this time. The Haitian people will be struggling to rebuild their lives and their home possibly for decades in light of unprecedented collapse, both physical and social. Yet despite the unpredictability of earthquakes, this disaster is unnatural, a monstrosity of our time. The extent of the damage of the earthquake is part of the cost of unrestrained exploitation which at every step put profit above the health, safety, and well being of the Haitian people. While the world watches on ready to help, power is being dealt an opportunity. The Haitian workers and peasants have been fighting for their rights to even the most basic level of existence for decades, while the UN-occupying force, the state, and the ruling elites maintain the social misery without relenting. Now as Port-Au-Prince is in rubble, new opportunities arise for rulers to rebuild Haiti in their own interests, and likewise for the Haitian workers and peasants to assert their right to their own Haiti, one where they will be not be forced to live in dangerous buildings, and work merely to fill the pockets of elites, foreign or domestic.

The popular response to the Argentine economic crisis of December 2001 and lessons for us in Canada - a Québec and Ontario speaking tour presented by the Union Communiste Libertaire (UCL) and Common Cause.

We are going through one of the worst economic crises in the history of capitalism and the answers provided by the state and its lackeys are illusory. In addition, faced with this impasse, our leaders are trying to shift the entire burden of the crisis to workers and their communities.

How can we respond differently to this economic crisis? Can we learn from the experiences of struggles that have happened elsewhere in the world?

To consider these issues, the UCL and Common Cause are organizing a Québec and Ontario speaking tour this winter on the response of the Argentine popular classes in the face of a serious economic crisis that shook the country in the late 2001.

By Michael Truscello

The Olympic torch relay was invented by the Nazis at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, to demonstrate an ancient Aryan lineage with the Third Reich, proof of a warrior culture and foreshadow of the domination of Europe. The contemporary "Olympic Movement" trots out a similar set of symbols, but now backed by corporate logos and the promise of a portable "state of exception," to use the term articulated by Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt.

Anarchists in Canada, especially those whose primary concern is class struggle, may not see much value in protesting the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. Why so much fanfare for the Olympics, a one-off event, while barely a whimper from radical groups over the installation of the HST in Ontario and BC — a tax grab that punishes the poor forever?

Steelworkers rally in downtown Hamilton against lay-offs and pension cuts marching under the slogan "Oppose Economic Terrorism." Dec. 14, 2009

The rally covered all four corners of Main and James streets. Workers from U.S. Steel (formerly Stelco) handed out flyers as they have done every Monday afternoon for the past year. The flyer attacked "the monopolies and the rich" for the economic crisis and called for "public ownership and control over the basic sectors of the economy."

By Mick Sweetman

TORONTO — At a streetcar stop at Queen and Bay streets Saturday about 50 anti-poverty activists boarded a westbound streetcar after showing the driver protest “transfers” made by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in what they called a “pilot program” for fighting the fare hike.

Driver and passengers seemed in good spirits as protesters chanted “Hey, Hey, TTC! Public transit should be free!” Protestors distributed OCAP “transfers” to passengers and hung a banner out the window reading “Fair rates not fare hikes” as the streetcar headed toward Spadina Avenue.

The rolling protest was against the TTC increasing fares to $3 starting on Jan. 3. The price hike is 25 cents a trip and an increase of over 10% for a monthly pass. Advocates of poor and working people say transit costs are already too high. The fare hike comes at a time of economic recession and job losses, growing poverty, and dangerously low social assistance rates.