Ojore Lutalo (recently released Black Liberation Army prisoner of war and New Afrikan Anarchist) was pulled off the Amtrak train in La Junta, Colorado on his way home to New Jersey from speaking at the LA Anarchist bookfair.

the defenestrator’s nominally monthly film night presents:

7pm Thursday January 28th

An Eyewitness Film of Israel’s bombing of Gaza The Gaza Strip has been under siege since June 2007, when Israel declared it an "enemy entity". Thanks to the efforts of the Free Gaza Movement, and despite the Israeli ban on foreign correspondents and humanitarian aid workers to cover and witness operation "Cast Lead" on the ground, a group of international volunteers, members of the International Solidarity Movement, were present in Gaza when the bombing started on Dec. 27, 2008. 
 

Showing the community love, healing and support for the families and lives lost in Haiti. Haiti love now. Please join us to benefit Haiti...

Lending their voices, spirit, and art..

Rachel Laforest, Master of Ceremony and Host with The Most
DJ lovely
Sham-e-Ali al-jamil, Poet
Soulfire and Lissette Barros, visual/graphic artist and painting LIVE art
Alluswe, musical element
Sabrina Cuie, Singer/Songwriter
Generic Concession Stand, Band
Lydia Rene, singer/songwriter
Suzi Analogue, vocalist

At LAVA 4134 Lancaster Ave

from Wooden Shoe Books:

Billy Panas, a young 21-year-old man was recently murdered by off-duty Seargent Frank Tepper, an officer with Civil Affairs at the Philadelphia Police Department. The shooting occured on the 2700 block of East Elkhart street in Port Richmond, Philadelphia.

Environmentalism in an era of green capitalism

By Kate Zaidan

This December, fifteen years after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, world leaders will converge in Copenhagen to renegotiate a global solution to the most pressing environmental issue of our time. Barack Obama will undoubtedly tout his efforts to bring the United States on board after decades of climate change denial and congressional cowardice, and most of the world, including mainstream environmental organizations, will likely fawn over his rhetorical and ideological prowess.

Why Public-Private Partnerships are Not the answer to Philadelphia's Budget Crisis

Check it out. It's a special insert for issue 46 all about how we get screwed in the city of Brotherly Love.

By Hans Bennett

"When I was 15, my friends started going to jail," says Victoria Law, a native New Yorker. "Chinatown's gangs were recruiting in the high schools in Queens and, faced with the choice of stultifying days learning nothing in overcrowded classrooms or easy money, many of my friends had dropped out to join a gang."

"One by one," Law recalls, "they landed in Rikers Island, an entire island in New York City devoted to pretrial detainment for those who can not afford bail."

Law shares this and other recollections in her new book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM Press). At 16, she herself decided to join a gang, but was arrested for the armed robbery that she committed for her initiation into the gang. "Because it was my first arrest -- and probably because 16-year-old Chinese girls who get straight As in school did not seem particularly menacing -- I was eventually let off with probation," she writes.

--A Review of Forty Years in the Struggle; The Memoirs of a Jewish Anarchist, by Chaim Leib Weinberg; English Translation by Naomi Cohen; Edited by Robert Helms; Litwin Books, 2008.

The “Old City” neighborhood of Philadelphia is renowned for its many historic sites related to the “founding fathers” and the US colonial era. Yet, very few know about this same neighborhood’s significant anarchist history. Since 1997, local historian Robert Helms has led an “Anarchist Historical Walking Tour” that presents this history of resistance from the poor and working classes, who viewed the rhetoric about “American Democracy” as a fraud, and organized themselves to challenge the power of the ruling class. Helms is the editor of the just-released English translation of Chaim Leib Weinberg’s (1869-1939) autobiography: Forty Years in the Struggle; The Memoirs of a Jewish Anarchist.

The Mill Creek Farm and Brown Street Community Garden

By Jade Walker, co-director The Mill Creek Farm, with Suzy Subways

“The [Brown Street Community Garden] has been around for 30 years (I remember when the houses caved in on that site and it was just an eyesore for many years) and it now brings much enjoyment to the community. My mother (now deceased), a country girl, had a space in the garden and planted much of the vegetables that eventually found their way to our dinner table. It brought such contentment to many of our senior citizens and lightened their food budgets. Now I am a senior citizen trying to raise my grandson who just turned 13 (my daughter is deceased) and trying to find everything imaginable to keep him occupied and out of trouble.... He spends as much time as possible with the [Mill Creek Farm] staff and he is learning about farming/gardening and he also helps set up the stand to sell the fruits of their labor.”

—Engrid R. Bullock, neighbor

By Milena Velis and Bryan Mercer

Philadelphia is in crisis. People across the city are feeling the effects of the global economic downturn and wondering what the future will bring for them and their families. The city has finally resolved a long, drawn out, and deeply unsettling budgeting process, and it feels like the dust has finally settled. But even though massive service cuts and layoffs are off the table for now, this economic crisis is far from over, and we in Philadelphia now have a clear idea of the kinds of solutions our city government is willing to present.

The lesson we can learn from a year of repeated deficit announcements, “civic engagement” budget workshops, and political negotiations, is that the poor and working people of the city are paying for this crisis. In a city rife with both wealth and poverty, it's clear that our government’s primary agenda is to attract and protect business, and not to make sure that the wealth generated here meets the basic needs of Philadelphia’s residents. If the city government continues down the path it has chosen, it can only lead us to a broken state that exists to serve business need before public need, abandoning the interests of the majority of Philadelphians. The only solution to the crisis we are currently facing is an independent politics that addresses the real roots of our situation.