Two Raging Grannies of seven who played and sang at Pro-Choice rally and march in Los Altos, CA on January 23. Photo was a “picture of the week” in the San Jose Mercury News. Credit: Mercury News Staff Photographer Karen T. Borchers.
Click on photo for a report with more photos on the march and rally from indybay.
Photo coverage in Chinese newspaper World Journal on January 19, 2012, shows our demo in front of Apple store in Palo Alto of January 18.
Hey, Apple. We’ll be back. Raging Grannies say, STOP OUTSOURCING for profit gain. Anyone hear President Obama’s State of the Union Address last night, January 24? He is saying the same thing to big corporations. That means YOU, Apple! Grannies add this message: STOP EXPLOITING WORKERS!
Click on photo for more coverage of Jan 18 demo.
PRO-CHOICE AND PROUD
The annual rally and march sponsored by the American Association of University Women for CHOICE saw Grannies once again…
Front and Center!
Dr. Sophia Yen and Liz Figueroa, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood, Mar Monte, addressed the gathering before the group took off on a march through downtown Los Altos.
Action League Raging Grannies opened the program with singing and were invited to lead the group of about 200 through downtown Los Altos, leading the pack with chants and songs.
After Action League Raging Grannies sang in San Francisco for Pro-Choice, we were seen on 3 local news stations on Jan 21, 2012.
In this photo, Granny Nancy interviews with NBC Bay Area affiliate Channel 5.
Pro-choice 2012 in San Francisco!
Photo by Kim Kinoshita. On January 20, Action League Raging Grannies joined the San Jose Grannies in front of the Old Court House for a rally to say “Corporations are NOT people!” More coverage HERE on www.indybay.org.
Raging Grannies, some dressed as factory workers, protested outside the Apple store in Palo Alto yesterday. More pix and full story HERE. For information on why Apple’s joining the Fair Labor Association is only a symbolic first step, see this piece from Good Electronics Network. That labor rights group will be watching the situation very carefully….and so will the Grannies!
Our story aired on local news channels KNTV and KTVU.
A young man came by and livestreamed our protest on veetle.com. He became an instant friend!
What: Protest Apple Labor Abuses in China
When: Wednesday, January 18 11:45am
Where: Apple Store
451 University Ave.
Palo Alto, California
Who: Labor rights activists, the Raging Grannies
Political activists for labor rights say that despite attempts to improve its image in the last 5 years, Apple has worse-than-sweatshop manufacturing conditions in China. These conditions include mass worker suicides, child labor violations, excessive workloads, and exposure to toxic chemicals.
The Grannies say that any promises Apple is making in recent days to take steps to rectify the dire situation, are “too little too late”.
Join us as we demonstrate outside the Apple store at 451 University in Palo Alto on Wednesday January 18 from 11:45 am.
Apple replied to accusations that it has turned a blind eye to working conditions in China saying it conducts a number of surprise audits every year in order to “make sure our suppliers are not just showing us what they want us to see.”* But recent interviews, conducted in Shenzen, China by Mike Daisey, have shown that children as young as 12 years old are working in Foxconn factories that Apple uses. He discovered in a visit to a facility there that underage workers are hidden away when inspectors come.
It’s fair to say every Apple Computer has the blood of workers on it. While labor activists have long asked for greater oversight, Apple clearly looked the other way. To blame, in part, is the Silicon Valley cult-like worship of Apple. When Steve Jobs died, you couldn’t walk in downtown Palo Alto without noticing the many shrines to him in store windows. Steve Jobs-worshippers would have had the flag at half-mast if they could have.
The previous CEO at Apple was known to keep Apple internal workings shrouded in secrecy. We only hope that new CEO Tim Cook will keep good his promise to change the corporate ethic.
Make no bones about it, our beloved internet is in serious danger…
and here is why.
Last year legislative measures were introduced in the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives, S. 968 (the “PROTECT IP Act”) and H.R. 3261 (the “Stop Online Piracy Act”). Their primary purpose, as we see it, is to help Hollywood keep rolling in the profits. Passage of these bills would mean that so-called “rogue” websites could be censored when they infringe on copyright law.
BUT…the language in both of these bills is written with a very broad paintbrush. Their passage would have a huge impact on the work of human rights advocates who speak out against injustice on sites that could easily be labelled “rogue” websites. It’s a slippery slope when censorship reigns.
The indymedia network that thrives on open publishing (and our favorite www.indybay.org here in the San Francisco Bay Area) would be subject to censorship, defeating the very purpose of its existence. Similar platforms created to provide anonymity to whistleblowers could become major casualties of these bills.
All to save Hollywood’s bottom line?
It’s not often that Raging Grannies align with the likes of Facebook and Google. We’ve protested at Facebook about their lack of privacy considerations, and at Google because of their flip-flop on internet neutrality. (After we demonstrated last time at Google we wound up on Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’ and in a New York Times photo). But this time we are on the same side with the two internet giants. They too have come out AGAINST these Hollywood generated bills.
We are keeping track of who supports PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the house through this useful site. And we are taking action.
Our Senator Dianne Feinstein has disappointed us before by not standing up for Social Security…she disappoints us again by being a co-sponsor of PIPA. We are sent her an open letter with the photo above.
And we applaud our local Silicon Valley Congresswomen Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo who say NO to SOPA.
US Senators from California Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein are listed as PIPA co-sponsors. You can contact Senator Boxer at (202) 224-3553 and Senator Feinstein at (202) 224-3841. In other states, reach out to your own US senator.
Tell them the PIPA is dangerous…it could be used as a tool for online censorship. Tell them what websites YOU use that could become toast, and why you think it is important that we have a free internet.
Please tell your Congressperson to vote NO on SOPA.
Our friends at the Electric Frontier Foundation and Save the Internet help us stay up to date on what can be done to keep the internet free of censorship. We proudly stand together with them for internet freedom.
Hear us comment on on KPFA 94.1 evening news hour about the National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law by President Obama on December 31, 2011.
The Act ratchets up the ante against Iran, gives more power to the US government to detain and incarcerate, and can only lead us to endless war.
