Buffalo Tenants United has begun distributing a new newsletter, Tenants United! throughout apartment buildings in the city of Buffalo. The newsletter will be used as a means of connecting tenants throughout the city to what's happening in their buildings and in the larger fight for housing justice while building momentum and membership for Buffalo Tenants United. If you would like more information about Buffalo Tenants United, they can be contacted at buffalotenantsunited@gmail.com or (716)218-9435.

Tenants United! can be downloaded here.

Buffalo Tenants United is a union of renters from throughout the city of Buffalo. They organize alongside tenants to fight for quality and affordable housing.

The first edition of Buffalo Class Action's quarterly agitational paper can be found here. This edition contains two articles. The first, is a call for building a movement of tenants and the homeless throughout the city of Buffalo. The second article talks about the goals of an anarchist agitational paper and why we need our own media, as an anarchist organization.

A natural disaster has descended upon Haiti whose scope we only are seeing the surface of at this time. The Haitian people will be struggling to rebuild their lives and their home possibly for decades in light of unprecedented collapse, both physical and social. Yet despite the unpredictability of earthquakes, this disaster is unnatural, a monstrosity of our time. The extent of the damage of the earthquake is part of the cost of unrestrained exploitation which at every step put profit above the health, safety, and well being of the Haitian people. While the world watches on ready to help, power is being dealt an opportunity. The Haitian workers and peasants have been fighting for their rights to even the most basic level of existence for decades, while the UN-occupying force, the state, and the ruling elites maintain the social misery without relenting. Now as Port-Au-Prince is in rubble, new opportunities arise for rulers to rebuild Haiti in their own interests, and likewise for the Haitian workers and peasants to assert their right to their own Haiti, one where they will be not be forced to live in dangerous buildings, and work merely to fill the pockets of elites, foreign or domestic.

As we move from watching in horror to taking decisive action, progressives can offer an alternative. There is a strong and beautiful desire to do something, to help others in this time of need. Our actions are strongest when we organize ourselves, and make a concerted effort in unity. Right now we can have the deepest impact by committing ourselves to act in solidarity with the autonomous social movements of Haiti directly. They present the best possible option for the Haitian people, and are in the greatest need. At the same time, we are in the best position to help them out our common interest as people engaged in struggling against a system that works to exploit us all. We are calling for solidarity people-to-people engaged in common struggle. It is not only a question of money for AID but also an autonomous and independent act of international solidarity that illuminates the bankruptcy of the occupying forces, multinational corporations, and Haitian elites that are primarily responsible for the decayed state of Haiti. There will be aid flowing and money given as a form of charity until the next disaster. Our act of solidarity should, in no shape or form, be solely an act of humanitarian aid. It should not be an apolitical act, and we shouldn’t give the green light to those that wish to capitalize on the suffering of others. It should be an act of solidarity to the struggling people of Haiti and their organizations while at the same time rejecting the totally inept Haitian elites and their state apparatus for bankrupting Haiti. The earthquake is a natural disaster, but the state of Haiti, the abject poverty of the masses and the vile injustice of the social order, are unnatural.

We have a relationship with one organization, Batay Ouvriye, and are putting our resources and time into helping Batay Ouvriye to help rebuild from the catastrophe and maintain the struggle for a better Haiti and a better world. Batay Ouvriye is a combative grassroots worker and peasant?s organization in Haiti with workers organized all over Haiti, especially in the Industrial sweatshops and Free Trade Zones. We have set up a means to send money to Batay Ourviye. If others wish to send money to Batay Ouvriye, please use paypal here DONATE NOW.

• We believe that to uphold the well being of our working class communities it is necessary to abolish the system of capitalism.
• We recognize the state as a violent and oppressive institution meant to uphold the inequalities of society.
• We are opposed to hierarchy which we view as oppression. It is a coercive attempt to consolidate power in the hands of the few.
• We believe in the liberation of all people and support the struggles against racism, sexism, heterosexism, and the abolition of all social and class oppression. These struggles have multiple fronts and must be fought within ourselves, our organization, and society as a whole.
• We work to promote a social revolution, not a political one.We promote taking individual and collective action towards a social revolution.
• We are internationalists. The struggles we face in our communities are not unique.
• We therefore see the importance in unification with other participants of these struggles in the larger global movement.
• We are proud to be part of an international Anarchist – Communist tradition; one that has an incredible history of struggle within working class communities and that is built fundamentally from our interests. We fight for the immediate needs of our class while proposing the overthrow of capitalism and its state, in favor of a free and equal society where all power belongs to the people.