ERASE MY GRAND FATHER'S NAME FROM THE YAD VASHEM MEMORIAL.

Open letter to the President of Israel by Jean-Moïse Braitberg, Writer and Author.

(Appeared in Le Monde Jan.28.09)

Mr. President of the State of Israel,

I am writing to ask you to intervene on my behalf to whom ever it may concern, to withdraw from the Yad Vashem Memorial dedicated to the memory of Jewish victims of Nazism, the name of my grandfather Moshe Bratberg, gassed in Treblinka in 1943, as well as the other members of my family who perished in different Nazi concentration camps during the second world war.

I ask of you Mr. President, to accede to my demand, because what happened in Gaza recently, and in a wider perspective, the fate imposed on the Palestinian people over the past sixty years, disqualifies totally, in my view, Israel as the center on Remembrance of the Evil done to the Jews and therefore to all of Humanity.

Let me explain; since Infancy I have been surrounded by survivors of the Death Camps. I have seen the tattooed numbers on peoples' arms. I heard horrible stories of tortures. I felt their impossible mourning and shared their nightmares.

I was taught, that these crimes should never be allowed to be repeated; that a Human being, proud to be a member of an Ethnic or Religious group, should not be allowed to despise another Human being or trample all over his most elementary human Rights that should translate in a dignified and secure life with total absence of obstacles or hindrances but with a light, of a serene and prospering future, at the end of a tunnel whatever the length of it may be.

However, Mr. President, I note that in spite of tens of resolutions taken by the International Community, in spite of the obvious evidence of the injustice done to the Palestinian People since 1948 and despite the flickers of Hope that were lit at Oslo and despite the recognition of the Right for the Jewish Israelis to live in peace and security, reasserted many a time and regularly by the
Palestinian Authority, the only responses, given by your countries successive governments, have been Violence, Blood spills, Internments, continuous Check Points, Colonization, and Spoliations.

You may say, Mr. President, that it is within your country's legitimate right to defend itself against
those who fire rockets on Israel or the Kamikazes who take with them numerous innocent Israeli lives. To which I would answer, that my human sensitivity does not vary according to victims' citizenship.

On the other hand, Mr. President, you are leading a country that claims to represent, not only, all Jews as a nation but also the memory of those who were the victims of the Nazi.

This is exactly what concerns me and disturbs me immensely; Retaining the names of my family at the Yad Vashem Memorial in the heart of the Jewish State, your country is holding, my cherished family's memory hostage, behind Zionism barbed wire, of a so-called Moral Authority that commits on a daily basis the Abomination of the denial of Justice.

So please, Mr. President, withdraw the name of my Grand Father from the sanctuary dedicated to the cruelty committed against Jews so that it does not justify the cruelty committed against Palestinians.

Best respectful regards,

Jean-Moïse Braitberg,
Author, writer

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Student Action-Federal election "study-in"

interview by a
Rebel Youth Manitoba corespondent.

During the 2008 Federal Election, student activists independently organized a set of sit-ins called "study-ins" at campaign offices of three candidates from the Liberal, NDP and Conservative parties. The students were demanding improved access to post-secondary education for Aboriginal peoples. The Harper Tory government now in power has recently toyed with the idea of ending grants to Status Indian post secondary students. The funding for grants is so small that waiting lists backed up for years makes access difficult, for what is a right by signed treaty. Harper plans to replace grants with loans. The YCL and the CFS calls for grants not loans for all students. Harper wants to attack one group instead. Metis and Non-status Aboriginals do not get funds currently and are disadvantaged under the present system. Well all working class students are disadvantaged but Aboriginal more so given the racist history of Canada and Quebec.

In Manitoba, student activists are becoming more vocal, and adding action to their voices. Rebel Youth
did a telephone interview with one activist here is a transcript below.

RY: How many sit-ins were there?

ACTIVIST: Three, all at the same time.

RY: And how long did they last..uh, each one?

ACTIVIST: umm, maybe five hours actually

RY: five hours?!

ACTIVIST: yeah.

RY: wow!

ACTIVIST: It was a pretty long time since it started. It began around 4 o'clock, I left a bit after nine.

RY: So, what offices did you go to?

ACTIVIST: A Liberal, an NDP, and a Conservative....I went to Pat Martin's [NDP] and he wasn't there and he refused to talk to us, his staff were not happy with us, they were polite but they were visibly upset that we were there. We were not like..abused or anything, but they found it quite stupid of us that we were there and they let us know that.

RY: I heard from student activists that.. that Pat Martin said something like you people didn't matter...it didn't matter or something to that effect ?

ACTIVIST: He said that oh it wasn't anything and then he sent flowers the next day to apologize.
We called our group a study group, and that's what every group called themselves. We ended up just sitting on the floor in the office almost beside the wall we sat there for hours.

RY: So how many were there roughly?

ACTIVIST: I'd say about a dozen people.

RY: How about the other offices what were the reactions there?

ACTIVIST: Oh! They were just nasty to them! We have video of the staff just screaming at people, telling them stuff like, that they're children, that they're stupid. At the Conservative one they were going, "your parents must be ashamed of you" it was..horrid. Then they said they called the police and told them that they [the activists] had no right to do this. It was..awful all around, but our sit in [the NDP office] compared was okayish to what the Conservatives did. But I found them [NDP] very condescending, saying that we just didn't understand what was going on, why are you here you are not doing anything important. Uh-yeah, oh and they wanted to know our names but we didn't give them any. So they wanted to know, like, who was in charge, and how could we just all come here since we were not from any student organization, we explained: were are from a whole bunch of different universities, we're all students and we were gonna study and we actually just studied there. We spent most of our time studying [laughs] I did not talk to them [staff] because we found them all quite insulting.

RY: Did they know why you were there?

ACTIVIST: Yeah we made sure we got our message out about the issue of Aboriginal access and made sure it got into their heads of theirs for as long as possible as a political party. But they were like "we already have policies. These policies [NDP] are the right ones"....... Do you have any more questions?

RY: No, uh, nope, that about it.

ACTIVIST: Oh, I should mention that I was prepared to spend all night there, but we got called out by the other groups.

RY: Oh because of the Conservatives threats?

ACTIVIST: I think so, the Conservative group was kind of freaking out they didn't know what to do. At ours we did stay longer because Pat Martin didn't show up, and the volunteers [staffing the NDP campaign office] had to stay longer as well since they did not want to leave us alone in there with all the stuff and we wouldn't leave. And they were surprised that Pat Martin just wouldn't come.

RY: Was the office only staffed by volunteers?

ACTIVIST: I think so, we didn't stop them from doing anything, we just sat there and studied while they worked around us. We just said we were sitting there waiting and we were not going to leave until Pat Martin comes. Then we got the call by the other groups to come out.

RY: okay I'm going to stop the tape..here.BEEEEP.

This "study-in" was only the first of a series of "battles". It provided lessons that would prove important only weeks later. Later on in 2008 the CFS Student Day of Action here in Manitoba was reported to be the largest since the days of activism in the late 1960s early 1970s. And the Manitoba Legislature would be stormed and subject to a sit in of much larger scale. And with its objectives met this battle was won. But the war for decisive change continues.

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Policing our schools

Semra Eylul Sevi & Kabir Joshi-Vijayan
This article was originally published in the U of T publication, The Newspaper

The Toronto District Public and Catholic School Boards have implemented a program stationing a fully uniformed and armed police officer in each of thirty different high schools spanning every corner of the city. The pilot program was proposed, designed and is being financed by the Toronto Police Services (TPS).

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair submitted the initiative after the release of the Falconer Report on school safety last January. The Falconer report was commissioned by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) to look into issues of school safety after the tragic killing of Jordon Manners inside C.W. Jeffery's high school in 2007. Referencing the Falconer Report, the official Toronto Police Services publicity purports the program aims to build "healthy and trusting relationships" between police and students. Chief Blair assures that trusting students will be more inclined to report incidents of offence, which can prevent crime and violence.

Yet of the 136 recommendations listed in the Falconer Report to improve school safety – not one recommended stationing police inside schools (armed or otherwise). Lawyer Julian Falconer, the author of the report, says he is at a loss as to why the School Boards implemented the program. However, the report did criticize the school board's habit of concealing security problems, and recommended open dialogue and discussion with students and the community about issues of safety. However, the TDSB provided the most minimal of communication on the program and did no community consultation. Approval for the initiative in any one school only required support from the trustee, school principal and superintendant of education.

Revealingly, communities that have since been allowed input on assigning a cop inside their schools have declined the offer. At The Student School, where the students have a say on school policy through frequent assemblies, students came out overwhelming against the proposal and rejected it.

The reality is that that the distrust and fear of police that students expressed in surveys for the Falconer Report are not based on youthful misconceptions, but on actual lived experience. Poor, racialized and Black youth (and their loved ones) are regular victims of overly aggressive policing, violence and racist profiling in their communities, and the surveillance and containment they experience in those communities is now being transferred to schools. One such cop discussed that besides "bonding" with students at the school, "part of (his) detail" included surveillance of students at a nearby mall over lunch and local community centre after school. It allowed him to "get to know the characters".

This is not the first time that there has been a "partnership" between cops and schools. Thousands of Ontario students and their parents were disenfranchised under the 2001 Safe Schools Act and subsequent "Zero Tolerance Policy" which gave teachers and Principals greater authority to suspend and expel students for a range of safety and discipline issues, and to involve police. The consequence was the excessive and unfair application of the Act against Black, disabled and poor racialized students, who went from being pushed out of school to being involved with the criminal justice system. Under the current TPS program there have already been instances where educators have clashed with police officers desiring to proceed with criminal action against students.

By implementing this program, School Board administrators have shown once again that they have no concept (or care) about the needs and concerns of their most marginalized youth. The most crucial recommendations from the Falconer Report (such as increased social and educational support services) have not been implemented. They have also ignored one of the biggest criticisms coming out of the report, and that is the identified problem of equity in education. For "at risk" youth whose motivation to remain in a dysfunctional and discriminatory education system is already teetering – cops in schools will be the nudge to knock them out (just as it was under the Safe Schools Act).

The Toronto Police have their own motivation for the program, which they aspire to expand. The pilot project is being paid for through the department of community policing, the funds for which come out of the provincial money pot shared by the department of education. Such police programs justify soaring police budgets against the backdrop of fading social services budgets, including cuts to education. The program is nothing more than an expensive public relations campaign designed to deflect criticism of bad police behavior while doing nothing to address real problems of public accountability by the police services. The truth is that cops in schools do nothing to improve the reality (or image) of cops on streets – nor is it intended to.

In December of 2008, residents and community workers at Jane and Finch were able to resist this program by organizing a rally and march against police brutality. Their demands included the removal of armed police from their schools, which was achieved. And this is just the beginning. A coalition of students, parents, educators and community activists are building a campaign against putting police in schools. The coalition goes by the acronym NOCOPS (Newly Organized Coalition Opposed to Police in Schools). They work to educate youth, parents, and community stakeholders about the inherent risks in this initiative for the already marginalized and criminalized youth. To get involved please contact NO COPS atnocops.to@gmail.com

(A PV commentary about the Falconer Report can be found here)

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Video review-imperialism series 2-war industries

It's time again for the weekly video series of boring period films that will drill the concept of Imperialism into your heads.

Before the UE union was kicked out of the AFL-CIO during the red scare, it came out of the second world war swinging. History proves that the UE had it right. The CIO had a final attempt during operation dixie before it joined the AFL.

Here is a film it produced that explains Imperialism.

and part two click to watch:




There is some racism against Japan, due to the war. But the film shows the beginnings of the Military-Industrial complex long before Ike Eisenhower's farewell address. Those who have watched the movie "The Corporation" will see a similar tone between this film and the later documentary's "Fanta Orange, IBM, and Opel" segment.

The workings of huge banking interests like Morgan is explained. Very graphic, the $100 bills laid end to end is the best part! Today with parasitic capital so much more intense we need to see more of why capitalism is just rotten to the core. (capital that does not "work" in the sense of buying productivity but just skims off the cream while starving the economy. Witness the housing bubble in the U.S. ) Worth 30 minutes of your time. This movie predates "The Corporation" by 50 years. Of course Lenin's "Imperialism" pre-dates this film by a further 50 or so years.

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