Create Your Own Petition to Make Change

This is about the future of the world and how American taxpayer money is being used against the wishes and needs of the people who pay taxes.

The Nakba, meaning catastrophe in English, marked the 1948 mass expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from geographic Palestine and the destruction of over 400 Palestinian towns and villages following attacks by Zionist militias. The Nakba continues today as Palestinians continue to be displaced from their historic homeland. We must re-affirm our government's 1948 commitment to the right of return for all Palestinian refugees to their homeland who choose to do so. The urgency of this recognition is made clear by the current efforts of the Israeli regime to continue the Nakba by seeking to displace over 1,300 Palestinians from the communities of Masafer Yatta, where Palestinian families have lived continuously for centuries. Masafer Yatta is but one of many communities at risk. We applaud Congressman Huffman’s signing a statement that recognizes what Israel is doing in Masafer Yatta as “inconsistent with international humanitarian law, according to Articles 49 and 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." This effort at ethnic cleansing must not be tolerated and we must demand accountability and allow no complicity from the United States in furthering this crime against humanity. There is no room for Nakba denial in the United States today, just as there is no room for Holocaust denial or a revisionist history of slavery and racism in the United States as some reactionary voices would impose on us. Hard truths must be addressed honestly if we are to create a better future for us all. We must deal with the historical roots of what is happening as Israel continues to displace and oppress the Palestinian people, imposing upon them, as numerous human rights organizations have concluded, an apartheid regime. Recognizing the Palestinian Nakba is the truth that will set us free to pursue a new foreign policy based on building justice leading to reconciliation and creating genuine peace for all the people of historic Palestine. Congressman Huffman, cosponsor H.Res. 1123.

The 13th Amendment (1865) ordered the abolition of slavery in the United States, except as punishment for a criminal conviction. In other words, federal law permits the use of prisoners and incarcerated persons for free labor by state officials as well as the private sector. From the late 1800s until now, unpaid prison labor has been the pattern, practice, and collective mindset of various states across America. Southern states have taken particular advantage of the wording of the 13th Amendment, and in turn, current resistance movements have risen out of prison-dense states like Texas and Alabama, where units are often compared to plantations. Over the past few years, prison activists in Texas and Alabama have organized a series of prison-labor strikes -- where they refuse to work their assigned jobs in protest of unpaid labor compounded with toxic and unsanitary working conditions. The prison-labor strikes have led to prison lockdowns, starvation tactics and brutality by guards. Thus far, three prison units in Alabama and fourteen units in Texas (including a women's unit) have been placed on lockdown in reprisal for a collective work-stoppage. RootsAction stands in solidarity with these prison activists fighting for their human rights, and we urge you to do the same. Prisoners, like all other human beings, should be compensated for their labor, whether with wages or with reduced sentences. Paying prisoners for their labor enables them, not only to better provide for themselves while in prison, but also to pay outstanding bills and unpaid court fees that have accumulated over time (and that may have landed many of them in prison in the first place). Compensating prisoners for their labor through a legitimate "Work Time" system that reduces their sentence grants hardworking prisoners the opportunity to be reviewed early by parole boards and released back into society. This system also relieves state taxpayers, through the simple fact that an earned early release is one less prisoner to pay for. END PRISON SLAVERY NOW Sign this petition to demand that Congress revisit the 13th Amendment and propose a new amendment to the Constitution that abolishes free prison labor and applies the federal minimum wage to all labor in the U.S. and its imperial territories.