Campaigning for Democracy And Socialism |
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What's at Stake? The Health and Well-Being of Women |
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The cartoon to the left makes a good point often left on the back burner: women have always induced abortions by one means or another, for their own sake or that of their families.
But these were often ineffective and dangerous, a death sentence for many women. Overturning Roe means a return to this needless oppression.
Abortion needs to be both legal and safe, and available to all who want the procedure. Fill the streets for the sake of all women, and the rest of us in their lives as well
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WE ARE INVITING FEEDBACK! Please send us your letters, comments, queries, complaints, new ideas. Just keep them short and civil. Longer commentaries and be submitted as articles.
DIFFICULTY READING US?
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Thirty one songs are presented in a beautiful hard cover bound double CD and digital download containing new performances in a traditional style by numerous contributing artists.
An accompanying 64 page liner notes booklet includes complete lyrics as well as reproductions of historic documents. The liner notes also include essays by the album’s producer Mat Callahan, scholar Robin D.G. Kelley and activist organizer Kali Akuno.
The album is also available via digital download and streaming services.
A companion full-length book, to be published by the University Press of Mississippi, documents the sources of these newly released songs, as well as providing historic context:
A documentary film documents the entire project and is available for screenings.
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Convergence Magazine
Book Launch!
Max Elbaum is a Co-Editor, with Linda Burnham and María Poblet, of Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections and is on the Editorial Board of Convergence.
Max Elbaum has been active in peace, anti-racist and radical movements since joining SDS in Madison, Wisconsin in the 1960s. The third edition of his book, Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che, was released by Verso in 2018.
special book site:
book study guide:
for Convergence:
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Kathy Boudin, Presente!
Kathy Boudin, a 1960s radical who was a member of the militant leftist group Weather Underground and who was imprisoned for her involvement in a fatal robbery, has died at the age of 78, according to her son, Chesa Boudin, San Francisco's District Attorney.
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All Who Love and Respect Women in This Country Will Rise Up
This crisis was manufactured by hate-mongering ideologues. It will be solved by those who nurture, care, and refuse to back down.
By Thea Paneth
Common Dreams
May 5, 2022 - The impending doom of overturning Roe v Wade has sent shock waves through our society. For those of us old enough to remember when abortion was illegal (I am barely in that age group) a heavy sense of dread immediately settled across our backs.
If we love our country and if we love the women in our lives, especially our daughters, we will rise up to protect their lives and well-being.
All week I've been thinking about a moment from my past. In June of 1986, I went to New York to see my mother who was not well. One of the days I was there, I went down to Greenwich Village, my old stomping grounds. The village was preternaturally quiet, with many shops closed, so I walked east to see if I could figure out what was going on.
Masses of people were lining Fifth Avenue for Gay Pride. As I watched, the People with Aids Coalition came down the avenue, carrying a banner that stretched across the street. Every man with AIDS walking that day had a woman walking with them, a sister, a mother, a lesbian. Women stepped up to walk with young men who were suffering the illness, so they shouldn't have to walk alone. Great cheers erupted from the crowd as they walked by.
In the mid 1980's the Reagan Administration was ignoring the Aids Crisis. There was no help available for the people getting sick, no medical care, little or no research into the illness, it was called "the gay disease" and people said those sinners were getting what they deserved in a vituperative atmosphere.
This changed over time as more people were affected by the crisis. Celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor spoke out, Rock Hudson died, other celebrities contracted AIDS from blood transfusions. The New York City arts community was decimated. Medical research that eventually began after protracted struggle and public outcry has had positive results not only for AIDS treatments, but for the current pandemic and for other terrible illnesses as well.
That day, when women walked with the young men who would not be around so much longer, was a watershed moment for me that I will never forget. I went home and told my mother about it, how moving it was, and in her incisive way she said, "So they shouldn't feel alone." This is what women do. They tend to others, they care-take, they step up so a vulnerable, suffering person is not alone. They clean up other people's mess, they teach the children, change the diapers, mop the floors. For all their labors they are still not paid a fair wage. Housework should be remunerated, healthcare should be provided to everyone, birth to death, education should be free, everyone has a right to a place to live and clean water. Such things would make women's lives easier and would be the hallmarks of a decent society, which sadly we are far from being.
I can see clearly the additional damage that will be done to our fractured, struggling society if in these "united states" women have different rights across the country. In itself, this will deepen the fractures in our country in a most terrible way. And as is being said by legal scholars, it is unlikely to stop here, more rights will be rolled back and much chaos, crisis and disaster will ensue.
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for people of African descent, free or not, in the Dred Scott case; the Civil War erupted a few years later and the second original sin of our nation, slavery, came to an end. The crisis of this moment is not dis-similar, we are facing a reality in which women will not have autonomous rights over our bodies, fifty years after a court ruling that said women do have autonomous rights over our bodies. This has nothing to do with fetal heart beats, it is not "pro-life," not when institutional power is used to wage wars, dropping bombs, killing children, maintaining the first original sin of genocide that afflicts our national character.
Children in our country go to bed hungry and wake up hungry daily, the intolerable is tolerated. And be reminded, every day across the globe, a woman or girl is killed by someone in her family every eleven minutes, which comes down to three women a day in the U.S. The intolerable is tolerated. This moment is about intentionally destroying the autonomy, the freedom of millions of women, as if our lives aren't hard enough.
What can we do?
Protest has already begun and likely will continue. It must be maintained, organize rolling protests so that a street presence is maintained daily and weekly across the country. Sit in at all congressional offices with the clear demand to pass the Women's Health Protection Act (failed in the Senate in 2021), not acts to abrogate our rights, as are ominously being readied by ill-meaning congress persons rubbing their gleeful hands together at the impending overturning of Roe v Wade.
This crisis was manufactured by hate-mongering ideologues who put themselves above the law enough to misuse their power by seizing the law-making apparatus to control the most private, personal decisions a person can make.
It was manufactured when Mitch McConnell did not allow a vote on an Obama Administration supreme court justice nominee and when he forced through a hasty vote on a last-minute nominee after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died just prior to the Biden Administration being sworn in.
McConnell was just re-elected to the Senate. His actions as a senator do not fulfill his oath to support and defend the Constitution, his actions actually undermine the Constitution. The crisis brought about by his political machinations needs to made so hot for him that he is forced to resign. Do the same with Senator Collins. Constituents sent her hangers for her votes to confirm the lying, corrupt nominees Gorsuch and Kavanaugh (a justice who was disgustingly seated despite bearing a taint of sexual misconduct). Collins is not representing the interests of women in the state of Maine and should be forced out.
The justices who assumed their duties, having indicated in confirmation hearings that Roe v Wade is precedent and should not be over-turned yet now indicate they will vote to overturn it, should be tossed off the Court. They lied, apply some accountability.
Only a political climate of great enough outrage over such betrayals will suffice to achieve these necessary aims.
One more harkening back to U.S. history: in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, creating a climate of terror. States that did not have slavery were forced to capture and return slaves, with extraordinary penalties imposed for abolitionists who were assisting escaped slaves. There were riots in Boston over the returning of captured slaves. Great writers and thinkers of the day, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May) were abolitionists. The Thoreau and Alcott homes were stations on the Underground Railroad and after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, Emerson provided the funds for escaping slaves to get to Canada, they did not back down in the face of state repression.
If we love our country and if we love the women in our lives, especially our daughters, we will rise up to protect their lives and well-being. Abortion is a matter of healthcare, a private, personal decision, and sometimes a medical necessity. Five ideological Supreme Court justices some of whom were placed on the court through a corrupt use of power, have no right and no mandate to interfere with, or destroy women's lives. It is inevitable that women will die if this decision is enacted. We cannot let it come to pass.
Thea Paneth is a coordinating committee member of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), a national peace coalition founded in 2003. ...Read More
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Photo:: Ukrainian army soldier rescues a child from a combat zone.
The Deadly Illusion of 'Victory'
Choosing peace in Ukraine, not ashes and blood.
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By Michael T. Klare
The Nation
“America stands with Ukraine until victory is won,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared on May 1, after traveling to Kyiv for a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Victory? What exactly does Pelosi mean by “victory”? Does that entail the total defeat of Russian forces and their expulsion from all of Ukraine? That can only be accomplished through the participation of US and NATO forces—a scenario that would almost certainly result in a Europe-wide war, with an attendant risk of nuclear escalation.
Or does she mean a meat-grinder war aimed at weakening Russia to the point where it is no longer able to fight NATO, as suggested by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin after visiting Kyiv a few days earlier? That might, conceivably, avert a nuclear war, but would surely result in hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians, and leave Ukraine itself in ruins. Nowhere, in her comments or those by other high-ranking US officials, is there any talk of a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, only of scenarios leading to Russia’s defeat, at whatever cost in human lives.
For Ukrainians, the desire to inflict pain on Russia is understandable: Their country has been invaded, their cities bombed, and many of their compatriots slain. It is also understandable why many in Europe, especially in the “frontline” states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, are keen to see Russia humbled, as they fear invasion themselves. Elsewhere in Europe, and in this country, there is a natural instinct to favor the underdog in the Ukraine conflict, especially given the toll being imposed on civilians in Ukraine and widespread antipathy to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This outlook seemed to govern US policy during the early days of the war. With Ukraine under attack from multiple directions and its vastly outnumbered army putting up heroic resistance around major cities, the Biden administration promised to rush the delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles and other light defensive weapons. To further impair Russia’s war-making capacity, President Biden also imposed severe sanctions on key aspects of the Russian economy.
The prevailing image, during those early days of the war, was of a plucky but outgunned David fighting off a clumsy but savage Goliath—an image that attracted widespread sympathy around the world, no less than in this country. Congress was keen to speed the delivery of Javelins to the Ukrainians and to otherwise help David fend off Goliath. And, to the surprise of many on all sides, this combination of Ukrainian pluck and US weapons technology succeeded in blocking the Russian advance around Kyiv, forcing Goliath to withdraw.
This would have been the moment to initiate serious peace talks, leading to a halt in the fighting. A Ukrainian pledge to permanently forswear membership in NATO and grant limited autonomy to breakaway regions in the Donbas, combined with a Russian vow to withdraw its forces from the rest of the country, might have provided the basis for a cease-fire and then more formal negotiations on Ukraine’s long-term status. But aside from some ill-fated diplomacy by Presidents Emmanuel Macron of France and Recep Tayyip of Turkey, little effort was made to pursue this lifesaving course. Instead, both sides girded for a tougher, bloodier war.
For President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the reasons for this embrace of intensified fighting are no doubt complex. From all that can be determined, he entered the war believing that Ukrainian forces would capitulate after a few days of fighting and that the Ukrainian people—Russians at heart, he thought—would largely welcome their Russian “liberators.” When none of this occurred, and his much-vaunted army proved an immense disappointment, Putin seems to have taken it personally—as an affront to his strategic acumen—and so initiated a plan to seize eastern and southern Ukraine through sheer force of arms.
For US leaders, the motives for supporting an intensified Ukrainian drive to expel the Russians are somewhat more transparent: to strike a crushing blow on the Russian military, drastically reducing its threat to NATO and, conceivably, its loyalty to Vladimir Putin. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Secretary Austin explained after meeting with Zelensky in Kyiv on March 24. This has required a very different sort of US aid effort from that undertaken at the start of the war: Instead of Javelins and other light, man-portable weapons, the United States and its allies are now supplying the Ukrainians with tanks, howitzers, and other heavy weapons intended to inflict severe damage on Russian armored columns.
In line with this approach, Biden asked Congress on April 28 for an additional $33 billion in aid for Ukraine—10 times the amount allocated for this purpose until now—with much of the additional funding to be used in supplying heavy weapons systems. “This assistance would provide even more artillery, armored vehicles, anti-armor systems, [and] anti-air capabilities that have been used so effectively thus far on the battlefield by the Ukrainian warriors,” he declared at the White House.
The Biden administration has also worked tirelessly to persuade the other NATO powers to supply Ukraine with weapons of this sort. On April 28, the day Biden announced that $33 billion aid package, Austin was in Germany, meeting with representatives of 40 US allies to coordinate the flow of such arms to Ukrainian forces. Significantly, Germany pledged to supply 50 armored anti-aircraft systems—the first time that country had agreed to provide Ukraine with heavy weapons. “Putin never imagined that the world would rally behind Ukraine so swiftly and surely,” Austin stated.
All this has substantially transformed the nature of the fighting in Ukraine, converting it from a rear-guard defensive action to a brutal slugfest between two major ground armies. At the very least, this will result in massive casualties on both sides, along with the destruction of any towns and cities in the zone of conflict. Even far more worrisome, it has become less of a Ukraine vs. Russia war and more of a US/NATO vs. Russia war—a shift that vastly increases the risk of a major-power conflagration and nuclear escalation.
Russian leaders have already warned that increased NATO weapons deliveries to Ukraine represent a strategic threat to their forces, obliging them to undertake appropriate countermeasures—for example by bombing Ukrainian arms depots located along the Polish border, a move that could easily lead to a direct clash with NATO forces and a wider war. Senior officials, including President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have also warned that a major Russian reversal—one that posed a threat to the survival of the state—could result in the use of nuclear weapons. “The danger [of such use] is serious, real,” Lavrov declared on April 25, “and we must not underestimate it.”
None of this, however, seems to have diminished US leaders’ determination to increase the pressure on Russia and to keep raising it until Moscow capitulates—however illusionary this might seem. “The United States of America is in this to win, and we will stand with Ukraine until victory is won,” said Representative Jason Crow (D-Colo.) after accompanying Pelosi to Kyiv.
All sides need to make negotiations possible
Under these circumstances, neither side has demonstrated any interest in conducting serious peace negotiations. It is likely, then, that the fighting will escalate, many more people will perish, and Ukraine’s cities, towns, and infrastructure will be pulverized. But given the balance of forces on each side, it seems unlikely that either will ever be in a position to achieve “victory.” More likely, the fighting will grind on for weeks or months until both sides reach exhaustion—and then they will agree to a cease-fire in place and a negotiated outcome not too different from what might have been achieved in March, with far less bloodshed.
What is called for, then, is not illusionary promises of “victory” but rather a serious international effort to stop the fighting now, before more people perish, or the war escalates into something a whole lot worse. This will require a concerted effort by prominent figures with the authority to address the leaders on all sides—perhaps some combination of Presidents Macron of France, Erdogan of Turkey, and Xi Jinping of China.
They will have to devise an outcome that provides security assurances to all sides: a neutral Ukraine, a demilitarized Donbas, and some form of international backing for these arrangements. To facilitate these efforts, moreover, the major actors should agree to engage in de-escalatory steps of various sorts: the suspension of nuclear threats by Russia and “victory” talk by Western leaders, the establishment of safe evacuation routes for civilians trapped in combat zones, provisions for the delivery of food and medical aid to civilians in besieged cities, and so on. ...Read More
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Digging Deeper into the Current Conjuncture: |
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Abortion Has Always Been a Part of America—Even if Alito Won’t Admit It
The justice claims 'this Nation’s history and tradition' oppose the practice. Exactly whose history is he considering?
By Becca Andrews
Mother Jones
This article is adapted from the forthcoming book No Choice: The Past, Present, and Perilous Future of Abortion in America, published by Hachette Book Group.
May 5, 2022 - In Justice Alito’s leaked draft opinion that, if made official as a decision this summer would overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, he refers repeatedly to “this Nation’s history and tradition” as being at odds with abortion rights.
I Counted All the Scholars Cited in the Leaked Roe Opinion. Can You Guess How Many Were Women?
It begs the question: Whose history, precisely, is Alito considering here?
Our history encompasses so much beyond the white supremacist ideals our nation was founded upon.
Too often, when “this Nation’s history and tradition” is boiled down into such a broad generalization, it’s the “history and tradition” of the white Christian men who have held power in the United States since its inception. But make no mistake, this country does not belong to them alone, and our history encompasses so much beyond their experiences and beyond the white supremacist ideals our nation was founded upon.
Before this land was stolen by colonizers who called it America, it belonged to Native peoples who had inhabited it for centuries. And, as it turns out, people indigenous to America have a long, intimate “history and tradition” related to abortion and reproductive care. For one, they shared knowledge of which herbs can help a woman control her body. Stoneseed and dogbane, which have natural contraceptive properties, were used by the Shoshone peoples and the Bodéwadmi to prevent pregnancy. Studies of indigenous cultures also turn up evidence of commonplace abortion practices—a South American matrilocal native tribe known as the Wichí reportedly abort the first pregnancy of any tribal member; it’s a matter of routine, to make the childbirths that follow easier. North American native tribes, too, have documented abortion practices that prioritize the health and well-being of the person carrying the fetus and their quality of life.
This is conveniently absent in Alito’s opinion. We know why: That is what happens when 'The Narrative' is controlled by a certain class of people. We lose the history that belongs to everyone else. We are not a nation of solely—or even primarily—white Christians.
But sure, even if we want to take a Eurocentric framing here, abortion has always been a normal part of life.
In the Middle Ages, as male church and state leaders began to deem women as the inferior gender, formal education was reserved generally for their own sex. By the mid-14th century, these men passed laws to regulate how surgery could be practiced and by whom, further pushing women out of the field. The creation of professionalized medicine was instigated by a desire to shift power and authority from women to men, while keeping the (unpaid) domestic expectations of women fully intact. The health of the household remained a responsibility that was gendered female.
Still, the health of the body remained a woman’s concern, but now women were hunted when they provided care. Across Europe, from the 14th century through the 17th century, women were deemed witches and persecuted for any perceived sexual sin, including vague accusations of “lewdness.” This applied to the female healers who were core providers of reproductive health care—which, yes, encompassed contraception and abortion, and relied largely on herbal remedies, some of which are still used by holistic health practitioners and modern midwives. Abortion then was not considered a crime by law (even if it was seen as such in the eyes of the church, which doled out its own punishments accordingly, usually through ex-communication and shaming).
As Europeans later traveled to the new world, so did the panic around female sexuality that defined their witch-hunt fervor. And, like in Europe, women in America continued to seek personal control over their reproductive agency in the face of patriarchal values. In some ways, they were even at an advantage given the lack of knowledge and fear held by men regarding female bodies.
In parallel to the traditions of the indigenous women on the land before them, Leslie J. Reagan explains in When Abortion Was a Crime that “one colonial woman who feared pregnancy had ‘twice taken Savin; once boyled in milk and the other time strayned through a Cloath.’” Reagan found that “Savin, derived from juniper bushes, was the most popular abortifacient and easily acquired since junipers grew wild through the country. ...Read More
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Against Putin’s War in Ukraine: An interview
with Ilya Budraitskis
By Ashley Smith
Links via Spectre
April 24, 2022 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Spectre — Spectre’s Ashley Smith talked to Russian socialist Ilya Budraitskis, author of Dissident Among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia. He writes regularly on politics, art, film, and philosophy for e-flux journal, openDemocracy, Jacobin, and other outlets. He teaches at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and the Institute of Contemporary Art Moscow.
What are conditions like in Russia amidst the war and sanctions? What is the popular reaction to all of this? How does this break down by class and region?
The public mood has changed since the beginning of the war. In its first days, most of the people were very disappointed about it. The society was really divided and confused as there was no consensus built in advance for how people should react to it.
Despite the fact that the mobilizations against the war were not massive, they were visible and had an impact. There were some thousands of people who turned out in protests across the country. But they were harshly repressed.
Now it seems a new consensus of support for the war has developed. That’s what the opinion polls indicate. Of course, you cannot trust them, but it does appear that people in the majority are accepting the propaganda from Putin’s regime. There is still a minority of the population, maybe twenty to thirty percent, who strongly oppose the war.
I think the support for the war is partially rooted in a psychological predisposition to believe in the state’s propaganda. People find themselves in a totally unexpected situation, something that they were not prepared for, so they opt for the most comfortable way of understanding it, which is to accept what the government is saying rather than adopt a radical position of opposition to it.
They also believe the government’s claim that the war will all be over soon, and things will return to normal. This is a reassuring illusion. Who knows how they will react when they realize that nothing will ever be the same again in Russia?
The current consensus could turn dramatically in the coming months. The impact of the sanctions is severe. Hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs. Young people in the big cities, who were employed by transnational corporations that have shut down, are now suddenly out of work. Industrial workers in transnational auto companies like Volkswagen have lost their jobs.
Inflation has also dramatically increased. It has had a differential impact on the country’s various classes and class fractions. Before the war, social inequality was quite severe within the big cities, and also between regions. The country’s poor had gotten used to surviving on the bare minimum. For them, inflation will exacerbate their poverty, but it will not introduce radically new conditions.
The middle classes, however, have been thrust into an entirely new situation. They cannot afford now to live in the way they are used to. This will destabilize their political worldview; especially as the long term nature of the economic crisis becomes apparent to them. So, no one should mistake the current consensus for a stable political condition.
What is the state of antiwar organizing? How much has government repression driven it off the streets? Has news of the disastrous nature of the war and heavy Russian casualties reached families of soldiers? Are there any signs of dissent within the military?
The antiwar movement was immediately confronted with repression. The government moved quickly to destroy it. In the first week of the war, police arrested some fifteen thousand people. They detained them for as long as twenty days. They forced them to pay quite high fines.
The government targeted students in particular. It compelled the universities to discipline students who were involved in the protests. They went so far as to expel some of them.
They shut down all independent media. They detained and fined the reporter who protested on the evening news. They even went after people for just making posts on social media. Some of them were detained.
The government were so brutal because they did not want the antiwar movement to reach the broader population. Unfortunately, for now, they have been successful in repressing and isolating the antiwar opposition.
The twenty to thirty percent that are against the war are concentrated in the liberal and far left groups, feminists, and young people. The generational divide is particularly pronounced. I know this from personal experience as well as on social media. It has sharply divided families with parents going so far as to call their children traitors for opposing the war.
The impact of the war on soldiers and their families is quite complicated. In the beginning, the government promised that they would not call up conscripts. But it was lying. ...Read More
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Photo: Men in camo fatigues load cases of water from a storage space into a truck.
How Border Deployment Led to Union Organizing In Texas
by Steve Early
and Suzanne Gordon
Convergence
April 28, 2022 - Amazon, Starbucks—and the National Guard? Politicized mission and bad conditions push soldiers to join the Texas State Employees Union
When a group of Texas workers started discussing job problems and what to do about them a few months ago, their list of complaints would have been familiar to Starbucks baristas, Amazon warehouse staff, or restive young journalists at new and old media outlets.
With little notice, their employer changed work schedules and transferred employees to a new job location. Some of those adversely affected applied for hardship waivers, based on family life disruption, but many requests were denied. Meanwhile, access to a major job benefit—tuition assistance—was sharply curtailed. Even paychecks were no longer arriving promptly or at the right address. When a few brave souls called attention to these problems, management labeled them “union agitators” who were trying to “mislead” their co-workers.
Operating outside the national media spotlight on recent labor recruitment in the private sector, key activists were not deterred. In mid-April, members of the Texas State Guard, Army and Air Force National Guard declared themselves to be the “Military Caucus” of the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU), an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America. Taking direct aim at Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has ordered thousands of them to police the U.S.-Mexico border, these TSEU supporters called for greater legislative oversight of such open-ended missions so that Guard members are called up only to “provide genuine service to the public good, not posturing for political gain.”
Union demands
Their own mission statement announced that they will seek meetings with legislators, the governor’s office, and the state agency known as the Texas Military Department. Union goals include a guaranteed end date for all Guard members on state active duty, full restoration of tuition assistance slashed by Abbott, and immediate access to the same healthcare coverage as other state employees, along with state subsidized coverage “for our families while on Texas Military state mobilization.” To achieve these objectives, they pledged to “build a union which gets stronger with every new member we sign up” and coordinate with other state employees who have a “proud history of organizing” as part of the 8,500-member TSEU.
Hunter Schuler, a Texas Guard member and medic who helped initiate the effort, was one of those labelled an “agitator” for doing so. “None of us would be unionizing if our jobs didn’t suck and without all the negative aspects of the mission,” he says. “There’s not great mechanisms for getting problems to the attention of the top leadership any other way.”
- None of us would be unionizing if our jobs didn’t suck and without all the negative aspects of the mission. —Texas Guard medic Hunter Schuler
Thanks to a U.S. Department of Justice court filing in January, Texas is not the only state where National Guard members are now organizing. District Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which is headed by Jody Barr, a veteran of the Connecticut Guard, is also opening its doors to Guard members called up for in-state duty. AFSCME was one of four public employee unions that sought to clarify that a 45-year-old federal prohibition against unionization by uniformed employees of the U.S. Department of Defense, does not apply to Guard members like Christopher Albani, when operating under state control.
As a member of the 103rd Civil Engineer Squadron, Albani helped his home state respond to natural disasters, public health crises, and other emergencies. But, as Barr points out, when Connecticut Guard members were involved in setting up field hospitals and distributing medical supplies as part of the state’s pandemic response, they “were not able to bargain over COVID-19 safety precautions, even though state employees they worked directly alongside were able to have a voice in COVID-19 testing and other necessary precautions.”
Operation Lone Star
It’s often said in the field of labor relations that unions don’t organize workers: bad bosses do. While the validity of that old saw is questionable, it’s certainly been true of a bad boss named Greg Abbott. Last year, with an eye toward his 2022 re-election campaign, Governor Abbott launched Operation Lone Star. This $2 billion a year attempt to police the U.S.-Mexico border with Texas Guard members was necessary, he claimed, because the Biden Administration was failing to do so with the Border Patrol.
Viewed by many as a political stunt, Abbott’s sudden mobilization of 10,000 Guard members took them away, with little notice, from their regular jobs or shorter-term duty in pandemic relief efforts. Nearly 1,000 of the citizen-soldiers affected applied for hardship waivers, citing family responsibilities or their civilian work as first responders. A quarter of these requests were denied because, as one Army National Guard veteran explained, “for this mission, if you had a warm pulse, they were sending you to the border. They didn’t care what your issues were.”
Adding insult to injury was the seemingly pointless nature of border duty itself. Its main initial risk was COVID outbreaks among troops packed together in trailers in groups of 30 each. As TSEU reports, “members reported being assigned to 12-hour shifts, which they spent sitting in a Humvee or walking around near an observation post, waiting for something to happen.”As one soldier assigned to a post near Brownsville explained, “If someone comes up, we ask them to stop and wait, we call the Border Patrol. If someone runs, we call the Border Patrol. We’re basically mall cops at the border.”
On April 22, Abbott’s mission resulted in its first direct fatality. On a treacherous stretch of the Rio Grande river, Specialist Bishop Evans saw several migrants struggling in the water. The 22-year-old African-American from Arlington, Texas, stripped off his body armor and dived in to save them. They survived but Evans was swept away while trying to do, without proper training or equipment, what a local mayor called a “good deed.” At least four other deaths—in the form of suicide—have been reported among soldiers whose mental health problems or financial pressures were exacerbated when they were sent to the border or faced deployment there. ...Read More
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Oath Keepers Leader Sought to Ask Trump to Unleash His Militia
A dramatic account of how the militia leader, Stewart Rhodes, tried to reach Donald J. Trump on Jan. 6 with a message that the group could help keep him in power was revealed in federal court.
By Alan Feuer
New York Times
May 4, 2022 - Even as the beleaguered police were still trying to disperse a violent mob at the Capitol last January, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, undertook a desperate, last-ditch effort to keep President Donald J. Trump in the White House, according to court papers released on Wednesday.
In a suite at the Phoenix Park Hotel, just blocks from the Capitol, Mr. Rhodes called an unnamed intermediary and, the papers said, repeatedly implored the person to ask Mr. Trump to mobilize his group to forcibly stop the transition of presidential power.
But the person refused to speak with Mr. Trump, the papers said. And once the call was over, Mr. Rhodes, turning to a group of his associates, declared, “I just want to fight.”
Witnessing this scene, which unfolded in the twilight hours of Jan. 6, 2021, was William Todd Wilson, a midlevel Oath Keepers leader from North Carolina. On Wednesday, Mr. Wilson, 44, pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington to charges of seditious conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of the Oath Keepers’ role in the Capitol attack.
Mr. Wilson’s tale of what took place at the Phoenix Park — the same hotel that Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys, had stayed at days earlier — was among the most dramatic accounts to have emerged so far in the government’s monthslong investigation of the Oath Keepers.
Phillip Linder, a lawyer for Mr. Rhodes, said he did not know who his client had called from the hotel in his effort to reach Mr. Trump.
In a 15-page statement of offense released in conjunction with his plea, Mr. Wilson also admitted to helping stockpile weapons in hotel rooms in Virginia for a so-called quick reaction force assembled to “provide firearms or cover to co-conspirators” who were “operating inside of Washington” on Jan. 6.
With his guilty plea, Mr. Wilson, a military and law enforcement veteran, became the third member of the Oath Keepers charged with sedition to reach a deal with the Justice Department to help in its most serious criminal case connected to the Capitol attack. As part of their inquiry, prosecutors have fanned out across the country interviewing dozens of members of the group. More than 20 Oath Keepers have been charged.
The new court papers paint a picture of Mr. Wilson as a man enraged by the results of the 2020 election. In early November, for example, he expressed outrage in an Oath Keepers group chat after Georgia was called for Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“Rigged,” he wrote. And then, “I’m ready to go coyote hunting.”
On Dec. 14, 2020 — the day that a majority of electors cast their votes for Mr. Biden in the Electoral College — Mr. Wilson saw an article posted in the group chat that was written by Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s onetime national security adviser. The article warned about “unelected tyrants,” and Mr. Wilson wrote to his compatriots, “It is time to fight.”
After several phone calls with Mr. Rhodes in early January, Mr. Wilson admitted driving from North Carolina to the Washington area on Jan. 5 with an AR-15-style rifle, a 9-millimeter pistol, 200 rounds of ammunition, body armor, pepper spray, and a pocketknife. As he traveled, court papers say, he posted a message in the group chat, saying, “It’s going to hit the fan tonight!”
On the day of the attack, the papers said, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Rhodes and other Oath Keepers bypassed barricades at the Capitol, unlawfully entering a restricted area. As plumes of smoke rose from the ground, the papers said, Mr. Wilson heard Mr. Rhodes declare that they were in the middle of a “civil war.”
Moments later, the papers say, Mr. Wilson entered the Capitol armed with his pocketknife — the first Oath Keeper to have breached the building. He admitted that his goal in entering the building was to gather intelligence and to disrupt the final certification of the Electoral College count.
The sedition case against the Oath Keepers — one of two separate cases brought against members of the group — was made public in January with the arrest of Mr. Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper who went on to earn a law degree at Yale. In an indictment of Mr. Rhodes and 10 of his subordinates, prosecutors fleshed out a detailed portrait of a plot to disrupt the transfer of power from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden, starting shortly after Election Day and continuing even after the Capitol was attacked.
Just two days after voting ended, prosecutors say, Mr. Rhodes told several members of his group to refuse to accept Mr. Biden’s victory — by force, if necessary.
“We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” he wrote on the encrypted chat app Signal. “Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body, spirit.” ...Read More
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From the CCDS Socialist Education Project... |
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A China Reader
Edited by Duncan McFarland
A project of the CCDS Socialist Education Project and Online University of the Left
244 pages, $20 (discounts available for quantity orders from [email protected]), or order at :
The book is a selection of essays offering keen insight into the nature of China and its social system, its internal debates, and its history. It includes several articles on the US and China and the growing efforts of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.
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Taking Down
White Supremacy
Edited by the CCDS
Socialist Education Project
This collection of 20 essays brings together a variety of articles-theoretical, historical, and experiential-that address multi-racial, multi-national unity. The book provides examples theoretically and historically, of efforts to build multi-racial unity in the twentieth century.
166 pages, $12.50 (discounts available for quantity), order at :
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NOT TO BE MISSED: Short Links To Longer Reads... |
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Photo: People protest against high food prices in New York City (c 1970s) © H. Armstrong Roberts/ ClassicStock
Investing In The Green Economy Is Best Way To Fight Inflation
Letter to the Financial Times
From Scarlet Cho,
Finance Undergraduate, Denison University, Granville, OH, US
APRIL 25 2022 - Martin Sandbu (Opinion, April 20) argues that central banks are wrong to tighten monetary policy to tame rising inflation caused by Covid and supply-chain disruption triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If the negative supply shocks are the actual inflationary factors, tightening policy might further hinder supply capacity when borrowing costs become more prohibitive for businesses and households, thus leading to recession. If inflation pressures are unaddressed, this might even usher in stagflation.
To ease the inflationary pressure, the US government should implement strategic investments in targeted sectors to increase the economy’s productive capacity and improve the resilience of supply chains instead of tightening monetary policy.
Under a green “New Deal” industrial policy, the government could invest in clean power and increase the use of domestically produced renewable energy. It could build and renovate energy-efficient homes, schools and office buildings.
It should develop clean and efficient public transport, and invest in a sustainable agricultural food system. Therefore, not only does the green
New Deal bring resilience to supply chains by stabilising food and energy prices, it also creates new jobs and business opportunities with increased productivity.
Furthermore, the green New Deal would regulate the abusive market power of corporations, which reduces yet another source of the current inflationary pressures. Taxing large corporations with excessive market power and implementing policies to lower barriers to entry will increase the competitiveness of the market, thus mitigating inflation.
In short, strategic green New Deal investments and regulations are the best policy to tame inflation.
Mainstream central bank thinking is not going to reduce inflation. It might actually cause stagflation.
Scarlet Cho
Finance Undergraduate, Denison University, Granville, OH, US ...Read More
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Photo: At Ohio rally, Trump drums up hatred against "sick, sinister and evil people" — by which he means you and me
Trump's Latest Hate Rally: A Master Class In
Cult Mind Control
By Chauncey Devega
Salon.com
APRIL 28, 2022 - Donald Trump's political circus and freak show is continuing its American tour. Everywhere it stops, Donald Trump unleashes a torrent of lies, hatred, ignorance, bigotry, racism, narcissism, authoritarianism, threats of violence and other antisocial and evil values.
Trump's political rallies resemble George Orwell's "two minutes of hate" from "1984," expanded to two hours or so.
The mainstream news media has made an obvious editorial decision to downplay or ignore Trump's political hate rallies and similar events. That may be an attempt to correct for the wall-to-wall coverage Trump received the first time he ran for president, but it won't save the American people or American democracy — or the "freedom of the press" — from the neofascist assault.
Moreover, ignoring Trump's escalating threats at this point, given all we know, amounts to journalistic malpractice and betrayal of the public trust.
Many other Americans, to be sure, are also ignoring Trump's rallies. Most of those who are paying attention, it appears, are mostly doing so in order to mock Trump and his followers as ignorant or stupid. They are doing this rather than responding to the danger with an appropriate mixture of fear, caution and then effective planning for how best to defeat the threat. Such behavior is an example of what psychologists call "defensive contempt," a reaction born of deep existential fear.
As I have observed previously, mockery and laughter won't save America people from the hell that will be fully unleashed when Trump's Republican-fascist movement wins the 2022 midterms, and quite possibly the presidential election two years after that.
At this point, many professional centrists, pundits and hope-peddlers in the American news media and larger political class have convinced themselves that attention is like oxygen for Donald Trump and his followers, and therefore that depriving them of attention will suffocate their movement. That metaphor is incorrect: This is more like ignoring a fire and allowing it to burn uncontrolled rather than extinguishing it.
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How Young Workers Are Unionizing Starbucks
By Sonali Kolhatkar
The Bullet
May 2, 2022 - At only 19 years old, Joe Thompson is one of the youngest lead organizers with Starbucks Workers United (SWU), the umbrella organization at the forefront of one of the most exciting labor successes of the last few years.
Thompson, who started working at the coffee chain at age 16, told me in a recent interview, “Starbucks likes to claim it’s super-progressive, and a lot of workers there are, but we’re the ones actually holding Starbucks accountable to that standard.”
The very first Starbucks location to successfully unionize was in Buffalo, New York, where a vote was held only last December. Since then, dozens more locations have voted to join SWU – whose parent company is Workers United, an affiliate of SEIU – and more than 200 other locations have filed for union elections.
Thompson, who uses they/them pronouns, and who describes their background as “working-class Hispanic,” lives in Santa Cruz, California, and works there as a shift supervisor at the first Starbucks in the state to petition for a union. That vote is expected to take place in May, and it will be a bellwether for union organizing at Starbucks cafés across California.
Maintain the Fight
The nation’s most populous state has lagged behind New York, Virginia, Massachusetts and Arizona on unionizing efforts at Starbucks primarily because, as per Thompson, California “does have better working conditions than a lot of other states.” The statewide minimum wage in California is $15 an hour, which is more than twice the federal minimum wage. Thompson also cites “better workplace protections” in California compared to other states.
The lesson here for anti-union forces is that poor wages and working conditions can prompt union activity. Unions are needed precisely because pro-corporate politicians have resisted raising the minimum wage and have weakened labor rights for decades.
Additionally, workers at California’s Starbucks locations “wanted to see what Buffalo could accomplish” before petitioning for a union, said Thompson. “After watching them win their vote, then we really started to organize.”
It’s no wonder that Starbucks worked so hard to stop organizers from successfully unionizing in Buffalo, flying in external managers and holding captive-audience meetings with CEO and founder Howard Schultz. ...Read More
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Image: A Chinese poster for the 1972 film “Walter Defends Sarajevo.” Courtesy of Nebojša Jovanovic)
China’s Favorite Foreign Movie Is a Yugoslav War Film From 1972
'Walter Defends Sarajevo' was one of a tiny selection of foreign movies screened in China during the Cultural Revolution. Fifty years later, it’s still adored by millions.
By Mathew Scott
Sixth Tone
Apr 30, 2022 - When “Walter Defends Sarajevo” was released in the former Yugoslavia in April 1972, no one involved could have predicted it would become one of the most-watched films of all time.
But that’s exactly what happened after the war movie unexpectedly became a sensation half a world away — in China.
“Walter” arrived in China toward the end of the Cultural Revolution. One of a tiny number of foreign films approved for release during this period, it enraptured a people who had been starved of entertainment options for over half a decade.
The tale of a heroic partisan resisting Nazi occupation, the film offered everything Chinese revolutionary operas of the time did not: complex characters, exotic locations, and set-piece action sequences.
- It was unlike any film any of us had seen. --- Zhong Lei, “Walter” fan
It was seen by upward of a billion people as it toured the land, playing to entire factories and villages in makeshift screenings. Fifty years after its debut, many in China can still recite entire scenes line for line.
Zhong Lei was among the youngsters in 1970s China who fell under “Walter’s” spell. Growing up in the central city of Wuhan, he had managed to see a few international films — mostly documentaries — but “Walter” was another experience entirely.
“It was unlike any film any of us had seen,” says the 58-year-old Zhong, a now-retired architect. “It showed us another side to the world.”
The film also inspired a generation of young Chinese filmmakers, who would go on to create China’s first modern action movies in the late ’70s and ’80s. “Walter’s” influence on Chinese cinema can be seen for decades afterward, says Wang Yao, an assistant researcher at the Beijing Film Academy’s China Film Cultural Institute.
“‘Walter’s’ major set-piece battles were the first time many in China had seen pyrotechnics up on the big screen,” says Wang. “Certain tropes from the film — the use of codewords, the swapping of uniforms and identities to infiltrate the enemy camp, and gun battles on moving trains — have been adapted by Chinese filmmakers time and time again.”
The movie entered China thanks to a shift in Cold War politics. During the late 1960s and early ’70s, China’s market for international films was miniscule. The features on release were almost entirely limited to Chinese government-produced documentaries or film versions of “model operas” — musicals with heavy-handed themes of class struggle and patriotism.
But times were slowly changing. As tensions between China and the Soviet Union rose, China sought closer ties with Albania and Romania, and restored relations with Yugoslavia. A byproduct of this was an increase in cultural exchanges, which gradually led to the screening of films from the three Eastern European countries.
“Walter Defends Sarajevo” was one such film. By 1973, the Chinese film industry — which was largely under the control of Jiang Qing, Chairman Mao’s wife — had started showcasing select foreign works and taking them to the masses, says Wang. The Yugoslav title proved to be an instant hit.
“Sometimes there were open-air screenings, or they’d take a 16-millimeter projector from village to village and organize screenings,” says Wang. “There were also screenings in army camps, factories, and schools, so I think you can say it was seen billions of times.”
It helped that “Walter” was an excellent movie — the product of a thriving Yugoslav film industry that had been heavily influenced by Hollywood. Directed by star Bosnian filmmaker Hajrudin Krvavac, the film was loosely based on the story of Second World War partisan leader Vladimir Peric, who fought against the Nazis under the codename Walter before being killed in the battle to liberate Sarajevo in 1945.
Starring hardman actor Velimir “Bata” Živojinovic as the titular character, the film turns on the Nazis’ attempts to unmask Walter, whose true identity is a closely guarded secret among the partisans. Worried the partisans will threaten their plans to use Sarajevo as a fuel base for their tanks, the Nazi occupiers hatch a plot to infiltrate the city using a man posing as Walter, hoping this will flush the real man out of hiding.
There’s betrayal, intrigue, and a string of impressively staged action sequences along the way, with Krvavac taking inspiration from Hollywood blockbusters such as the 1961 Second World War actioner “The Guns of Navarone.” To this day, “Walter” remains arguably the most popular Yugoslav film of all time.
“If you are into Yugoslav cinema, you cannot really avoid it,” says Nebojša Jovanovic, a Sarajevo-based film theorist and historian. “It’s the most quoted Yugoslav film of all time ... For the generation here that were in elementary school in the early ’70s to early ’80s, it was sort of a rite of passage to know all the lines from the movie.”
The film had the same effect on its Chinese audience. At the time, China’s entertainment industry often released the dubbed dialog of international films as a form of radio play — in many cases, months before the film reached many communities. By the time “Walter” was screened, many viewers already knew the script by heart, Wang says.
Wang, who was born in the ’80s, was too young to see “Walter” himself, but he recalls it being one of the few films his parents talked about. Since joining the BFA, he has heard countless tales from the ’70s generation of schoolchildren re-enacting scenes from the film on the playground.
“The radio program, around one hour for each film, was really popular in the ’70s and ’80s,” says Wang. “A lot of people didn’t have access to the film, but they had access to a radio … My mother told me she learned a lot of these films by heart before she watched them.”
As the legend around “Walter” grew, an entire cottage industry related to the film emerged. A Chinese “Walter”-branded beer was launched, featuring a picture of the hero on its label. Later came “Walter” comic books, stage plays, and even a musical.
Živojinovic made regular trips to China after the movie’s release, receiving a hero’s welcome wherever he went. The star, with his charm and fix-jawed resolve, had become an icon in the country. Yet Jovanovic, the historian, puts much of “Walter’s” success down to Krvavac’s skill as a filmmaker.
“He had this theory that filmmaking should really be about acting,” says Jovanovic. “He saw actors as very fragile beings, people whose sole existence depends on their visibility and looks that will vanish at some point … Actors were really crazy about that.”
- The film had a great influence on Chinese film — in everything. - Wang Yao, film researcher
Later Chinese directors drew heavily on Krvavac’s work, Wang says. The explosions, fight scenes, and spycraft in “Walter” were hugely influential, but so were the film’s sophisticated editing and its delicate themes around identity. Unlike traditional Chinese patriotic movies, each character in “Walter” is multi-layered, with shades of light and dark.
“You never know who Walter is, who are the good guys and who are the bad guys,” says Wang. “The film had a great influence on Chinese film — in everything.”
In recent years, several of the Balkan nations that emerged from Yugoslavia’s collapse have used “Walter” as a tool to build diplomatic and economic ties with China. When President Xi Jinping visited Serbia in 2016, the hosts began playing the movie’s theme song during a state banquet, prompting the Chinese leader to wax lyrical about the film.
Sarajevo, now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, also aims to harness the film’s popularity to lure Chinese tourists. In 2019, a small museum dedicated to “Walter” opened, and tours of the city themed around the film were in the works.
However, the disruption to global travel during the pandemic has derailed many of these plans. A “Walter” remake — a co-production between Chinese and Serbian studios — has been shelved, as have any formal celebrations to mark the original movie’s 50th anniversary.
At the Film Center Sarajevo, curator Mija Sego hopes that the freeze will be temporary. The facility is working to expand its collection of exhibits paying tribute to the film, banking on renewed interest from Chinese visitors once international travel becomes easier.
“In China of the 1970s, ‘Walter Defends Sarajevo’ was for many viewers a window into the unfamiliar outside world,” says Sego. “Iconic lines from the film — including ‘Do you see this city? This is Walter!’ — became ingrained in the collective memory of an entire Chinese generation. Because of all this, the film, and now the museum, connect the people and culture of Bosnia and China.” Editor: Dominic Morgan. ...Read More
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Abolition Democracy’s Forgotten Founder
While W.E.B. Du Bois praised an expanding penitentiary system,
T. Thomas Fortune called for investment in education and a multiracial, working-class movement.
By Robin D. G. Kelley
Boston Review
April 19, 2022 - Nearly every activist I encounter these days identifies as an abolitionist. To be sure, movements to abolish prisons and police have been around for decades, popularizing the idea that caging and terrorizing people makes us unsafe. However, the Black Spring rebellions revealed that the obscene costs of state violence can and should be reallocated for things that do keep us safe: housing, universal healthcare, living wage jobs, universal basic income, green energy, and a system of restorative justice. As abolition recently became the new watchword, everyone scrambled to understand its historical roots. Reading groups popped up everywhere to discuss W. E. B. Du Bois’s classic, Black Reconstruction in America (1935), since he was the one to coin the phrase “abolition democracy,” which Angela Y. Davis revived for her indispensable book of the same title.
Where is Fortune in the pantheon of radical Black intellectuals?
I happily participated in Black Reconstruction study groups and public forums meant to divine wisdom for our current movements. But I often wondered why no one was scrambling to resurrect T. Thomas Fortune’s Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South, published in 1884. After all, it was Fortune who wrote: “The South must spend less money on penitentiaries and more money on schools; she must use less powder and buckshot and more law and equity; she must pay less attention to politics and more attention to the development of her magnificent resources.”
[Editor: 'Black and White...' is available for free as a Kindle Book]
Du Bois, on the other hand, praised Reconstruction efforts to establish and improve the penitentiary system in what proved to be a futile effort to eliminate the convict lease. Much shorter but no less powerful, Fortune’s Black and White anticipates Du Bois’s critique of federal complicity in undermining Black freedom, but sharply diverges by declaring Reconstruction a miserable failure. He argues that the South’s problems can be traced to the federal government allowing the slaveholding rebels to return to power and hold the monopoly of land, stripping Black people of their short-lived citizenship rights, and refusing to compensate freed people for generations of unpaid labor. The result was a new kind of slavery: “the United States took the slave and left the thing which gave birth to chattel slavery and which is now fast giving birth to industrial slavery.” Du Bois echoes Fortune, but adds that white labor’s investment in white supremacy ensured “a system of industry which ruined democracy.”
Fortune, by contrast, believed racism would ultimately wither away, but not without a struggle. Formerly enslaved people with proper education, he held, would have to lead the way. He remarks on how Black people came out of bondage, not as robbers and thieves but as industrious, hard-working, family- and community-oriented people:
while the white men of the South, the capitalists, the land-sharks, the poor white trash, and the nondescripts, with a thousand years of Christian civilization and culture behind them . . . organized themselves into a band of outlaws, whose concatenative chain of auxiliaries ran through the entire South, and deliberately proceeded to murder innocent men and women for POLITICAL REASONS and to systematically rob them of their honest labor because they were too accursedly lazy to labor themselves.
And still, he believed interracial working-class unity was not only possible but necessary for “political reasons” to bring an end to monopoly and private ownership of land, the source of inequality. “Individual ownership in the land,” he writes, “is a transgression of the common right of man, and a usurpation which produces nearly, if not all, the evils which result upon our civilization; the inequalities which produce pauperism, vice, crime, and wide-spread demoralization among all the so-called ‘lower classes.’”
So, where is Black and White in recent book club discussions? Where is T. Thomas Fortune in the pantheon of radical Black intellectuals? I’m not the first to ask the question; it has been raised with the publication of each new edition over the last half-century. The most common answers attribute Fortune’s relative obscurity to his behavior. He shifted with the political winds. He renounced his radicalism to become an acolyte of Booker T. Washington. He drank too much and had an uncontrollable temper. The list is long.
But the truth is, in African American circles—especially among the Black press—T. Thomas Fortune never sank into obscurity. He remained a celebrated figure in Black letters throughout his life and for many decades after his death in 1928. Deemed “the dean of Negro journalism,” he was the subject of flattering obituaries and occasional profiles recalling his contribution to politics, the press, and fighting racial injustice. Fortune was described as “one of the most brilliant journalists in the country”; a man of principle, conscience, and integrity who could never be bought; “a valiant warrior” who “fought with his pen to the very last.” In 1949 Roscoe Conkling Simmons published a particularly hyperbolic portrait of Fortune, giving him credit for advancing the careers of both Booker T. and Frederick Douglass. Simmons declared him New York’s “greatest citizen after the fall of Robert E. Lee.”
- In African American circles, Fortune never sank into obscurity. Yet Du Bois never once cites Fortune in Black Reconstruction.
And yet missing from nearly all of these tributes is any mention of Black and White. Indeed, Du Bois never once cites Fortune in Black Reconstruction. August Meier’s landmark 1963 study, Negro Thought in America, 1880-1915, is one of the first texts to discuss Black and White, though his remarks barely fill a single page. He writes, “Not until W. E. B. Du Bois converted to socialism some twenty years later, did a distinguished Negro leader state with such intellectual vigor the thesis of class conflict and the identity of interests of the black and white workers.” Emma Lou Thornbrough, Fortune’s first and only biographer, includes an eight-page summary of the book’s contents but provides very little context or critical engagement.
However, to conclude that the book simply fell out of public view would also be a mistake. Black and White is arguably one of the most “rediscovered” texts in African American letters. In 1969 the pioneering independent scholar, William Loren Katz, reissued Black and White in the series he edited, “The American Negro: His History and Literature,” for Arno Press—an imprint of the New York Times. The following year Johnson publishers issued another edition as part of its “Ebony Classics” series. Thornbrough’s biography appeared two years later, earning much critical acclaim.
The real problem is that people weren’t reading the book very carefully. Historian James M. McPherson’s painfully short “Preface” to the Arno Press edition of the book actually disparages Fortune for his “quasi-Marxist” and “Utopian” belief that Black and white workers held common interests and, in Fortune’s words, “should unite under one banner and work upon the same platform and principles for the uplifting of labor.” But in the early 1880s, this argument was neither “utopian” nor necessarily Marxist. The interracial labor insurgencies we associate with the Reconstruction era were not over; on the contrary, they intensified.
In 1877 workers waged a nation-wide strike wave that began with railway workers in West Virginia, before spreading to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and ultimately St. Louis, Missouri where socialist-led workers organized the nation’s first general strike. Despite the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, the Knights of Labor, the Greenback Labor Party, and the Readjuster Party organized biracial labor campaigns and upheld the promise of multiracial democracy in the region.
By 1880 biracial working-class-oriented coalitions were holding on in places such as North Carolina and Virginia. In fact, the Danville “Race Riot” of 1883 proved to be a major catalyst for the book precisely because it resulted in the overthrow of the Readjusters—an interracial party that called for the cancellation of the Confederate war debt in order to reduce the tax burden on workers and farmers. Instead, the party wanted to direct funds toward public schools, repeal the poll tax, and break the power of the plantocracy and the banks that held the debt. Fortune sided with the Readjusters for refusing “to vote to tax themselves to pay money borrowed without their consent.” Although his response to the violent overthrow of the Readjusters by white supremacists was to propose a new national Black organization “that could effectively and systematically protest lynch law, mob violence, segregation, the penal system, and the inequitable distribution of school funds,” he nonetheless saw the potential of interracial labor organizing in Virginia.
- Fortune believed interracial working-class unity was not only possible but necessary to bring an end to monopoly and private ownership of land.
But Fortune was no Marxist, and his “anti-capitalism” was ambivalent at best. He was against monopoly and the concentration of wealth, an issue that concerned many classical economists at the time trying to understand growing inequality and the boom and bust cycles of U.S. capitalism during the “gilded age.” On one side, he rejected the bogus Social Darwinist theories of Herbert Spencer and Yale Professor William Graham Sumner who claimed that the wealthy owed their success to natural selection and the “natural” laws of the free market. On this view, business acumen, character, frugality, thrift, a work ethic, and intelligence were heritable traits that the poor and non-whites presumably lacked. Of course, few “robber barons” displayed all of these characteristics, but it did not stop them from invoking evolution to explain the deepening wealth divide. Darwinian explanations for class inequality found their greatest proponent in Sumner, whose book, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883), appeared a year before Black and White. His answer, unsurprisingly, is nothing: neither the rich nor the government ought to help the poor as doing so would disrupt the natural order. The poor can learn the values of success so long as they are unhindered by government aid, irresponsible charity, or trade unions. Government’s role is merely to protect “the property of men and the honor of women.”
At the time Fortune clearly regarded capital and labor as antagonistic. He wrote in a column in 1886, “The black man who arrays himself on the side of capitalism as against labor would be like a black man before the war taking sides with the pro-slavery as against the anti-slavery advocates.” But this did not mean he supported socialist or anarchist movements. In fact, he drew primarily on thinkers who not only believed socialist and anarchist groups undermined organized labor, but opposed strikes and militant labor action as dangerous.
Fortune models much of his argument on William Godwin Moody’s 1883 text, Land and Labor in the United States, which argues that land monopoly replaced small farms with “food factories” worked by machines or “tenant farms peopled by feudal slaves,” resulting in overcrowded cities, low wages, high unemployment, and poverty. However, he also blames labor unions for the state of the economy. “Of all the monopolies and tyrannies of capital,” he writes, “there is not one that equals the suicidal selfishness of the workingmen.” Unions, he asserts, have destroyed the apprenticeship system, deskilled labor, dictated wages, and forced workers to strike, disrupting productivity and encouraging idleness and violence. “[B]y disunion, proscription, violence, a narrow minded selfishness and unreason,” unions have “madly thrown away their great opportunities and become weaker and weaker; whilst the capitalists, insignificant in numbers, but powerful in unity and wise in their methods, have as surely increased in strength, and never more rapidly than at the present time.” Moody suggests replacing strikes with intelligent arbitration involving “society men”; reducing the working day to six hours in order to increase employment, raise wages, and permit more leisure time; ending tenant farming and redistributing land “to the people” through the Homestead Act; double taxing all unimproved lands; and granting government control of transportation.
Fortune stops short of blaming organized labor. He sees the problem as one of relative overproduction—workers don’t have the means to purchase the glut of commodities they are producing—and competition, which is the real culprit in lowering wages and driving unemployment. At the same time, though, he was not fond of strikes. His decision to append the testimony of R. Heber Newton before Senator Henry Blair’s Hearings on Relations Between Labor and Capital (1883) suggests some accord with Newton’s assertion that strikes are outmoded and destructive and ought to be replaced by arbitration.
No matter how Fortune analyzed the crisis, he was crystal clear about what to do: “Without distinction of race or of previous condition [the laboring classes] must unite!”
But what did Fortune think about employing the Homestead Act to redistribute land to “the people?” Moody’s understanding of “the people” did not include the Indigenous population, whose land was stolen and parceled out for homesteaders. And while Black and White mentions “Indians” in passing, Indigenous people do not figure in Fortune’s proposal for biracial class politics. This omission is perhaps surprising given Fortune’s own Native heritage (his father Emanuel Fortune was Seminole), not to mention the fact that the U.S. military was still embroiled in “Indian wars.” Moreover, the Dawes Act, which divided Native lands into individual allotments in order to break tribal sovereignty and make more land available for settlers, was still three years away.
But Fortune, like most Americans, accepted the myth of Indians as a dying people, “exterminated by superior force and intelligence, as in the case of the poor Indian of our own land.” Fortune praises them for their courage and “unconquerable heroism and fortitude,” while pronouncing that their “defense of priority of ownership of our domain have caused them to be swept from the face of the earth. Had they possessed intelligence with their more than Spartan courage, the wave of extermination could never have rolled over them forever.” Even as Native dispossession continued throughout his lifetime and struggles for sovereignty persisted, Fortune continued to hold on to the idea of the brave and dying Indian. In 1899 he wrote that “the last Indian is standing on the confines of the Republic, watching the sun of his life gradually sinking down the western incline of the world.”
Fortune’s other source was Henry George’s book, Progress and Poverty (1879), which identified private ownership of land as the main source of inequality. Instead of confiscating land, George proposed a single tax that would, in effect, transform private ownership of land into a kind of lease, since it would no longer be profitable to hold land without making it productive. This would break up monopoly land ownership, render other forms of taxation unnecessary, pay for public institutions and infrastructure, and ultimately lead to greater distribution of wealth. As George put it, “laissez faire (in its full true meaning) opens the way to a realization of the noble dreams of socialism.”
The Marxists begged to differ, especially Karl Marx himself. In a letter to Friedrich Sorge, Marx criticized George for ignoring wage labor, while “believing that the transformation of rent into taxation paid to the State must bring about the automatic disappearance of all the abuses of capitalist production. So the whole thing is merely an attempt, tricked out with socialism, to save the capitalist regime and, indeed, to re-establish it on an even broader basis than at present.” George did not set out to abolish capitalism but create greater equality within it. Moreover, he was not keen on labor organizations, which he characterized as “destructive of the very things which workmen seek to gain.”
Fortune took from George’s idea of abolishing private ownership of land—although, much like his position on capitalism, he wavered. Fortune measures Black progress in terms of land and wealth accumulation, predicting that African Americans would in fifty years own at least thirty-five million acres of land. “The future landlord and capitalist of the South,” he concludes, “are no longer confined to the white race: the black man has become a factor, and he must be counted.” Obviously, his prognostications were way off, but did he regard this trend as a warning or a sign of success? His ambivalence led reviewers to wildly divergent interpretations of his arguments. A writer for the Christian Union called the book “dark” and pessimistic and took issue with his claim that white people monopolized land and Black people continued to suffer from racial prejudice and an economy-based greed. By contrast, a reviewer for the Philadelphia Inquirer found the book incredibly optimistic: “[Fortune] anticipates a happy future for the colored people in the Southern States, for he thinks they will eventually own a great deal of the land in that section and have a corresponding degree of intelligence, influence and independence.”
Of course, these and other reviews failed to mention Fortune’s conclusion. No matter how he analyzed the crisis or whose ideas he drew upon, he was crystal clear about what to do: “The hour is approaching when the laboring classes of our country, North, East, West and South, will recognize that they have a common cause, a common humanity and a common enemy; and that, therefore, if they would triumph over wrong and place the laurel wreath upon triumphant justice, without distinction of race or of previous condition they must unite!”
- The Third Reconstruction is the closest we have come to fulfilling Fortune’s radical dream—and exceeding it.
This common cause, the unity of working people across the color line, has drawn the most skepticism—and continues to do so today. But Fortune turned out to be prescient, and history proved him right. For the last 137 years, the South has been the epicenter of the country’s multiracial democratic movements. Jim Crow, lynching, and disfranchisement were ruling class responses to interracial movements to preserve and expand democracy, protect the rights of working people, redistribute land, and dismantle the plantation oligarchy.
Every one of these legal and extralegal measures to break democratic insurgencies was sanctioned by the federal government. Southern states passed the most draconian anti-labor, anti-Black, and anti-immigrant laws not because they were “conservative” but because more than one-third of the electorate couldn’t vote. And yet, some of the most militant interracial strikes took place in the heart of Dixie: from coal and iron ore miners in Alabama; waterfront workers in New Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, and Charleston; textile, lumber, and poultry workers in North Carolina; sharecroppers in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama; and farm workers in Florida and Georgia, to name but a few. A Black-led interracial movement delivered a second Reconstruction and a Poor People’s Campaign, and Black, Native, and poor white Southerners spearheaded the environmental justice movement. Today, as 26 million people took to the streets to condemn the police killing of George Floyd, Black, Latinx, and white working people were trying to organize Amazon workers, miners, and prisoners in Alabama. ...Read More
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CHANGEMAKER PUBLICATIONS: Recent works on new paths to socialism and the solidarity economy
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This Week's History Lesson:
Major League Baseball Desegregated 75 Years Ago,
But It’s Still Rife With Racism
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Photo: A flag is unfurled on the field prior to a game between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field on June 11, 2021, in Chicago, Illinois.
A flag is unfurled on the field prior to a game between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field on June 11, 2021, in Chicago, Illinois. NUCCIO DINUZZO / GETTY IMAGES
BY Bill Fletcher Jr.
& Bill Gallegos
Truthout
April 23, 2022 - April 15, 2022, marked the 75th anniversary of the desegregation of Major League Baseball through the entrance of Jackie Robinson, wearing the uniform of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Since that April of 1947, Robinson achieved legendary status for his courage, discipline and on-field performance, not to mention his efforts after the end of his career to promote civil rights in baseball and U.S. society as a whole.
The problem is that, as frequently occurs in U.S. society, turning a person into a legend often obscures the larger story. This happens so consistently that one must conclude that this is intentional. Because the aim, in turning an individual into a legend, is to divorce their experience and work from the notion of social movements and collective action. It can also be a means to obscure the institutional obstacles to justice that such great people challenged. In the case of Jackie Robinson, the story became all about two people, and sometimes three: Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey (founder of the Minor League system and an owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers), and sometimes an acknowledgment of the role of Jackie’s wife, Rachel Robinson. The story becomes all about the brilliance of Rickey making the decision to break the color line.
What is missed is the lengthy struggle for justice that took place in Major League Baseball. There was both a struggle for workers’ rights and there was a struggle for racial justice. These struggles became focused on the person named Jackie Robinson, but they were much larger in scope and scale.
Major League Baseball chose to racially segregate in the late 19th century. This was in the context of the growth of Jim Crow segregation. At various moments when there was a possibility of desegregation, such efforts were shut down at the top. Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis was one of the major proponents of racial segregation of baseball and did everything that he could to frustrate efforts at justice during his tenure as baseball commissioner, from 1921 until his death in 1944. He and the owners were also adamant opponents of workers’ rights for players.
The creation of the Negro National League in 1920 in response to racial segregation almost immediately raised the question of the relationship between white Major League Baseball and the Negro Leagues. During off-season, players from both sets of leagues would play against one another in “unofficial” games. The Negro Leagues continued to demonstrate their excellence in every encounter with the white Major Leagues. Yet Major League Baseball remained segregated.
Within the Negro Leagues, discussions unfolded, aimed at developing a strategy for the ultimate merger of the Negro Leagues and the white Major Leagues. There were various proposals considered, including the Negro Leagues becoming part of the Minor League operation of baseball. But the thinking was along the lines of a merger, a point that has great significance in what actually unfolded in 1947 and thereafter.
Pressure for desegregation of Major League Baseball also took form as part of the growing anti-racist element of the movements of the 1930s and early 1940s. The Communist Party, for instance, as part of its larger campaigns against racism and discrimination, highlighted the unacceptable reality of Jim Crow in Major League Baseball and joined a broad front demanding change. The pressure was on, and with the death of Commissioner Landis, there were myriad possibilities as to how events could unfold.
As it turned out, Branch Rickey had his own ideas regarding the future of race and Major League Baseball. Rather than entertain the possibility of a merger of the Negro Leagues and the Major Leagues, he instead decided to identify an outstanding player from the Negro Leagues and make a “go” of it. To be clear, this takes nothing away from Jackie Robinson. But what was put in place was the slow but steady draining of the Negro Leagues of their best players until the Negro Leagues were unsustainable as a business operation.
Desegregation was accomplished, but in a form that ignored the institutional reality of the Negro Leagues. As a result, the power dynamic remained entirely in the hands of the rich, white owners, while the former Negro League players demonstrated, for all to see, their exceptional capabilities and performances.
Thus, when we have celebrated April 15, we have been celebrating not just the victory of one great player. We are acknowledging April 15, 1947, as one important day in a larger and ongoing struggle for justice in baseball.
This celebration is of more than symbolic importance. Not only has racial justice not reigned supreme in Major League Baseball, but we have seen racial injustice mutate over time. The struggle for justice within Major League Baseball has been a multi-decade effort that broke the Jim Crow wall in 1947. African American and Latino players began the process of the transformation of the baseball industry. Over time, the “barons” of Major League Baseball, having drained the Negro Leagues of their best players and having secured post-Negro League African American players, lost interest in African Americans (as well as Chicano and Puerto Rican players), refocusing on the goal of acquiring a cheaper and more vulnerable player pool.
Searching globally, Major League Baseball has developed a particular interest in Latin American players — many of whom are of African descent — as the workforce to cultivate. Thus, while Major League Baseball has desegregated, it is far from inclusive. The problem is not just what Jackie Robinson insisted upon at the end of his life — the lack of Black managers — but it is that entire demographic groups are being written off, as both players and fans.
A couple of points here: African American interest and involvement in Major League Baseball declined slowly in the post-desegregation period and seems to have been driven by several factors, including the elimination of open land in cities for baseball (linked to gentrification) and the rising cost of entering baseball in pre-professional leagues. Added to this has been increased interest in and opportunity to advance in basketball and football.
But it is the lack of interest that Major League Baseball has shown in Black America that strikes one in entering nearly any baseball stadium around the U.S. Rather than any sense that African Americans were central to the growth of baseball, what comes across more strongly is that they are treated as irrelevant.
The response to this will not be found in the actions and display of one or two exceptional players of color. Even though Major League Baseball has since canonized some Negro League players, it does not erase their historical treatment. But it also does not erase consideration of today, i.e., can Major League Baseball, as an institution and sport become relevant to Black America once more? Indeed, can it become “America’s Pastime” in the real sense of being relevant and inclusive to communities of color, such as African Americans, Puerto Ricans and Chicanos, in whose cultures baseball flourished?
Instead, the time has come to undertake a transformation of Major League Baseball, a transformation that must build upon various efforts, such as agreements with the Players Alliance (an organization of Black baseball players) to commit to expanding baseball in Black communities, but it also must go much further. This includes rethinking team ownership structures; a deep and sincere commitment to the re-cultivation of African American, Chicano and Puerto Rican players and fans; and the elevation of the conditions and living standards of Minor League players, particularly immigrant Minor Leaguers who are especially vulnerable. None of this will happen because of the good graces of the barons of baseball, but will be the result of struggle — a struggle that must be undertaken by both the players and fans.
This is the way to celebrate the life and legacy of Jackie Robinson.
Before you go: For a limited time all new monthly gifts will be matched for the first year!
Over the last twenty years, millions of readers have placed their trust in Truthout to keep them informed through extraordinary times. Of those millions, only a few thousand support Truthout financially. Now, after two decades of publishing donor-funded, independent journalism, we’re facing an existential threat to our survival.
You may already know about the difficult situation we’re in. Big tech companies are actively censoring non-corporate news stories, and as a result, our work is being seen by fewer and fewer people each month when trustworthy journalism is needed most. To get through this time, we’re relying on support from you, our core readership – the activists, organizers, and community leaders that got us to where we are today.
Through Sunday, a generous Truthout supporter has pledged $5,000 to match the first year of all new monthly donations. This is a great time to give as your gift will go twelve times as far to help Truthout and independent journalism! ...Read More
Bill Fletcher Jr. is a longtime trade unionist, board chairperson of the Advocates for Minor Leaguers. Bill Gallegos is a former little league second baseman, longtime Chicano activist.
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México’s Bold Lawsuit Against US Gunmakers
WEEKLY BULLETIN OF THE MEXICO SOLIDARITY PROJECT
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Photo: Gabrielle Giffords
Last August, México filed a $10-billion lawsuit against US gunmakers for facilitating gun imports into México, the first-ever such sovereign government suit against gunmaker corporations. A wide array of groups are supporting México’s suit, and the international human rights group Global Exchange recently hosted a webinar that brought together some of these organizations. David Pucino, a senior attorney with the Giffords Center to Prevent Gun Violence, moderated the session. His group’s founder, former US member of Congress Gabrielle Giffords, was shot pointblank in the head at a 2011 political event.
David Pucino, Giffords Center: This Mexican lawsuit is forging a new legal approach. The companies sued, México charges, have made unjustifiable sales, particularly of military-grade weapons. One example: Barrett makes a 50-caliber sniper gun — sold in México — that can shoot down a helicopter from a mile away. Other firms named in the suit range from Smith & Wesson and Sturm to Colt and Glock. Maria Isabel, you lost a son to gun-fueled violence.
Maria Isabel Cruz Bernal: In 2017, men entered my home in Sinaloa and took away my son. I never saw him again. I belong to an organization, Sabuesos Guerreras AC, “Warrior Sleuths,” 150 mothers who’ve been searching for the remains of our sons in Sinaloa. We see ourselves as just one part of a larger movement: over 60 organizations of the relatives of the disappeared, all grieving for lost sons, all searching for evidence and for justice.
Maria Pia, you direct the Association for Public Policies in Argentina. Your nation is also feeling the effects of the gun trade?
Maria Pia Devoto: The gun trade has had a huge impact on all of Latin America. The gangs now operate transnationally, and arms made by US gun companies account for 30 percent of our region’s intentional homicides. I’ve worked to stop the arms trade for years. The Mexican lawsuit has given us an opportunity to take a concrete action — filing an amicus brief — and both the US and Mexican embassies have helped us by facilitating relationships with researchers and pro bono lawyers.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard shows documents announcing México’s US federal lawsuit against US gunmakers. REUTERS/Luis Cortes
Alla, your Everytown for Gun Safety is also supporting México’s lawsuit. As the group’s litigation director, you know the costs of the gun trade all too well.
Alla Lefkowitz: The Mexican lawsuit rests on the contention that US gun manufacturers have been legally “negligent” in their sales practices, knowingly allowing guns to fall into the hands of Mexican cartels. The suit also uses “public nuisance” laws, statutes that ban “unreasonable interference in the public’s normal life.”
Besides the human toll, the gun trade exacts financial costs as well. Everytown has calculated that our federal, state, and local governments are spending a combined average of $34.8 million each day to deal with the aftermath of gun violence: victim services, health care, criminal justice, police and ambulance, preparedness training for schools, lost wages, and so much more.
The total annual bill for taxpayers, survivors, families, employers, and communities comes to $280 billion. We need to also see this as a social cost: the loss of the potential to invest in public services that benefit all Americans. The economic costs for México have not yet been calculated. ...Read More
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Our Amazing Resource for Radical Education
From the settlers to the present, and how its consciousness is conflicted. Prepared by Carl Davidson and Rebecca Tarlau,
with some help from the DSA Rust Belt group.
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There are hundreds of video courses here, along with study guides, downloadable books and links to hundreds of other resources for study groups or individuals.
Nearly 10,000 people have signed on to the OUL for daily update, and more than 150,000 have visited us at least once.
Karl Marx's ideas are a common touchstone for many people working for change. His historical materialism, his many contributions to political economy and class analysis, all continue to serve his core values--the self-emancipation of the working class and a vision of a classless society. There are naturally many trends in Marxism that have developed over the years, and new ones are on the rise today. All of them and others who want to see this project succeed are welcome here.
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Video: "The Janes": The Women Who Formed a Collective to Provide Safe Abortions Before Roe v. Wade with Heather Booth 25 min
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Harry Targ's 'Diary of a Heartland Radical' |
This week's topic:
Click the picture to access the blog.
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Tune of the Week: Down to the River to Pray by Alison Kraus from 'O Brother Where Art Thou' ...4 minutes
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Film Review: ‘The Wobblies’ Restored:
Revolutionary 1979 Labor Union Doc Will Inspire
a New Generation of Exploited Workers
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Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer’s portrait of America's most radical labor organization is an urgent reminder of what unions make possible.
By Susannah Gruder
Indiewire
April 29, 2022 - Teeming with rousing folk songs from the picket line and spirited one-liners from union men and women, Stewart Bird and Deborah Shaffer’s 1979 documentary “The Wobblies” collages together personal impressions from former miners, lumberjacks, stevedores, wheat farmers, silk weavers, and migratory workers — all members of the IWW (International Workers of the World) at the turn of the century — to create a multilayered look at one of the nation’s most radical, and most often overlooked labor organizations.
Ripe for rediscovery on the eve of a new 4K restoration that will be screened across the country in honor of May Day, the film endures as an astounding and essential portrait of American subversion as seen through the eyes of those who lived it.
The IWW, whose members were nicknamed “Wobblies” (or “Wobs”), was formed in 1905 with the goal of creating “One Big Union” made up of all workers, regardless of skill level, race, creed, gender, or country of origin (an audacious notion when most unions were off-limits to women and Jim Crow laws were in full-effect). With a philosophy informed by socialist and anarchist thinkers, the IWW was loathed by capitalist crusaders of the time, as well as more “established” union leaders like AFL president Samuel Gompers, who described it as “a radical fungus on the labor movement, those who could not fit in to a normal, rational movement.”
By 1917, the IWW was largely torn apart by internal conflicts, as well as sweeping hostility toward the “Red”-leaning organization and mass arrests for conspiracy and sedition. The organization does still exist today, though with a significantly reduced membership.
An oral history more than an official one, “The Wobblies” is focused more on rank-and-file members and their stories, rather than on creating an authoritative overview of the organization. As a result, the documentary is as unwieldy and imprecise as its name suggests, though this is far from a defect. The chorus of voices who lend their memories to the narrative are as unique and varied as the IWW itself. Bird and Shaffer sought to capture these early Wobblies’ recollections on camera before they were erased from history.
It’s mesmerizing to listen to men and women in their eighties and nineties as they recall detailed evocations of poor working conditions, the camaraderie of striking workers, and the traumatic violence of strike-breakers.
You’ll be charmed by the patchwork assembly of footage the filmmakers string together: A mix of impressive archival clips from the early days of the movie camera, and lovingly shot interviews from the late ’70s with the Wobblies themselves, interspersed with original illustrations and vintage anti-Wobbly propaganda, equal parts amusing and disconcerting. Footage capturing the physical work that Wobblies did for low pay and long hours — from stevedores hauling massive loads off ships, to lumberjacks sawing back-and-forth through a tree the size of a building — is especially astonishing.
Rather than coming together to form a cohesive whole, each Wobbly subject instead emerges as an individual over the course of the film, with their own personality and perspective on the events that unfolded — some more incendiary than others. One migratory worker explains how cutting off their labor through strikes was the most violent act they could commit, and the futility of sending in government troops to combat them: “Let them weave cloth with bayonets.”
As abrasive as some of the subjects can be, they all have an endearingly tender side, eager to sing along to old labor tunes: “Why don’t you stick together with the Wobblies in one band?” one man sings with fervor. “And fight to change conditions for the workers in this land?” In one clip, a former lumberjack brings out a musical saw which, when curved and played with a bow, emits a haunting whistle-like melody, not far off from the sound of a theremin. The film is suffused with musical interludes like this, which manage to transmit the Wobbly spirit better than any footage or interview can.
Watching “The Wobblies” now, as workplaces large and small struggle (and sometimes even succeed) to organize for better working conditions, it’s inspiring to see the grit and determination of these men and women working together over a century ago. They laid the groundwork for many of the labor laws we have today, but were fighting for the same things workers are still reaching toward — fair wages, shorter hours, and equal pay. They refused to compromise, and were often labeled as rats, rabble-rousers, bolsheviks, and criminals because of their staunch beliefs.
But as you listen to the Wobblies tell their stories, laughing to themselves as they reminisce or singing ardently to the camera, it’s clear that they’re the same people who stood up boldly to the ruling class with a loud message and an unflinching sense of solidarity.
“The Wobblies” is now playing at The Metrograph. It will screen in theaters across the country on May Day, Monday, May 1. ...Read More
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Book Interview: The International Order Is No Longer Exclusive Domain of the West
By Global Times
May 04, 2022
Editor's Note: For the Chinese people, the past decade was epic and inspirational. The country, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, has made great endeavors in boosting its economy, deepening reforms, improving the rights of its people and acting as a responsible power globally. The Chinese leader has been advocating a new security concept featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and coordination.
Global Times (GT) reporter Li Aixin talked to Alfred de Zayas (De Zayas), professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and former UN independent expert, on his understanding of the world order, as well as the roles China and the US play in it. This is the third of the series.
GT: Congratulations on your books, Building a Just World Order, and the upcoming: Countering Mainstream Narratives: Fake News, Fake Law, Fake Freedom. Would you briefly introduce what you think "a just world order" is? And how do you define the current world order?
De Zayas: We already have a rules-based international order in the form of the UN Charter, and we have international mechanisms to arrive at a just world order, including the International Labor Organization, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Program, the UN Development Program, the Sustainable Development Goals, the International Court of Justice, etc. The problem is that there is little enforcement of international law and resolutions and judgments of international organizations are not being observed.
The Human Rights Council, where China has been playing an increasingly important role in the last few years, is largely politicized and has become too much of a gladiator's arena, in which, instead of demonstrating a spirit of cooperation, States have weaponized it through the propagandistic practice known as "naming and shaming." Countries do not hesitate to accuse other countries, totally evidence-free, of committing crimes against humanity or committing genocide.
The vocation of the HR Council is to be constructive, to help all peoples of the world enjoy human rights in larger freedom. To achieve that the UN can offer States who want it advisory services and technical assistance. The idea is to give positive advice and not to impose a certain model, a one-size-fits-all on countries including China, India or South Africa. China and India are the two most populous nations in the world. Together, they're almost half the population of the world. They don't have the geopolitical influence that they deserve. I think that it is important for China and India to cooperate as much as possible and to contribute to the success of the Human Rights Council.
I think it's important to realize that the rules-based international order and the whole concept of international law will be increasingly impacted and influenced by the development of the world, by the legitimate interests of the Chinese, Indians, Africans and Latin Americans. It is no longer the exclusive domain of the US and Europeans.
There were some arrangements made, which were primarily dictated by the US. Now, our goal is to progress, to make sure that human rights are enjoyed by everybody, and not just by the privileged class.
Few countries have stepped on the UN Charter as often as my country, the US. And it's not just the wars that we ourselves started, like the assault on Iraq, but also the wars that we provoked - the US has been and continues to be engaged in proxy wars throughout the world.
With regard to Ukraine, it seems like the US and NATO are determined to fight Russia till the last Ukrainian. They're willing to sacrifice Ukraine and its people, on the altar of American imperial arrogance and American narcissism. This war could have been avoided.
One of the things that the mainstream media ignores is that the UN Charter doesn't only prohibit the use of force, it prohibits the threat of the use of force. It prohibits saber rattling, war mongering, menacing a country. And what else is the expansion of NATO, but a permanent menace against Russia?
And the mainstream media bears a considerable responsibility, because people tend to believe what they read in The New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN. And the phenomenon is that people also tend to believe their own propaganda. You can deceive yourself. And it constitutes a huge obstacle to reaching peace or any kind of a compromise, if you intransigently divide the world in a binary fashion of good and bad. And when we talk about bad guys, it's China, Russia, and anybody who is not willing to dance to our tune.
Many American professors and intellectuals have recognized that. Noam Chomsky has been writing about that for fifty years. But unfortunately, these thinkers lack political power. They are not influencing the secretary general of the UN or Biden.
GT: What is your view on China's role in the world order over the past decade?
De Zayas: China has been visibly more active in the General Assembly, in the Security Council and in the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
China has done a magnificent job of pulling hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. That means human rights. Human rights are the right to peace, life, food, water, sanitation and housing. That must be recognized also by leaders in the US -- Joe Biden and Antony Blinken.
Blinken is always talking about a rules-based international order. My answer to him is: For heaven's sake, we have it! It is the UN Charter. How about implementing it?
And I would think that China should do more in dissemination of news. China has not quite broken the stronghold that the US and Europe have on the dissemination of news. There is an information war. This is a hybrid war that the US has fought very successfully in order to impose our view of things on everybody else, whether it be in Latin America and Africa or in Asia.
GT: As you have mentioned, some observers tend to believe that the US is showing its stance on the world order, which is: Either you are with the US, or against the US.
De Zayas: I have heard that very often. This is not a new phenomenon. This already existed at the time of the Vietnam war in the 1960s and the 1970s.
And it's the same mentality about what we call patriotism or jingoism or chauvinism. I see myself as a patriot. Who is a patriot? A patriot is someone who wants to see social justice domestically, and who wants to see international peace, contribute to world conditions and world trade in a manner that will advance the interests of the people. So the patriot is not the guy who says yes to the government. The patriot is the one who does his level best to ensure that his government is actually doing good, advancing the interests of the population.
And advancing the interests of the population is certainly not spending more than 40 percent of the national budget in military bases like Guantanamo, but putting the money into education, into maintenance of essential infrastructures. The bridges fall on the Mississippi. There's no priority for that. Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans. There's no priority for healthcare. Why have we lost 1 million Americans to COVID? Those hospitals that were not making profits were closed. The money was not put into research and development for the prevention of pandemics and of other disasters. The money was put into the military-industrial complex and into military incursions.
It also goes back to the brainwashing, the indoctrination of the American people through the mainstream media. People say we have a free press; we don't. The six years when I was a UN independent expert for international order, I sent dozens of op-eds to the New York Times. No response. I was not interviewed once, by CNN or the Washington Post. Since I am not going to sing the song they want to hear, they don't ask.
That is part of the problem. If you have a population that has been indoctrinated and brainwashed, you have a government by people who actually believe their own propaganda. How then are you going to build a just world order?
GT: Some say the US-led world order is challenged by China. But there are also observers who say the real challenge to the current world order comes from Western countries and that China is actually maintaining that order. What is your view?
De Zayas: Donald Trump had his motto: Make America Great Again. That meant full spectrum domination. The US was doing it for several decades after WWII. But we live in the 21st century. It's ridiculous to think that we can simply order people around. That is 19th century imperialism, or 20th century colonialism and neo-colonialism.
We have to simply take into an account that China exists. So the only thing that an intelligent person does is to find a model that is a win-win situation. China benefits from good trade relations with the US. The US benefits from good trade relations with China. But we seem to have a kind of paranoia, a kind of persecution complex, whenever someone in the world articulates interests that are not in conformity with our interests. We see that as aggression, as a threat; it's a ridiculous attitude.
China has demonstrated its patience, it displays moderation, which reflects millennia of tradition and culture, like the drop that eventually pierces the stone. It continues reminding the UN Security Council of the letter and the spirit of the UN Charter. It continues reminding the Human Rights Council of the letter and the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I salute China for having played an important role in the adoption of a very important resolution in the human rights council at the 48th session in September 2021, Resolution 48/7. That was on the effects of neocolonialism, the sequels of colonialism and imperialism on indigenous peoples, in North and South America and in the Pacific islands.
Whenever I hear the US talking about self-determination in Tibet (Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region), etc, I say, do we know Tibet's history? How about talking about the self-determination of the people of Hawaii?
Why is Hawaii a state of the US? It is thousands of miles away from San Francisco and Los Angeles. Even president Bill Clinton, back in 1993, issued an apology to the people of Hawaii for having toppled the kingdom of Hawaii in 1893, 100 years earlier. Of course, he did not offer to give the Hawaiians their kingdom back.
The US likes to place itself in the position of being the judge. We judge others. Others cannot judge us. That's why the US does not accept the automatic jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, or of the International Criminal Court. We're above it. That is, once again, the problem of the wrong mindset.
I think that China should send the White House 1,000 mirrors to be placed in every room, in the halls of the US Congress, so that we can look at ourselves. If we could develop a faculty of self-criticism, that would be very useful for ourselves and it would promote world peace. What we have done and continue to do is contrary to international law and international order.
GT: China has been advocating a new security concept featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and coordination. Do you think China's concept might offer some clues for a future world security order?
De Zayas: I would agree with China's concept. And I would hope that China does its utmost in giving visibility to this vision, to get this proposal of security architecture to be accepted. In order to get there, China could possibly hold a World Summit on International Security.
If China were to host such a world summit and invite India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, and of course the Europeans and the Americans, it would be clear that this World Summit would actually represent the planet and not represent what the West calls the "international community."
When we're talking about the international community, it is about 20 to 25 countries. We're talking about the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, France, Germany... Is that the international community? It isn't. It's maybe 15 percent of the world population. How about the remaining 85 percent?
China represents one fifth of humanity. I would like to see China's vision being taken into account and becoming more generally known. ...Read More
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