Update: This is a statement directly from the now unemployed Sensata workers in Illinois:

"There seems to be some confusion about whether or not our Sensata plant took down our American flag and replaced it with the Chinese flag. Here is the truth. Sensata took down our American flag on the day they flew in our Chinese replacements that we were forced to train. They put our American flag back up after the Chinese workers left. They never flew the Chinese flag."

I've also been attempting to contact a spokesperson for the workers directly, with no response yet, but I think it's probably safe to say that if the plant owners had placed that small flag on the fence in the video, that would have been mentioned in this statement. My apologies for any confusion created by my statements about the Chinese flag.
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Right now in Freeport, Illinois, some 170 workers at an auto sensor plant are sleeping in tents to protest Bain-owned Sensata Technology’s decision to ship their jobs to China.

The company recently made factory officials take down the American flag when they were forced to train their Chinese replacement workers, according to Tom Gaulrapp, with the United Steelworkers Union.

That's un-American, my friends.

This is taking place as Mitt Romney tries to convince people to believe that he doesn’t know about Bain's shipping American jobs overseas. He is trying to distance himself from Bain Capital, a pioneer of outsourcing where Romney made a fortune as CEO.

Another employee losing her job, Mary Jo Kerr, is a young mom of three. She's heartbroken because she can’t afford dance lessons for her daughter. Another is Dot Turner, so close to retirement, but will not receive it. Instead Dot will get just 26 weeks’ severance for 43 years of work in the plant.

Listen to their stories in the video above, and be sure to note the Chinese flag flying in front of the plant at about 1:10 into the video...in Illinois.

More on the Bain-owned Illinois Sensata plant:

'When I Hear Mitt Romney Speak it Makes Me Sick to My Stomach'

Sensata Worker Outsourced by Bain Speaks Out

Occupy Tampa: Shut Down Bain Capital

Arrests at Bain-Owned Sensata Plant

Sensata Employees Ask Mitt Romney To Save Their Jobs

A new investigative report from Seth Rosenfeld of the Center for Investigative Reporting has revealed that one of the most well-known radical activists of the 1960s, Richard Masato Aoki, an early member of the Black Panthers, was an FBI informant.

Via:

The man who gave the Black Panther Party some of its first firearms and weapons training - which preceded fatal shootouts with Oakland police in the turbulent 1960s - was an undercover FBI informer, according to a former bureau agent and an FBI report.

One of the Bay Area's most prominent radical activists of the era, Richard Masato Aoki was known as a fierce militant who touted his street-fighting abilities. He was a member of several radical groups before joining and arming the Panthers, whose members received international notoriety for brandishing weapons during patrols of the Oakland police and a protest at the state Capitol.

Aoki went on to work for 25 years as a teacher, counselor and administrator at the Peralta Community College District, and after his suicide in 2009, he was revered as a fearless radical.

But unbeknownst to his fellow activists, Aoki had served as an FBI intelligence informant, covertly filing reports on a wide range of Bay Area political groups, according to the bureau agent who recruited him.

Reportedly recruited as he was graduating from Berkeley High School, A Nov. 16, 1967, intelligence report on the Black Panthers lists Aoki as an "informant" with the code number "T-2."

"He was my informant. I developed him," FBI agent Burney Threadgill Jr. said in an interview. "He was one of the best sources we had."

On Sep. 17, 2011 Occupy Wall Street started a revolution. One year later, join us for three days of education, training, and protest in New York City.

The 1% is controlling our fates; we are drowning in loans, student debt, fraudulent mortgages. You are not a loan. Democracy is sold to the highest bidder, destroying our political process, our communities and our environment. Join a mass mobilization of the 99%. Stand and be counted. Let’s occupy our future, together.

They can steal your job, your home, your freedom, your vote.

They can’t steal our ability to dream together.

Nothing is impossible once you refuse to live in fear.

We are the 99%
Bring your friends.
9.15-17.12
Financial District, NYC
Occupy Wall Street

Film created by Dennis Trainor, who also made "American Autumn."

Occupy National Gathering

View a complete list of speakers, workshops, and trainings here: LEARN & CREATE
Occupy National Gathering Schedule (printable version: right click, save link as…)

SATURDAY, JUNE 30TH

All activities will be on Independence Mall (5th and Market) and surrounding parks unless otherwise noted.
9am – Set-up – Independence Mall and surrounding location
11am – 3pm – Occupy Caravans arrive
11am – 1:30pm – Speakers
1:45pm – 3pm – Open Space, Workshops, and Speaker Follow-up Sessions
3pm – NatGat Welcome – Main Stage
3:30pm – “Know Your Rights” training – Main Stage
4pm – “Summer Training” – Community/Solidarity/Skill-Building Exercises
6pm – March
7:30pm – Dinner served*
8pm – 9pm – OccuArts – On-stage Performances (if you’d like to perform, contact Jacob at wjacobr@gmail.com)
9pm – Festivities: Panic Hour Comedy Show

*All meals will be “first come, first served”, but we’ll do our best to get everyone fed. Please bring food to share if you can.

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From Occupy Wall Street:

Guess what's just a week away? May Day! Join an unprecedented coalition of workers, immigrants, and occupiers of all kinds to step, for one day, out of work, school, stores and homes and into the struggle against an inhuman system. See you in the streets!

Ready to help now? Occupy Wall Street's Direct Action working groups could use materials and funds to help make May Day 2012 a historic day of protest and celebration.

Occupy these Upcoming Events

Thursday, April 26, 1pm
Direct Action Trainings
Union Square on the north side, & Washington Square at the center fountain
Two introductory Direct Action: 101 trainings will be held concurrently in both Union Square and Washington Square, concluding with a practice march leaving from both locations and converging.

Thursday, April 26, 4pm
People’s Assembly: Speak Out on Wall Street
Federal Hall, Wall Street side steps
We began a literal occupation of Wall Street on April 9th, which the 1%’s police proxies have brazenly attempted to suppress. The People’s Assembly goes to the true source of the suppression, Wall Street, and aims to reclaim our right to peacefully assemble at the birthplace of the Bill of Rights.

Thursday, April 26, 6pm
Occupy the Panel for Educational Policy
Prospect Heights HS, 883 Classon Ave, Brooklyn, NY
Learn how we can help build a movement of parents, teachers, and students to stop school closings and win democratic control of our schools. Stand in solidarity with the teachers, students, and parents of the 26 “turnaround schools.”

Thursday, April 26, 8pm
Occupy Your Mind - The American Spring
Choir Loft, Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square Park South
Join us for an evening of live performances based on interviews with the Occupy Movement featuring members of The Civilians Ensemble, members of the Judson Memorial Church community and members of the Arts Diaspora NYC.

Friday, April 27th, 2pm
Weekly Wall Street Marches: Final Spring Training Day!
Liberty Square
For six consecutive weeks, we’ve trained in street tactics, learned to creatively move and communicate together, built a community of trust, and rung the People's Gong as a call to action. Join us for the final Spring Training Day!

Continue reading »

Occupy Wall Street // Spring Training // April 13, 2012 from Mo Scarpelli on Vimeo.

On a more positive note, Sunday an Occupy Wall Street demonstration drew hundreds of peaceful protesters to Central Park for a "Spring Awakening" and General Assembly, and on Friday in Lower Manhatten, the group engaged in Spring Training, hoping to unite and better organize supporters by their next major campaign push -- May 1, 2012. Watch the video by Mo Scarpelli.

Start training for May Day and join the spring resistance! Weekly marches every Friday; meet at 2 PM in Liberty Square!

Via the NYCGA:

On Friday, March 16, 2012, at 2PM, Occupy Wall Street will converge in the streets once again and launch the first in a series of spring training marches from Liberty Square to Wall Street in preparation for May Day, a day of massive economic non-compliance and strike. These marches will occur weekly and will allow occupiers to practice various street tactics and theatrics. For the first march, participants are encouraged to wear athletic gear, don their game face, and prepare to make the 1% feel the burn!

Organizers say besides growing comfortable employing various tactics with each other in actions, the intention of these marches are to strengthen the community to make upcoming campaigns and efforts, like reoccupation, as successful as possible.

After organizing, training, learning, growing, and working together for the winter months, Occupy is returning back to the basics as done in September: accessible direct actions to strengthen our community and voice our grievances to the 1%. Crimes by Wall Street brought us here and the 99% will continue to drive the message home and make civil unrest tangible.

The schedule is as follows: Meet at 2 PM in Liberty Square for sign making and a short march tactics training. At 3 PM occupiers will march to Wall Street and descend on the New York Stock Exchange to counter the closing bell with “The People’s Gong.” Following the march there will be a potluck dinner at 60 Wall Street.