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Massachusetts Activists Are Changing The Conversation On Israel

October 6, 2021 Michael Arria , Mondoweiss. , , ,
Rep. Betty McCollum’s (D-MN) historic Palestinian Children & Families Act still lacks a companion bill in the Senate. At a recent event local JVP Action leader named Jill urged Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to introduce the legislation. Here’s her question: I am Jewish and, like you, I am passionate about justice for all. You probably know that the U.S. government sends about $3.8 billion a year in military funding to the Israeli government. Massachusetts sends $1.3 million a year and Massachusetts taxpayers send Israel $352,000 a day. Some of these tax dollars are used to support Israeli oppression of Palestinians. Right now there’s a bill on congress that creates the conditions for justice and freedom for all. It’s called the Palestinian Children & Families Act, H.R. 2590. It works to ensure that U.S. taxpayer funds are not used by the Israeli government to imprison Palestinian children in a military detention system, which they do at the tune of 700 kids a year. It makes sure that they money we send is not used to forcibly displace Palestinian from their homes. 1,000 families have been displaced this year.

Massachusetts Lawyers Are Challenging Law Enforcement Seizures

August 30, 2021 Shannon Dooling And Saurabh Datar, ProPublica. , , ,
Lawmakers and criminal justice advocates in Massachusetts are calling for changes to the laws that govern how law enforcement seizes, and keeps, cash and property confiscated in suspected drug crimes. The push follows a WBUR and ProPublica investigation that found a top prosecutor stockpiling people’s money for years, even when they weren’t charged with a drug offense or their cases were dismissed.

Nurses Association Seeks End To Saint Vincent Nurses’ Strike

August 5, 2021 Mike Ingram, WSWS. , , ,
The press release says Monday’s talks ended with Tenet presenting a “disappointing” proposal that “failed to provide what the nurses need to end the strike.” It notes that it was “a proposal that the membership voiced strong opposition to at a meeting held last night.” No details of the new proposal have been published but the MNA previously pushed for nurses to concede their demands of 1:4 nurse-to-patient ratios on medical/surgical floors and telemetry units, as well as increased staffing in the emergency department and ancillary support in each unit.

Three Pipeline Protesters Arrested After Large Sit-In At Energy Giant’s Offices

July 1, 2021 Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com. , , ,
Three activists who refused to leave the Waltham offices of the pipeline company Enbridge were arrested by police Wednesday afternoon, ending a more than 27-hour occupation in protest of the multi-national energy giant behind the controversial Weymouth compressor station and other fossil fuel projects around the country. Waltham police say they arrested Nathan Phillips, a 54-year-old Auburndale resident; Alexander Chambers, a 22-year-old Boylston resident; and Samantha Hayward, a 22-year-old Castleton, Vermont, resident. Each was charged with one count of trespassing. “This group held space throughout the night and into the afternoon today,” organizers of the protest wrote Wednesday on Facebook. “We will keep fighting,” they added.

How A US Congressman Took On The US Blockade Against Venezuela

June 27, 2021 Celina della Croce, Peoples Dispatch. , , ,
On a cold winter day in February 2019, activists gathered in downtown Northampton, Massachusetts, to denounce the attempted US-backed coup in Venezuela. More than two years later, in the wake of ongoing rallies and discussions with Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, activists gained some ground as the congressman tweeted an open letter to President Joe Biden on June 14 in which he called on the president to end “all secondary and sectoral sanctions” against Venezuela. The letter stated: “While US officials debate the sanctions policy in Washington, for people in Venezuela the ongoing crisis is a life-and-death matter. … I have never believed that sanctions should be used to punish whole populations for the actions of their leaders or to bludgeon an adversary into submission.

End To ICE Contracts In Bristol County, Massachusetts

May 20, 2021 FANG Collective and Steve Ahlquist, UpriseRI. , , ,
The FANG Collective is happy to announce that ICE will be cancelling all contracts with Bristol County, Massachusetts. This includes their 287(g) contract which trains deputies to collaborate with ICE and perform immigration agent duties, and their IGSA contract which turned the Bristol County House of Correction into an ICE detention center. See: Biden administration ends ICE contract with Bristol County Sheriff’s Office amid federal probe into alleged excessive force against immigrant detainees In the summer 2018, FANG launched its Shut Down ICE campaign in Bristol County with a nonviolent direct action that blockaded, and effectively shut down the prison for several hours.

Nurses In Massachusetts Are Waging The Longest Current Strike In The US

May 13, 2021 Nora De La Cour, Jacobin Magazine. , , ,
After two months on the picket line, over seven hundred unionized nurses at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, are still out on strike. The walkout, which began on March 8, is the longest nurses’ strike in Massachusetts in decades and currently the longest active picket line in the United States. The nurses, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), are demanding that the hospital improve staffing ratios so they can adequately care for each patient. In the year leading up to the strike, nurses at Saint Vincent filed more than six hundred official “unsafe staffing” reports. A column in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette recounted one of these reports, wherein a nurse describes a shift in which she was assigned to care for...

Massachusetts House Rejects Distorted Definition Of Antisemitism

May 2, 2021 Massachusetts Peace Action, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Cambridge, MA - The Massachusetts House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected an amendment to the state budget which would have Massachusetts adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, a definition that equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism, within its law on religious discrimination The problem amendment, called “Condemnation of Antisemitism and Adoption of IHRA Definition”, was submitted by Rep. Howitt (R. Seekonk) as amendment #300 to the state budget bill, H.4000. With only two days to respond before the amendment was considered, Jewish Voice for Peace- Boston, Massachusetts Peace Action, the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine, and the Unitarian-Universalists for Justice in the Middle East mobilized quickly and contacted representatives and Palestinian rights supporters. 

New Massachusetts Law Paves Way For Police-Free Schools

February 17, 2021 Rachel M. Cohen, The Appeal. , , ,
In Massachusetts, those who want police out of public schools are one step closer to making it happen. Lawmakers recently struck down a requirement that all school districts in the state have at least one “school resource officer”—a moniker for school cops. Now just two states—Florida and Maryland—have laws requiring police in schools, and advocates are pushing them to follow suit. Massachusetts adopted the school police requirement in 2014 in response to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Connecticut where 26 people were killed at school, including 20 young children. Since then, the number of cops assigned to work in Massachusetts schools has steadily grown, as school shootings nationwide have continued.

Public Health Council Unanimously Passes Motion Opposing Biomass Plant

November 30, 2020 Springfield Climate Justice Coalition, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The Public Health Council of Springfield on Saturday, November 21, sent a letter to the chairs of the House-Senate Climate Change Conference requesting that there be no incentives written into the legislation under consideration promoting the building of biomass as a source of electricity. According to the letter signed by the Public Health Council Environmental Health Chair Dr. Jeffrey Scavron, “The Public Health Council urges you to do all you can to not allow the construction of a Biomass Furnace in our city.

Produce For The People

October 24, 2020 Jacquelyn Voghel, Daily Hampshire Gazette. , , ,
Hatfield, MA - For many farmers, the 2020 season has posed numerous difficulties: an ongoing drought, early frost and a need for extra public health precautions amid the pandemic, to name a few. But in a year marked by challenges, Riquezas del Campo farm, now in its second season, is growing. The immigrant-led, worker-owned cooperative farm got started later in the growing season when it started in 2019 and had just one customer, said Lorena Moreno, a founding member of the farm. This year, the farm, situated on the Northampton-Hatfiled line, has multiplied its sales around four times over, is attracting new members and selling to more vendors.

Springfield Says “No” To Biomass Power Plant

September 5, 2020 Peter Goonan, Mass Live. , , ,
Springfield, MA - More than 75 people gathered on the steps of City Hall on Thursday calling for an end to a long-proposed biomass project in East Springfield, saying it is a threat to public health and an environmental hazard. Some of those speaking used he phrase “we can’t breathe” in expressing their strong opposition to the wood-to-energy plant proposed by Palmer Renewable Energy LLC at 1000 Page Blvd. Verne McArthur, of the Springfield Climate Justice Coalition, led the activists and residents in chants against the biomass project, including, “We will, we will, block you, block you.”

Koch Academic Influence Returns To Massachusetts With New Tufts University Think Tank

August 25, 2020 By Dana Drugmand, DeSmog Blog. , , ,
When a new Massachusetts think tank housed at Tufts University launched earlier this year, Boston-based media described it as a “CBO-like center” (referring to the Congressional Budget Office) that would offer an “independent analysis” of proposed state policy and legislation. But one of the main funders of this think tank, called the Center for State Policy Analysis, is a program tied financially to the petrochemical billionaire Koch family. This apparent Koch-linked funding raises questions about just how independent the center’s policy analyses may be. Initial funding for this think tank, as CommonWealth reported, has come from one of the state’s largest private health insurance companies and from a program called Emergent Ventures, which is based at the Koch-funded Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Activists Camp At State House For Giving Undocumented Immigrants Driver’s Licenses

July 21, 2020 Lucas Phillips, Boston Globe. , , ,
Two groups urging state legislators to include a provision that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses have been encamped outside the State House gates since Friday morning, according to organizers. “This will put pressure so all the legislators can hear us and pass this bill,” said Rolando Oliva, an organizer with Cosecha Massachusetts, in Spanish through a translator as he stood outside the State House late Sunday afternoon. “We have been trying to pass this for 15 years now.” The encampment Sunday afternoon included about 10 tents where activists have been sleeping during the night as part of the round-the-clock protest in support of the provision, which organizers say could be added to a racial justice bill currently under debate.

Boston May Day 2020 Car Rally

May 2, 2020 Yoav Elinevsky, Popular Resistance. , , , ,
The Massachusetts Peace Action, MAPA, organized a car rally in Boston today to support national and international solidarity as the COVID-19 pandemic rages around the globe.  More than 50 cars participated in the rally. The impact of the Corona-19 pandemic has been overwhelming in our country. It has been especially devastating for the poor and for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. At the same time, wealthy elites value their profits more than people's lives.  Now is the time to imagine and act together for reorganizing society around the needs of all the people, especially of the poor and working people. We invite you to join us and magnify the potential impact of this message by distributing it and acting similarly locally and globally. Join us in support of the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres call to waive “the sanctions imposed on countries to ensure access to food, essential health supplies, and COVID-19 medical support.
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