¡Alto Arizona!

Conor Oberst/Los Desaparecidos take aim at Sheriff Joe Arpaio in song “MariKKKopa”

Posted on August 1, 2012 | Source: The Sound Strike

Listen to New Conor Oberst Song: “MariKKKopa.”

Conor Oberst has never been one to mince words. In his latest song Conor Oberst takes aim at Racist Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio with his old pals Los Desaparecidos. ”MariKKKopa” is a had hitting punk song where Conor hits Sheriff Joe by name. The song is available August 2nd. You can check it out below. 

Conor recently told the Huffington Post, “Joe Arpaio needs no help from me getting attention. For years he has been a beacon of bigotry and intolerance for all the world to see. The list of human and civil-rights abuses he’s committed in Maricopa County is long and well documented. His many “crime suppression sweeps” are some of the most egregious affronts to American values and human dignity perpetrated in this century. What he does need is to be called out at every opportunity as the criminal that he is. There are many ways of doing that. The federal government’s current law suit against him being one of them. I used the best means at my disposal to do it: a punk rock song.”

The song will be available August 2nd online.

To read the full interview with Conor check the Huffington Post.

Arizona, Arpaio and SB1070 Spur Crusade for Immigrant Rights

By CARLOS GARCIA, Puente Arizona | Source: Politic365.com | July 20, 2012

The migrant rights movement in this country is about to enter a new phase and every person, no matter their position, will have to decide how they will relate to it.

While many are waiting to see the decision of the Supreme Court related to the Department of Justice’s SB1070 case, a human rights crisis of epic proportions is already roiling in Arizona.

The status quo we face now and the results of even the best possible decision from the Supreme Court still represent a steady march toward anti-immigrant attrition that the state has constructed over years.  First we faced efforts to restrict our ability to function in society: drivers’ license bans, denial of social services, and English only rules. Then they built ways to humiliate and dehumanize us through Sheriff Arpaio’s outdoor jails and Florence’s expanding penal colonies.

From 2007 to 2010, even before SB1070 was introduced, our community faced checkpoints, bore witness to women forced to give birth in shackles, and traveled to work and school on a daily basis already wondering if we would reunite with our families and loved ones at the end of each day.  In 2010, Arizona sought to erase us from history with a ban on ethnic studies and remove us altogether through SB1070.

Pearce fundraiser booted from 2 Mexican restaurants

By Jim Small | Source: AZCapitolTimes.com | Published: June 14, 2012

Former Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of Arizona's controversial immigration law S.B. 1070, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington April 24. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Former Senate President Russell Pearce is scrambling to find a location for a fundraiser scheduled for this afternoon, as two different Phoenix Mexican restaurants told him today that he is not welcome.

The fundraiser was originally scheduled to be held at Macayo’s Restaurant near Central Avenue and Indian School Road in uptown Phoenix. However, DeeDee Garcia Blase, a critic of Pearce and the co-president of the Tequila Party, organized a protest of the restaurant this afternoon during the event.

She said that the planned protest and her calls to Macayo’s corporate offices led the restaurant to cancel the event. Messages left with Macayo’s were not immediately returned.

Late this morning, Pearce’s campaign sent an email to supporters informing them that the fundraiser would instead be held at Oaxaca Restaurante y Cantina in downtown Phoenix. The email did not say why the location was changed.

Within hours, Oaxaca also cancelled Pearce’s event. Joseph Aguayo, the restaurant’s manager, told Arizona Capitol Times he did so after Garcia Blase contacted him and told him the event, which was registered under a different name, was actually to help Pearce raise money in his bid to return to the Senate after being recalled last year.

Replacing History With Fiction in Arizona

By Gary Younge | February 8, 2012  |  This article appeared in the February 27, 2012 edition of The Nation.

In 1997 black America gained a new hero when Tiger Woods putted himself into history at the US Masters. Within a few weeks, it had lost him in an unlikely fashion—to a bespoke racial identity articulated on Oprah’s couch.

Does it bother you being termed “African-American”? Oprah asked him.

“It does,” said Woods, whose father was of African-American, Chinese and Native American descent and whose mother was of Thai, Chinese and Dutch descent. At school he would tick “African-American” and “Asian.” “Growing up, I came up with this name: I’m Cablinasian [CAucasian, BLack, INdian and ASIAN]. I’m just who I am…whoever you see in front of you.” According to an editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times, Woods could not have been more praiseworthy if he’d scored a hole in one wearing a blindfold. “He justly rejects attempts to pigeonhole him in the past,” claimed the editorial. “Tiger Woods is the embodiment of our melting pot and our cultural diversity ideals and deserves to be called what he in fact is—an American.”

It is a peculiar fact of modern Western rhetoric, as prevalent among liberals as conservatives, that nationality is understood as a liberating identity, whereas ethnicity, race and other markers are regarded as confining. There are far more black and Asian people in the world than there are Americans. Racial identity is no less diverse than national identity. But somehow to describe Woods as black or Asian traps him in a pigeonhole, while to define him by his nationality sets him free.

Latino security shakedown in Arizona

People are questioning security searches of Latinos in Arizona. CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reports.

TUSD escalates militarization of its meetings

By: Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez

A high school student who addressed the school board this Tues about the TUSD-MAS controversy was reportedly pulled out of his classroom yesterday by security personnel. There is more to the story (and this will be updated soon), but to be sure, him being pulled out of his classroom was a direct result of his participation at the school board meeting.

Arizona’s Apartheid War Against Mexican American Studies

And on the 7th Day…Arizona’s Apartheid War Against Mexican American Studies

Special length column
Column of the Americas
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

Early on the morning of the 7th day, God wrote HB 2281; then he rested.

That’s the way conservative Arizonans view this clearly unconstitutional and immoral anti-Ethnic Studies measure.

The opponents of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) department – who act as though this state measure was also inscribed on the original tablets God handed to Moses – use this circular logic. An administrative law judge, Lewis D. Koval, also weighed in on the embattled MAS department, with a 37-page finding last week with the same twisted logic. He opined that MAS-TUSD is out of compliance and that HB 2281 is legal because it has not been ruled unconstitutional. If affirmed, the finding can cost TUSD 10 percent of its monthly state budget, totaling up to $15 million per year. That HB 2281 has not been found to be unconstitutional is true... only because the measure has yet to be actually implemented and the 2010 Acosta federal lawsuit has not yet reached the trial stage. Not only that, the legal process, as established by the state measure, has not yet fully played out. Within a few days, state schools’ superintendent John Huppenthal, who campaigned with the vow to “stop La Raza,” is expected to affirm Koval’s non-binding ruling. TUSD can now petition the Superior Court to reject Koval’s finding, though TUSD superintendent, John Pedicone, has already indicated he wants the district to comply with the ruling.

On paper, MAS-TUSD detractors oppose the department because it violates HB 2281, seemingly not cognizant that the only reason this state measure exists is because the former state schools’ superintendent, Tom Horne, crafted it to ensure that the department would be deemed out of compliance, with the only remedy being elimination. Horne incidentally, has long-claimed that his effort to eliminate MAS-TUSD was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I have a Dream” speech. Bernard Lafayette Jr., a colleague of MLK Jr. and a freedom rider, along with virtually the entire civil rights community nationwide, begs to differ with Horne. Ironically, along with the racial profiling SB 1070, his animus toward MAS is what has unleashed an unprecedented amount of hate toward Mexicans and Mexican Americans in this state, a clue that Horne has no business invoking MLK’s name for any reason.

Governor Jan Brewer to Speak on First Day of ALEC Convention

By Stephen Lemons Mon., Nov. 28 2011 at 3:17 PM | Source: PhoenixNewTimes.com

Should anyone be surprised that Governor Jan Brewer will be one of the keynote speakers at the American Legislative Exchange Council's big wingding in Scottsdale this week at the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa?

I'm sure not. Even before ALEC posted the announcement to its website and the governor's office noted a November 30 speech by Brewer on her schedule for the week, I could smell that one coming.

The Republican-lobbyist lovefest will also feature former Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese (yep, he's still alive) as a speaker, and you can pretty much anticipate that nearly every GOP legislator in Sand Land will be around for at least part of the three-day event.

L.A. panel recommends red-light camera phase-out

By Rick Orlov Staff Writer | Posted: 07/25/2011 06:39:41 PM PDT | Source: DailyBreeze.com

With widespread public refusal to pay the traffic fines, a Los Angeles city panel on Monday recommended phasing out the red-light cameras at 32 Los Angeles intersections.

The City Council's Budget and Finance Committee asked for a report on how the city can end the long-disputed program and how citations issued under the program should be handled.

Newly elected Councilman Mitch Englander proposed that no new tickets be written to motorists photographed running red lights, although the 65,000 outstanding citations would be processed.

Once that work is completed, the city would end its relationship with Affiliated Traffic Systems, an Arizona company that has been operating the program for a monthly fee of $8,000 per intersection.

ALEC Arizona: Community Demand for Transparency and Accountability

Los Comités en Defensa del Barrio
LA HUELGA DEL PUEBLO
Boycott Commission

Press Advisory
For Immediate Release
Date: Monday, 2011
Contacts: Raul Cordero (602) 488-9731; Anayanse Garza (602) 487-0186; Tupac Enrique Acosta (602) 466-8367

ALEC Arizona:
Community Demand for Transparency and Accountability

Phoenix, AZ - Following in the wake of recent revelations by the Center for Media and Democracy that have exposed the immoral collusion between private prison industry lobby groups with ties to the American Legislative Council (ALEC) and state legislators across the country, the Boycott Commission of Los Comités en Defensa del Barrio today have requested that all current Arizona state legislators be immediately forthcoming in making public their association, participation, or membership in the ALEC consortium.  A deadline of July 29, 2011 has been extended to all elected state official to address and respond publicly regarding their ties with ALEC.

The date of July 29, 2011 coincides with the anniversary of the date when AZ SB1070 was to be implemented, a piece of legislation which was crafted in the bowels ALEC and then imported into the Arizona State legislature by AZ Senate President Russell Pearce.  The call today by the Boycott Commission of the CDB is for transparency and accountability for the economic interests that have been profiteering through contracts with the private prison industry in cahoots with law enforcement personalities across the state.

Your State Can’t Afford It: The Fiscal Impact of States’ Anti-Immigrant Legislation

By Philip E. Wolgin, Angela Maria Kelley | July 5, 2011 | Source: AmericanProgress.org

Download this brief (pdf)

Read the full brief in your web browser

It has been just over a year since the passage of Arizona’s ill-fated anti-immigrant law, S.B. 1070. In its wake, many states put copycat bills on their agendas for the 2011 legislative session. But as most states wrap up their legislative session for the year, only a handful (Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and South Carolina) actually passed anti-immigrant bills, while 26 others rejected them. Even Arizona, which last year saw its anti-immigrant bill largely blocked by a federal judge, joined this movement and rejected a series of even harsher bills this year.

While opponents have had some successes in a handful of states, far more states rejected anti-immigrant bills. One of the principal reasons for the failure of so many of these legislative efforts was cost. S.B. 1070 and bills like it in other states are expensive to implement at many levels, placing a heavy burden on state and local governments already feeling the effects of a down economy. This brief examines the costs of anti-immigrant legislation from a variety of perspectives, detailing the losses that states such as Arizona have already faced, as well as the future costs that states such as Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, which have only just recently passed their own anti-immigrant laws, will have to reckon with.

La Mancha de Arizona: Pogrom of Persecution - Community Impact of AZ SB1070 (2010-2011)

July 12, 2011

The Comités de Defensa del Barrio today announce that the official report on the Community Impact of AZ SB 1070 (2010-2011), intended to bring forward for public scrutiny the immoral collusion driven by the private prison industry, and their lobbying arm the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in cahoots with AZ Senate President Russell Pearce (author of AZ SB1070) and law enforcement personalities across the state will be delivered by a CDB delegation to the Major League Ballplayers Owners Association at their next official meeting.

The report will also be delivered to the Major League Ballplayers Association.

The report which will be presented in conjunction and with the support of national and international Human Rights organizations, community organizations and advocates of Human Rights including past Nobel Peace Prize Prize Awardees, is to be submitted as a denunciation of the complicity by the MLB nationally with the normalization of the discriminatory policing legitimized by AZ SB1070 and in particular Ken Kendricks, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks for his role in contributing financially to the fomentors of the AZ SB1070 legislation.

The private prison industry captures some $5 Billion dollars per year in tax payer profits, as agents of an immoral and corrupt system of corruption and collusion similar to the days of Tammany Hall.

Coinciding with the MLBA All-Stars Game in Arizona, the announcement of the report today by the Comités de Defensa del Barrio also assembled 150 protestors in formation of the Boycott Picket to Strike Out AZ SB1070.

Sheriff Arpaio Calls Off All-Star Game Chain Gang

Source: MyFoxPhoenix.com | Updated: Tuesday, 12 Jul 2011, 9:26 AM MST | Published : Tuesday, 12 Jul 2011, 9:26 AM MST

PHOENIX - An Arizona sheriff known for his crime raids in the Phoenix area says he is calling off his plan to have jail chain gangs pick up trash outside Major League Baseball's All-Star Game.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he wants the focus to be on the children and the national pastime instead of his chain gang.

The sheriff had planned to have three chain gangs decked out in striped jail garb posted around Chase Field during Tuesday's game.  One was to be made up entirely of undocumented immigrants convicted of drunken driving.

Arpaio regularly uses his chain gangs to draw publicity for his tough-on-crime message.

The sheriff also placed chain gangs near the 2008 Super Bowl.

 

Edge of Sports Radio with Dave Zirin Interviews Tupac Enrique Acosta regarding MLB All-Star Game Boycott

Edge of Sports Radio | Host: Dave Zirin

07/08/11 - Episode 165: BOOM! We have an amazing show this week. NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith as well as a roundtable of NFLPA reps join us to remember the late John Mackey. We also visit with activist Tupac Acosta to discuss his planned demonstrations at the MLB All-Star Game in Phoenix, Arizona. Laron Profit joins us as a guest co-host.

Segment 2 - We welcome in activist Tupac Acosta to talk about what he's doing to protest the MLB All-Star Game in Arizona.

Why I'm Boycotting Major League Baseball's All-Star Game in Arizona

by Dave Zirin | July 11, 2011| Posted in theNation.com

Over the last year, civil rights organizations, politicians, sportswriters and baseball players have asked Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to move Tuesday’s 2011 All-Star Game out of Arizona. He chose not to listen and now I choose not to watch. If I lived within a day’s travel of Arizona, I’d be choosing to protest at the stadium gates. Ever since Arizona passed its darkly punitive racial profiling law SB 1070, thousands of people have pleaded with Selig to do the right thing and move the game. Baseball is 27.7 percent Latino. It’s a sport dependent on Latin American talent from the baseball academies of the Dominican Republic to today’s biggest stars, Albert Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez. Even more, Major League Baseball has prided itself—and marketed itself—on historically being more than just a game. Bud Selig, in particular, is a man who publicly venerates the game’s civil rights tradition. Jackie Robinson’s number is retired and visible in every park and the great Roberto Clemente in death has become a true baseball saint. But Selig’s inaction makes his tributes to the past look as hollow as Sammy Sosa’s old bat.

Selig clearly loves the symbolism of civil rights more than the sacrifice. The presence of the game will mean a financial windfall for the state as well as for Arizona Diamondback owner Ken Kendrick. Kendrick is a first-tier right-wing money bundler who has let the state politicians behind SB 1070 use his owner’s box for fundraisers. The game will also mean a national spotlight for the vile Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County, our twenty-first-century Bull Conner. Arpaio has been threatening to bring down his pink-clad chain gang to clean up outside the stadium.

CDB: La Huelga del Pueblo "Arizona is the new Mississippi" - Enrique Morones on NPR

Comités de Defensa del Barrio
Press Statement
For Immediate Release
Thursday July 7, 2011
Contacts: Anayanse Garza: (602) 575-9712, Raul Cordero(602) 488 9731, Tupac Enrique Acosta (602) 466-8367

LA HUELGA DEL PUEBLO

Strike Out AZ SB1070!

Reaffirming the collective grassroots community commitment from the constituencies most affected by the pogrom of persecution that is epitomized by AZ SB170, and subsequent assaults upon the dignity, Human Rights, and Rights of Privacy being implemented nationally by NGI biometric identification systems being instituted under the guise of “illegal immigration” legislation, Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio in Phoenix, have called again for recognition and support for the HUELGA del PUEBLO which will manifest a public protest and Boycott Picket at the MLBA All-Stars game in Phoenix on July 12.

Addressing the context of the moral crisis which frames the controversial decision by the MLBA to continue to bring the 2011 Al-Stars game to Phoenix, in spite of the long standing Boycott Arizona position of a number of MLBA players and former players, Enrique Morones form the Human Rights organization Border Angels stated today:

“Arizona has become the new Mississippi and if Bud Selig were baseball commissioner in the mid 1940’s, we would never of heard of Jackie Robinson.”

Speaking from San Diego, California, Mr. Morones who is a former Vice President of Latino and International Marketing for the San Diego Padres (1995-2001) and presently directs the Border Angels Human Rights organization went on to say:

“SB1070 is only the tip of the iceberg in Arizona, you also have the founding of the Minute Klan, Neo Nazis on the border, Outlaw Joe Arpaio, Murder of 9 year old Brisenia Flores by FAIR member Shawna Forde, the abolishing of Ethnic Studies, 52% of the daily migrant border deaths along the border and what does MLB commissioner Bud Selig do?   Let’s celebrate our “National Pastime” in Phoenix.  It’s unacceptable.”

Hackers expose racism's underbelly: Driving while black, brown or red in Arizona

Driving, and living, while Black, Brown or Red in Arizona
Article and photo by Brenda Norrell | Copyright Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Photos: Arizona border victims by Brenda Norrell

TUCSON -- When the ACLU released the report, "Driving while Black or Brown," exposing racial profiling by Arizona police, it came as no surprise to Native Americans who live in the state. When hackers exposed the racist e-mails of Arizona police officers last week, it came as no surprise to the Native Americans who are victims of excessive force by Arizona police in bordertowns.

When hackers exposed the fact that off-duty US Marine contract killers are patrolling the Arizona border with assault weapons, stalking migrants, it came as no surprise to human rights organizations in southern Arizona. When hackers exposed the fact that a school cop was reporting the diversity class at a Tucson high school to the Arizona Attorney General, that probably came as a surprise to many students and staff at Santa Rita High School. The district is engaged in an ongoing battle with the State of Arizona to save its ethnic studies programs.

What was a surprise when hackers spilled data from Arizona police files? The surprise was that they got caught. Arizona police, private security officers and white supremacists have carried out their abuse and crimes with impunity in the State of Arizona. The Governor, Arizona State Legislature and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio have fueled the xenophobic attitude towards migrants and all people of color. This trio has attempted to create rule by white supremacists in a state populated by 21 American Indian Nations and diverse peoples and cultures.

"The good old boy" system crashed with the servers of the Fraternal Order of Police websites last week.

While the mainstream media fuels the racism, aiding private prison profiteers to fill their prisons with people of color, the media also paints Sheriff Arpaio as a colorful character, rather than examining the poisonous climate of hate he has injected into the region.

Open Letter to the MLBA: Strike Out AZ SB1070!

Open Letter to the Major League Baseball Players Association
Major League Baseball Club Owners
Fans of the Major League Baseball Teams
National and International Community

From:
Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio, Phoenix, AZ
O’odham Nations Territories
July 4, 2011
BOYCOTT and PROTEST
Of
MLBA All-Stars Game
Phoenix, July 12, 2011

Good greetings to all.  We are a community alliance of families, communities, organizations, and individuals that represent the most affected constituencies of the pogrom of persecution known as AZ SB1070, and the Obama Policy of immigration enforcement known as ENDGAME.  We are Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio (Committees in Defense of the Barrio).  We raise our voices to you as our relatives, as our heroes and as role models to our youth to consider the implications and consequences of your participation in the 2011 MLBA All-Stars Game in Phoenix.

We have made our position clear since the beginnings of our collective campaign in 2009 to address the inhuman, discriminatory, and unjust state and federal policies that officialize state sanctioned racism as result of the AZ SB1070 legislation. We have always stated as a matter of principle that our community sanctions in the form of targeted boycotts of the financial accomplices to the injustice of AZ SB170 would not be removed until AZ SB1070 is completely dismantled and rejected as law and policy in Arizona.  From this position we have never wavered and today we reiterate our call to confront the moral crisis of the present reality in Arizona:

• In spite of a partial injunction that came as a result of the federal lawsuit against SB1070, community members testify to the fact that the criminalization of the community is in fact in full effect and worsening. Since SB1070 was signed last year, Arizona has undergone the most blatant and abusive patterns of discriminatory policing involving state sanctioned racial profiling, under the guise of "immigration enforcement” normalizing a systematic pogrom of persecution based on racial profiling and discriminatory police enforcement policies.
• Further, the blatant collusion between the private prison industry and elected officials in the both law enforcement and the state legislature, along with financial institutions that are profiteering off of the persecution of the community signals the degeneration of our core values as a society that should uphold the basic principles of Human Rights.
• In Arizona we endure crime suppression sweeps by the Maricopa Sheriff’s office and suffer a climate of militarization of the entire society as a whole, epitomized by AZ SB 1070 and now being exported to other states, producing the Gestapo effect of the federal Secure Communities program implemented via 287(g) Agreements as an “uber police” force resulting in the degeneration of democratic society in favor of a dangerous slide towards fascism.
• We have seen individuals such as Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick make large financial contributions to the supporters of AZ SB170 without community accountability.  We have been victims of the collusion between shadow government entities such as the Mormon Caucus at the Arizona State Legislature and firms such as the Corrections Corporation of America, who along with financial institutions and investors such as Wells Fargo Bank, deliver lucrative contracts and services to the private prison industry at the expense of our public services, such as education and public health. 
• October 12, 1492: The inherent injustice which frames the overarching economic exploitation of our labor via the campaigns of criminalization mentioned is driven by the international trade policies of colonization among the government states of North America via the NAFTA (Canada-US-Mexico) regime, a system that gives preferential treatment for the extractive industries of the US and Canada to exploit the natural resources and labor of our peoples with no consideration for our Human Rights or Proprietary Rights as Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala.  In light of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the General Assembly on September 13, 2007 these policies must be denounced and rectified as violations of our collective Right of Self Determination as Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other Peoples.
• We have not seen President Obama deliver the mandate to the US Justice Department to PROSECUTE Maricopa County Sheriff J. Arpaio for violations of Civil Rights in light of accusations of violations delivered by our Community Indictment of January 15, 2010. (18 U.S.C.  § 241, Section 241: Conspiracy against rights; and 18 U.S.C.  § 242 Section 242: Deprivation of rights under color of law)

In view of the above, and with respect, we ask of you once again to reconsider the message we share with you now.  We are committed to realize justice for our families and communities.  Join with us, once again.  Many of the players of the MLBA are our close community relatives by history, family, culture and tradition.  These are the inherent and humanizing systems of value that we must defend, in good faith with our responsibilities to each other and the future generations of Mother Earth.

That we may complement our efforts in a spirit of mutual respect and dialogue, we now ask for you to honor our HUELGA del PUEBLO – STRIKE OUT AZ SB1070 Boycott by: 

• Not participating in the July 12, 2011 MLBP All-Stars Game
• Make a Public Response to the issues addressed in this message
• Agree to meet face to face with the Comités de Defensa del Barrio in Phoenix to dialogue on a long range proactive strategy in response to the ongoing Human Rights crisis in Arizona.

Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio

Self Determination: It’s Not a Question, it’s a QUEST

What happened to L.A.'s boycott of Arizona?

A year after the City Council approved the sanction, little has changed.

By Kate Linthicum | Posted in the Los Angeles Times | June 5, 2011

There's not even an ordinance specifying how the boycott should work. In May 2010, Los Angeles was a part of wave of cities that voted to boycott Arizona after lawmakers in that state passed a controversial law targeting illegal immigrants.

City Hall staffers were ordered to review contracts with Arizona companies for possible termination, and official travel to Arizona was supposed to be suspended.

But a year later, little has changed in the way Los Angeles does business with the state next door.

The city still buys street sweeper parts from one Arizona firm and has a contract for emergency sewer repairs with another, officials say. The Harbor Department alone has four contracts with Arizona companies that total nearly $26 million.

A similar pattern can be seen across California. Boycotts in Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles County made headlines last year but have since delivered little punch.

None of those jurisdictions has canceled a contract with an Arizona-based company because of the boycott — leading some immigrant-rights activists to dismiss the high-profile calls for economic sanctions as empty symbolism.

The disappointment is especially felt in Los Angeles, where Latino elected leaders strongly backed the sanctions.

"This is a moment of hypocrisy if the city of Los Angeles says one thing and does another," said Rabbi Jonathan Klein, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. Klein was speaking to a crowd of protesters gathered at City Hall to demand follow-through on the business ban.

Outernational to release free EP "Todos Somos Ilegales"

"We all live in the same house. If any one of us is illegal, then we all are illegal. There is no illegal human being. Say it over and over again." - Congressman John Lewis - YouTube (24 March 2011)

NYC-based band Outernational is releasing "Todos Somos Ilegales", a free EP dedicated to the US-Mexico border and immigrant rights worldwide.

Working with Tom Morello, Uproot Andy, Chad Smith and Ceci Bastida, the project is being funded completely through donations via the path-breaking website Kickstarter.  Longtime activists and troubadours, Outernational performed at the Alto Arizona protests in May 2010 and have caused storms around issues of immigration and US empire in their controversial live performances with inspiring songs such as "Que Queremos", "Sir No Sir", and "Fighting Song".

With only 10 days left to receive funding, all who care about a new future and a revolutionary youth culture need to join up and support this important new band.

Pledge a donation today to ensure this music can be released:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/outernational/outernationals-debut-album-and-a-free-new-ep

Hear sample song, Deportees here:

 

Steve Earle drops Tucson show, cites SB1070 boycott

Cathalena E. Burch, Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Thursday, April 14, 2011 5:27 pm

Tickets were supposed to go on sale Friday for Steve Earle's first Tucson show in two years, but on Wednesday night the renown singer-songwriter/activist "postponed" his July 4 appearance.

Earle cited the nearly year-old Sound Strike artist boycott for pulling out of the show.

In a letter posted on the Rialto's website, Earle said he "was under the mistaken impression that the boycott had been called off" after a Federal court struck down many of the provisions of Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law SB 1070. The law, which would give local police broader powers to identify illegal immigrants, is still wending its way through the federal court appeals process.

But Earle said he was only postponing his Tucson show until he could research the "boycott and its effects because as someone who supports the immigrants rights movement I am not convinced that it is useful to continue to stay away from progressive fans in the state."

Check out the full story in tomorrow's Arizona Daily Star.

(Source: Arizona Daily Star)

Senate alters, OKs immigration crackdown

By Jeremy Redmon | Source: AJC.com

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Georgia’s Senate on Monday approved an Arizona-style crackdown on undocumented immigration amid threats of economic boycotts and petitions from thousands of critics who oppose the legislation.

By a vote of 39 to 17, the Senate approved House Bill 87 after nearly three hours of debate and a lengthy and sometimes confusing discussion about several amendments.

Among other things, the Senate eliminated a provision in the bill that would have required many private businesses to use a federal work authorization program called E-Verify. That program helps businesses confirm their newly hired employees are eligible to work in the United States.

The bill now moves one step closer to Gov. Nathan Deal’s desk for his signature, but the process is far from over. Because the Senate substantially amended the bill, it must now go back to the House, which has been pushing for a tougher crackdown to include the E-Verify requirement for private businesses.

Some lawmakers predicted Monday the House would not agree to the Senate changes and would instead offer its own amendments or seek to appoint a committee to hash out differences between the two chambers.

"We will try to work things out and get things perfected in the conference committee," Republican Sen. Jack Murphy of Cumming, the sponsor of a similar immigration enforcement bill, said through a spokesman after the Senate vote Monday.

Time is running out. Thursday is the deadline for bills to pass this year’s legislative session. And while Deal campaigned last year on curbing undocumented immigration in Georgia, he has not yet taken a position on HB 87.

That bill is partly patterned after a tough new law Arizona enacted last year. The Obama administration successfully sued to block key provisions of Arizona’s legislation, arguing those parts are pre-empted by federal law. On Monday, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision to keep much of that law on hold pending the outcome of the federal lawsuit.

In Georgia, critics warned Monday the Senate should put the brakes on its immigration legislation, given the federal appeals court’s decision.

Arizona's cultural genocide law

Legislators in Arizona are pursuing a white supremacist campaign to erase Mexican American presence from teaching

Dr. Droberto Cintli Rodriguez | Monday, January 31, 2011 23.00 GMT Source: guardian.co.uk

The onslaught in Arizona of reactionary and immoral racially-based laws has managed to attract worldwide attention. The brown peoples of this state are being relentlessly persecuted by a majority population that wants to forcefully remove us and suppress our rights and deny our humanity. Here, the state has even gone so far as to, via HB 2281, to prohibit the teaching of ethnic studies in Arizona schools.

Unquestionably, the brown peoples of this state are treated as less than human. Not everyone treats us this way – just the majority: mostly conservative Republicans, many of them with a supremacist ideology. Their general attitude is: if you're brown (read Mexican), get the hell out of our God-given country. And for those of you who remain, either assimilate and abide by our [contrived and unconstitutional] laws or face the full wrath of the state.

There is embedded hate against brown peoples in Arizona – the kind associated with the 1800s, a time when the United States forcefully annexed half of Mexico. All of it is thinly veiled under the guise of opposition to "illegal immigration" and "border enforcement". However, the battle here is actually civilisational: brown peoples, many of whom have been here for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, represent the unfinished business of Manifest Destiny. For conservatives, we represent a return to a past in which we are viewed as a conquered, subhuman species. This brazen attitude informs all the recent anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant bills, proposed laws that long for a return to an idyllic past, which, in fact, never existed.

Arizona Boycott On Like Donkey-Kong, Say Pro-Immigrant Groups

Feathered Bastard | By Stephen Lemons, Wed., Mar. 23 2011 @ 9:32AM

In the wake of the defeat of five anti-immigrant bills in the state Senate last week, there's been some question about whether the boycott of Arizona over Senate Bill 1070 should continue.

There's no doubt that the boycott has been effective. Both the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce cited harm done to Arizona businesses by the boycott as the reason each organization has actively lobbied against anti-birthright citizenship legislation, and other anti-immigrant proposals pushed by state Senate President Russell Pearce.

60 executives say 'no' to more immigration bills

Mar. 16, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

More boycotts, more protests, more lost business. Arizona doesn't need this.
The state Senate is looking at a reckless, costly and counterproductive package of immigration bills.

Senate President Russell Pearce said, in a meeting with the Editorial Board, that he saw no downside to last year's misguided Senate Bill 1070.

Sixty top Arizona executives know the reality. In a virtually unprecedented move, they sent a joint letter to Pearce urging him not to pass any more immigration bills.

These are the leaders who cross the economic spectrum in Arizona, from health care and development to tourism and automotive. Their company names are familiar: US Airways, PetSmart, Sunbelt Holdings, Intel Corp. They include The Arizona Republic.

They can point to the cancellations, the missed opportunities and the lost jobs.

They know how much Arizona, a state that depends so much on tourism, feels the bite of controversial legislation that clouds our reputation.

SB 1070 created such a noxious cloud of bad P.R. that Gov. Jan Brewer put $250,000 into repairing the state's image.

And now the Senate is deciding whether to give Arizona another self-inflicted bad eye.

Imagine the spectacle of mass protests as Arizona hosts Major League Baseball's All-Star Game for the first time in July.