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Jailed for organising

Mike Dobson | 11.04.2006 12:43 | Repression | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements

New York Transit Workers Leader Faces Jail for strike.

Democracy Now! reports that Roger Toussaint, the leader of New York's bus and subway workers faces 10 days jail and USD1000 fine for organising the 60 hour strike which took place on 20th December. He has 30 days to appeal.

AP's version is on
 http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-nyctransitstrike0410apr10,0,2183717,print.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Updates expected on Free Speech Radio News.
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Toussaint is no relation of the Haitian liberator Toussaint L'ouverture.
Siochain, slain agus Beannacht

Mike Dobson
- e-mail: michael.dob871@onetel.net

Comments

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If I may dare to consider this at a more abstract level

12.04.2006 18:05

At least he isn't dead, unlike that kid who organised a walk-out at his school in the States recently (horrifying case showing exactly why Blair has given his followers the 'right' to fine parents). The rights of ordinary people are NOT suppressed because the killing of those rights is considered important by the today's power elite. Instead, such actions are taken to heighten the amount of irrational (from a probabalistic position) fear that ordinary people feel daily.

In the end, it's all about control using guilt and fear. Blair murders 500,000+ in Iraq, and has zero guilt, and zero fear of any kind of punishment.

A Blair supporter thinks of driving her kid and friends to some birthday-party event, and feels guilty for not owning a minibus with roll-cage and individual airbags, and fears she may spend years in prison as a consequence of trying to be a good Mom.

However, the Bush and Blair types win because as they ramp up the fear and guilt to a maximum, activists get lost in the minutiae of each specific new act of abuse.

Those of you that read me as saying that specific cases such as with our friend in New York should not be persued are wrong. However, what I am saying is until the leaders of our rotten systems are fully replaced, they will do harm at a faster rate than it is ever possible to address or fix.

Blair, and his allies in the US, are producing horrors in our system at an ever increasing rate. It is self-evident that no amount of activism based on the most optimistic predictions of forces available can successfully reverse these horrors on a case-by-case basis. In this situation, it is a clear FACT that the only answer is to take on the source of the horrors. Why is it that I have a feeling that one of Blair's New Reich agents is about to attack me as a 'parasite' for pointing this out.

Blair desires that the vast majority of activist energy is wasted running around attempting to reverse an ever smaller proportion of the harms that he and his people dish out daily. "Don't attack me, don't attack my plans, ONLY deal with the consequences of my actions" is the message his proxies speak on his behalf whenever they can.

Funny thing is, Human Intellectual Evolution is based on people spotting the patterns in events, and using abstraction to identify higher rules that can be used to control the system with greater accuracy (which is why we no longer live in caves). If you do that here in your comment, some New Reich follower screams to everyone that you are a 'parasite'- its almost like living in an 'Animal Farm' novel.

Until Blair is stopped, the US will continue its swing to the authoritarian right, whether Democrats or Republicans are in power. And, today, Blair is more powerful than he has ever been (watch as the new 'left' leadership in Italy joins with Blair in his Iran war-plans), selling the population of his nation 'false-hope' in the form of BLAIR-IS-ABOUT-TO-BE-REPLACED-VERSION-12 psy-ops (and judging by the response of people, 'false-hope' is obviously the most addictive substance on the planet).

twilight