AfterDowningStreet.org has an amazing historical overview on why tomorrow there will be massive demonstrations and labor union strikes all across the country : 122 years of the 8 hour week and end of child labor, 5 years of "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, 3 years since the discovery of the Downing Street Minutes, 2 years since the nation-wide immigration rallies of 2006, almost 2 years ago when Nanci Pelosi and Democrats in Congress and the Senate took the impeachment of George Bush for misleading the country to war, "off the table". Yet in one of the most mindboggling examples of the Bush Administration's information war against Americans, May 1st has been declared Loyalty Day.

And here's the thing : You and I know that when it comes down to it, the war against immigrants is a war against labor which is part of a larger attack from the only people who benefit from the other kind of corporate-led violence like the occupation of Iraq.

As my friend Roberto Lovato said earlier, paraphrasing ActUP, "Silence = Death". If you are like me, you hate marches but you go to them because you know that as a symbol of solidarity in dissent you need to go.

So dust off your walking shoes and get your arse to the streets and square tomorrow at 2 or 3pm.

This is the last of the videos I shot at Elizabeth Upton's class at LaGuardia Community College. They are recent (and not so) immigrants who are in her English as a second language class (or the CUNY Language Immersion Program).

Here is part one of the series.

Then mozie on to part two.

Sultana asks the questions we all've been waiting for:

The students worked hard at coming up with questions. Sultana is actually asking the question for another student, Malva, who knocked it out of the part but was too shy to get on camera to speak her own words.

Believe it or not, some people want to know my opinion on things. Some of those things have to do with politics. For months now I've been telling people that Spitzer is not reaching out to the people he needs the most : The activists and advocated who pounded the pavement for him election.

Elizabeth Benjamin published yesterday an article that describes the sentiments of not only Democrats in Albany but everybody I know in the progressive grassroots.

In Clue us in, Democrats growl at Eliot Spitzer, Elizabeth gets on the record what people have been saying on the off since the Troopergate scandal broke off : Eliot has a serious communication problem with his base and this is not a problem we can just lay on his staff.

Here's the gold :

"He didn't consult us before, he didn't consult us now," said state Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx). "He let me go on the Senate floor and make a fool of myself. Now I have to take the time to stand up, eat crap and apologize. Eat my pride."

Some Spitzer allies saw the driver's license debacle as

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
– “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

This poem graces the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. For decades, this poem symbolized the American attitude toward immigrants. Our expanding country needed people to fill the jobs that were being created by the millions; immigrants filled those jobs, and built a life for themselves and their children.

March is an insane month for the amount of political events you can go to. The proof is in the amount of political heavy hitters DL21C was able to wrangle during that month : Jon Kerry, Wesley Clark, John Tester, John Edwards, Bill Richardson. It is also an insane month for the amount of technology and media conferences you can get invited to, the most important (at least for me) being SXSW --but there's eTech and IDPI as well.

I missed almost all the events involving presidential candidates because of the amount of conferences I was involved in during the month of March. Once I was done with my last one, ARC's national conference on "Facing Race", I was free to enjoy a candidate or two by the end of the month. I wasn't able to make it to the John Edwards event (I was having some fun at a party with Nancy Pelosi).

So 3/26 was Bill Richardson's lucky number.

Can you get free from the burdens of work and seder preparation on Monday morning? The Drum Major Institute is sponsoring a most-of-the-day talk-fest on New York City and the Middle-class.

Featured speakers include form Gov. Mario Cuomo, Mayoral-possibles Rep. Anthony Weiner and Comptroller William Thompson, Just-re-elected UFT President Randi Weingarten and NYC Finance Commissioner Martha Stark and Bronx Beep Adolfo Carrion Jr. You can read more about it here.

I personally had to move heaven and earth to clear the morning and will have to seder-prep all weekend, but I'm going.

Monday April 2, 2007 8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
Baruch College Conference Center, Newman Vertical Campus
55 Lexington Avenue at 24th Street, 14th Floor

Try calling, emailing DMI to RSVP.
See you there.

On March 25th 1911 (sorry, should have posted this yesterday!), 146 people died in the very building I work in. The result of their deaths was the rapid growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the real beginning of the fight against sweatshops. It also was the beginning of fire regulations in American cities.

The story of the fire and the missed opportunities to prevent it are chilling. But what is more chilling is the fact that America has forgotten why we need unions. Even some unions have forgotten what unions are all about, but I want everyone who doubts the need for unions to remember the events of March 25, 1911.

I work in what is now known as the Brown Building at NYU near Washington Square. But in 1911 it was the Asch building. The top three floors of the Asch building comprised the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. For the record, a shirtwaist is essentially a woman's blouse. I work a couple of floors below where the factory was. Today I look out my lab's window and I see the annual commemoration of those who died in 1911.

To volunteer for Craig Johnson, please call the campaign at 516-393-0700. If you're a Seventh District voter and witness or experience republican voter intimidation/suppression tactics, please call 1-800-300-8707 immediately.

Are you an anti-Semite? Find out.

Expect a vote on the new Comptroller tomorrow; it appears the legislature is waiting to see how the Nassau special election turns out.

Get sloppy drunk for the greater good.

The New York Times complete coverage of Fashion Week.

There's an Act Blue page dedicated to an Edwards-Obama ticket.

Also in the Times, a brief portrait of Haitian aspirations in the 40th.

Lastly, Maureen O'Connell is at it with deceptive fliers again, says Alex Navarro.

Chris Owens commemorates MLK, and includes a charming story about his mom, tearing up his principal back during his school days. That silly man hadn't known, one would think, that having Chris' mom up in arms really is severely ill-advised.

DMIblog also turns to King, here and here and here.

What is it with Albany and horses? The Times-Union reports on Shelly Silver's member items, featuring an annual tradition of $250,000 going to a charity headed by the daughter of the chairman of the New York Racing Association. He, in turn, offers his Saratoga home to the Assembly Democrats for a fundraiser every year during the races. Note: it doesn't need to be illegal to look sleazy.

The New York Times: Governor Spitzer wants New York to take the lead on stem cell research. Standing in the way, as usual, is Senator Roadblock, Joe Bruno.

Rochester Turning looks at the positions taken by local Congressmen on the Bush-McCain escalation plan to kill more Americans.

Left Behinds dissects the immigration debate with the use of a fiendish, heathen construct known as "data".

Quinnipiac polls Mayor Bloomberg, who receives a 75% to 16% approval/disapproval rating. The fallout from the Sean Bell killing is confined to Ray Kelly and the NYPD, viewed negatively by 34% and 40%, with approval at 52% and 53% respectively. That's down from Kelly 70% to 16%, NYPD 72% to 20%. Among blacks, the numbers are, unsurprisingly, worse: Kelly 32% approval, 57% disapproval, NYPD 23% approval, 63% disapproval.

Lastly, since I just noticed – not paying attention here, I guess – that The Politicker has a feature called 'Elsewhere', we need a new title for the daily news roundup. Suggestions in the comments, please.

I see that Andrew Rice at The Politicker has beaten me to the punch on this one, but it's worth rehashing. The good folks at People for the American Way, intrigued by the Federal government's revamped test for new citizens, decided to administer it to randomly selected people hurrying around downtown Manhattan, and the results are much what one would expect: slightly more than half failed.

So are we just ill-educated, vapid, reality-TV-obsessed shopaholic zombies, or is the test too high of a hurdle? Now, before you answer that – we Americans do have this tendency to describe ourselves in our great masses as, well, charming, but not always too bright – consider these questions:

How many amendments does the Constitution have? (My guess would have been twenty-nine, but the correct answer is two fewer than that. In consolation, nobody – nobody! – got that one right.)

What is the rule of law? (The correct answer is "Everyone must obey the law, leaders must obey the law and government must obey the law"; I would have likely started ranting about impeachment, but hey.)