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[karen4theppl]

Russia Advances on Kharkiv

Living in Southern California, I think it’s important to recognize the role that US and Nato aggression in the area contributed to the tensions that resulted in this war. From the NATO invasion of Yugoslavia in 1999 targeting pro-Russian forces, to the brutal IMF exploitation of the Ukrainian economy, US and European multinational corporations and the Nato military have brought the fight to Russia’s door steadily. After the West-funded Neo-Nazi coup in 2014, the new government accepted the IMF loan package with conditions that stripped social security, the minimum wage, pensions, collective bargaining, and basically every central piece of Ukrainian socialism. Repression of majority Russian speaking areas by the new government drove parts of the southeast of Ukraine to turn to Russia for support. 

As with any invasion of another country, it is devastating to see the loss of life, and people forced to flee their ancestral homes. A coworker of mine moved here a year ago to flee their home in Odessa, Ukraine because of this war. 

New York Times reports Russia Invaded the area around Kharkiv, in Northeast Ukraine last week, drawing Ukrainian forces away from key areas like Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar in the southeast of the country. The Ukrainian resistant looks the most stretched since the first few weeks of the war in 2022. 

It’s essential to see through the oversimplified claims of clumsy Russian stupidity and bullying, and analyze the way the US, EU, NATO, and global capital exploitation created the conditions that lead to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Finteractive%2F2024%2F05%2F15%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Frussia-offensive-ukraine-maps.html%3Fsmid%3Dnytcore-android-share&t=MDE1MDgyMjBkNzljNDkxZjc1ZWE4ODY4NDU5YTIwMDIyMDI5NDFlOSwxMTBiY2UwYTM1YTg1M2QzMGE1NWNhYmQ0YThiYTg2NGJmN2EyMDk4&ts=1717110122

https://www.codepink.org/the_usa_caused_the_war_in_ukraine_and_only_the_usa_can_end_it

[karen4theppl]

Gondola Project Moves Forward

Metro Board of Directors moves the project forward to build a gondola that Los Angeles Parks Alliance says would cause “irreparable harm” to the Chinatown area. On Thursday February 22, the board voted 11-0 to certify the environmental impact report (EIR), moving the project to Caltrans, LA City and other government departments for approval.

While residents resist the gondola project, a handful of protesters attended a book signing on March 25th at LACC that featured Frank McCourt, who funds the company that proposes the gondola, according to L.A. Times. 

“Read the book,” said McCourt, in response to an audience member asking him to address the residents who would be affected by the proposed gondola. The Collegian reached out but, the McCourt Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. 

““It would ultimately turn Chinatown into the Dodger Stadium parking lot,” says Stop The Gondola member Tany Ling. “People are going to drive to our community, to Union Station,” and park near the entrance to the Gondola before taking the trip up to the stadium. Rather than reducing traffic as a whole, the project could end up redistributing cars away from the bottlenecked entrances to the stadium, into the Chinatown residential areas instead. 

“I think it would be a disaster for our communities near LA Historic,” says Xochitl Manzanilla, Chinatown Residential Representative for the Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council. According to CBS News, the idea of the project is to transport 5,000 people per hour in a seven-minute trip from Union Station to Dodger Stadium, to allow some people to opt for this type of transit instead of driving. Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit, the organization behind the project, claims that this would reduce traffic. 

Critics point out that the Dodger Express already uses buses to transport fans who take the train to Union Station up the hill to the stadium. According to the news site Knock.la the gondola cars would fly only 40 feet above buildings and residents’ heads. Knock.la says that if the project runs over budget, the organization might ask to use  taxpayer money to complete the project. The project requires cutting 80 trees out of Elysian Park and LA Historic Park. 

According to Statistics Atlas and Census.gov, Chinatown is a majority Asian, minority Hispanic neighborhood with $27k median annual household income, less than half the average for L.A. County. LAist points out, this is not the first construction project to target an under-resourced non-white community. 

In 1959, right before Dodger Stadium was built, the Latine neighborhoods Chavez Ravine, Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop were violently repossessed by eminent domain and  destroyed, detailed in an LAist article updated on May 1st, 2023 by Elina Shatkin. Throughout the 1950s, city officials and developers used eminent domain or lowballed residents of the Hispanic neighborhood to take their homes and land. In 1957 only 20 families remained. And On Friday, May 9, 1959, cops showed up with heavy machinery to evict them and bulldoze the neighborhood. 

This is in sharp contrast to the plan to build the 710 freeway over a white neighborhood in South Pasadena, just a few miles from Chinatown. According to the LA Times, wealthy residents shut the project down, forcing truck routes to reroute through Asian and Latine Alhambra. BIPOC Angelenos near the 105 and 110 freeways suffer from the dangerous air quality created by the freeways that were constructed through their neighborhoods. 

The Guardian recounts the history of LA’s Pacific Electric “red cars” and the Los Angeles Railway “yellow cars”, which saw their last trip in 1961. Oil and Real Estate developers built the system starting in 1901, to allow the selling of land to Angelenos throughout the Los Angeles Basin. At its peak it was one of the largest transit systems in the world. 

In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, to allow the military to move throughout the country and create suburbs, according to Archives.gov. National City Lines, a cartel of oil, tires, and car companies had been buying up and dismantling transit systems in many US cities like LA for years. The combination of these factors lead to an almost complete transition to Car infrastructure in L.A.

LA Times reporter, Matthew Fleischer calls the Los Angeles freeway system “one of the most noxious monuments to racism and segregation in the country.”

[karen4theppl]

T-Girls Just Want to have Politics

10 March 2024

Trans women’s long history of civil disobedience should be celebrated and uplifted this Women’s History Month. 

In her 2018 article for Them, Ita Segev, a young Ashkenazi woman raised in occupied Palestine who left her post in the IDF for New York, explains how the “nostalgic memories of my childhood must break open, so that the toxic, militaristic, colonial masculinity I was expected to embody can die with them.”

For many trans women like myself, transitioning is a practice of unlearning masculinity. The culture of the American empire will teach young assigned-male-at-birth people that they have to be a “boy” and that being a boy means acting as an agent for perpetuating white supremacist cis-hetero patriarchy. 

Ita goes on to say, “as my anti-Zionist identity emerged, so did my connection to the knowledge of my trans femininity.” As trans women, our bodies exist in opposition to the culture we are raised in. It is natural and fulfilling to our womanness to link our gender exploration with revolutionary ideology. 

In American consciousness, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson represents the heart of trans-femme, non-violent direct action and mutual aid. They were on the frontlines of the Stonewall Uprising in June 1969, and went on to help found programs like the Gay Liberation Front and STAR House for unhoused queer youth. Rivera was even arrested for disrupting a private New York City Council meeting over a bill about gay rights.  

Transwoman direct action continues to this day, and reaches beyond fighting just for the rights of queer and trans people. According to the Guardian, Hunter Shafer, an actress best known for her breakout role as Jules  in HBO's Euphoria, is among this new generation of activists. Recently, Shafer was arrested along with dozens of protesters in a group of more than 100 Jewish Voice for Peace activists who flooded 30 Rockefeller Center on Wednesday February 28th, 2024. The demonstrators had a message for Joe Biden who was doing a light hearted interview with Jimmy Fallon upstairs. One banner read: “Jews to Biden: Stop Arming Genocide”.

Women have always been an essential part of revolutions around the world, and trans women should be no exception. 

sources...

https://www.them.us/story/i-served-in-the-israeli-army-and-then-i-transitioned

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/euphoria-star-hunter-schafer-arrested-nyc-protest-support-palestinians-rcna140939

https://www.si.edu/stories/marsha-johnson-sylvia-rivera-and-history-pride-month

[karen4theppl]

Keep Chinatown’s Airspace Free from Useless Dodger Stadium Gondola 

24 February 2024

On February 22nd, the Los Angeles Metro Board voted to move forward with a proposal to build a gondola over Chinatown, despite an outpouring of dissent from residents during public comment. An hour and half of in-person public comments were vastly in opposition to the Gondola. For the last 30 minutes, the format switched to callers phoning in from outside the boardroom, and many public commenters left at that time. Then, in a sinister and unassuming moment, in front of a thinned out crowd, the board voted to move the project forward. Stop the Gondola speaker and protester Meika put it plainly: “This is some liberal bullshit.” 

LA residents should do whatever we can to stand by our neighbors in Chinatown to stop the gondola from being built to protect the historic district, and reallocate funds to improve and expand the transit system. Los Angeles Metro is notoriously challenging to navigate as a commuter. While many bus lines are fairly consistent, others run only a couple of times per hour, and some big streets like Alameda lack a bus altogether.

Xochitl Manzanilla, Chinatown Residential Representative for the Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council, pointed out at the meeting “I think it would be a disaster for our communities near LA Historic.” So, what is the proposed project anyway? According to CBS News, the idea is to transport 5,000 people per hour in a seven minute trip from Union Station to Dodger Stadium. The stated goal is that this would allow more people to opt for transit instead of driving. Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit, the organization behind the project, claims that this would reduce traffic. 

Unfortunately there are a number of issues with the proposal. Firstly, the Dodger Express already buses fans who take the train to Union Station up the hill to the stadium. According to Knock.la the gondola cars would fly only 40 feet above buildings and residents’ heads, which is incredibly dangerous. And despite Aerial Rapid Transit claiming they will pay for it, Knock.la points out there is a good chance that taxpayer money will end up being used, especially if the project runs over budget. The project requires cutting 80 trees out of Elysian Park and LA Historic Park. The project would be incredibly harmful. 

According to the LA Times, when developers tried to build the 710 freeway over a white neighborhood in South Pasadena just a few miles from Chinatown, wealthy residents shut the project down, rerouting truck routes through Asian and Latine Alhambra. LAist explains that right before Dodger Stadium was built in 1959, the Latine neighborhoods Chavez Ravine, Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop were violently repossessed by eminent domain and  destroyed. Let's not let another move by developers displace and harm a neighborhood of color excluded from the privileges of white communities like Pasadena. This February, the thousands of Angelenos who turned out to show their support for Palestine proved the ability of the city’s people to to protect themselves. If the developer class in this city continues to prioritize music festivals, the Olympics and the World Cup over the generational residents of our city, they risk sparking widespread unrest again.

sources...

https://knock-la.com/las-dumb-gondola/ 

https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2023-03-09/white-drivers-are-polluting-the-air-breathed-by-l-a-s-people-of-color-boiling-point 

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/opponents-of-proposed-dodger-stadium-gondola-protest-ahead-of-upcoming-public-hearings/ 

https://laist.com/news/la-history/dodger-stadium-chavez-ravine-battle 

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/proposed-gondola-project-connecting-union-station-dodger-stadium-meets-opposition-from-residents/