WELCOME TO THE WEEKLY AGITATOR: WHO AND WHAT YOU SHOULD BE ANGRY AT, WHO’S ORGANIZING ABOUT IT, AND HOW YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE
SEIU DECLARES “MILLER TIME” OVER, PREPARES HIS OUSTING AS SENATE PRESIDENT
“On Sine Die, Miller Time is Up” Seventh State reports that SEIU Local 500 has an event planned today to announce their intentions to boot the longstanding President of the Maryland Senate. They also report SEIU Local 500 Political Director Mark McLaurin called President Miller a “piece of excrement” after Miller’s inaction effectively killed the annual attempt at a statewide $15 minimum wage bill (fifth year in a row its failed).
Commonwealth thinks the Political Director’s statement owns, actually, and hastens to point out we declared Mike Miller and House Speaker Busch both candidates for retirement just weeks ago.
BLAIR STUDENTS BREAK NEWS ON LEGGETT’S PLAN TO CUT ELDERLY AND DISABLED TRANSIT FUND
Blair students, and students around Montgomery County, are doing some pretty badass things these day. Check out Blair High School’s @Silver_Chips account for interesting and insightful hot takes.
COUNTY COUNCIL SLASHES DEVELOPMENTAL REVIEW PROCESS FOR MEGA-CORP AMAZON
The County Council seems set to shamelessly follow Ike Leggett’s groveling attitude regarding Jeff Bezos’s Amazon Subsidy Sweepstakes. They will review a proposal submitted by the Executive to shorten the 120 day review process to 60 for “Signature Business Headquarters” who would bring 25,000 employees to a metro area. The County Council and Executive seem to think they can catch Amazon’s attention by rubber stamping the deal making process. Businesses are also aware of the likelihood of a deal.
The County Council is having a public hearing on the new budget this Thursday at 7pm.
The Council should answer why they’re so obsequious to billionaires meanwhile preparing to gut every fund, privatize every department, and otherwise squander their remaining time in office.
GOOD SHORT SOCIALIST READINGS
In late May 1975, after his “Triumphal Journey” from north Mozambique to south, Samora Machel addressed crowded football station outside the black suburb of Beira. There, Machel spoke about colonial exploitation and racism. Machel and the Marxist Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) relied on mass meetings and speeches to reach the Mozambican people due to media censorship by the colonial powers. A few days after this speech, the colonial regime would fall and Mozambique would be free and independent of Portugal. We reproduce a segment of the speech and express our appreciation to the comrade who first shared it with us.
“So, so, the Portuguese people will say “the Mozambican people enjoyed colonialism”. Right? (No). The Mozambican people were satisfied with colonialism. (No. Laughter). The Mozambican people were already independent for many years, according to the declaration of His Excellency Mr. Oliveira Salazar. Yes or no? (No). Yes or no? (No). The Portuguese people will say that the Mozambican people don‟t want independence; they are satisfied with the Portuguese government. Yes or no? (No! No! ) No? (No! )
(Silence).
In the same way that your husbands, your brothers, your sons, your brothers in-law were drafted into the Portuguese army, it’s the same way that the sons of the Portuguese people came to oppress Angola — the people of Angola, the people of Guinea, and the people of Mozambique. Do you hear? (We hear). Do you hear? (We hear). Do you hear? (We hear). They were imprisoned in Portugal in order to come here. The colonial system, do you hear? (We hear). The colonial system.
Now, I would ask, “during ten years of war in Mozambique, thirteen years of war in Angola, eleven years of war in Guinea-Bissau, did the sons of the Portuguese people develop a conscience?” They overthrew Marcelo Caetano there in Portugal. Yes or no? (Yes). When power was returned to the Portuguese people, the Portuguese people immediately acknowledged the right of the Mozambican people to independence. Do you hear? (We hear).
We finished, we liquidated the war together — us and the Portuguese people. Do you hear? That is why we made a declaration, a famous sentence. Do you hear? (We hear). International assistance or solidarity with other peoples is not an act of charity, it is not. It is a duty, it is mutual assistance between forces fighting for the same objectives.
-Samora Machel: The Beira Speech (1975) link
Read more about Mozambican Marxist revolutionary Samora Machel here
Posted by Carlos Martinez on Tuesday, September 29, 2015
In Solidarity,
COMMONWEALTH 