Pottawatomie Creek

You got that, Asshole: Standing in solidarity with my fellow university employees

2007-07-03T09:46:00.000-04:00

Below is a reprint from Fight Back! News, the paper printed by the folks at the http://www.frso.org Freedom Road. My personal allegiances aside, it points to a problem that's all too familiar to University employees.

Neo-liberalism has brought budget cuts and corporate style governance that continually reinforces austerity in terms of staffing, supplies and pay in the daily lives of hourly employees. It causalizes the professoriate by increasing the prevalence of adjunct faculty; workers paid barely $7.00 an hour, teaching between 1 and 5 classes with no job security beyond the semester they are contracted for. All the while, allowing for massive opulence at the top. Administrative salaries nation wide approach the $500,000 per year mark (with notably higher exceptions). Usually these pay packages also include public funded mansions in the local ruling class neighborhood, 5 figure expense accounts, cars, yearly 6 to 7 figure bonus packages, and even private airplanes.

Here's hoping that U of M gets reminder that these folks are "hard working tax paying people" who "don't take shit from no one."

U of M Workers Standing Up for Standard of Living (originally at Fight Back! news)
By Brad Sigal

Minneapolis, MN - Workers at the University of Minnesota are fighting for a wage increase. On June 13, members of U of M AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) packed the room and testified at the University on Minnesota Board of Regents public hearing on the budget. They told the regents that union members’ salaries have lost about 5% of their value compared to inflation since 1994. Meanwhile, the university president’s salary has gained almost 80% in value above the rate of inflation, and all other high-end administrators have also gained salary increases well over the rate of inflation.

AFSCME members and supporters then rallied on June 27 outside the Board of Regents meeting where the budget was voted on. They demanded that the regents allocate money for a serious wage increase for clerical, technical and health care workers, to reverse the trend of low-paid workers falling behind inflation while top administrators continue to get larger and larger increases.

Members of AFSCME began contract negotiations in late May. Clerical, technical and health care workers at the university are negotiating together in a unified negotiating committee for the first time. This unity is also visible in the workplace, where hundreds of workers from the various unions have come together in a series of lunchtime meetings to hear the union’s presentation on wage disparity at the University and to organize to change the situation.

Sign the Iraq Moratorium Pledge!

2007-06-27T11:34:00.001-04:00

Sign the Pledge!

IRAQ MORATORIUM

September 21 and every Third Friday thereafter

Today the Iraq Moratorium project steps onto the public stage!

Over 60% of Americans want this war over--and they want it over yesterday. The political process is moving glacially, at best, to make that happen. It's got to stop! We've got to stop it!

The idea is simple. On September 21 and on every subsequent Third Friday, millions of Americans will break with their daily routine to take some concrete step to demand an end to the war and the return home of the troops.

The hallmark will be the wearing of black ribbons and armbands, in mourning for all of those who have died in this senseless adventure--Iraqis, American and other coalition troops, and others. All of us who want this war ended can decide what steps we will take, individually or with others, on September 21. Together, acting where we live, work and study, we will create a mighty shout so loud that the media won't be able to white it out and the politicians won't be able to ignore it.

The Iraq Moratorium is not an organization. It was initiated by a small group of anti-war activists from very diverse backgrounds. We see it as a project that will strengthen the work of existing anti-war groups. Even more important, the clear and simple message, the local focus and the variety of activities it can encompass will bring into motion great numbers who have not yet taken any action against the war.

It is a 21st century project: the reach of the Internet and the Web will help get word of the Moratorium to tens of millions. Please help by forwarding this message widely.

To learn more, to pledge to take part in the Iraq Moratorium, and to get involved, please go to the website

Iraq Moratorium Committee

June 19, 2007

Chris Hannah: Worst Canadian!!!

2007-05-31T08:01:00.000-04:00

Busy, busy, busy. On Saturday night I took time out to drive 4 hours and 15 minutes with my little brother to watch Propaghandi play. Needless to say, it was amazing. Finally getting to see a band you have loved since you were 15 - wow.

Anyways at the show it was brought to everyone's attention that the band's lead singer and lyrical mastermind Chris Hannah has actually made it into the Canadian popular history magazine The Beaver's 10 Worst Canadian poll. He currently appears to be ahead of both Celine Dion and Bryan Adams.

Naturally, my request is a simple one. Take five minutes, head to The Beaver's poll here, and vote for Chris Hannah 3 times (surveymonkey is kinda dumb, so if you have multiple IP-unique machines around you can maybe vote 15 times or something). Do your part!

"We're fuckin' AFSCME"

2007-03-20T14:05:00.001-04:00

A needed pick-me up on this most wonderful of aniversaries.

Sinn Féin Cheers Trade Union Leader

2007-03-12T09:07:00.000-04:00

Jack O'Connor, General President, SIFTU, speaking at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, March 2, 2007

I would like to begin by congratulating Sinn on the progress it has made, and the courage of its leadership in working towards a just and lasting settlement of the issues that have divided the people of this island for so long.

In more ways than one we are living through a remarkable period in our history, one which is laden with potential for good but one in which danger lurks as well. We have unprecedented levels of prosperity but are also experiencing the most sustained assault on the gains made by working people here, and across Europe, since 1945.

This offensive is carried forward under the banner of market liberalisation, exploiting millions of vulnerable people who have no alternative but to work for half nothing. This assault is conducted with the assistance of a neo-liberal creed that depicts the world as locked in a battle between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys. The Good Guys are consumers and the Bad Guys are producers. The Good Guys are champions of free choice and competition, while the Bad Guys are protectors of selfish vested interests in this virtual universe. Naturally workers are among the Bad Guys.

We all know of course that this is a completely artificial division of humanity because workers and consumers are the same people. Like designers of video games, the neo-liberals have to erase certain realities to make this paradigm work. The most important of these is the inalienable right of every citizen in a democracy to a fair opportunity of experiencing a full, free and happy life.

Despite our prosperity and being spoilt for choice as consumers, this is becoming increasingly difficult. The reality is that many things people took for granted in less prosperous times such as occupational pensions, the 39 hour week, security of employment and being paid the rate for the job, are being systematically dismantled.

Now, in a world that confuses cheapness with value for money and wage cuts with competitiveness, we are witnessing a dramatic casualisation of jobs through bogus self-employment in some industries and the outsourcing of jobs in others to employment agencies who compete with each other in a relentless race to the bottom - driving down and undermining terms and conditions of employment.

Last week I saw a contract of employment in one of our premier industries, aviation, where a worker with an employment agency was paid the princely sum of ¤9.21 an hour. In return they were obliged to work a shift roster which had no regard whatsoever for any entitlement to rest, relaxation or participation in family life.

Indeed, if you look at CSO figures on trends in average pay across industries such as construction, hotels and catering, you will see they are only half the rates provided for in 'Towards 2016' and also substantially less than inflation. It is ironic that this is happening as we approach the centenary decade for the critical years in the founding of the modern Irish state, including the formation of the first of the unions that eventually gave birth to SIPTU, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union. In fact it is exactly 100 years this week from the day when Jim Larkin addressed his first meeting of workers from the Belfast docks and events were set in train for the 1907 general strike in the city, which not alone united catholic and protestant workers, but picketers and policemen in a demand for better pay and conditions!

I am very conscious therefore of the significance this decade has for Sinn Fein and of your dedicated commitment to the aspiration of a free and independent Ireland. But I want to remind you of what Connolly wrote, not 100 years ago but over 110 years ago, 'The struggle for Irish freedom has two aspects; it is national and it is social. ... Nationalism without Socialism - without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed formŠ is only national recreancy'.

Present day patriots who violate the rights of ordinary working people are certainly recreants by Connolly's definition. For them the Tricolour is nothing more than a flag of convenience.

Along with the battle for independence in the political arena there is an equally important struggle underway in the workplace, the outcome of which will determine whether working people in this country, who constitute the vast majority, will have any say at all in determining the shape of the future. Otherwise it will be shaped exclusively by those whose only preoccupation is the accumulation of profit to the exclusion of every other social and human consideration. In their vision of the world everything should be decided by what happens in the supermarket and the stock exchange, rather than through the democracy of the ballot box.

It is an unequal battle in which those endowed with wealth and privilege enjoy enormous advantage, but I know I am speaking to people who are not overawed by long odds, and they are not as long as some would have you believe. Despite all the negative criticism from the right wing press there are actually more people in trade unions on this island now than there have ever been before, and this reflects a passion for justice and fair play that is deeply embedded in the history of our society.

It is this sense of justice and fair play that has seen Irish people stand up for the rights of migrant workers. As internationalists we have actively sought to recruit them and non-Irish nationals now comprise ten per cent of SIPTU. As you will recall from the Irish Ferries dispute we insisted on taking the issue of workers' rights to the top of the agenda in negotiations on a new national agreement and secured significant improvements in employment legislation, as well as better enforcement of existing regulations. Our whole policy in this area has been determined by the principle that every member of the workforce is entitled to the same rights, to be treated with dignity and respect in the workplace, irrespective of their country of origin.

I want to conclude by thanking the Ard Comhairle for the opportunity of speaking here today and to wish you every success with your conference. I look forward to the participation of Sinn Féin activists in the trade union movement, in encouraging people to organise in unions and to have the confidence to stand together in solidarity in the fight for a better future for all.

Repost: Take Five--Points Toward a Summation of the 1st Annual Blogging Against White Supremacy Day

2007-01-21T13:11:00.000-05:00

My good friend Jimmy Higgins reminded us that simply doing is never enough without summation of what was done. So I have reposted his thoughtful summation of the first Blogging Against White-Supremacy Day (to borrow from comrade Lauren). So for your reading pleasure:

Take Five--Points Toward a Summation of the 1st Annual Blogging Against White Supremacy Day

[Take Five. Every Friday, Fire on the Mountain picks a category and lists five cool things in it. It's up to you, dear reader, to add your own in the Comments section. Just click on the word "comments" at the bottom of the piece and you're off to the races.]

Okay, so this is kind of low road. I didn’t have a topic (like political James Brown tunes a few weeks ago) conveniently thrust before me by the world, and I wasn't having much luck casting about for ideas—five kinds of dental floss? five cool episodes of My Mother The Car?

At the same time I have been feeling a little unsettled that the first annual Blogging Against White Supremacy Day came and went without any summation. This is, I know, in keeping with the short shelf life of stuff on the Internet but I get old school about this sort of thing. When a project of some political importance is undertaken, there should be some summation. What follows is not that summation, but one guy’s ideas about what happened and how to look at it. Others should please chip in. (The most complete set of links to participating blogs is at Pottawatomie Creek, the blog where the original call went up.)

TAKE FIVE

1. Quantitatively, I count twelve or thirteen bloggers who put up something privilege–related between the 14 and the 17th. (A few who signed up to do it don’t seem to have actually posted at the time.) In addition there were a bunch of interesting comments, especially on the better-established blogs. While I knew most of those who participated, there were a couple of gratifying discoveries, and I trust others had that experience.

2. Most of the posts can be slotted (or forced) into a few broad groupings (leaving out Lauren’s inspired choice of an Audre Lorde poem and CelticFire’s graphic).

Historic documents: Haisanlu, LeftSpot and me

Reflections on Dr. King’s role and his holiday: Bolivariano Roja, the indefatigable LeftSpot, EightOneUnderRedStar

Aspects of white supremacy today: Yolanda (twice). Lefty Henry, John, Modern Pitung

Personal reflections: Jesse on hipness and white supremacy in Santa Cruz and Nelson H on having a White Citizens Council skeleton in the family closet.

[I personally found these last the most interesting and most thoughtful. They were also the most in the diary spirit which blogging still carries from its origins, a spirit which is more personal and less instrumental that most political blogging.]

3. Ya gotta organize. As Mao says, without a general call the broad masses cannot be mobilized. Nelson H issued such a call. But Mao goes on to call for going deeply into the work in a few places to make breakthroughs. As above, this isn’t how Teh Internets work in general, but we aren’t average netizens; we are, most of us, revolutionary socialists, and we know a few things about organizing which may be applicable in situations like this.

For example, uniting with the advanced to win over the intermediate. Two places where more effort, I would argue, would have been richly repaid occur to me immediately. One is Stan Goff’s interesting and well-trafficked Feral Scholar. Even more important, I would argue is the young feminist/womanist of color patch of the blogosphere. Folks like Yolanda and Zooey are steady blogging about white (and male) privilege and the intersectionality of oppressions, never mind a particular day, and coming up with some really interesting stuff.

4. Overall, I thought the first Day of Blogging Against White Supremacy went pretty good and I hope folks are primed to keep addressing these issues over the coming year. Keep your eyes open to develop links and ties with others you come across over the next 12 months who address these questions, so we can start the 2008 BAWS push with a cohort at least triple what we wound up with this time.

5. As I’ve been mentioning every chance I get, The Cost of Privilege: Taking on the System of White Supremacy and Racism, the fantastic new book by Chip Smith and a small research and writing team, will be out within weeks. Along with it will come a new website for the book, which promises to deliver some “value added” for folks who visit it. Right now, I’d like to ask each person who blogged on BAWS Day for permission to add a link to their contribution. If you say “yes,” it’ll spare me chasing you down one-on-one to solicit you.

(Okay, so 5 is not a point of summation. Sue me.)

Fighting to Lose What White Folks Have

2007-01-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

Today is recognized as a day of remembrance for Martin Luther King, Jr. This man's whole life, the life of his wife and family and the many twists and turn that the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) went through during the course of some thirteen years becomes "history." Branded for mass-consumption. Cleansed of dangerous politics. Reduced to trite snippets about peace and non-violence in the most ultra-personal of ways.

Dr. King was a complex human being, to be sure, full of infinitely greater depth and detail than any 45 minute television special with plenty of room for commercials can ever do justice. He was one of the greatest mass leaders the U.S. has ever known. He was on the right side when it came to the majority of society's pressing questions in his time. And yet he was often on what most of the readers of this blog ought to consider the wrong side of any number of disputes within the Black Liberation Movement.

Blogging on the anniversary of his birth, attempting to respond to my own general call that we as radicals, socialists, activists and Marxist-Leninists collectively take up issues of white supremacy as our topics for the day, I was thoroughly reminded of Dr. King's complexity. The initial post I had begun last week was much in the vein of what LeftSpot posted yesterday, entitled MLK, the Black Sanitation Workers Struggle in Memphis, and the Ongoing Struggle. I am a Tennessee public sector worker engaged in struggle to win the same rights that brought Dr. King to Memphis in 1968. A day after marching with striking sanitation workers, this trip would ultimately end in Dr. King's assassination. The T.V. specials will leave a large "gap" in King's life and politics that stretches from the 1964 March on Washington to King's death in 1968. They will only briefly mention his work to end the U.S. imperialist war in Vietnam and his work against institutional poverty in the U.S. These aspects of who Dr. King was are consistently excluded when his life is presented as "history." And with my personal connection with the trip that fatefully brought him to my home state of Tennessee, understanding and helping others to recognize this gap has always held special importance for me. But LeftSpot's piece is better written and better researched than what I had planned on posting, so on to plan B.

"Just Fighting to Keep What Little Bit They Had Left"
So although I took a couple of hundred words to introduce the King holiday and Dr. King's story as one of complexities, intentional "gaps" and struggle, this is not really a post about Dr. King. Instead it is one dedicated to him and to the work of those who made him what he was. History, as the Gang of Four lyric goes, is not made of great men. History is the aggregate of millions of lives, each filled with her or his own complexities, struggles and gaps. Together these lives form the narratives of nations, classes, peoples and families during certain historical periods. The story I want to tell is one concerning my own family, and the complexities, struggles and gaps I associate with my great-grandfather.

This past summer my wife and I were staying with one of my uncles. We were up playing cards and talking. The conversations had focused on aspects of family history me and my cousins did not know. Stories about my uncle who died when he was 16, drama between my grandmother and her sisters, and how my dad got kicked out and sent to live with my great-grandparents when he was in his mid-teens. When the subject of my great-grandparents came up, my partner posed the $10,000 question. Was it true, she asked, that my great-grandfather was in the greater Nashville White Citizens’ Council?

She may have felt emboldened by her new status our recent marriage had given her within my family, she may have just been a little drunk. Whatever the reason for her asking, her question (and the negative connotation so obviously associated with the way she asked it) stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. Well, at least momentarily. After the folks in the room had a second to catch their thoughts, and my cousin had begun trying to change the conversation my uncle went into a half-drunken tirade. He was shocked by her "crazy" question, my great-grandfather was a good man, “a man of his community.” (Crazy being the an adjective most women reading this will be all to familiar with being labled after asking blunt, truth seeking questions). He even accused her of participating in some great "liberal" conspiracy to make up so-called white hate groups and denied that the White Citizens’ Council even existed.

Ultimately, my uncle conceded that my great-grandfather's politics were atleast sympathetic to the White Citizens' Council, couching his admission within a thick layer of "he just did what was right for people of his race at the time" bullshit. As far as my unlce was concerned, the familial patriarch and other white folks at the time had simply beem "fighting to keep what little bit they had left."

We were to believe that my great-grandfather wasn't a racist bigot who made tons of money by evicting Black sharecroppers and then selling off land that had been part of his mother’s family’s plantation. He wasn’t a Klan sympathizer, even if his own class status demanded that he engage in more cultured forms of repression against Middle Tennessee's Civil Rights Movement. He was not to be remembered for having a banker friend deny my parents a car loan because my Catholic succubus of a mother had corrupted his grandson by living with him prior to being married. He wasn't the one who refused to attend my baptism because he did not attend papist churches. He was, according to my uncle, a good man.

Drawing Lessons
So why share such a story? My intention is certainly not to perpetuate the argument that racism is a personal evil that each of us must overcome on our own. Recent polling shows how bankrupt such notions are. I share it because where there are complexities there are lessons.

My great-grandfather was in several ways what my uncle tried to describe him as - a good man. He deeply cared for his family as best as he knew how; in time he even came to like my mother most among the women and men that his grandchildren married. He was a man of profound moral conviction, although the definitions he used in determining what was moral were truly horrible. Like his moral convictions, my great-grandfather was a deeply damaged man. He was unable to see humanity is others, and unable to really love others as a result. This is the deceit at the heart of what white privilege offers, the ability to be considered "a person" in our society at the cost of white folks' very humanity.

The reason I was able to make it through college with next to no debt is entirely a result of the money my parents inherited upon his death and the lessons about how to generate wealth he taught my father during the 4 years my dad lived with his grandparents. The field of Wealth Studies has produced mountains of research that shows how society distributes both wealth in terms of inheritance and the skills to develop and manage wealth. Studies like United for a Fair Economy's The Color Of Wealth show how white supremacy as a system shapes these phenomena.

And certainly the vigor with which my uncle felt he had to defend his grandfather's actions reeks of sort of response necessary whenever privilege is challenged. Systems of power and privilege are naturalized to such an extreme that an organization used by wealthy white men to conspire against supporters of the Civil Rights movement by denying them home and business loans, foreclosing on their debts, and cheating them out of wages seemed justified to my uncle. Attacking the economic welfare of a community engaged in struggle for its very survival is nothing more or less than "fighting to keep what little bit [white folks] had left."

Mao challenged us to seek out the general in the particular, and radical feminists have argued that we must see the personal as political for nearly as long. I share this story because more than any other personal experience that I can think of, this exchange between my partner, cousins, uncle and I illustrates several of the key theoretical aspects I have come to associate with the study and understanding of, as well as the struggle against white supremacy.

As the five second memorials to Dr. King are made on day-time talks shows, mid-day news casts and prime-time public service announcements, I will ponder my great-grandfather's life, with all his sins, complexities, failures and successes. And by knowing where my family comes from, I hope I can draw strength that sustains me in the on-going struggle I and other white people must wage in order to destroy this most horrible of systems. That will be my tribute to the life and struggle of Dr. King. That will be my homage to the millions of freedom fighters whose contributions gave us this holiday.

Blog Against White Supremacy, a General Call

2007-01-09T08:23:00.000-05:00

Even with my calendar sitting in its obligatory spot on the left corner of my desk, I can barely believe that we are already into the second week of January. In less than a week we will celebrate the Martin Luther King Holiday, one of the few "people's holidays" we have to celebrate in this country.

In the coming weeks I'm challenging myself to take on questions of white supremacy and white privilege as a central focus in all forthcoming posts. I extend this challenge to others in our corner of the blogosphere. I remember Villa Villekula's call for bloggers to make "classim" the topic en vogue this past Labor Day; and in this vein I propose a very specific form of the aforementioned challenge.

Let's take the MLK holiday as an opportunity to blog against white supremacy.

A broad topic indeed, but one that is so foundational to any other conversation we might have, whether we are talking about patriarchy, capitalism and class structure, popular culture. Plus many, many folks already do this daily. But the idea is a more coordinated effort to flex out collective muscles. If others agree with this idea, spread the call far and wide. Everyone has a solid 6 days to get a story worked out. At the very least transcribe a good theory piece and put together a decent intro. Get friends who don't blog involved. I'm always amazed at the shear number of folks on MySpace - get friends to post something there in the blog section or even as a bulletin. It doesn't matter, just lean on them to do it.

Drop a comment on this post if you are up for it, and I will start to keep a list on the side-bar along with a post early next Monday with a lists of blogs to follow that day. And another shout out to Villa Villekula, since she ultimately serves as my inspiration for this idea.

[White Supremacy] [MLK] [Martin Luther King] [holiday] [King holiday] [MLK Holiday] [racism] [MySpace] [anti-racist]

Arnold as America's Tommy Douglas ?

2007-01-08T17:12:00.000-05:00

I intentionally avoided the use of the cliché mixture of exclamation points and question marks in the title to the post, but it took some self-discipline to be sure. In California's newspaper from the San Francisco Chronicle to the LA Times and beyond in the so-called paper of record, the New York Times, the media is abuzz with Schwarzenegger's called for a state-wide single payer health insurance program that would cover every last Californian (up-to and including undocumented children - whether or not undocumented adults would be covered remains unclear to me).

Although the California Nurses Association did have a press release stating that their President Deborah Burger would be available for comment, while pointing out that the Governator already vetoed a bill that would have created just the sort of program he now claims to promote. Many have long pointed to the experience of our northern neighbors as tome from which lessons ought to be drawn in our own countries struggle for just healthcare. The life of Tommy Douglass offers some starting point when attempting to do so.

I certainly plan to follow this story in the coming weeks to see what sort of twists and turns it will inevitably take.

United Campus Workers - CWA local 3865's Holiday Banquet

2007-01-05T15:58:00.000-05:00

On December 19, 2006 United Campus Workers - Communications Workers of America (UCW-CWA) local 3865 had its annual Holiday Banquet and Employee Celebration. This year, the local had several cosponsors: East Tennessee Jobs with Justice, CWA local 3805 (at BellSouth) and that local’s retirees association, as well as the Newspaper Guild-CWA and Mailers-CWA locals in town. Additionally, as a result of some outside of the box thinking on the part of UCW leaders, CWA International President Larry Cohen was in town to give the key-note and strategize with UCW-CWA activists. Close to 300 people showed up; a good time was had by all.

The following snippet even made its way into the Thursday's CWA e-newsletter:

Knoxville Locals Strategize with CWA Leaders

December 22, 2006

In Knoxville, Tenn., about 300 CWA members from various sectors spent a lively evening talking union with CWA President Larry Cohen and other leaders at an "Employee Celebration" sponsored by four CWA locals on Dec. 18.

From bargaining rights to organizing to building the Stewards Army, CWAers talked about how to build union power and make gains for working families in this so-called "right to work" state with no public worker bargaining law.

Sponsoring the event were CWA Locals 3865, United Campus Workers, representing 460 employees at the University of Tennessee; Local 3805, representing telecom members; Local 33076, representing newspaper workers at the Knoxville News Sentinel, and Local 14351, representing mailers at the newspaper. Joining the crowd of 300 were CWA District 3 Vice President Noah Savant and D3 staff members, plus members of Jobs with Justice, the Teamsters, UNITE HERE and other unions.

The United Campus Workers local, which gained 160 new members this year, is organizing and mobilizing members to press the state legislature for gains and improvements.

The newspaper workers and mailers locals are fighting back against management's demand to eliminate cost of living increases and substitute an unfair merit pay system, and the telecom local is battling "force adjustments" and other assaults on jobs.

By building the Stewards Army and working to build our bargaining power, CWA can achieve our critical goals of quality jobs, health care, retirement security and bargaining rights, Cohen said.

Not bad at all for an organizing project that was suppose to fail in 2 years...

Nearest Book Tag from Elaina

2006-12-13T08:26:00.000-05:00

Elaina over at Trash Talks Back tagged me with a unique take on the whole blog-tagging phenomena. Here are the rules as laid out on 'Laina's blog: 1. Go to the nearest book in your reach and turn to page 123. 2. Go to the fifth sentence of the book. 3. Copy the next three sentences, then tag someone else.

Gregoire penned a pamphlet, Lettre au citoyens de couleur (Letter to the citizens of color), which was circulated throughout Saint Domingue and, many claimed, fomented the rebellion. Shortly after, as the French Revolution descended into the Terror, Gregoire played a key role in relations between Saint Domingue's revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture and the French government. Gregoire proposed the return of Catholic missionaries to the island; Toussaint, fearful that a threatened British invasion would result in the reenslavement of his followers, wrote Gregoire regularly for advice.

Source: Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass, Volume 2 (I work in a library, what'd you expect. It was either that or the Uniform Building Code, Volume 3)

Tagged: Jimmy Higgins, Modern Pitung, and Left Spot.

Repost: 3000 Dead by Christmas? Help People Take a Stand

2006-12-12T08:40:00.000-05:00

I'm going to follow Sankofa Meets the Future author Ajamu's lead and repost an article from Jimmy Higgins Fire on the Mountain blog. Enjoy.

In the first week of December, 31 US troops died in Iraq, bringing the total to around 2,920. At the current rate, the 3,000 death will be reported sometime between Christmas and New Year's Eve. If not, it will happen in January for a certainty.

Suddenly the US death toll will be back on the front page and back on the evening news, however briefly, fueling the deep and growing anti-war sentiment among the people of this country. The Associated Press reported December 8 that its latest poll shows 71% of the country disapproving of Bush's handling of Iraq and 60% in favor of getting the troops out within six months!

The anti-war movement must develop and hone ways of tapping and harnessing this sentiment. Bush refuses point blank to listen to anyone but his "gut." The new Democratic majority in Congress, far from providing the leadership people elected them to give, shows nary a sign of fighting for an immediate end to the occupation.

That's the point of this post: armbands or pin-on ribbons, black for mourning with the number 3000 in white, will be a powerful statement of sorrow and of protest in the days after that grim milestone is reached.

If activists make these in the coming weeks, not just for their own use, but in quantity to distribute to everyday folks--in shopping districts, on campuses, in front of government buildings, at busy mass transit stops, wherever there are people in motion--many will be moved to have an armband or ribbon pinned on them. As they go about their daily routines, they will bear silent witness to the anger so many feel.

Across this country, small local groups have stood up bravely for the last four years to oppose the war, holding weekly vigils, showing anti-war films in living rooms, firehouses and church basements, writing letters to the editor, lobbying elected officials, supporting anti-war candidates. Now is a good time for them to expand that work among their neighbors, co-workers, fellow students.

Making and handing out ribbons or armbands to mourn the 3000th death is a model for the kind of outreach work that needs doing. Many who agree with us will never carry a picket sign, let alone get on a bus to DC or San Francisco. The activists among us need to develop activities they can engage in with a low threshold of entry, and often that small first step--voting in a local referendum around the war, signing a postcard to a Congressman, or wearing a black ribbon--will help folks think about themselves and their responsibility to help end the occupation in a different way.

If big coalitions and groups like United For Peace and Justice, US Labor Against the War and Peace Action, progressive Internet-based forces like MoveOn.org and others get behind this push in coming days, the impact could be substantial.

Comments and suggestions are most welcome.

Scissors PSA

2006-12-05T11:27:00.000-05:00

I am starting to worry that US educators may have stop teaching children how to properly hand someone scissors in Kindergarten. My job forces me to interact with college-aged women and men, and out of the 3 or 4 dozen times I have handed students scissors this year not ONCE have they been given back to me handle-side-first. I'm only in my early-mid 20s, and I vividly remember being scolded for not employing proper scissor handling techniques!

Loyalties

2006-12-04T15:46:00.000-05:00

John beat me in congratulating Hugo Chavez for his sizable lead in voting returns for the Venezuelan presidential race (rougly 2 to 1) with the timely usage of what might just be the most fun chant I know of - "¡Uh, ah, Chavez no se va!"

US media coverage of the election is as unbiased as anyone would expect. Maintaining high levels of journalistic integrety, CNN lead their story with an apt describtion of Chavez as the "anti-American socialist Hugo Chavez." Jingoistic yellow journalism at its finest.

To quote Anti-Flag, "Remember, in times of conflict all for-profit media repeats the ruling party's information. Therefore all for-profit media becomes state-run."

[2006 Elections] [Venezuela] [Hugo Chavez] [the devil] [socialism] [media bias] [CNN] ["Communist News Network"]

When it rains...

2006-12-01T14:51:00.000-05:00

Another new-ish blog of note has got to be Sankofa Meets the Future. Adding two new links under the Compañer@s // Other Blogs heading in one day, I'm euphoric!

New blog on the scene

2006-12-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

We have a new edition to the M-L corner of the blogosphere. Comradely greetings are extended to Jimmy Higgins over at Fire on the Mountain. Nice literary reference for the blog's title and everything. Although I cannot lay claim to having read the book (if anyone wants to send me a copy for a christmas present you'll find no complaints on my end), based on what I understand of the book's premise I think that this blog will have a special place amongst my favorites.

New FRSO/OSCL Statement: Reflections on the November Elections

2006-11-28T13:41:00.002-05:00

by National Executive Committee
Wednesday, 22 November 2006

Though many activists on the Left, including those who want nothing to do with the Democratic Party, were thrilled that the Republicans were trounced on November 7th, it is critical that we think through the implications of what unfolded.

The election results clearly demonstrate fury with the Bush administration's policies on Iraq, but they also reflect (at least according to the polls) disgust with Republican corruption. According to a CNN exit poll on Election Day, 57% of voters disapprove of the war in Iraq and a Newsweek poll showed that 53% of Americans want impeachment to be on the agenda.

Both of these tendencies are something upon which progressive and Left forces can build. It is also interesting to note that more than 1/3 of the electorate saw themselves as explicitly voting against President Bush.

Clearly there is an indication of some cracks in the strong hold of the right wing. An interesting development is the growing divide between the Christian Right and the Republicans. Top Republican strategists are now calling their grassroots religious base “nuts”, and as a result much of the grassroots Right simply didn’t show up at the polls. Following the losses in Congress, many Christian Right leaders are moving away from the Republican Party and are looking at a base-building non-partisan approach. This could indicate a rupture in the right wing of the ruling class in the future.

While the Republicans largely lost, the Democrats, to a great extent, won by default. In other words, they did not win because they had a coherent, alternative program particularly but not limited to the Iraq War. Yet the growing anti-war/anti-corruption sentiment among the people was channeled through the Democrats. The 'mandate' of the Democrats can come undone, fairly easily as a matter of fact.

We do not wish to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak, but there are immense dangers and possibilities in the current moment. The greatest danger is that of demobilization. One need only think back to the Clinton years and the manner in which his presidency effectively demobilized social movements, as well as liberal and progressive forces generally. The fear of criticizing Clinton because it might fuel the Republicans (at least that is the way that the rhetoric went) led to nearly complete silence while welfare was repealed, the anti-terrorism act was passed, more people were incarcerated in the U.S. than under any president, Yugoslavia was bombed, Iraq was being strangled...and the list could go on and on.

It is fairly clear, that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have a strategy for pullout from Iraq. This—plus the fact that the Democrats represent ruling-class interests, simply different bourgeois interests—will cause them to drag the war out. Most likely the Democrats will not pursue the goal of pullout and a call for the impeachment of Bush, but rather maintain a “safe” position and a bi-partisan relationship with the Republicans in Congress if left to their own devices. As always, “power concedes nothing without a demand.” Given the popular support and the “mandate” to end the war, the Left can play a strategic role in advancing the role of organizers beyond elections, escalating tactics and ultimately forcing the issue to an immediate end to the war.

At this moment we would suggest three basic points:

1. The need for strong social movement mobilization: Including but not limited to the anti-war movement, social movements need to advance challenges and put forward demands. United For Peace & Justice, as we understand, is planning on a major mobilization for January 2007 and this is precisely what must be done. In addition, we must consider upping the ante and escalating tactics focused on Congress and the Bush administration. The Left should propose its own demands for pullout including reparations, front ending what both the Democrats and Republicans refuse to talk about in concrete terms.

In addition, ecological consciousness, largely as a result of environmental and environmental justice movements is compelling millions to recognize the dangers to the great planet Earth that are unfolding. Katrina should remain our watch-word for the near genocidal treatment of the survivors and evacuees, as well as the domestic display of neo-liberalism at its swinest. We must keep the pressure on the politicians of both parties and not accept rhetoric and fine words in the place of deeds.

2. We need an organized force in the electoral arena that can challenge the Republicans and conservative Democrats: We do not believe that the material conditions exist at present to form a 3rd electoral party, but we do believe that at the local and national level there is a need for an electoral force(s) to advance a progressive agenda; an electoral force grounded among working people, oppressed nationalities, queers, and women and prepared to run candidates for office on the basis of its ties to progressive social movements. Noting that, initiatives against abortion and gay marriage continue to be used to mobilize right wing bases. These initiatives not only fuel homophobia and sexism, but they are a tool used to divide the working class, and therefore must be countered. Such a force needs to think in terms of promoting a progressive alternative at the level of program and action.

3. The Left needs greater coherence: Particularly at times like these when people are looking for answers, the moment is here to put on the table the major structural reforms that are necessary to meet the immediate and long-term material needs of the mass of people. Putting these proposals forward means, in fact, that we have to also be willing to speak to the need to move beyond capitalism. Both the global and domestic mess of capitalism demonstrates that it has no answers for the bulk of humanity. The Democrats and Republicans, as they fumble through one crisis after another, offer little in the political realm. We on the Left must seize the moment and build on the excitement that is present and the deep desire for substantive change. In order to position ourselves for the future, we should work together to strengthen Left theory, program, strategy and revolutionary organization. No time to hope for change; time to bring about change through struggle and organization!

[2006 Elections] [demobilization] [Democrats] [Republicans] [FRSO/OSCL]

¡Harvey Milk, presente!

2006-11-28T08:54:00.001-05:00

My first Wikipedia article...

2006-11-22T15:47:00.000-05:00

Since I know for a fact that several people who read this blog are either better writers than I am, or are at least more knowledgable about STORM's history, politics and work, consider this a call to friends to help improve a somewhat shitty Wikipedia entry (which is none-the-less superior to non-existant one). Namely, if you know how to index Wikipedia entries please do so.
Peace,
Nelson H.

Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM)

Formed by young activists in September 1994, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement(STORM) was a revolutionary cadre organization based in the Bay Area. During its existence STORM's membership was always more than 60 percent women and 75 percent people of color, and most of STORM's membership had never previously been in revolutionary organizations. STORM officially dissolved in December 2002.

A collective summation entitled Reclaiming Revolution: History, Summation, and Lessons from the Work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM) was written by former STORM cadre, collectively endorsed by a majority of the organization's former membership and published in Spring 2004.

"Sisters at the Center"

Throughout its history, STROM was committed to maintaining itself as a majority women, majority people of color organization. This commitment certainly extended to the areas of mass work in which STORM members collectively worked. Growing out of theoretical frameworks inherited from revolutionary, third wave and Black feminisms members of STORM developed the "Sisters at the Center" slogan early on in their organization's history. Application of this slogan meant a conscious emphasis to keep women of color and working class women at the center of the organizations analysis, program and practice.

External links

Reclaiming Revolution: History, Summation, and Lessons from the Work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM) - STORM's Spring 2004 Self Critical Summation.

Back in the Early 1990s - An article written by Elizabeth Martinez for Z Magazine

People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER)

[STORM] [Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement] [cadre] [Revolutionary Organizations] [US Left]

I never thought he was funny anyways.

2006-11-20T11:47:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: Michael Richards said some racist shit, I reprint what he said with real words with one exception. This isn't out of any fear of the word; I just don't see the need for me, as a white person (non-Black person generally, actually) to use it while making the below points.

Comedic hack Michael Richards (best known as Cramer on Seinfeld) resorted to the use of racial hate-speech during a show Friday night at Laugh Factory in Los Angles after being interrupted by an unnamed number of "loud" black people. The former co-star of yet another TV sitcom with an all-white cast set in a fictional all-white New York paradise had choice words for the African Americans in the audience. Some gems from the routine:

"Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass."

"You can talk, you can talk, you're brave now motherfucker. Throw his ass out. He's a n----r!"

"N----r! N----r! N----r!"

As shocking as the statements are, the fact that the above was uttered by a white stand-up comedian is far from surprising. Racism, even the over the top, expletive slinging kind that Richards engaged in is anything but new when it comes to mainstream comedy. It's beyond even being par for the course, it's a fundamental, a constant. Flip on Comedy Central any hour of the day and you will be greeted with bigoted jokes about immigrants, women, gays and oppressed nationality folks. The Laugh Factory certainly wasn't deterred; they had him back on-stage not even 24 hours later.

If anyone knows of a good piece on the role played by hegemonic ideas in comedy, I would love to read it. My general sense is that humor, unlike most other forms of culture, is much more difficult to use in constructing counter-hegemonic thought. Comedy can certainly take aim at power, and at points this is help enough in spurring on an already developing crisis of legitimacy. But I have real doubts of comedy's ability to surpass the point when ridicule and satire must be replaced with the purposeful introduction of new counter-hegemonic ideas. The role of this system's "common-sense" is just too great for the medium to surpass. All that's to say I hope that this incident can be seen for what it is - one note in the overall composition - instead of the "woeful exception" that systems of white-supremacist capitalism and patriarchy love so much.

On a somewhat contradictory note (given my emphasis on systems of oppression as opposed to individualistic interpretations of reality), here's to hoping that Mr. Richards is the oh-so-unfortunate victim of a random act of "kindness."

[Michael Richards] [racism] [white supremacy][comedy] [Laugh Factory] [hegemony] [counter hegemonic thought]

And so it begins

2006-11-14T15:18:00.000-05:00

So it's been a month since this blog was updated. It has been a busy time for certain, but I'm feeling some much-needed new found energy. I hope that this will translate into more frequent posts. Right now I'm aiming for a minimum of one per week.

LeftSpot made a request that I provide some analysis of the controversial Tennessee Senate race. I still have some homework to do before I'm really ready to weigh in on the particulars of the elections here in the state.

Despite my lack of preparedness for offering analysis on the elections, be it locally or in the broader national context, the Democrats seem prepared to give anti-war end of their electoral base (which by all accounts appears to be its overwhelming majority) an early "fuck you." Today, Harry Reid and company made it clear that they have no plans of actually slowing down the Bush agenda vis-à-vis Iraq. Using the rhetorical shield of "get[ting] rid of Rumsfeld" they have signed on to confirm the war criminal and Iran-Contra participant Robert Gates.

I am interested in hearing thoughts from other folks about how we on the anti-capitalist left should react to the Senate Dems first volley in what I expect to be an on-going campaign of selling-out last Tuesday's referendum on the country's war against Iraq. Do we hold-off talking about this stuff for now to avoid being labeled shrills and wack-jobs? Or do we press them from the get-go?

My sense is to agitate the hell out of the advanced, but let things slide with the intermediate unless asked directly. Give the Dems a few months, and then work like hell to exploit the mass feelings of betrayal and disillusionment.

Coup in Boliva?!

2006-10-14T23:10:00.000-04:00

I first head about this earlier today. Does anyone else know more?!

Coup d'etat in Bolivia planned for Wednesday, October 11, 2006
By Heinz Dieterich in La Paz, Bolivia.

Translated by John Manning
Oct 11, 2006, 15:55

High level government sources requesting anonymity have revealed that the first coup d´etat against the government of democratically elected President Evo Morales is under way. Wednesday, October 11, is the crucial date. Driving forces are police officers and the Air Force. The army is divided. Chilean military officers, at the rank of generals, are participating with the conspirators.

1. Looking for Pinochets

A few weeks ago, officers of the Bolivian police approached generals of the Armed Forces of Bolivia (FAB) investigating their disposition for organizing a coup d' etat of both forces. One of the key military officers for the success of the coup refused to participate, and notified the President. The preparations are now proceeding without him. And the radio broadcasts continue which eulogize the "patriotic army which killed Che Guevara and the subversives".

The military never undertakes a coup in a social vacuum, my friend General Alberto Mueller Rojas, today a member of the Presidential General Staff of Hugo Chavez, told me seven years ago. It is this logic which can be seen developing at present in Bolivia. An extensive conspirational network, composed of different social and state forces is accelerating its preparations, to finish the government of President Evo Morales by force.

2. The institutional conspirators

The prefects (governors) of the separatist and energy states, Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Tarija, are promoting the formation of the so-called "Civil Committees", which are the spear points of visible political subversion. The prefects, like the civil committes have entered into frank rebellion against the constitutional government of Evo Morales, in declaring that they "will not respect the Political Constitution of the State emerging from the Constituent Assembly if it is not approved in all its articles by two thirds of the votes of the constituents”. They warn that they will advance "departmental autonomies" if this condition of theirs is not complied with.

They can certainly count on the support of the National Supreme Court of Justice - as reactionary and corrupt as its bourgeois counterparts in the rest of the world - that will provide the conspirators with the apology for the planned overthrow of the government.

On the recent declaration of the Constituent Assembly that it considered itself as "original, plenipotential and functional", that is, not restricted in its constitution of the new State by the existing norms, the magistrates sustained the position of the prefects. They dictated that according to constitutional law, the power of this Constituent Assembly is not "original-foundational", but "derivative-reformist" and therefore, subject to the existing legislation which requires a two thirds vote on all articles.

3. The social conspiracy

The "civil committees" count on the financing of employer sectors and the collaboration of high officials of the police, colonels, for example. Their actions are inflated and promoted by the private media of communication, often with the patterns of fascist propaganda that have been used against President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Some of the most important media are in the hands of capitalist magnates with big agricultural investments in the separatist provinces and who fear the land reform of the government.

The associations of heads of families, which are generally reactionary and controlled by the Church, in Latin America, in alliance with educational sectors of private colleges and universities promote strikes, blockades and demonstrations against the government. Enterprises of the energy-retail market are generating shortages of diesel fuel and gasoline, supplying the black markets in the higher priced neighboring countries, producing resentment among the population.

4. The Chilean model

The same as in Chile during Salvador Allende, the transport sector has been assigned the function of breaking the economy and the public peace with a national stoppage, called for next Wednesday, with the intention of bringing all the anti-government sectors to join together in a great destabilizing front. Referring explicitly to the subversive strike of Chilean transporters against Salvador Allende, (1972), financed by the CIA, Evo Morales last week characterized the planned entrepreneurial transport strike as an "ideological" strike: "It is the struggle for power", said the popular leader, and made clear what is at stake: "Either the gamonal (elite) groups, or the people's movements".

The Bolivian President´s comment is right on target, as show the Church Committee documents (1976) and the recently published (February, 2006) memoirs of the military leader of the fascist Chilean organization "Patria y Libertad", Roberto Thieme, in which he details how his organization, the Chilean Navy and the transport sector cooperated subversively in order to destroy the legitimate Allende government.

5. The political costs of the Huanuni massacre

The armed confrontation between cooperativist and salaried miners in Huanuni, Department of Oruro, which has left some fifteen dead and more than a hundred wounded has pushed the Bolivian Labor Central (COB) and the Regional Labor Union (COR) in El Alto, which historically have been dissociated with Evo Morales and his peasant-popular MAS-movement, towards a more confrontational position against the government.

The conflict in Huanuni is of economic origin. It was brought about by the intent of some four thousand cooperative miners organized in the FENCOMIN, that is the social base of the Minister of Mines Walter Villarroel, to take over exploitation of the richest tin mine of Bolivia, Posokoni, expelling in a violent manner some thousand salaried miners of the State enterprise COMIBOL.

Although the state had knowledge of the conflict and tried more than a dozen times to deactivate the “social time bomb”, it was taken by surprise by the violent operation. Faced with the dilemma of killing miners with the Armed Forces, on one hand, and of being accused of "negligence” and “absence of the State" on the other, 24 hours went by which were converted into a propaganda and political gold mine by the Right. This was used to the maximum with their hegemony of the media and, very much like the media manipulation during the days of the coup in Venezuela (2002), has been brought to bear incessantly on the government.

6. The international Falange

In Bolivia the United States manual of antidemocratic subversion is being followed meticulously. The factional machine is lubricated with money, propaganda experts and policy programming by the US governent, which since September 11, 2001, had put Evo Morales on its list of possible terrorists which the security forces of the U.S use to track down security risks.

The accomplices in the European Union and the energy transnationals fill out the subversive falange. "BP Tony", British Prime Minister and political agent of British Petroleum, has suggested to the energy enterprises of the United Kingdom not to invest in Bolivia's gas.

This is the policy which Petrobas, the Brazilian-International transnational guided by Wall Street and the City in London, practices and whose predatory and neocolonial attitude toward Bolivia and the other Latin American countries makes the behavior of other Western transnationals look pale: A neocolonial policy which requires urgently the organization of a boycott of all its products in all Latin America to break its chauvinistic technocracy, the same as that of PDVSA before the Bolivarian government.

7. Stop the coup d´etat in Bolivia

They all want to remove the "Indian" Evo, who disturbs business, the same as the “Negro" Chávez, in Venezuela. For Chavez, after the failure of the military coup, the medium of "removal" selected is poison or accident. In Bolivia, the elite and its imperial godfathers coincide in that a military coup d' etat could be the adequate medium. Only that a military coup, as friend Mueller Rojas says, can not be done in a social vacuum. What we are seeing in Bolivia is the intent of the world Right to fill the vacuum.

The exit of a military coup, as much as a bank assault, depends on the moment of surprise. That moment has been taken away from the conspirators. The world wide discussion of their plot makes it impossible for them to proceed as planned.

Thus, for now, they have been defeated. But, as in Chile, they will come back with a vengeance, if the government doesn't crush their conspiracy completely.

Today, more than ever, The Bolivarian Revolution needs our world solidarity.

© Copyright 2006 by AxisofLogic.com
(This report is an abbreviated version of the one published in Spanish elsewhere on the Internet.)

URGENT SOLIDARITY CALL FOR OAXACA

2006-10-04T08:21:00.000-04:00

Dear friends,
As most of you know, Oaxaca is experiencing difficult times. The information that is out on the national and international news is generally far from reality. I know you all dont believe everything you read...please don´t in this case. Oaxacans are trying to end years and years of repression and horrid human rights violations. I just spoke to friends in Oaxaca and they have asked that we all call or e-mail the Mexican Consulate and demand a peaceful solution.

The Federales ARE camped out around the outskirts of town. Town is tense. The protests have been non violent, but the supporters and paid thugs of the dictator, Ulyses Ruiz, have used night time raids, shootings etc upon the protesters. The following link is fairly accurate in it´s description of what is happening.http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060930085453418

PLEASE read the following, and if you are willing to send an email or call your nearest Mexican Consulate, it will help tremendously. Pass this on to your friends who might be willing to give a few minutes of their time, as well.
Thank you so much.

URGENT SOLIDARITY CALL FOR OAXACA

At the federal level in Mexico, the current discourse signals an imminent arrival of Federal Police Forces in Oaxaca. The feds claim that, if federal forces are sent to Oaxaca, they will only maintain a presence on the outskirts of the city, to "ensure civilian safety." However, it is widely known that local PRI-sympathizing groups can be mobilized to provoke a confrontation with the sectors of civil society partiapting in the popular movement, which would justify the entrance of the federal police.

If the federal police enter Oaxaca, it will be a blood bath...

Please call or send faxes and emails to President Fox and to Secretary of Interior Affairs, Carlos Abascal, demanding the immediate withdrawal of threats to send police forces into Oaxaca, and the immediate resignation of Oaxacan governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Write in Spanish. Write in English. Just write, or call, or both.

Get down to your local Mexican consulate or embassy. Make a lot of noise. Spend the night out front if you have to.

President Vicente Fox:
Email: vicente.fox.quesadda [at] presidencia.gob.mx
Fax: 011-52-55-52-77-23-76
Phone: 011-52-55-27-89-11-00

Sec. of Internal Affairs, Carlos Abascal
Tel: 011-52-55-50-93-34-00

Email: cabascal [at] segob.gob.mx

[Mexico] [Oaxaca] [Oaxaca Teachers] [Strike] [Dual Power] [Potential Massacre] [Solidarity] [Social Movements] [AMLO] [Andrés Manuel López Obrador]

A Politics of Nothingness: "Trade-unionists" and Phil Bredesen

2006-10-03T21:26:00.000-04:00

As the November elections approach, electoral politics, especially Democratic Party Politics asserts itself rather strongly in left circles. One helpful way to discuss which candidates to vote for, or more often against is to compare platforms and political track-records. Nothing special about that, folks from every political tendency do it. So to better inform potential voters out there, here's one such scorecard:

Workers Comp Benefit: Changes administrative rules to force workers to non-binding arbitration with employer prior to involving the courts. Cut the "multiplier" nearly in half - meaning that were you to lose a hand, thumb, finger, leg, arm, foot, etc. the amount of money you receive is roughly half of what it was prior to the "reforms." Used bought-off former State-Fed (AFL-CIO) President as axe-man for the whole thing.

State Medicare: Cut state Medicare program with no alternative in place, depriving thousands of state residents from their only health insurance ultimately resulting in hundreds if not thousands of deaths. Pushed through a cobbled-together cluster of bullshit stop-gap measures calling them a successful program.

Immigration: Further criminalized immigrant workers, promptly sending over-deployed National Guard troops to defend "the border," bragging about both in campaign commercials.

Continued One-sided Class Warfare Via the State's Tax-System: Forced through massive cuts in social services to "prove that we can balance our budgets without a state income tax," while working to kill legislation that would cut the nearly 10 percent sales-tax on food.

Support for Company Unions and Labor Aristocracy: Gave tens of millions in TennCare savings blood-money to the state employee's company-union. The only union cause he is known to have championed was a wage dispute between the Carpenters and the Department of Energy - and at a time when the Carpenters were actively bashing the immigrants rights movement.

Gave Higher Education Workers Raise "Left-overs": While giving the company union for state-agency employees a fully funded 3 percent raise and $21.1 million to address pay compression, he provided NO funding in his budget for state higher education workers, despite the fact that over 40 percent of the hourly higher education workers currently make poverty level wages.

LGBTQ Rights, the Marriage Question: Publicly promises to vote for and encourages supporters to vote for fascist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-people Constitutional Amendment on November ballot

And this agent of the employing class is up by 30 points in the recent polls. You might think that the man being described is a Republican, but all these great deeds were carried out by the Democratic Governor of Tennessee, Phil Bredesen. If ever there was a governor's race that deserved an election boycott, or at least an abstention on the part of labor when endorsement time rolled around, this is it. But did the above list give the State-Fed even a moment of pause? Did the litany of this bastard's evil, anti-worker policies provoke some debate in the Knoxville-Oak Ridge CLC? Were these issues even discussed, mentioned, footnoted, alluded to? Not a chance in hell. Yellow-dog to their core, craft-unionists and labor aristocrats gave this champion of our class enemy sounding endorsements; they even handed them out early!

Yesterday, members of my union the United Campus Workers - Communications Workers of America local 3865 turned out at the first debate between Bredesen and his far distant opponent. We were there to hand out a flyer asking for the Governor to include funding for a real, cost of living raise for all workers at state-sponsored higher education institutions in his next budget. Next budget...he's not going to have one of those before the November election. What's the implication? If you asked me, the flyer operates from the assumption that he's gonna win. In fact, this is beyond question.

Did the flyer advocate for his opponent? Nope. Did it call him a lying, blood-sucking scum-bag? Nope. Did it call him a murderer, maimer of working women and men, health care executive parasite? Nope. No call for class revolt in our workplaces, schools and streets. No calls for sit-ins at the Capital, or picket-lines at his residence.

It simply told the truth. The truth that a plurality, a near-fucking-majority of us higher education workers make poverty level wages. It demanded fairness. No more two-tier raises where some well paid state agency employees see 7+ percent raises while we struggle to by bread and milk with 2 percent or $600 raise, whichever is greater. No more "merit" increases at the expense of across the board raises, policy decisions that translate to many university lecturers and adjunct faculty receiving criminally low raises of $250-$400 in a year when the increase in the Consumer Price Index was 4.2 percent.

Our members were met with jeers, shouts, taunts and threats. Not from Bredesen's staff. Not from nameless Democratic Party hacks. But from so-called local "trade-unionists," namely members of the Carpenters and Laborers. The most right-wing, anti-immigrant members of the remaining craft union labor aristocracy. Among the most vicious of the attackers was one Harold Woods, the lesser (his father, Harold Woods, and his mother have both been main-stayers in the EastTN craft-union movement for decades). This blow-hard sits on the Knoxville-Oak Ridge CLC's Executive Council, a position which apperently gives him the power to tell other union workers to stand-down with any criticism of their CEO (the Governor serves as Chair of the UT Board of Trustees).

These are the instances that in aggregate form create politics of nothingness that our trade-union "movement" clings to. Phil Bredesen isn't a John Kerry that needs us to sell part of our souls to get him elected. He's polling at 60 percent of likely voters with nearly 20 percent undecieded and his opponent barely topping 22 percent! Any work to convince union members in this state that they should, let alone need to vote for him is out-and-out deception. It feeds our members the worse kind of misinformation, buttressing the worse kind of "faith-based politics."

Phil Bredesen, Nail Him UP!

[Democratic Party] [Phil Bredesen] [Labor Movement] [Carpenters] [TennCare] [Workers Comp] [Jim Bryson] [Harold Woods] [Immigration] [Elections] [Living Wage] [Income Tax] [Sales Tax] [Central Labor Councils] [Knoxville] [Tennessee]

Republicans Pick Twin Cities for 2008 Convention

2006-09-27T17:16:00.000-04:00

I know that several readers of this blog call Minnesota home. Well heads up folks. You have just under two years to muster the forces needed for kicking some GOP ass.

[Republican Party] [GOP] [Twin Cities] [Minnesota ]