June, 29 2011, 11:32am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sabrina Stevens Shupe, (732) 841-4967 or
Nancy Flanagan, (231) 228-6731
Momentum Builds for July 30 Save Our Schools March
Endorsements from Parents, Artists, and Civil Rights Groups
WASHINGTON
A rapidly growing list of organizations and prominent individuals has signed on to support the Saturday, July 30 "Save Our Schools" (SOS) march and rally in Washington, DC. Thousands of public education advocates will gather on the Ellipse at noon and then march around the White House to demonstrate dissatisfaction with "top-down reforms," which they say ignore local communities, reject proven research, and undermine both school quality and equity.
In addition to many education groups, SOS endorsers include Parents Across America, the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministry, and the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation. Columbia Sociology Professor Pedro Noguera, author Jonathan Kozol and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch are among the scheduled speakers. Leaders of the film community, such as actors Matt Damon and Richard Dreyfuss, as well as Vicki Abeles, director of Race to Nowhere, also support the event.
Natalie Schwartz, a parent advocate and small business owner who serves on the SOS Executive Committee, explained, "The diversity of organizations and leaders endorsing the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action reflects widespread frustration with failed education policies at both the federal and state levels. A decade of escalating focus on high-stakes tests and sanctions has narrowed curriculum and undermined academic quality for the very children 'No Child Left Behind' was meant to serve. Lawmakers need to start listening to the communities they were elected to serve. We must put an end to top-down policies that clearly do not work. It's time to reverse course."
The Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action is organized around four basic principles:
- Equitable Funding for All Public School Populations
- Ending High-Stakes Testing for Student, Teacher and School Evaluation
- Curriculum Developed For and By Local School Communities
- Public Education Policies Formed by Teachers, Families and Local Leadership
A full list of endorsers is online at: https://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/about/endorsers/
LATEST NEWS
'Admission of Guilt': UK Suspends Some Arms Export Licenses to Israel Over Gaza
"Finally—but this is both too little and too late," said the International Center of Justice for Palestinians.
Sep 02, 2024
As governments enabling Israel's devastating war on the Gaza Strip face growing global demands to impose arms embargoes, a U.K. minister on Monday announced the suspension of approximately 30 of 350 weapons export licenses.
"This is not a blanket ban. This is not an arms embargo," stressed U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, part of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party, which took control of the government after voters ended 14 years of Conservative rule in July.
While describing himself as a "friend of Israel" and "a liberal, progressive Zionist," Lammy said that "it is this government's legal duty to review export licenses" and "the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain U.K. arms exports to Israel, there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law."
The targeted licenses are for "equipment that we assess is for use in the current conflict in Gaza, such as important components which go into military aircraft, including fighter aircraft, helicopters, and drones, as well as items which facilitate ground targeting," Lammy told the U.K. Parliament. The remaining exports "will continue" and "the government will keep our position under review."
According to the Financial Times:
The move will not affect components for the multinational F-35 joint striker fighter program, except regarding parts sent directly to Israel.
U.K. officials determined that suspending critical components within a global pool of spare parts could harm the maintenance and operations of F-35s in other nations.
"When Israel is carrying out a genocidal assault in Gaza, we shouldn't just ban a small fraction of arms licenses to Israel,"
said Zarah Sultana, a Labour Party member who represents Coventry South in Parliament. "This ban still allows the U.K. to sell parts for F-35 fighter jets, known as 'the most lethal' in the world. The government needs to ban ALL arms sales."
Stop the War Coalition
called the suspension "an admission of guilt" and similarly stressed that "we need a full, comprehensive ban on arms sales to apartheid Israel—not this half-hearted approach."
Lammy's announcement came as the Danish news outlet
Information and NGO Danwatch connected Israel's use of an F-35 stealth fighter to a July 13 attack on an Israeli-designated "safe zone" in southern Gaza, which killed scores of Palestinians and injured hundreds more.
In a statement responding to both developments, Sam Perlo-Freeman, research coordinator for the Campaign Against Arms Trade,
said:
The government's statement today that it is suspending 30 arms export licenses to Israel is a belated, but welcome move, finally acting upon the overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. But exempting parts for Israel's F-35 is utterly outrageous and unjustifiable.
These are by far the U.K.'s most significant arms supplies to the Israeli military, and just today we have confirmation that they have been used in one of the most egregious attacks in recent months. The government has admitted that there is a 'clear risk' that Israel is using fighter aircraft among other weapons to violate international humanitarian law. How can this 'clear risk' not apply to the F-35s? The only right and legal course of action is to end the supply of F-35 parts to Israel, along with the rest of U.K. arms sales.
Although the suspension is not as bold as critics of Israel's bombardment have called for, it was still seen as another positive step under Starmer, whose government has also recently resumed funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and dropped a challenge to the International Criminal Court prosecutor's request for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as Hamas leaders.
While Gallant said he was "deeply disheartened" by the U.K.'s latest move, Dearbhla Minogue, senior lawyer for the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), declared that "this momentous decision vindicates everything Palestinians have been saying for months."
GLAN and Al-Haq on Saturday had threatened the U.K. government with new legal action if it failed to engage the suspension mechanism following revelations in The Guardian and The Telegraph regarding communications between Attorney General Richard Hermer and the Foreign Office about weapons sales to Israel.
"The U.K. government was backed into a corner," Minogue said Monday. "Our most recent letter showed that a suspension was the only right and legal thing to do. This is a truly historic victory for Al-Haq and for Palestinians. The exhaustive evidence we filed in mid-August showed that there was only one legally sound decision available to the government—that it is against the law to supply Israel with weapons for use against Palestinians in Gaza."
Both groups are now considering their next actions. Fellow GLAN lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe emphasized, "Now that the government has taken this important step, it must do much, much more, and abide by its obligations under international law to do everything in its power to prevent the commission of genocide."
Israel faces an ongoing South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its nearly 11-month assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 40,786 Palestinians, injured another 94,224, and forcibly displaced most of the enclave's 2.3 million residents, who are struggling to find food, water, shelter, and adequate medical care.
The Associated Pressreported that "British firms sell a relatively small amount of weapons and components to Israel compared to major suppliers such as the U.S. and Germany. Earlier this year, the government said military exports to Israel amounted to £42 million ($53 million) in 2022."
Still, the suspension could increase pressure on other allies of Israel to take similar action and
strain relations with the U.S. government—which, under President Joe Biden, has showered Israel with weapons and diplomatic support since the current escalation of the decadeslong conflict began in October.
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On Labor Day, Champions of Working Class Vow to Defeat Trump
"The facts are clear: Democrats are the party of labor, and the Biden-Harris administration has been the most pro-labor administration in our lifetime," said a pair of supporters.
Sep 02, 2024
With the Labor Day holiday as a backdrop, U.S. union leaders on Monday reiterated their message that a Democratic administration led by Vice President Kamala Harris would offer far better policies for workers than a Republican one with former President Donald Trump at the helm.
Echoing Harris' resonant "We are not going back" campaign slogan, Communications Workers of America president Claude Cummings Jr. said that "we are not going back because we have the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris, a true champion for working people, who has a vision for the future where we all have more control over our own lives, not less."
"Last month, as our members at AT&T Southeast were preparing to go on strike, Donald Trump laughed with notorious union buster Elon Musk about firing striking workers," he continued. "Today that would be illegal, but if he's elected president, Trump will have the plan and the power to take us back to a time when it wasn't."
"Donald Trump's allies, including many people he appointed to serve in his administration, want to take us back to the days before the NLRA," he contended, referring to the landmark National Labor Relations Act signed into law by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. "Their dangerous, extremist agenda, detailed in a handbook known as Project 2025, calls for increasing corporate control over workers. They want to appoint [National Labor Relations Board] members who will stop enforcing large parts of the NLRA, including the ban on company unions."
Harris, who was in Detroit Monday, said: "On Labor Day, we honor workers, unions, and the entire labor movement fighting for fair wages, good benefits, and safer working conditions for all. As president, I will always stand with workers, because when unions are strong, the middle class is strong. And when the middle class is strong, America is strong."
In her second annual "State of the Unions" address, Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of unions, highlighted the importance of organized labor in November's election. Shuler noted that 1 in 5 voters in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and, Minnesota is a union member, and that recent polling shows Harris with a 15-point lead over Trump among union voters.
"Union workers are growing our power in this country in a way that we haven't seen in a generation. In November, that power could win the election for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz," she said, referring to the Minnesota governor who is the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
"We can run up the margins where it counts," Shuler added. "When you ask a union member who their most trusted source in the world is on politics, it's not their friends, family, or loved ones—it's their fellow union member. There is no question that the road to the White House runs through America's union halls."
While numerous unions have endorsed Harris, Trump has struggled in his efforts to court organized labor, despite strong support among rank-and-file workers. Last week, members of the International Association of Fire Fighters booed GOP vice presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio after he claimed that he was part of the"most pro-worker Republican ticket in history."
While support for unions in the United States is at a seven-decade high, union membership remains at an all-time low, the result of more than a century of efforts by capitalist interests and the politicians they influence to weaken organized labor. One way they've done this is by McCarthyite purges of communists and socialists, traditionally the strongest champions for working people, from union ranks.
Today, labor leaders overwhelmingly concur which of the two major parties offers workers a better deal—even as it attacks democracy by fighting to exclude pro-worker competitors to its left.
"The facts are clear: Democrats are the party of labor, and the Biden-Harris administration has been the most pro-labor administration in our lifetime," Service Employees International Union president April Verrett and Democracy Alliance president Pamela Shifman said in an opinion piece published by The Hill on Monday.
"As we look ahead, the choice we face in this election couldn't be more stark," they wrote. "One path leads to a brighter, more inclusive future for all workers—a future where economic, gender, and racial justice go hand in hand. The other path seeks to turn back the clock, dismantling the progress we've made and putting corporate interests ahead of working families."
Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez—the late grandfather of Harris' campaign manager—in 1962, on Monday published a Univisionopinion piece in which she argued that "this election marks a pivotal moment in our history."
"Each of us will have a choice to make about which direction we want our country to go," she said. "Donald Trump despises Latinos, workers, and immigrants and wants to turn back the clock to a time before many of us had full rights and freedoms, when the rich did well while the middle class was left behind. We cannot go back!"
"I choose to go forward, into the future," Huerta continued. "A future that makes room for all Latino families. A future where our middle class is strong, our freedoms are secure, and our democracy is sound. That's what Vice President Harris is fighting for. And that's why I'm all-in to elect Vice President Harris the next president of the United States... ¡Sà se puede!"
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Biden Says Netanyahu Not Doing Enough to Free Hostages
"Netanyahu has been citing Biden's ironclad support of him as the *reason* he does not have to work harder to get a hostage deal," said one observer.
Sep 02, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn't doing enough to secure an agreement on the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, a statement ridiculed by critics who asserted that the Biden administration's unconditional support for Israel empowers its far-right government to keep stonewalling a potential deal.
Speaking to reporters at a White House press conference, Biden
responded "no" when asked if Netanyahu is doing enough to reach an agreement to free the approximately 100 Israelis and others—including seven Americans—who are believed to be still alive in Gaza.
Biden added that his administration is "very close" to presenting a final draft agreement to negotiators working toward securing a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of remaining hostages.
More than 240 Israelis and others were kidnapped and taken to Gaza during the October 7 attack on Israel. Hamas has released 109 hostages, while eight have been rescued by Israeli forces, who killed or wounded more than 600 people during a June raid to free four people. Numerous other hostages have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, so-called "friendly fire" accidents, and deliberate attacks under the Hannibal Directive, a policy meant to prevent Israelis from being captured by enemy forces. Hamas is also believed to have executed some of the captives.
The president's comments came after six hostages held by Hamas, including 23-year-old American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were killed in a tunnel in Gaza. Their deaths sparked massive protests in Israel and beyond at which demonstrators demanded Netanyahu do more to free the remaining captives.
Numerous observers blamed Biden for enabling Israel's obliteration of Gaza with his "unwavering" support, including billions of dollars in arms shipments and diplomatic cover in the form of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolution vetoes.
"Netanyahu has been citing Biden's ironclad support of him as the *reason* he does not have to work harder to get a hostage deal," U.S. journalist Ryan Grim said on social media. "Incredibly rich of Biden to complain about the consequences of his own actions."
Jack Mirkinson, a senior editor at
The Nation and co-founder of the Discourse blog, said that "everyone, including Biden, knows that Netanyahu is *actively sabotaging* a deal, not simply 'not doing enough.'"
"Biden can't say this because he is helping Netanyahu prolong the war," he added. "But there's no reason for anyone else to indulge this fiction."
Referring to Monday's general strike in Israel—in which workers across the country walked off their jobs to protest Netanyahu's refusal to agree to a cease-fire and hostage release deal—Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink,
said on social media: "If Biden truly stood with hostage families, he'd halt weapons to Israel until a cease-fire is reached. Maybe it's time for a general strike in the U.S. too!"
Many critics also repeated accusations that Netanyahu is stalling or trying to torpedo a potential deal so he can prolong the war and delay his ouster from office. The prime minister is currently on trial for corruption and also faces bribery, fraud, and breach of trust charges over three cases. He could be jailed for 10 years if fully convicted on all counts.
Asked earlier this year if Netanyahu is deliberately prolonging the war for his political self-preservation, Biden said that "there is every reason for people to draw that conclusion."
Meanwhile, Israel's Gaza onslaught continued Monday with attacks including a bombing of yet another school-turned-shelter in Gaza City that killed at least 11 people, including a woman and a child.
With unconditional U.S. support, Israel has killed at least 40,786 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and international organizations. Israeli bombs and bullets have injured more than 94,200 others, forcibly displaced over 2 million, and pushed much of Gaza into famine.
Israel's bombardment, invasion, and siege—which are accompanied by genocidal statements from numerous Israeli leaders—have led many
legal experts and scholars to assert that it is committing genocide. Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice and the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has applied for warrants to arrest Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—at least one of whom, political chief Ismail Haniyeh, has been assassinated by Israel.
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