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This week on Uprising:

* Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly
* Empire Notes on a Tale of Two Atrocities
* Immigration: What’s Really Behind the Raids
* Black Agenda Report on Black Mass Incarceration
* Jonathan Kozol’s “Letters to a Young Teacher”

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Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly

GUEST: Mateo Martinez, Political Advisor for the Ecuadoran Government

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa celebrated the overwhelming majority gained by his ruling coalition in recent constituent assembly elections. The constituent assembly will convene on October 31st of this year and will have 180 days to rewrite the nation’s constitution. The draft will then have to be ratified by a second national referendum in 2008. Correa’s victory at the polls follows the political crisis earlier this year surrounding the referendum: Ecuador’s Electoral Tribunal approved holding a constitutional referendum and fired 57 lawmakers for trying to block the project. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whom Correa has been unfavorably compared to by detractors, congratulated the Ecuadorian leader on his referendum victory. President Chavez stated that the referendum victory “is how Latin America is moving forward, from victory to victory, from triumph to triumph.”

For more information, visit www.presidencia.gov.ec/

Empire Notes on Biden and a Tale of Two Atrocities

GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today commentary is on a Tale of Two Atrocities.

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

Immigration: What’s Really Behind the Raids

GUEST: Roberto Lovato, Writer with New American Media, The Nation, and the former head of CARECEN in Los Angeles.

The Senate recently approved an additional $3-billion for so-called border security, most of which will be used to build some 700 miles of fencing in an attempt to keep migrants from crossing. Lawmakers voted 95-to-1 to add the funds to a nearly $500-billion defense bill. Meanwhile, more than 1,300 people have been arrested by ICE officials in Southern California in the past two weeks, which authorities say was one of the largest actions the agency has ever taken. And while mainstream media called the actions a crackdown on so-called criminal aliens, about one-third of those arrested had no criminal record whatsoever. Nearly half of those arrested by ICE have already been deported. These latest raids are an extension of an increasingly visible attack on immigrants.

Roberto Lovato blogs at www.ofamerica.wordpress.com

Black Agenda Report on Black Mass Incarceration

GUEST: Bruce Dixon is the Managing Editor of The Black Agenda Report

This week’s commentary is about Black Mass Incarceration. Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Jonathan Kozol’s “Letters to a Young Teacher”

GUEST: Jonathan Kozol, author of “Letters to a Young Teacher”

As half of new teachers around the country are likely to quit within the first five years on job, Jonathan Kozol has written a new book of letters to a first year teacher. The semi-fictionalized “Francesca,” based on young educators who have written to Kozol over the years, is a new first-grade teacher in an inner city public school in Boston. Through a series of sixteen letters, Kozol offers his advice on the challenges and joys of teaching within an apartheid school system in the United States. In “Letters to a Young Teacher,” Kozol also goes to core issues effecting public education by discussing No Child Left Behind, school vouchers and excessive testing standards. The long-time educational advocate who started the new non-profit “Education Action,” has protested No Child Left Behind, by going on a liquid diet fast. Jonathan Kozol first began working with children in inner city schools more than forty year ago. In that time, he has also authored numerous books including Death at an Early Age, The Shame of the Nation and Savage Inequalities. People’s historian Howard Zinn has said of Kozol’s latest work that “teachers, students, parents alike will find this book inspiring.”

Uprising’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“We either teach our children it’s okay to write and talk about the things they think to be the truth or else we teach them that it’s more acceptable to silence their beliefs, or even not to have beliefs but to settle for officials truths that someone else has carefully prepared for them.” — Jonathan Kozol