Love & Rage Archive

By Matthew Quest

By Christopher Day and Jessica Parsons

First there was the waiting. The 1,111 Zapatista delegates to the Founding Congress of the FZLN (The Zapatista National Liberation Front) in Mexico City were supposed to arrive in San Cristobal de las Casas between two and five in the afternoon. A small crowd huddled under a tarp in the pouring rain to meet them in the cathedral square. Gradually the crowd grew. By eight o’clock the Zapatistas still had not arrived, but the rain had cleared and now about 2,000 people waited in the square. Music was playing from the stage; a few hot air balloons with “EZLN” painted on the side were released into the night sky, but still no Zapatistas.

By K-Dog

For fifteen days this August 185,000 Teamsters shut down United Parcel Service, forcing the world’s largest package delivery company to concede to all the union’s major demands including wage increases, expansion of full-time job opportunities and union retention of the workers’ multi-million dollar pension plan.

The strike, which pitted the largest union in the US against its biggest employer, was the most significant labor struggle in decades. It was widely seen as an attempt by organized labor to become a major player in society again after decades of concessions to corporations, shrinking membership, and declining influence with the rulers.

By Laura W.

January 22, 1998 marks the 25th anniversary of legal abortion in the US. A quarter century after women won this basic right on paper, the ability to control our reproductive lives is not a reality for most women. Cutbacks on welfare, lack of child care, dead-end jobs, lack of healthy birth control alternatives, men that won’t use condoms, lack of health insurance, lack of access health services including abortion and prenatal care, harassment and violence at our clinics, in our homes and in the streets are just a few of the obstacles to this critical aspect of women’s freedom. In anticipation of January’s anniversary I look forward to an ongoing dialogue about how to take back this battle, reframe it in terms of women’s lives and health—and win.

By Keith Mitchell

On August 29, over 10,000 demonstrators closed down southern Brooklyn in support of Abner Louima who was allegedly assaulted in the basement of Brooklyn’s 70th precinct. Marchers packed the trains in the early morning hours on the way to the rally’s starting point. An eclectic bunch of nuns, priests, whites, Latinos, and African-Americans broke down the barriers that partition everyday life in New York’s transit system, and spoke of a common disgust of the details of the Louima case and the high level of police abuse under Mayor Giuliani.

Among the groups participating in the rally were the October 22 Coalition, Refuse and Resist, Forever In Struggle Together (FIST), and ACT-UP! Tim, an activist in ACT-UP!, expressed the common ground between different groups in the city in reaction to the police “Brutality is often times used against our community as a means of intimidating, especially those who begin to speak out.”

By Carolyn

On July 19, 1997 the Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced, “the unequivocal restoration of the cease-fire of August 1994.” The renewed cease-fire came soon after the Orange Lodge (a Protestant cultural organization loyal to the British government) canceled some and rerouted two of the four Orange Order parades scheduled for July 12. Nationalist outrage at the beginning of the Loyalist marching season (Loyalists, also called Unionists, support the enforced “union” of Ireland’s six northern counties with Britain), forced the Orange Order to cancel the parades. The widespread demonstrations, protests and rioting caused an estimated $30 million of damage in the first week in July. This massive show of resistance followed the July 6 Drumcree Parade which thrust its way through Republican neighborhoods accompanied by the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) and the British Army.