Quick apology for update delay...

I wanted to make a quick entry to apologize to readers of pilsenprole for the lack of recent entries. In particular I want to apologize to the members of MIRA! (The Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance) for not having had time to add any of the audio or photos I took on my visit last week. My return to Chicago was very brief and I do not have regular access to a computer during my travels in Mexico.

I will be posting new stories to this blog in the coming weeks related to...

Visits with workers on the Gulf Coast.
Visits with FLOC (Farm Labor Organizing Committee) members in Monterrey Mexico.
Visits with APPO and Teachers union members in Oaxaca Mexico.
General travel observations.

as time and technology permit. Please check back often. The site will be more fully updated in August.

In Solidarity,
Jerry Mead-Lucero

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Best Films of 2023...

Best Films of 2023 Well, it's already early February somehow and award season for the 2023 film year is well underway. 2023 was the first year post-pandemic I was able to see the volume of new films to warrant a top 10 list - a practice I started in 2017 but abandoned after 2020 when like the rest of the world I was mostly forced to watch releases from years past on streaming services. Last year, despite my ongoing poverty, through a host of tricks, streaming services, tight budgets, and the generosity of friends, I was able to see around 40 new releases. For most of 2023, I considered it the YEAR OF DISAPPIONTMENTS . That's still my primary description of the year in film. Long anticipated and ballyhooed new films by Nolan, Scorsese, Fincher, and Wes Anderson to name a few all left me dissatisfied. Not because I am an adoring fan of these directors, but given the high regard with which they are held and given the rich subject matter on which ...

Financial Crisis Brings Historic Opportunity…

www.whatnowtoons.com Wow, what a difference a few weeks can make. Less than a month ago, every mainstream mass media outlet, U.S. politician, economic analyst, and probably the majority of average citizens would still have been singing the praises of the unfettered free market. Regulation was still a dirty word and privatization was still equated with efficiency and prosperity. Granted, the sand had already begun to shift under this ideological edifice of 30+ years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble had seriously shaken the confidence of some in the system. I had mentioned repeatedly on Labor Express Radio over the Summer the glaring contrast between the soaring gas prices we experienced here in the laissez-faire fuel market of the U.S. as compared to the low and stable prices maintained by the state oil company of our neighbor to the south. But none of that seemed to really change the mainstream belief in this country that free markets solve all prob...

Urgent call for solidarity with Mexican miners...

Reprinted from ILC International Newsletter No. 316, Dec. 17, 2008 The National Union of Mineworkers, Steelworkers, Steelmakers and Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSSRM) is being subjected to fierce repression by the fraudulent government of Felipe Calderon and by the Grupo México, the mining monopoly that seeks to destroy the union. What is the mineworkers" crime? It"s defending the right of workers to decide who their leaders should be without government interference; it"s defending their collective-bargaining agreement. On December 4, Carlos Pavon Campos, Secretary for Political Affairs of the mineworkers" union, was arrested in Mexico City. He was immediately transferred to the city of Monclova in the state of Coahuila (in the north), on charges of alleged fraud. The day before, Juan Linares Montufar, president of the union"s Main Committee of Vigilance, was transferred to Mexico City. Linares Montufar had been arrested in the city of Morelia i...

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