To my Allies and LGBTQ+ comrades boycotting Russian Vodka: Just Stop.

I know that we all mean well when we collectively decided not to buy any more Vodka from Russian companies because of the decision of their President Vladimir Putin to actively endanger his own citizens because of their status (or allyship to) as sexual minorities.

But I suggest that you do not let this dictator's actions sway you to damage the economic integrity of long corporate allies to the LGBTQ+ community. Allies like the hard hit Stolichnaya Vodka (also known as Stoli) have had a long history of supporting Lesbian and Gay movements in the United States and abroad with campaigns such as Be Real: Stories from Queer America which explores the intersectionality of gender identity. Stoli CEO Val Mendeleev recently sent a letter to the American magazine The Advocate (whose audience is predominantly wealthy white gay men) reading as follows: 

Luxembourg, July 25, 2013
An Open Letter from the CEO of Stolichnaya Vodka to the LGBT community.
The recent dreadful actions taken by the Russian Government limiting the rights of the LGBT community and the passionate reaction of the community have prompted me to write this letter to you.
I want to stress that Stoli firmly opposes such attitude and actions. Indeed, as a company that encourages transparency and fairness, we are upset and angry. Stolichnaya Vodka has always been, and continues to be a fervent supporter and friend to the LGBT community. We also thank the community for having adopted Stoli as their vodka of preference.
In the US, the brand’s commitment to the LGBT community has been ongoing for years. Among the best examples, I can cite the series produced by Stoli in 2006 called “Be Real: Stories from Queer America” which featured short documentaries on real life stories depicting the challenges and accomplishments of the LGBT community in the United States (http://www.logotv.com/shows/dyn/be_real_series/series.jhtml)
Stoli is very proud of its current exclusive national partnership with Gaycities.com and Queerty.com in search of the Most Original Stoli Guy. This is a fantastic program that started as a local initiative in Colorado and became a national platform. Previous national initiatives included serving as the official vodka of the Miami Gay Pride Week as well as ongoing events with focus on Pride month.
Some great examples from other parts of the world are the support to the Durban Gay Pride, in South Africa (http://www.durbanpride.org), the Pride Parade in Vienna, in cooperation with HOSI and CT, the largest LGBT communities in Austria and the Tel Aviv Pride Parade, taking place this weekend.
This letter also gives me the opportunity to clear some of the confusion surrounding the Stolichnaya brand, based on facts found online that often inaccurately link our company to the Russian Government. The Russian government has no ownership interest or control over the Stoli brand that is privately owned by SPI Group, headquartered in Luxembourg in the heart of Western Europe.
Stoli’s production process involves both Russia and Latvia. Stoli is made from Russian ingredients (wheat, rye and raw alcohol) blended with pure artesian well water at our historic distillery and bottling facility Latvijas Balzams (www.lb.lv) in Riga, Latvia (formerly part of the Russian Empire and then of the Soviet Union). Latvijas Balzams did not recently become part of the Stoli heritage, but has been one of its main production and bottling facilities since 1948. This has allowed the brand to deliver the outstanding quality it is recognized for consistently across the years. What changed in the last years is politics, with Latvia becoming an independent state part of the EU.
We fully support and endorse your objectives to fight against prejudice in Russia. In the past decade, SPI has been actively advocating in favor of freedom, tolerance and openness in society, standing very passionately on the side of the LGBT community and will continue to support any effective initiative in that direction.
Sincerely yours
Val Mendeleev
Chief Executive Officer
SPI Group

which details the work the company has done for the American LGBTQ+ community in the past. It additionally attempts to highlight the company's corporate independence (as far as that can go nowadays) from Russia. However the company's subsidiary SPI Group is owned by Russian businessman Yury Shefler who won rights to continue privately produce vodka against re-nationalization attempts in 1999 by russian president Putin (details later in the article). SPI group is a Swiss based company with a board headed by predominantly American [USA] folks.

While receiving criticism from gay activist Dan Savage (known for his frequent outing of closeted youth during his talks and his trans*phobia) for lack of action in Russia, Stoli has made historical attempts at distancing itself from Russia since the 1999 nationalization attempts. However what Dan Savage [unsurprisingly] and others missed is that Vodka is not Russia's chief export.

According to the United States Government, the global market and the media Russia's largest export and money maker is - you guessed it - petroleum products! After petroleum products come natural gas, metals, wood and wood products, and then a whole list of chemicals that become a whole lot of other things. Last on the list is civilian based companies that do not make above products. Thus boycotting them is not going to do a whole lot of good. What will occur is that these companies (many of which are allies) will become easier and easier for a hostile government to buy. Once bought, say farewell to nifty LGBTQ+ awareness campaigns (even if they were only in the United States.

"But what should you do," you ask?

Well based on this data you should start contacting petroleum companies and inform them that you plan on boycotting their products as long as they continue to buy from Russian producers. Or, better yet, encourage companies to become green energy providers by buying credits, investing in them, or directing and electing representatives that support green energy initiatives. Contact paper product producers and inform them that you plan on boycotting Russian wood products and tell them that they should find other suppliers if they do not want to be hit hard. Buy local  to make sure that none of your capital goes to the Russian government. Follow Russian LGBTQ+ activist Nikolia Alekseev's advice and put Russian politicians on the visa ban list - effectively erasing their international sway. And perhaps hardest: stop putting Russian politicians in a place where they feel like they can act masculine, such as the Snowden incident, by reforming national laws that protect nationals so they do not need to seek protection overseas. 

Conceptualize growing fundamentalism into Progressivism - 1

Moving from a traditional base in order to challenge ideals such as Heterosexism, racism, cultural bigotry, transphobia, and other such categories built to separate us could possibly lead towards some of the most radical transformations in social thought that we can experience. That if we, as catalysts of social change, use fundamental concepts rooted in the consciousness of our families and communities to  move our values out from within the sky or above our heads, as things out of our grasps, into realities inside our communities, things we no longer need to value because they're foundations, we can truly enact inherent and indestructible change. 

Election in Hand - More Sanctions on Iran

A mere two days after Obama’s reelection was announced, the Obama administration has rolled out a new round of sanctions against Iran, after accusing the country of trying to shoot down an American drone in international airspace.

Found on The People's Record

About 170 members of the indigenous Guarani-Kaiowa tribe in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul have threatened to commit mass suicide if they are evicted from their agricultural farm, Press TV reports.

This week, a Brazilian court ordered members of the indigenous tribe to vacate the Cambar’s farm immediately, but some 100 adults and 70 children said they would kill themselves en masse before leaving the farm, a Press TV correspondent in Brazil reported on Tuesday. 

The threat was made in a letter to the Indigenous Missionary Council, in which the Indians also said they would not abide by the decision of the court. The Indians say they are not going to leave the region they call tekoha, which means ancestral cemetery.

According to the court’s decision, the Indians must leave the farm and if they do not, the National Foundation of Indians (FUNAI) will have to pay a fine of approximately $250 per day.

“We Indians have the constitutional right to occupy our land. We will continue to fight,” Guarani tribal chief Vera Popygua told Press TV.

“We demand respect. Our people have been massacred; they have killed our leaders; and that is sad and unacceptable. We are an advanced society and living in the 21st century. This cannot happen and should not happen,” he stated.

According to the Indigenous Missionary Council, the suicide rate among members of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe has risen recently, to the point where one commits suicide approximately every six days because of the stress of the threat of being evicted from their land. 

In the letter sent to the court, the indigenous group demanded that the decision be overruled, saying they would not leave the land of their ancestors under any circumstances. They also asked the court to secure their right to be buried at the location, so that even in death, they would remain in their homeland.

Carolina Bellinger of the Pro-Indigenous Council of Sao Paulo said, “The rights of indigenous people of Brazil have been under fire for a long time.”

“And despite a series of laws that were created to guarantee their rights, the reality is something else. Brazil must obey international agreements and demarcate their land. Our Congress is slow, and Indians cannot survive until it decides,” she added. 

Organize Education [an excerpt]

Across New York City parents, teachers and students are getting organized - from the bottom up - to take on mayoral control of schools and the drastic cuts to K-12 and higher ed programs that make it harder for kids to succeed and teachers/parents to support them towards that success.

We know that when we organize, we win. We did it when we kicked Cathie Black out of the chancellorship, and we’ll do it again when we send Mayor Bloomberg out of office with his failed policies in his greedy hands. This weekend, there are two important events happening towards that goal:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coalition for Public Education 3rd Annual Convention    
Saturday, 9-5pm
Community Service Society of NY - 105 E. 22nd Street, New York, New York
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/501379333205516/

and

Envisioning Student Unionism in NYC
Ya-Ya Network: 224 W. 29th St, New York, New York 10001
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/480974888601877/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let’s come together and take on the corporate model of education, and proclaim that WE ARE STUDENTS/TEACHERS/PARENTS, NOT CUSTOMERS!

See you soon,

Justin Wedes
Editor, OurSchoolsNYC
Co-Principal, Paul Robeson Freedom School 

Can the broad left grow together? Can we create ways to meet the monumental challenges that the American left faces today?

From the People's Record

October 23, 2012

The far left is continuing to grow in North America and around the world. From the conversations we’ve been having with lifetime leftists and activists around this country that much is clear. People likeleftist economist Richard Wolff and Baltimore community leader & Black Panther Reverend Annie Chambers are telling us that the left in America & around the world is growing at a rate they’ve never seen before. Things are possible now that haven’t ever been possible before in their lifetimes. You’d have to go back to the Depression-era left to find a time in North America with a left as swelling as ours is today, they say. That’s inspiring.

With capitalism in crisis and an empire stretched to capacity, high unemployment and low prospects for a future for the indebted youth, we have unprecedented opportunities and unprecedented challenges on the left today.

One of those challenges is the tendency of the left to fracture, disagree and eventually self-destruct. There are many factors that influence a sectarian left; any group of people who desperately want to create a new, better kind of world but genuinely disagree about the means by which we might get there are going to have passionate quarrels. The differences between progressives, anarchists, communists and socialists are many but so are the similarities. And it’s in that similar space - the desire to destroy corporate (and for many, capitalist) influence - that we can work together and grow together.

Another pressing challenge for the left is the need for spaces in an alternative society - the need for leftist organizations, collectives, co-operatives, and Workers Self Directed Enterprises to prepare room for growing numbers of people newly disenfranchised with the system of capitalism, who need a place to plug into that doesn’t just suck energy from them, but spaces that also nourish, empower and encourage them in the fight against capitalism. We need welcoming institutions that comfort and educate those who are broken from the horrors of capitalism and institutions that simultaneously channel energy into attacking the system that is at the root of the world’s most horrific problems.

One such institution working on just that is Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse in Baltimore. It consciously aims to meet both of the above needs through collective decision-making, left-infrastructure building, and by building spaces that are inclusive to and encourage dialogues among the broad left.  Red Emma’s isn’t your typical bookstore/café; it welcomes the homeless, provides free computer use for the community, provides anti-capitalist education and hosts leftist readings & conferences.

But it isn’t your typical anarchist bookstore either. Red Emma’s expressly aims to bridge the gap between Marxist-socialists and anarchists, and all others among the fractured left. When asked what concerned her most about the left, collective founding member Kate Khatib said the fear of sectarianism was what kept her up at night. It was important to her and to many members of the collective, to focus on projects like Red Emma’s and the Baltimore Free School (one of the divergent projects of Red Emma’s) that aim to appeal to the broad left.

And Red Emma’s is growing, allowing those getting involved to plug into a community of leftists, to stay educated and to make a small amount of money in order to live to fight another day. Creating sustainable infrastructure on the left is at the core of what Red Emma’s hopes to accomplish.

What Red Emma’s is building, in the same vein as the movement Democracy at Work is building, answers some of the biggest problems on the left today.

The People’s Record also hopes to play a part in building infrastructure for disenfranchised citizens and aims to aid the fight for a new united left through a few different projects we’ve been working on. Please take a look at what we’re doing and contact us if you have any interest in getting involved with any of our projects.

-Robert

Cheyenne River’s ICWA Director Discusses Challenges of Protecting Tribe’s Youngsters - ICTMN.com

Found on adailyriot

Too many Native parents face extraordinary hurdles in keeping their children—including cultural misunderstandings and legal barriers that are unimaginable to many non-Native people. In this second decade of the 21st century, American Indian children in states across the country are still taken from their families and placed in foster care or adoptive homes at a much higher rate than those for other kids—just as they were before the passage of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a federal statute intended to help keep Native families intact.

In Alaska, Native children make up 20 percent of the child population but 51 percent of those a state agency has placed in foster care; Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, North Dakota and Washington also have similarly skewed ratios. In Minnesota, the percentage of Native children in foster care is high, and it’s gotten worse in recent years. “Disproportionalities exist nationwide at every stage in the process, starting right from the initial reports of possible abuse or neglect of a Native child,” says Kristy Alberty, Cherokee, spokeswoman for the National Indian Child Welfare Association.

To safeguard their children, many tribes have offices dedicated to the implementation of ICWA. Among other provisions, the 34-year-old law allows tribes a role in the process when states place Native children in foster care or seek to terminate tribal members’ parental rights. Diane Garreau is the ICWA director for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, where Indian youngsters make up 15 percent of the state’s children, but 52 percent of those in care.

What are some of your biggest challenges?

Garreau: Because we are a west-river tribe—that is, west of the Missouri, which cuts across the state—many of our ICWA cases come out of the Rapid City courts. They are notorious for taking kids away from parents, who may not have a lawyer at the initial hearing. The state almost always gets custody for 60 days, during which time it can investigate to see if there’s actually a problem. Imagine how frightened the little ones must be. They’re taken from everything they know for all that time—and possibly for no reason. It makes me so angry.

Sounds like this is personal for you.

I don’t want the trauma boarding schools inflicted on previous generations to claim today’s children. I know the pain of separation from family and community, the hurt you feel when you’re taken from those who love you and want to protect you. When I was a student at St. Joseph’s Indian School, a boarding school in Chamberlain, South Dakota, I experienced mistreatment—like many of my age group. That was 30 years ago, not 150 years.

What should happen in the state courts?

All parents should have lawyers at every hearing. To get custody of the kids, the state should have to prove there’s a problem, and that the family wasn’t simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, some children need protection, but under ICWA, an expert witness who’s familiar with tribal customs and traditions must testify as to whether the Native children are actually in danger. Native youngsters are sometimes removed from their families because grandma or auntie is taking care of them—a culturally sound option as far as the tribes are concerned, but one that any state may define as neglect. A federal law is being flouted—and frankly, it’s happening in courts all over our state.

Are there other options state courts could consider?

The courts could give parents physical custody and social services legal custody and mandate the efficient creation of a safety plan. That way, the family could stay together, and we could be certain the children were safe while we figured out the situation.

How long does it take to come up with the plan?

Right now in South Dakota, it can take several months, so parents who’ve lost their kids are in the dark all that time about what to do to get them back. They’re also typically not told what services are out there for them. They’re really at a loss. So I tell parents, “You know your issues; work on them.” Then I help them find programs. But that’s not the only hurdle: Let’s say a mother lost her kids in Rapid City. She didn’t have representation, she’s fearful and confused, so she comes home to the reservation for advice and support. The state may call this abandonment and move to take her kids permanently for this reason.

And it doesn’t stop there: If a Native person was ever arrested, they typically had no bail money and a busy, perhaps inexperienced public defender, who told them to plead guilty to get out of jail. So Native moms and dads may be stuck with convictions they wouldn’t have had with better legal representation—and that can affect what a judge thinks of them when deciding whether they can have their kids back.

Doesn’t ICWA allow you to move cases to tribal court?

Absolutely. Under ICWA, I can transfer jurisdiction, and once I’ve intervened, I can see the kids and have access to any investigations. I can have a say. All of this is good, except the state still manages to hold tight to custody of the kids for much of that 60 days. The investigative process still has to happen. Resolving a family’s problems is still more difficult and painful than it needs to be.

Has implementation of ICWA improved?

When I started as an ICWA director in 2002, states all over the country just didn’t pay attention to the tribes. It felt like we were sitting out on the prairie, so out of touch. Now, some are improving: Oregon reliably notifies us when Native children go into care there, and New York has been easy to deal with. To create the best outcomes in spite of existing issues in some other states, an ICWA director has to build relationships. I want social workers nationwide to know they can call Cheyenne River for advice about ICWA. In some cases, those personal relationships have meant I could resolve a family’s problem in hours when it might have taken months.

How many ICWA cases do you handle annually?

We get 1,000-plus inquiries a year and respect every one, checking with our enrollment office to see if those involved are tribal members. Some claims can be far-fetched. One state called me and said, “We’ve got this person who says she’s related to Pocahontas.” That was very cute [laughs]—and I understand she may have been desperate to keep her kids and was grasping at straws—but she definitely wasn’t a member here. Of the thousand requests, about 50 will be Cheyenne River kids.

Is that a lot for a small staff?

It is, and we get burned out with just two full-time workers and minimal resources. All ICWA offices function with few resources; a colleague at another tribe once told me, “All I have is a car and a cell phone.” I recently got very sick and realized I’ve got to take good care of myself to keep doing this.

What about parents who aren’t enrolled, though they could be?

Under ICWA, parents have to be enrolled for their kids to be covered. Problems arise because during the mid-20th century, many Native children were adopted out [see “Native Americans Expose the Adoption Era and Repair Its Devastation,” IndianCountryTodayMediaNetwork.com, December 6, 2011]. They were not enrolled prior to adoption and are now adults; if their children happen to be taken away, those kids are not covered. If the parents can prove their relationship to a tribe, maybe they can fix this, but not always. This is another situation in which a historical wrong has life-changing repercussions today.

What can tribes do?

If they have eligible youngsters who are currently being adopted out, they must enroll them first, to keep intact the children’s rights to inherit land, obtain scholarships and health care, have their own kids protected by ICWA and so on. We do this at Cheyenne River to protect children’s futures and give them a sense of belonging to a proud nation. Any child, of any background, needs that sense of belonging.

Do other laws conflict with ICWA?

We tribes have said states’ so-called “safe haven” or “Baby Moses” laws, which allow parents in crisis to drop newborns off in safe places such as hospitals and police stations, are in violation of ICWA. Those infants move quickly into foster care and preadoption. How and when do we determine if they are Native children? No one thought of this when the laws were passed.

Why are there few Native foster homes in South Dakota?

Poverty and fear. The agency that gets a lot of contracts to do home studies often calls me to say Native people who want to be foster parents haven’t responded to requests to evaluate their homes. They don’t realize how much Native people dread being told they can’t be foster parents because they don’t have lavish homes, expensive furniture and so on. A policy could be created under which a tribal member, say from the ICWA office, went along during the home study to reassure our people they’ll be treated fairly and that, in essence, we want to be sure the home is clean and safe and that the children will be welcomed with love while they’re there.

Do the ICWA directors of different tribes communicate?

We do, but we could all do more. If we had a national professional association with a website, we could post lists of pro-bono attorneys, potential funders, expert witnesses and other resources. We could share best practices and answer each other’s questions. We could provide information on state ICWA laws, which enhance the federal protections, but in different ways from state to state. ICWA directors are on the front line, in and out of the courts, dealing with families in crisis. We need to be a force to reckoned with, and information sharing would help us become one. We Native people have to solve our own problems, and this would help us do it.

What keeps you going?

I was at a pow wow recently and saw a group of Cheyenne River kids, then another group, and remembered they were all ICWA kids—children our office had brought home. This is why I do it. If you’re not watching, if you don’t start hustling as soon as you hear there’s a problem, if you don’t fight for every single child, they’re lost to us forever.

Romney family buys voting machines through Bain Capital investment

Bain Capital has bought the electronic voting machines that will calculate millions of votes in Ohio. How is that ethical or legal?

Gary Johnson's Record Doesn't Quite Match His Rhetoric

By MARK ZUSMAN

For the last two weeks, we've been running clips from our interview with Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson. He's spoken with eloquence about taxes, health careand drug laws. In this clip, we ask him about his record as Governor of New Mexico for eight years and the seeming inconsistency between what he says he will do as President, and what he actually did as Governor. (Fact Check: In this clip, Johnson states several times that New Mexico is the youngest state in the country. That's not true. New Mexico is the ninth.

Read More

(from Williamette Week)

Swing State Papers Flock to Obama, Deem Romney Unworthy of Presidency

By: Sara Jones (from politicususa.com)

The swing state Colorado Durango Herald endorsed Obama for a second term, writing that Romney is not even a viable alternative and his mysterious platform consists of nothing more than nostalgia for the 1950s. Most damaging, and a sentiment shared by many editorials endorsing Obama, they write that Romney has no core conviction other than that he should be president:

Unfortunately, the Republican Party has offered no credible alternative. Its platform consists of little more than nostalgia for the 1950s, and its presidential candidate largely remains a mystery. Romney has publicly demonstrated no core convictions beyond his obvious belief that he should be president. He apparently thinks that simply not being Obama is qualification enough. It is not."

They also point out what few have mentioned about the Obama Stimulus, “It looked forward via the first substantial commitment to research and development of green technology…” They praise Obama for elevating our image overseas by working with other nations, and cite his sanctions on Iran as an effective example of Obama working with other nations.

Of all of the thoughtful editorials out there, this one got to something too often ignored — how we use government, what its purpose is. They write that Obama has used government to bolster the economy, invest in education, innovation and more.

Read more 

Salt Lake Tribune endorses President Obama over Mitt Romney, who organized city’s Olympics

Salt Lake Tribune endorses President Obama over Mitt Romney, who organized city’s Olympics

"The Salt Lake Tribune endorsed President Obama for reelection Friday, with an editorial that was highly critical of Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who is as close to being a favorite son candidate from Utah, the historic and cultural center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as a non-resident can be."

A restaurant run and staffed by deaf people opened for business in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday

 Helped by Palestinians seeking to build a more inclusive society where people with disabilities can realize their full potential.

Waiters and cooks use sign language, guests point to selections from the menu and what ensues is a spontaneous form of communication that organizers hope will break down bias and barriers... (Read More).

found on haaretz

New Voting Video Critiquing Mitt Romney

We all can see from the news and recent public speeches the Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan [along with the mainstream republican and tea party] are no defenders of individual rights, civil rights, human rights, freedom, or women's rights. But a group of women have decided to drive the lack of protection for women home in this video:

The Need for Patent Reform

Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine. When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"
"Learning about Patent laws is a very tedious project", said my economic law professor when we were learning about the subject a few weeks ago. And it seems that most of my classmates agree with him. Sometimes I myself am tempted to agree with him and set myself along the same path as they are within either the spheres of strict patent laws or no patent laws. However I am not convinced by either of the arguments. Because where one lacks in humanity the other lacks in spirit; where one would seek to bind us to laws unflinchingly the other would be the ender of an epoch prematurely. I am not a person of anarchy, I am rather fond of structure. However I feel like all things exist within a natural structure and all social sciences strive to rationalize the natural structure. So that the philosophy and theory of something always arrive after their focus of study, and so does the structure they place find and then place upon it. And while I do not think patents are a bad thing, I am not going to say that they are a good thing. I think that in fact it is our understanding and laws regarding them that is corrupt. We seek to patent things to raise enough funds to staunch our bleeding hearts as they tear themselves apart over our actions while we allow things that encourage bad behavior to become common place. Can patents not be reformed to allow for the wealth of society to flourish? How can we do this? Why to keep the economic model that we as a nation have adopted from doing its job?