tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67253966032055309082024-03-05T01:24:25.378-08:00Oregon Socialist RenewalPosts are written by bloggers who are members of various organizations including Democratic Socialists of America, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Willamette Reds, and others in Oregon.HDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04797998577645466719noreply@blogger.comBlogger882125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-60462955574502278872021-12-29T14:05:00.001-08:002021-12-29T14:05:35.652-08:00New Approaches are Not Defeatism<p> We must always base our approach on facts. Although revolutionary
optimism is important, as is avoiding defeatism, there is a difference between
defeatism and a sober analysis of objective conditions. The US state is
unresponsive to the needs and policy preferences of its citizens and has been
for decades. Is this defeatism or is it a fact? It is a fact. Large parts of
the US working class are politically disengaged. Is this defeatism or is it a
fact? It is a fact. What we choose to do in response, how we organize ourselves,
and how we approach the problem can be defeatist; acknowledging the fact is
not. Likewise, the left/progressive strategy of unprincipled voting for
Democrats to ‘stop the right’ has largely failed in its objective over the past
four decades. Is this defeatism, or is it a fact? It is a fact. Indeed, we hear
little else from the promoters of this strategy (and if we are being specific,
I will name the CCDS as an exemplar of this) than endless warnings about the
growing strength of the right. If I and others are sick of hearing the same strategy
put forward over and over no matter how objective conditions change, that is
completely understandable. The present moment is characterized by a rapidly
shifting balance of forces, both internationally and within the US, fraught
with both danger and opportunity; the old gradualist strategies of the 1980s
and 90s will no longer serve us. We must explore new approaches, new tactics,
new ways of engaging in electoral and organizing work. The final measure of the
correctness of practice is objective results.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>strannikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00532464960144087283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-11489396715089812732021-12-29T12:39:00.005-08:002021-12-30T12:31:12.915-08:00Against Defeatism<i><b>"We were extremely marginalized, and there was a lot of prejudice. The biggest problem, however, was that the party wasn’t rooted among the population. There was nothing objectionable about its program — it stood for the same goals as it does today. But we hadn’t yet understood that we couldn’t just console people with hopes of a better world. We thought we had to explain the whole world to people. It is surely important to make connections: Why is there so much conflict in the world? How do wars start? But, above all, you have to be in touch with how others live and work if you are going to be a useful party for people. You have to acquire the skills to help people with their small, everyday problems."---Elke Kahr, <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/graz-communist-party-of-austria-kpo-mayor-elke-kahr-interview">the recently elected Communist mayor of Graz, Austria</a><br /><br /></b></i><p>Defeatism on the U.S. Left comes in many colors and flavors. There is the defeatism and nihilism that comes with acknowledging pending environmental and political disasters and not building or seeing an alternative or acknowledging that people can and will have to work very hard to overcome ecological destruction. Lying is defeatism, and we're lying to people if we're telling them that the future will be easy and that everyone will have more "after the revolution." There is the defeatism of making arguments and demands grounded in what a writer or a speaker wants rather than what exists in reality. Consider the times when you have been at a rally or read an article that says "I'm tired of ____!" as if one person's particular exhaustion is the problem. There is the defeatism of always being the critic, of never meeting a union contract or a legislative change or a movement or politician that measures up to your standards. There is the defeatism of making criticisms of ideas or movements in print but not naming who exactly is being criticized and leaving readers to wonder what is really being said. There is the defeatism of looking overseas for inspiration and ideas but not engaging with ideas and movements here. There is the defeatism of holding on to a set of demands that are essentially moral positions and stating these as measuring sticks for others, regardless of whether they are practical now or not.<br /><br />Calling for "education" has been a form of liberal defeatism for more than a century that now appears on the Left, the implication being that people have a set of mistaken ideas that need to be replaced with the truth and that if people just went to the right websites or read the right books change will follow. You know that a meeting is going nowhere when people start talking about the websites they go to. The liberal call to vote for this or that candidate and not to maintain a movement to pressure that person when they are elected is another example of liberal defeatism, but this is mirrored by those on the Left who counterpose electoral activity to organizing for change and/or who talk about "working-class self-activity" as if this is somehow at odds with electoral activity and unionism. There is the defeatism and dead-ends of what often gets called "class-struggle elections" and "breaking with the Democrats" and the idea that every and any group has to rely primarily upon itself and not build a practice of extending solidarity with others as struggles around specific issues deepen.<br /><br />There is the defeatism of replacing movement-building with non-profits and there is the defeatism of Labor's top-down approach to most struggles. There is the defeatism of thinking that we're in a massive strike wave now and there is defeatism in thinking that strikes are doomed to fail so long as union leadership exists. There is the defeatism of thinking that a particular sect or union or non-profit matters more to people than the issues they deal with and making every conversation about sects, unions or non-profits. There is the defeatism of "allyship" and what has become known as "identity politics" and anti-racism and privilege theory and the defeatism of talking about an economy or a country "that works for working people." There is the defeatism of "movementism," thinking that the movement is everything or enough and that political organization is less important or not important. There is the defeatism of thinking that political organization is important but not joining a political organization and helping to craft its line and practice. There is the defeatism of mansplaining.<br /><br />There is the defeatism of long articles in Left publications dealing with the end of the world written in language that only academics and a in-crowd gets. There is the defeatism of having shelves of books and not offering them to new people looking to the Left. There is the defeatism of Left groups electing people to leadership positions before they are well-prepared and the defeatism of people showing up at meetings and taking the floor and making criticisms, and sometimes taking on tasks, and never showing up again. There is the defeatism of insisting that everyone must be a pacifist and the defeatism of thinking of liberals and the political center and union leaders and Democrats as our primary enemies.<br /><br />There is the defeatism of taking a union staff job or a job in a non-profit and becoming the representative of the workers or the people and not moving them forward to take your place, being the swashbuckler, the burnout, the 24/7 organizer, the one-person service representative. There is defeatism in being the retiree who tells everyone what they should do and/or who tells battle stories and history subjectively. <br /><br />There is defeatism in living in a Leftist parallel universe where everything that you want to happen comes to fruition the way that you want it to, and when that doesn't happen you get to blame others and walk away without consequences.<br /><br />Alright. Enough.<br /><br />There is lots of great work being done out there. If you're not actively engaging with a project or organizing, I'm not sure that you have space to be defeatist. But the background drone of defeatism that you're adding to is, well, helping lead to defeats. Here are some of the most important projects out there:</p><p><a href="https://www.organizingupgrade.com/ ">Organizing Upgrade</a> hits it most every time. They're almost always ahead of the curve.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.cpusa.org/article/">The Communist Party USA</a> has a section on the classes the Party gives. Sometimes they miss the mark, but more often this is a great starting place.<br /><br />The <a href="http://ouleft.sp-mesolite.tilted.net/">Online University of the Left</a> and the <a href="https://www.marxists.org/">Marxist Internet Archive</a> get you to the classics and to better understanding current issues. If you think that the problem is a lack of learning resources, think again. The problem is that we don't ask people to do long-term study groups and expand these to include others. Why is this so? The Better World Book Club in Ohio figured out how to do good popular education on Facebook and Organizing Upgrade works this out well, so we know that it can be done. Look at Liberation Road's <a href="https://roadtoliberation.org/category/organizing-tools/revolutionary-book-club/">Revolutionary Book Club</a>. What holds our defeatists back from picking this up?<br /><br />Democratic Socialists of America has lots of educational and activist materials out there, many of them so-so, but some local DSA chapters and commissions do great work. <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/pdxdsalabor/home">The Portland DSA chapter does exemplary labor work</a>, for instance. What stops us from doing the same? And how is it that many people on the Left who have talked for years about the need for a socialist movement have disengaged from that movement as it has taken shape? <br /><br />There are probably more Labor-oriented publications, blogs, radio broadcasts and podcasts than ever before. There is no reason to say that Labor isn't moving. The question is not whether Labor is moving or not, or even in what direction we're going, but where you stand in relation to that movement. You can (wrongly) deny the radical importance of Labor, think (wrongly) that the primary contradiction for workers is between union leadership and union members, or you can engage through your union or organize a union where you work or get behind groups like the <a href="https://www.cbtu.org/about.html">Coalition of Black Trade Unionists</a> and others. <a href="https://www.ueunion.org/">The United Electrical Workers</a> models how to build unionism, labor alliances, and Labor-Left alliances. The main problems in the labor movement will be solved by new organizing and by winning whatever makes that easier and by establishing strong unions from the beginning. Every grievance and complaint is an opportunity to effectively win or renegotiate a contract. <br /><br />This is not intended to cheer you up or sound like Pollyanna. If you see yourself in this---and I certainly see myself in this---then I think that you're either obligated to make some changes or step aside. <br /><br />I mentioned up above some forms of defeatism. In fairness to them, and because I criticized folks who make criticisms without being specific, here are some examples of what I think demonstrates defeatism: <a href="https://www.tempestmag.org/">https://www.tempestmag.org</a>, <a href="https://www.cpusa.org/article/the-curious-rise-of-white-left-nationalism/">https://www.cpusa.org/article/the-curious-rise-of-white-left-nationalism/</a>, <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/site_area/perspectives">https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/site_area/perspectives</a>, and <a href="https://cpiusa.org/">https://cpiusa.org/</a> to list a few. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-40784426551463483772021-12-28T09:57:00.000-08:002021-12-28T09:57:00.394-08:00Another Plea for Progressive Strategic Voting<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Since 2014, even mainstream political science
acknowledges that the US state is profoundly unresponsive to the needs of its
ordinary citizens. The views and preferences of mass organizations and ordinary
people have no effect at all upon policy outcomes. None. Meanwhile, elite
organizations and the views of the owning classes are enormously influential.
Any state that ignores the will of its citizens so consistently and brazenly cannot
be termed a republic or a democracy. The United States, whatever it may have
been in the past, is a plutocratic oligarchy. Seen in this light, it is no
wonder that progressives rarely hold office and, even when they do, struggle to
enact even the most tepid policies. The electorate, for its part, has
understood this for decades: the single universal predictor of regular voting
is higher income. A plurality of working class people, and a majority of poor
working class people, do not vote at all.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The widening gap between the needs of the masses and
the policies enacted by the government has potentially serious consequences. We
must remember that fascism does not arise merely from reactionary politics, but
from a crisis in the established bourgeois order. The unresponsiveness of the
state to the people’s needs provides a catalyst for such a crisis, and let us
be clear: this unresponsiveness is bipartisan, as is the fascist threat. We see
the signs in the sad state of cities around the country, in the hopelessly
corrupt response to the pandemic, in the growing desperation of a population
that has turned to opioid abuse and suicide to find some relief from their
circumstances, in rising censorship and political violence, in hysterical war
propaganda against Russia and China, and in the stark image of a Presidential
inauguration conducted behind concrete barricades and a ring of soldiers. Under
these conditions, there is a very real possibility that the country could
become ungovernable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In all this, the main progressive and left
organizations provide the same answer to the masses that they always have, an
answer that has had the same basic form for the past four decades: “We must
stop ____”. Whether the blank is filled by Reagan or Bush or Trump makes no
difference. The status quo, however bad, must be defended against the greater
evil. Once that is done, we are told, our needs may be met. But they never are.
In fact, it is precisely the status quo that prevents progressive policies
being enacted and leads inexorably to crisis, of which the election of
unscrupulous huckster Donald Trump is only one expression. To repeat: the
election of right wing Democrats creates the very conditions which produced the
faux-populist Trump in the first place. Moreover, if supporting rightist Democrats
is “strategic” as its defenders have stubbornly argued, should we not have seen
some measurable policy result in <i>forty years</i>? Today, the prescription to
support the Democrats without question or criticism reaches even more absurd heights,
as organizations like the moribund old CCDS and CPUSA enjoin leftists to unite
with the military, the state security apparatus, and Bush-era war criminals to
oppose Trump. If ever there was a ‘red-brown alliance’, this is it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">One might imagine, after reading the preceding
paragraphs, that they might be followed by a vague call to organize the masses
directly or to build a labor party out of thin air. Not at all. In fact, what I
propose should be acceptable to even the most yellow-bellied reformist:
strategic voting. Progressive votes should be given only to those candidates
who demonstrate tangible effort in support of progressive policies. Failure to show
such effort would result in a coordinated withdrawal of votes. Either
progressives can continue on the path of political cowardice and watch the
country sink further and further into apathetic misery or we can adopt a new strategy
that acknowledges the basic principles of electoral organizing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>strannikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00532464960144087283noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-36628435249623091232021-10-20T21:54:00.112-07:002021-10-22T10:27:14.763-07:00Is It Protest Music Or Is It Our Lives?<p>This post has a lot to do with bluegrass and country music---not completely, but if bluegrass and country music aren't your things then this post may not be for you.<br /><br />Let's start by dispensing with the idea that "culture" is music, art, writing, and a matter of tastes that may or may not be cultivated and refined. I like an enlarged definition of culture that says that culture is how we operate within social contradictions, how we work with and transmit our understandings of the reality of which we are a part. There is the base of society---all the relationships tied to the means of production and distribution. And there is the superstructure that builds from that base and which ensures that one class holds hegemony and others don't. This is the state, cultural institutions, the way work is organized, school, religion, etc. But there is always---always---conflict running from the base through the superstructure, and hegemony never becomes complete domination, even with fascism. Change and conflict are inevitable. Both the base and the superstructure have irreparable cracks in them. The class conflicts and the contradictions and struggles that occur between races and between genders take place between real people in real time. Classes, races, and genders are verbs in the first place, not nouns; they draw their identities and reason and force---their most active dimensions---from action, not from being statistical categories. Culture is how we operate and what we do within that verb of active dimensions. It's one very important means of understanding and acting on what differentiates the "thems" and the "uses," part of the inevitable social conflict over either the ruling class maintaining or us gaining hegemony.<br /><br />Have I lost you yet? You thought you were digging into a post about bluegrass and country and here I am going abstract on you. Hang on! </p><p>I think that the great photographer Yevgeny Khaldei best illustrated the role of the cultural worker. His photographs of the Great Patriotic War ("World War Two") are stunning, to be cliché but truthful. And there is one of his photos showing the USSR's soldiers marching over a giant nazi flag as they liberate a concentration camp and there is a building burning in the background. "People ask if I staged the photograph of the soldiers marching on the flag," Khaldei said. "I didn't. But I did set fire to the nazi office in the background." That takes a certain understanding of struggle, the push and pull of struggle and culture, to fully appreciate.<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosaZld00Ro5WlZmDGZ5D4OgBggZJGVMFQ8NawIM-BwDooCC7xXnq6nIk9_dBXH58kKDp6Du_PgonYDJIDGQGiVR7lFA24_yvlKZngBT-GXtvJhJF0deqKNVWGB9bjGjHr5a2GdncW07pU/s500/burninghouse.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="500" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosaZld00Ro5WlZmDGZ5D4OgBggZJGVMFQ8NawIM-BwDooCC7xXnq6nIk9_dBXH58kKDp6Du_PgonYDJIDGQGiVR7lFA24_yvlKZngBT-GXtvJhJF0deqKNVWGB9bjGjHr5a2GdncW07pU/s320/burninghouse.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>No movement for social change is going to stand alone, apart from society or as a subculture or as "in crowd," and win. Our movements for social change have used music for 150+ years, and things work best when that music reflects popular experiences and knowledge and is accessible. I don't see much discussion of music in my circles, or much appreciation of it. Maybe the pandemic has done some damage here, but I don't see a movement that sings the songs that reflect the lives of working people and that is fully accessible to them/us. It's been a long time since I've been to a picketline with live music that turned people on and had songs they knew the words to. Maybe I'm not going to the right picketlines. That said, there is some great music for us out there right now.<br /><br />I'm liking Leyla McCalla's music these days:<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kHnUXHOo0"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kHnUXHOo0"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o6kHnUXHOo0" width="320" youtube-src-id="o6kHnUXHOo0"></iframe></a></div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kHnUXHOo0"><br /></a> and<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lcjQdPcbS3c" width="320" youtube-src-id="lcjQdPcbS3c"></iframe></div><p>That music speaks pretty clearly for itself, doesn't it?</p><p></p><p>I also like Sabine McCalla's music. Here's one of my favorites:<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1lYigC2Jn20" width="320" youtube-src-id="1lYigC2Jn20"></iframe></div><p>Is Sabine McCalla's song a protest song? In a sense it is---in the very cultural sense as described above---because it captures a sound and an attitude and a rhythm and comes from a creative lineage that are all very much at odds with the capitalist social (dis)order and the music industry itself right now. This is an expression of a southern Black woman's poetic sensibilities, something reaching for a new humanism and coming from a woman whose parents were political activists.</p><p></p><p>Cedric Watson and Leyla McCalla raise the intellectual bar by challenging us to think and feel together, which is to say that they challenge the capitalist order that separates thought and action. And they do this with real subversive tact.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzjxs9FC1ZI"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzjxs9FC1ZI"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tzjxs9FC1ZI" width="320" youtube-src-id="Tzjxs9FC1ZI"></iframe></a></div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzjxs9FC1ZI"><br /></a>Let's kick it up a little.<br /><br />Kelsey Waldon nails so much of the timber of our lives in "High in Heels"--<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nomsM_gKE2I"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nomsM_gKE2I" width="320" youtube-src-id="nomsM_gKE2I"></iframe></div></a><br />If she stopped there she might make it in Nashville. But she goes much further:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101UwLQr8zQ"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/101UwLQr8zQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="101UwLQr8zQ"></iframe></div></a><br />and:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBh4q1Fftno"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aBh4q1Fftno" width="320" youtube-src-id="aBh4q1Fftno"></iframe></div></a><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">and</div><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jBXtGe3RTc"></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jBXtGe3RTc"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6jBXtGe3RTc" width="320" youtube-src-id="6jBXtGe3RTc"></iframe></a></div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jBXtGe3RTc"><br /></a>It isn't just that Kelsey Waldon is singing about our lives with solidarity and beauty or that she wears camo (the color of the United Mine Workers of America union) or that you can donate to good causes when you purchase records on her site (<a href="https://www.kelseywaldon.com/">https://www.kelseywaldon.com/</a>). It isn't just that she borrows from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbSa6_fHtY8&list=PLcMK2h2hn_TaLdbDZNHGjmPuJGrMOMEML&index=14">Hazel Dickens</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cx2sRHOd1Y&list=PLM6B91AK9KChV3KixgOiyf4b3gHQuzeDX&index=2">Ola Belle Reed</a>. It's also the ways that she smiles and frowns and takes control of the music and the ways that she speaks and the way she partners with some serious women musicians. If you know Appalachia and parts of the midwest and south you know what I'm talking about. You will recognize someone just like her on a picketline or at the Piggly Wiggly.<br /><br />We're going to get some criticism for stereotyping working-class people as mine workers and industrial workers, and as men. I take the point that the working-class is multiracial and multinational and diverse and that we do all kinds of work---more on that below---but I want to draw out that coal production is increasing right now and that this increase in production comes with fewer permanent hires and more contracted workers and increases in black lung. In other words, it comes with suffering for workers and our communities. <br /><br />Now, I'm not necessarily anti-Nashville when it comes to music, but for a long time Nashville has promoted music that feeds the far-right or that leaves politics and struggle out of the picture. I can't believe that Lady Antebellum got away with themselves for as long as they did. But Del McCoury gets in under the radar and gets his points across:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GAaWXfW050"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0GAaWXfW050" width="320" youtube-src-id="0GAaWXfW050"></iframe></div><br /></a>and<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCRO88Hj-34"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mCRO88Hj-34" width="320" youtube-src-id="mCRO88Hj-34"></iframe></div><br /></a>Now, someone is going to say that Del McCoury's gospel music has a reactionary side to it. I hear that line in "Free Salvation" (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCRO88Hj-34">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCRO88Hj-34</a>) about school prayer, but I want to draw attention to the antiwar message and the underscored statement in the song that salvation is for people "with no exceptions." From the standpoint of a working-class Protestant in the so-called "non-conforming churches" these are not always intuitive positions. I also want to emphasize that the Del McCoury band is essentially a family band, a form of musical organization that Nashville did much to destroy. And who else is doing Woody Guthrie songs and a song protesting rural gentrification?<br /><br />Del McCoury's "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUR9YPPw_80">Amnesia</a>" is full of working-class complaints about a relationship falling apart, and his "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6LILGJzpHA">Streets of Baltimore</a>" is a story I heard many, many times before I left Appalachia in the late '90s. Even then Baltimore had large Appalachian communities, and when I went over there I got away with quite a few traffic violations because the cops figured that I was just another one of the many moving in. I once got hired at a textile mill there without even filling out an application because the manager pinned me as a desperate West Virginian looking for work who couldn't read. "You look like a solid citizen," he said with a wink. <br /><br />Billy Strings is moving into Nashville, I guess, but you can see that he has some of the same energy that Kelsey Waldon has and that he knows our working-class despair. Listen in to "Dust In A Baggie":<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub-naDJbKFY"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ub-naDJbKFY" width="320" youtube-src-id="Ub-naDJbKFY"></iframe></div><br /></a>Logan Halstead gets it right most of the time:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2KVN8CIl6c"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A2KVN8CIl6c" width="320" youtube-src-id="A2KVN8CIl6c"></iframe></div><br /></a>And there are lots more.<br /><br />This music has to take up some contradictions and hits some walls. All that despair will burn people out, even though it's a money maker. It's easy to get stuck there, and as you go through this music you will find one musician who has a number of songs about staying high and warding off people who carry "bad news" (like the Left) and Logan Halstead's offensive song that insults women in Pineville, Kentucky. This takes us to hipster irony, that just makes fun of working-class people, and to nihilism. And you know that describing our lives is not the same as singing or talking about changing life, but you also know that if we can't define what's happening then we don't have any power at all.<br /><br />The bigger problem is that most music that puts forward justifiable white or Black grievances and that doesn't attempt to draw the two together somehow falls short and maybe turns back the clock as well. It's an old saying that there is nothing that Black people want that white people don't need. We need to hear that and work with it. Have you ever wondered why The Persuasions changed the ending of their "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqdi-lraGxQ">Willie and Laura Mae Jones</a>" over the years? <br /><br />Now, there is an old and very stupid joke about playing country music records backward and getting back your house, your wife, and your dog. I didn't get the import of the history of bluegrass nd country music until I read Keri Leigh Merritt's book "Masterless Men." It's not that she writes about music---she doesn't--but that she explores in this book the lives and cultures of the majority of dispossessed whites in the pre-Civil War south who did not own slaves and who had an ambiguous or oppositional relationship to the slaveholders and to slavery. Their misery has remained with us. It's a hard book to read, but I want you read it and Dr. Du Bois' "Black Reconstruction in America."<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2fuhBlbV-g"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L2fuhBlbV-g" width="320" youtube-src-id="L2fuhBlbV-g"></iframe></div></a> <div>I think that its also essential that you go over to the <a href="https://wvminewars.org/">West Virginia Mine Wars Museum</a> and poke around, buy some books there and watch some videos. The Battle of Blair Mountain can be read in many ways, but I think that now wee can see that it formed part of a working-class response to the Tulsa Massacre and the reactionary trends taking hold in the United States during and after the First World War. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-66167322870765765862021-10-10T13:43:00.000-07:002021-10-10T13:43:36.336-07:00F__k Joe Manchin (and Krysten Sinima too)!!<p> West Virginia Senator, Joe Manchin, said he doesn't want to vote for an "entitlement" society. Manchin is of course, referring to the 3.5 T reconciliation bill stuck in the current Congress. The truth of the matter is that both Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are standing for a different kind of "E" society. Manchin and Sinema are standing with their Republican cohorts in defense of the Exploitation society.</p><p>For Manchin, Senator for West Virginia, the second poorest State in the Union, it really is OK for people to spend their life working crap jobs in poverty; they should be entitled to nothing, per Joe Manchin. The kids of these exploited people shouldn't be offered anything better then the shit lives their parents had, and its plenty OK if West Virginia's seniors die around age 60, rather then the upper 70s to 80s like big chunks of the rest of the country (or at least the wealthier parts of the country).</p><p>And then there's Kyrsten Sinema; a ball of lies and bad faith if there ever was one. As we speak, our Senator from Arizona is busy putting wrenches in the gears of her Party's legislative corner stone. </p><p>Nobody knows what Sinema's objections are to the 3.5 T reconciliation bill. She's not saying what she objects to. Sinema says she doesn't negotiate in public. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders say she hasn't negotiated with anyone; not her fellow Senators, not the White House, maybe just the Pharma and other lobbyists she seems to meet with frequently.</p><p>Sinema has broken most of her campaign promises. She said she supported lowering drug prices during her 2018 Senate run, but is now hinting she she's ready to object to legislation which would allow Medicare the necessary leverage to bargain for lower drug prices. Coming out of the Green Party, Sinema campaigned for Climate Change legislation. As of today, she's hinting that she objects to the climate change legislation contained in the reconciliation bill.</p><p>All week long, we've heard the protest of right-wing politicians, Bill Maher, and the mainline media about Sinema being chased and accosted by activists in a bathroom. Given Sinema's astounding bad faith and wholesale lies throughout her Senatorial campaign, she's lucky she didn't get tarred and feathered, as often happened to politicians in the early Republic when they broke faith to the degree Sinema has. </p><p>The irony of the 3.5 T reconciliation bill is is that there's nothing new or radical about the bill. There are no new social or economic rights contained in the bill. New social programs will be stringently means-tested, as is always the case with social legislation in the USA. Climate change provisions are anemic and the bill in no way challenges the capitalist economic structure. </p><p>Yet the reconciliation bill contains this feature; it's the first piece of legislation in over 50 years which actually aims to improve the lives of poor working people and their children. As such, the reconciliation bill attempts to define the limits of American poverty to which none can sink lower.</p><p>Evidently, even this attempt to define the limits of poverty is too much for Republicans and too much for Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, and too much for American capitalism. For Manchin, Sinema and the Republican Party, the right to exploit needs to be absolute and without limit. This is the Exploitation Society!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Chuck Wynnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14128584408651801497noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-41294429002732233062021-07-17T15:04:00.000-07:002021-07-17T15:04:09.757-07:00What Do Cuba and George Floyd Have in Common?<p> The answer to this title question is this:</p><p>Neither George Floyd or Cuba can breathe. Derek Chauvin, a model of what policing really is in America, had his knee on the neck of George Floyd for over nine minutes and killed him. The United States, for 62 years, has had its knee on the neck of Cuba and Cuba is struggling for breath.</p><p>This is not an article about the long and tumultuous between the United States and revolutionary Cuba. It's about the cant, jingoism, and the raw hypocrisy of U.S. politics. Joe Biden, yesterday, referred to Cuba as a "failed state". Yet most of the world see's the United States as a "failed democracy". Cuba might or not be a failed state; its existence might be up in the air. The United States however is more than happy to prove itself over and over again as a "failed democracy".</p><p>If I had to throw additional abuse, let me line up Congressional Representative, Val Demings and ex-Congressional Representative, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, both Democrats, both of Florida and both calling for some kind of invasion of Cuba. </p><p>Demings and Mucarsel-Powell are willfully ignoring the fact that their home state is systematically suppressing voter rights, that climate change and pollution are destroying the State of Florida, that Florida's developer boom of the 70s, 80s and 90s has produced death-trap housing up and down its east and west coasts, and health care increasingly doesn't work for Florida's elderly and working class populace. </p><p>Instead, Demings and Mucarsel-Powell have embraced the politics of the U.S's most reactionary, revanchist segment of the population, Florida's Cuban emigres. </p><p>Personally and politically, I despise the politics of the Cuban emigre population. Talk about easy immigration! These emigres arrived in the USA and had silver spoons placed in their mouths. Why? Because they were defecting from a socialist state which went perfectly with Washington's Cold War politics. That alone led to lots of privileges never accorded to other immigrants. Current immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and other Central American states would have thought they died and went to heaven if they got the same immigration treatment that Cuban Americans got, and Venezuelan wealthy people get now. </p><p>Frankly, I'm also sick and tired of Florida's fascist emigres and their expectations that the U.S.'s foreign policy should center around returning this class of emigres to a nation they left 63 years ago because their personal property was more important than the rest of Cuba. Yet, these are the people Demings and Mucarsel-Powell have chosen to embrace.</p><p>It would be interesting to take a look at what Cuba would be if the emigres, Demings, and old right winger Cold Warriors had their way. Minus the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Cuba would look a lot like Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti or the Dominican Republic; maybe at best, Jamaica. With the possible exception of Jamaica, all these states are indeed "failed states" well within the orbit of a failing economic system called capitalism. That capitalism is failing the people of these states is proven by looking at the millions of people lining up along the U.S. border trying to get out of these failed states.</p><p>Finally, what this immediate cry to invade Cuba is really all about is the failure of the Republican Party, the generic right wing, and moderate Democrats to deal with the United States' own substantial and pressing problems. Rather than dealing with its own democratic failures and the closing net of an American oligarchy; rather than dealing with its own crumbling economy and the impoverishment of half or more of the U.S. population; rather than dealing with the existential threat of climate change; the right wing and their moderate Democrat friends have united around anti-communism and a retreaded McCarthyist anti-socialist politics. </p><p>Anti-socialism and anti-communism are always the politics of those who are otherwise politically bankrupt. Anti-Cuban threats are an attempt to cover-up the political bankruptcy of people like Demings, Mucarsel-Powell, Marco Rubio and others by creating a dire threat that doesn't exist.</p><p>So, I'm not buying Demings, Mucarsel-Powell and others' re-hashed Cold War shit. And neither should you! </p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Chuck Wynnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14128584408651801497noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-36560433197565147222021-06-08T09:40:00.000-07:002021-06-08T09:40:37.636-07:00Talking About the Party (1)---Rafael Hernández<br /><b><i>The following piece by Rafael Hernández is part of a much longer and very complex piece that can be found <a href="http://links.org.au/cuban-communist-party-congress-talking-about-the-party">here</a>. The "whole strategic conception of making revolution" is always up for debate, here and internationally. This contribution seems particularly significant given the recent Congress of the Cuban Communist Party and the special difficulties that Cuba is now struggling with.<br /></i></b><b><i><br />Hernandez sees an antagonistic struggle between the Cuban revolutionary experience and what were already-existing socialisms, socialist ideologies, and the world alliance of communist parties (Comintern). I don't see that, and I think that we can talk about "socialisms" in part because of the Cuban contributions that might have moved already-existing socialisms and socialist ideologies forward. But are the questions of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions from the past the most important set of questions right now? No. <br /><br />The Cuban, Chinese, and Vietnamese experiences should teach us that revolution is a prolonged struggle and process that does not move along a straight line, and knowing this should give us some humility when assessing a revolution that is not of our own making. <br /><br />Debates become sterile when there is not socialist mass work and practice to back them up---the problem that we have here in Salem. </i></b><br /><br />March 17, 2021 — I believe that I am not making any revelation when I say that ours does not resemble, neither in its origins, nor in its primary rules for becoming a member, nor in the historical circumstances that surrounded it, any of the living or dead communist parties.<br /><br />The lack of a history to explain it is one of those gaps, among the many with which today’s society demands information and knowledge, for the Revolutionary process. In case of doubt, conduct your own survey and ask: Which organizations considered socialism as a political project before 1959? What political strategies did they adopt to achieve it? When and how was the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), which governs today, founded? Where did those who were part of its leadership come from? What ideas did they have about communism and socialism? With these five questions, there is enough to explore a plain where many are slightly lost [Cuban slang for “not having any idea about anything].<br /><br />I can think of other issues, perhaps even more enigmatic: How many of its members called themselves communists five years before the PCC was founded? What did they think and say about some other Communist parties in sister countries [‘other socialist countries”]? Why wasn’t the meeting where it was constituted its first congress? How can it be explained that it was held only 17 years after the beginning of the Revolution and 10 years after it was founded? Did it maintain its original seal when the “Soviet influence” predominated in Cuba? How did it go from identifying itself as the vanguard of the working class to the vanguard of the Cuban nation? At what point did it stop advocating the “dictatorship of the proletariat”? What is its role, as the “superior leading political force of society and the State,” which “facilitates the simultaneous action of the generations that are the protagonists of the Revolution,” in a democratic socialism?<br /><br />The political culture that originated this Party -on its way to its VIII Congress in a few days- does not come mainly from the Bolshevik tradition, or from the Long March of the Chinese peasants against the Japanese and the Kuomingtang, but above all from the two main Cuban revolutions, one organized in New York and Tampa, to fight for independence, and the second arising from the insurrection against Machado and fought in the streets of Havana in the 1930s. In dealing with the strategic problem of alliances and their difficult framework, this revolutionary political culture contested the type of domination established by the U.S. and its allies on the island, different from that of a decadent empire, submerged in deep and semi-feudal backwardness, as in Russia and China.<br /><br />As it is known, the culture of the Cuban left was influenced by legacies as diverse as the Mexican and Russian revolutions, varieties of socialisms, communisms, anarchisms, European and American social movements, Latin American and Caribbean radical nationalisms, whose complete inventory does not fit among the iconic images that preside over the commemorative events. However, the political practices of José Martí and Antonio Guiteras, more than any other, were the main artery of that culture. It was not built from the proletariat or the worker-peasant alliance, but on a subject identified as “the people,” that is, a specific set of groups, social strata and very mixed traditions of struggle. Also, from a practice of national liberation, through armed struggle to overthrow a dictatorship, and to advance, from power, a program of reforms aimed at changing an unjust and dependent social order.<br /><br />The extent to which these reforms would unleash a conflict, which, in a few months, escalated to the level of a bloody civil war, with the active belligerence of the United States, was not foreseen in the platforms of any of the revolutionary organizations, and perhaps not even in the most intimate dreams of their leaders, who would end up coming together as one, 30 months after the triumph.<br /><br />On the way, and so early that it was almost natural, there was the illegalization of those parties that collaborated with the dictatorship’s elections in 1958. Above all, there was the deactivation of a Congress where the established political parties competed for positions through elections that were suspended indefinitely, without anyone seeming to care much at the time, and which deprived them of their basic functions in the previous political system.<br /><br />Surprising as it may seem today, those parties, including the Autenticos and the Ortodoxos, opposed to the dictatorship, were left on the sidelines, while people went out to do politics in the streets. Most of those people could not remember when exactly they ceased to exist.<br /><br />The de facto suppression of the established armed forces, and their replacement by the Rebel Army that had defeated them on the battlefield, gave way, from the first months of 1959, to the merger of the commands and troops of all the political organizations that fought the dictatorship. In addition to bringing those organizations together in the same military structure, two and a half years before they were merged into a single political body, this replacement of the army produced a transcendental change in the actual functioning of the old state.<br /><br />Nothing less than the armed forces, that backbone of the old regime, would be uninstalled, to put it in the jargon in fashion today. No wonder Fidel Castro, who was neither the president nor yet the Prime Minister, was from the beginning the Commander-in-Chief of those newly installed forces, made up of “the uniformed people,” as his head of state liked to say, a smiling Camilo Cienfuegos, who at 27 was not, however, the youngest guerrilla commander.<br /><br />I have always been intrigued by the line that separates, according to some textbooks, the “agrarian and anti-imperialist” period of the Revolution and the “socialist.” I say this precisely because all that radical transformation in the functioning of political power noted above, including that of the parties, occurred even before the Agrarian Reform Law of May 1959 triggered conflict with the Cuban and American upper class, even when the Revolution had almost unanimous support, except for the Batista supporters who had fled to Miami and the Dominican Republic.<br /><br />How the structure of power and the prevailing social order in Cuba in the 1950s could have admitted an “agrarian and anti-imperialist revolution” without it entering from the beginning into the radicality of a real social revolution only makes sense for the codes of that Marxism-Leninism, and in the hypothetical revolutionary scenarios that the Comintern manuals enunciated. <br /><br />Numerous authors have investigated the Cuban left before 1959, and some of its main problems, differences and conflicts. To narrate it as a well-tuned band, or to simplify it in a straight line connecting the first Cuban Marxists with the Communist Party of 1965 does not help to understand anything of our history. When it comes to political movements, their main interaction was not expressed in the ideological contents of their speeches, but in their concrete political strategies.<br /><br />For example, when Fidel Castro, before the Granma [landing], characterized the 26th of July Movement as “the revolutionary apparatus of Chibasism,” he was not distinguishing it so much from the Communists, but above all from the Ortodoxo party, politically “impotent and divided into a thousand pieces,” incapable of fighting against the dictatorship.<br /><br />To illustrate with another example, what separated Joven Cuba (JC), the organization founded by Guiteras in 1935, and the Communist Party of the time, was not adherence to a socialist goal. “In order for the organic organization of Cuba as a nation to achieve stability, it is necessary that the Cuban State be structured in accordance with the postulates of Socialism,” begins the JC Program.<br /><br />The difference at the outset, when adopting an insurrectional strategy, was concrete political action, which predetermined the type of power at the head of the revolution from the beginning. When it clarified that socialism is reached “by successive preparatory stages,” of which that Program only outlined the first, it was assigning to the “stages” a completely different meaning from those established by the Comintern.<br /><br />So, to characterize Guiterismo as “revolutionary-democratic” or just “anti-imperialist,” and not as the strategy that opened the road to the socialist revolution in Cuba, through the revolutionary movement that overthrew the Batista dictatorship and initiated the revolution in a continuous manner, illustrates that difference and its meaning. It is not something as simple as different “means” for the same “ends,” but a whole strategic conception of making revolution. <br /><br />Considering these differences, among the revolutionary organizations and within each one, is not aimed at retrospectively blaming any of them for their mistakes, lack of vision or schematism at the time, but to understand our history as different from a fairy tale or a horror movie, as Tyrians and Trojans are accustomed to characterize it. Among other things, because it also allows us to appreciate the merit of a policy of dialogue that contributed to bringing together very divergent currents, which were deeply suspicious of each other.<br /><br />Reducing the socialist revolution to the leading role of a party or an ideology does not help to explain its complexities and problems. To imagine that the restoration of the unfulfilled promises of the 1940 Constitution, or any other program of laws or legal constructs created by the organizations that opposed the dictatorship, as if they were the script of the process would be to believe that the circumstances in which the radical social and political changes proper to a social revolution occur are enclosed in a plan of reforms, however important they may be. In any case, the revolution had already manifested itself as a political power even before the first major economic reform had been adopted, by being able to impose itself on the vested interests in the established political order.<br /><br />The differences within the Cuban left were not limited, of course, to the ways to reach government or take power. If, before 1959, the Ortodoxo Youth even inscribed the word socialism on its banners, and if the program of the old Communist Party, renamed the Popular Socialist Party, could have been confused today with social democracy, these affinities did not necessarily prepare them for coexistence. Quite the opposite turned out to be the case. <br /><br />Of course, there were Stalinists in this story almost from the beginning. In fact, they were there before the revolutionary parties decided to unite, and not just collaborate. Although sectarianisms were not limited to a single organization, the one that provoked the crisis within the first unitary political organization, the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (ORI in Spanish), was the one brought about by a group of Stalinists who were suspicious of all revolutionaries who were not old communists. In spite of the fact that the PSP warned, in its self-critical VIII Assembly of August 1960, that “the joint action of the organizations is the guarantee of unity and the advance of the Revolution,” the ORI, constituted only two months after Playa Girón, were run aground by sectarianism almost from their foundation. <br /><br />Finally, as is known, what contributed decisively to uniting the various organizations and their respective internal political currents was not precisely the deliberate, voluntary and conscious adoption of a Leninist model. Beyond the intelligence within the revolutionary leadership, and the coupling of a policy of negotiated unity, the main impact was the siege of a formidable counterrevolution, backed and tutored by the US. The siege of its enemies pushed more for unification in a single party than for a shared ideology among the revolutionary ranks.<br /><br />If you reread the above, you can understand that when parties like the PSP agreed to dissolve, in the summer of 1961, and declared that “we merge today in the integrated revolutionary forces, on the march towards the construction of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba, “they were not entering the Walhalla of perfect harmony or the frozen realm of totalitarianism, as characterized by Tyrians and Trojans, but in a process of change towards a new political system, different from Stalinism and Maoism, and which was not then and later free of contradictions, divergences and even conflicts.<br /><br />Not having a critical history of that political system and its complexities leaves a vacuum, which is often filled with doctrinal packages, of one sign and another. Both of them are closer, by the way, to the schemes of the Comintern than to political sociology. This convergence is crystal clear when, for example, when some regular contributors to the Spanish daily, El País state that “it was not in January 1959, but in April 1961, when the construction of Cuban totalitarianism had at hand all its necessary elements.”<br /><br />From this perspective, the social conflict was not brought about by interests and factors of power, but by ideology, and cultural representations, such as those of an enemy “that had to be national and foreign at the same time, a monster in which the evil of the empire and the vileness of the traitors could merge.” This parallelism between apparently exclusive visions, brought together in an approach that replaces historical analysis with literary phrases, and the logic of a social revolution by what philosophers call a teleology (of good or evil) confers a curious code of kinship, not at all by accident. <br /><br />To deal with plurality within the ranks of that Party; to lead the transformation of the political system, not only as a subject, but also as an object of change; to be a mirror of society and its problems; to look inside and be inspired by that original political culture, seem to be requirements of the historical moment, and of the reconstruction of its meaning. How to do it, at the height of today’s Cuba, requires both realism and imagination.<br /><br />Source : <a href="https://oncubanews.com/opinion/columnas/con-todas-sus-letras/hablando-del-partido-i/">Hablando del Partido (I)</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-5215778575434954472021-05-27T15:49:00.004-07:002021-05-27T15:49:59.000-07:00Bullshit and Lies; Another Response to Liz Wheeler and the YAF<p> https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/margaret/FMfcgxwLttDLTpPZdKWzFChcxTnCfklg?projector=1</p><p>The above is a link to the Liz Wheeler's rather poorly thought out diatribe on socialism. Liz says she has five questions about Socialism and Democratic Socialists of America, and I'm writing this response because Liz said right wingers should ask these five questions to their "liberal" friends.</p><p>So, here it goes:</p><p>Question One: "What is the difference between Democratic Socialism and "regular old" socialism?</p><p>First, all socialism is democratic socialism. Democratic Socialists of America has included the word, "democratic" because DSA talks about socialism in terms of extending democracy into sectors of society that are currently anything but democratic. </p><p>Right now, that extension of democracy would include the economy, where people and workers democratically decide what is to be produced and how it would be produced. </p><p>Consider the current reality: </p><p>When any of us walk into work, we are not entering a democratic institution. One acts according to policies and production arrangements that are designed by owners. You have no say in how you work and what you make belongs to bosses, not you or your co-workers. </p><p>Every "socialism" I know of finds the current arrangements of work to be entirely unsatisfactory. In truth, the current arrangement involves employees being stressed to the maximum, monitored, and pushed, all in the interests of maximizing profits for bosses and investors. As socialists, we want these relationships of economic exploitation to end; we can. as a society, do a lot better. </p><p>There are other institutions we'd want to change. For instance, education, where the two most important groups of people involved, the students and teachers, have absolutely no say over what is taught and what real education looks like in the classroom. The current situation in schools is highly "un-democratic" and results in kid-to-worker factories, or, even worse, school-to-prison pipelines. </p><p>Question 2: "Where has socialism worked? Venezuela - no antibiotics, Cuba - rusty surgical instruments, elites fly to other countries for medical care." </p><p>Lets talk about Venezuela and Cuba. Both countries have been thoroughly hounded by the USA and its allies for decades. USA sanctions have have blocked all normal economic relationships with the rest of the world. What Cuba and Venezuela have been reduced to is cash economics (in US dollars) where everything imported needs to be paid for, cash up front. Exports for both countries are subject political interference as the US and allies seek to block Cuba and Venezuela's access to export markets. Any nation, capitalist or socialist, would eventually collapse if they had to live within the restrictions Cuba and Venezuela have to live under.</p><p>Here's some facts to consider. Cuban doctors and nurses are all over South and Central America. Mexico has Cuban doctors and nurses, and these doctors and nurses are where they are to help, not make a pile of money.</p><p>My daughter is a nurse. While training, she spent a six weeks on a practicum in Nicaragua on the Mesquito Coast. The doctors were Cuban, they were highly competent, although medical supplies were lacking (keep in mind, Nicaragua is now and has been a capitalist country for the last 30 years. So why, in a capitalist country, are antibiotics, anesthetics, surgical equipment so lacking? I know the answer to this, bet Liz doesn't).</p><p>Consider too that a number of 9/11 responders who went to Cuba for burn treatments that don't exist in the USA. Stalin lived to be a ripe old man, he never went outside the USSR for medical treatment because he didn't have to. Soviet health care worked for every one, and Chinese health care works for every one. too I'd rather be sick in Vietnam than the USA because in the USA, the care you get is only what your insurance carrier will pay for, and personally, I'm not covered under a "cadillac" health care plan; I think I'd be treated better if I was Vietnamese.</p><p>Question Three: "Who pays for socialist programs?"</p><p>The funny thing about Liz's rant is that she's got a fetish about money, as does the capitalist class. </p><p>Somehow or another, Liz, and capitalist friends have this idea that money builds everything. As if thousands and billions of dollar bills march into the factory gates and push endless buttons, lug the weights, and operate the machinery that makes everything go: a happy collection of George Washingtons, folded into little origami people, smiling as they walk through the office, factory, hospital, or whatnot.</p><p>Of course, such an economics as Liz suggests are just silly. Everything that has ever been built is built by people. Simply put, the Pyramids weren't built by Pharaoh, they were built by thousands of slaves. Rome wasn't built by the Emperors, it was built by slaves. The aristocrats, secular and spiritual, didn't build the Medieval period. It was peasants and a three field crop rotation system that built the Medieval period. And capitalists didn't build the modern mass production economy; that duty fell to workers of every occupation. </p><p>In truth, capitalists produce nothing. Instead, capitalists are adept at expropriating (i.e. stealing) all that is produced and turning it into private profit.</p><p>Basically, us socialists aren't talking about taxing or purchasing "socialism" from capitalists. Socialism, if it ever exists again, will be built by society as a whole. It's the collective power of laboring people that would build such a world and manage it too. </p><p>Socialism really has no use for capitalists at all. Capitalists take what workers make and turn it into their own personal profits; who needs them? We don't tax capitalists because we want their money; we tax capitalists, and want to tax them drastically in order to get rid of the whole class.</p><p>Question Four: "What will stop Democratic Socialism from turning into socialism?"</p><p>Jeez, this question sounds a lot like the question, "when did you stop beating your wife?" The question is not an honest question; its nothing but a cheap, rhetorical word trick and I'm not biting.</p><p>If you've noticed from the above, democracy and socialism are complementary concepts; they go hand-in-hand for us socialists. This idea that democracy and socialism are contradictory is your idea, and comes from your idea of "big" government as it exists now in the USA, which of course is a government that is avowedly capitalist at every level and to its core. The proof of this is the number of corporate lobbyists who fill the halls of every legislative office building in America.</p><p>Question Five: "Why would we want socialism here? 100 million people have been killed by socialist regimes."</p><p>"100 million people have been killed by socialist regimes."</p><p>I'm quite dubious about Liz Wheeler's numbers and how she counts her "100 million". But yes, socialist regimes have made some pretty brutal mistakes in the not so long history of real, existing socialism. In my mind, the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Hungary were brutal, wrong, and impeded the free development of socialism, for instance.</p><p>Honestly too, elections in the USSR and the Socialist Bloc were a joke aimed at giving the ruling Party the chance to engage in a few days of self congratulation.</p><p>However, the Socialist Bloc demonstrated a different kind of democracy.</p><p>In the late 1940s, early 1950s, both East Germany and Yugoslavia attempted to collectivize agriculture. Farmers didn't react well to collectivization, and thus, East Germany and Yugoslavia abandoned collectivization efforts after an year or two. Instead, East Germany and Yugoslavia moved towards a co-op system where farmers retained their personal land ownership but worked with other farmers to increase farm productivity while the state supplied farm equipment and machinery.</p><p>East German farmers seemed to like their system. After the re-unification of Germany in 1990-91, East German farmers petitioned the West German power brokers to be allowed to keep their agricultural co-ops. The West German power brokers said, "no". I know why the West German/re-unified German government rejected the co-ops. Bet Liz and the Right Wing don't.</p><p>But let's also talk about capitalism's body count.</p><p>Slavery, from 1500 AD, up through the 19th century was a 100% capitalist institution. In all that 400 years, slavery was the labor source for the production of cash crops to be sold in Europe's commodity markets.</p><p>From 1900 to 1930, roughly half a million workers were killed at work in the US.</p><p>I bet Liz is counting the Russian Civil War of 1918 through 1922 in her "100 million" total? Let's talk about the Russian Civil War.</p><p>The Russian Civil War caused the death of 1.5 million combatants, and 8 million civilian deaths. This civil war turned into a blood bath because Britain supported, including with troops and airplanes, Monarchist General Yudenich's White army and in Northern Russian. The Czechs and French did the same in regard to General Wrangel's White Army in Ukraine and western Russia. and the US had troops out in support of Admiral Kolchak's White Army in Siberia. </p><p>The strategy of Britain, France and the US was best summed up by Winston Churchill when he said, we want.."to strangle the baby in its crib". Churchill wasn't interested in saving Russia, he was interested in saving his own sorry class in Great Britain. </p><p>I'd be glad to take ownership of our socialist mistakes. But I expect the Right to take responsibility for it's capitalist history as well.</p><p>"Why would we want socialism here?"</p><p>Here's why DSA, a mess of other socialists, and millions of non-political, non-activists people are interested in socialism in the United States.</p><p>Right now, the median income for a family of four, is around $68,000 per year. This means that 50% of US households live on 68K or less, and 50% of households earn 68K or more.</p><p>At 68K a year, a family has a roof over their head, most likely. But it's not an easy life. A family of four, at 68K, is probably up to its neck in debt. The loss of one income would be a disaster for such a family. If the kids are going to college, it's going to have to be paid for in loans; thus more debt.</p><p>Imagine what life is like on a household income of 40K, or 30K a year? Here, a $400 maintenance bill to fix the car will cause months of economic dislocation in the household. That is if the maintenance job can be paid for in the first place.</p><p>By the way, a significant part of the population pays over 50% of their income towards housing alone. </p><p>Meanwhile, ILO and World Health Organization announced last week that 745,000 die per year due to over-work. The focus of US COVID policy, and state policies has been to get people and economies working again (the profit chain), at the cost of around 400,000 additional US lives. Also, the WHO, a couple of years ago listed "burnout" as an official occupational disease. People bust their butts in America every day, just for the right to survive until next month.</p><p>Its also worth mentioning US "essential" workers have learned over the last year that "essential" means "disposable".</p><p>Given the above, I have a question for Liz and the Right Wing. The question is this: "If capitalism is so great, how come it has resulted in the immiseration of hundreds of millions of people over the last 40 years?"</p><p>Finally, Liz and the Right Wing have a view of socialist life that's just plain wrong.</p><p>First, the bread lines Liz mentioned? Yeah, lines existed. The type of lines that Liz mentioned though, could have happened after the collapse of the USSR. I read a story a couple of years ago about two sisters who had to share one pair of shoes for years. But this was after the USSR collapsed and was under the care of the IMF, World Bank, the US, UK and Germany's shock doctrine.</p><p>I don't know piles about life in socialist Europe. The country I'm most familiar with is East Germany.</p><p>In East Germany, it was routine for workers to take time away from work tasks to head over to the enterprise's food store. Usually, co-workers would ask this worker to pick up an item for them as well. If anybody had to wait in line at the food shop, or plant pharmacy, it was 100% on the clock. Try walking off the job and going to the store on the clock in the US; you'd probably be fired.</p><p>East German workers, and I suspect Eastern Bloc, and workers in the USSR didn't work like workers in the US or capitalist Europe. In East Germany, it was almost impossible to be fired. Victor Grossman, author of, <u>From Harvard to Karl Marx Allee</u>, said you'd have to "hit your boss over the head with a crow bar, or report to work drunk for four weeks in a row" to be fired, and even then the plant's union would have to sign off on the discharge.</p><p>In East Germany, economic planning agencies would decide what the factory is going to produce. After that, how the commodity was produced was up to the workers and the union. Unions were 100% accountable to its workers.</p><p>Workers in the East didn't have the kind of job stresses that we take for granted in the capitalist West. Nobody was afraid to be fired. Workers decided the speed of production; nobody in the East would have put up with the kind of production speeds ups, monitoring of worker productivity, and brutal supervisors always pushing, like US and European workers put up with every day. After all, it's a workers' state!</p><p>The East Germans introduced a course in elementary schools titled, "How to take care of your pet". East German teachers thought that a sense of empathy was a valuable social skill. When my daughter was a little kid, we had an East German story book. It was a sweet story, and the theme was that everything living deserves to be loved.</p><p>Or, how about Social Democratic Denmark? I read a story from a young American woman who took an internship with a Danish company. This woman worked like an American. She said at work late into the evening. She worked weekends, and she thought all this was good; that's how you get ahead she thought!</p><p>After a while, her boss told her she was missing a life. The work week was 37 hours and her boss told her to go home when her 37 hours were done. He told her that her grinding away at work was not healthy, and that she was leading a highly unbalanced life. In sort of socialist Scandinavia, the philosophy of doing your work well, and then forgetting about work after you've done your weekly hours is dominant and written into the culture.</p><p>So, yeah, I'd love to be living in a socialist USA! My back wouldn't hurt as much as it does if I had worked in a socialist USA. My stress levels from work and trying to survive wouldn't have anywhere near the stress levels and anxiety that is so much a part of working in a capitalist USA.</p><p>There's something else the Right Wing and Liz should know. There's no "secret socialist blueprint". "In regard to socialism and revolution, "one size does not fit all". Every socialist revolution (peaceful or not) has found its own way, consistent with its own history, culture and politics.</p><p>As for the USA, American socialists don't exist outside of American history and culture. We actually live quite happily within the our own culture, politics and history. The idea that American socialists would "impose" a borrowed system from the USSR, Vietnam, East Germany or China is pathetically laughable. The Right should actually read our socialist press in the USA if they want to know what socialists are thinking and what a socialist agenda might look like.</p><p>In a normal political world, I'd challenge Liz and the Right to a debate. I'd win, hands down, because I understand the importance of facts, and because I know a lot more than Liz Wheeler and the Right will ever know from their narrow, authoritarian, and vengeful rage version of politics.</p><p>But the debate isn't going to happen. The problem is that for Liz Wheeler and the Right Wing, a debate is Marjorie Taylor-Greene yelling taunts and threats through AOC's mail slot. With its blanket denial of fact, its reliance on guns and the noose, Liz Wheeler and the Right Wing are the greatest threat to the American Republic in its 245 year history. </p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Chuck Wynnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14128584408651801497noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-19763382974214372362021-05-20T21:17:00.004-07:002021-05-20T21:19:34.896-07:00Full Support For The Striking Warrior Met Coal Mine Workers! <p><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">About 1000 mine workers in Alabama have been on strike since April. They are women and men, Black and white, young and older. The mines they work in are about 45 minutes from Bessemer and have been the focus of union organizing and struggle for more than 100 years, I think. These are gaseous metal coal mines.</span></p><p><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">You can read and hear more about the strike here:</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://umwa.org/take-action/united-we-stand/&source=gmail&ust=1621656123549000&usg=AFQjCNFC2OIIL8T1nuH2BhN_-ucCORtKBw" href="https://umwa.org/take-action/united-we-stand/" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" target="_blank">https://umwa.org/take-<wbr></wbr>action/united-we-stand/</a><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">If you have a few dollars to spare, please join me in contributing to the strike fund. The details are here:</span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;"> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://umwa.org/support-umwa-miners-on-strike-at-warrior-met/&source=gmail&ust=1621656123550000&usg=AFQjCNHAJyyk1Mx4gqUrLHgx4t_C7eez9w" href="https://umwa.org/support-umwa-miners-on-strike-at-warrior-met/" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" target="_blank">https://umwa.org/support-umwa-<wbr></wbr>miners-on-strike-at-warrior-<wbr></wbr>met/</a><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">.</span></p>Please feel good about forwarding this to others who can assist. And please feel good about putting in a note with your contribution expressing solidarity from wherever you are. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-55345645235573006692021-05-20T21:14:00.003-07:002021-06-03T16:38:24.465-07:00Salem, Oregon DSA Statement On The May, 2021 Salem-Keizer School Board Election<p>Salem Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) rejoices in
the victory of the four progressive Salem-Keizer School Board candidates. We
believe that the slate won because of their honesty and integrity and their
grasp of the issues that most concern people of color and working-class people
in Keizer and Salem. They were able to inspire people to vote for change and begin
breaking the hold of the most reactionary forces on our schools. This is a
victory for people of color, youth, and working-class people. Salem DSA was a
part of the coalition that supported these candidates. We were at the doors in
working-class neighborhoods, on the phones, and with the unions through the
campaign.</p><p>This is the beginning, not the finish line. The four
newly-elected School Board Directors will need our help. They will need our
advice and our support, and they should be able to count on our ability to
mobilize for positive change.</p><p>The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) will provide large
sums of money for our schools, and every working-class person, every union, the
youth, and all people of color in our communities have a direct interest in how
that money will be appropriated. There should be no contradictions between what
people of color, youth, our unions, and all working-class people want as this
funding becomes available. We can win an equitable and productive distribution
of this money and then demand more and better from the state, the federal
government, and the corporations. Our on-going struggle for racial justice in
the schools must continue and must win over forces that have not yet fully
committed to the fight. The unions representing classified school staff and
teachers now have a new opening to help lead the fight for change. Solidarity
is always a two-way street, and it is in everyone’s interest to see that we all
advance together.</p><p>This win opens the door to future wins. We can build from
the School Board races to wins for socialists and progressives in 2022, we can
win health care for all, we can win a Green New Deal, we can put Trumpism away,
we can oppose imperialism and win, and we absolutely must win passage of the
PRO Act and all of the fights for equitable distribution of ARPA funds and an
end to deportations and violence against people of color and LGBTQIA+ people. Every
victory creates another.</p><p>The struggle continues!</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-11878605723148232112021-05-19T12:27:00.002-07:002021-05-19T14:53:22.646-07:00Responding to Liz Wheeler<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBXhLUj5N0s">Liz Wheeler has challenged the Left and liberals to respond to her five attack points on democratic socialism.</a> </p><p>Wheeler uses lots of quick-shot soundbites while we write lots of books and do long and defensive blog posts and podcasts. For all of our good work we don't get very far. People are busy, the bosses and capitalists have the advantages, we function in a system that divides people and forces us to compete with one another, and capitalism brings out the worst in people for a time as the system falls apart. I'm going to try to respond to Wheeler's attack as she presents it. This will not take longer to read than it will to listen to Wheeler's tired attack. <br /><br /><b>One:</b> For us at Oregon Socialist Renewal the "Democratic" in "Democratic Socialism" is there as a point of emphasis. Socialism is democratic in the sense that it extends democracy and working-class power into every area of life. "Democratic Socialism" also refers to a specific tradition in the socialist movement, and one that we have mixed reactions to.<br /><br />Socialism is NOT "government giving away lots of free stuff" and "government taking over the means of production and distribution." Socialism IS people collectively mobilizing through their workers' and peoples' government and through other democratic means to take power over their lives and their working and living conditions.<br /><br /><b>Two:</b> Socialism has been the only answer to exploitative and ruinous capitalism, and it has been attempted most often in colonized, people-of-color-majority, and capitalist-plundered and war-ravaged countries. These countries and peoples take up their struggles for socialism with distinct disadvantages: the U.S., other imperialist powers, and multinational corporations squeeze them and make them bleed. And socialism can take generations to develop, with forward and backward movements, just as any other system develops. Revolution is not a straight line and socialists are not magicians who can pull utopia from a hat---and we do not say that we are.<br /><br />Where has capitalism worked? In what capitalist countries are workers not exploited? Which capitalist powers cede power nonviolently and democratically? Which capitalist countries do not lurch from crisis to crisis or from war to war? Which capitalist countries have not had their breadlines and unemployment lines? <br /><br /><b>Three: </b>The wealthy should indeed pay a fair share in taxes, or more, and if we can use taxes to lower their numbers and rid ourselves of them then we should. They don't create wealth or value, and they suck an incredible amount of resources from society. But taxation is not our whole policy. We're about creating a democratic economy that provides for the people and restores the environment, an economy that works for us and is under direct social control. Wheeler & Company are moving in the opposite direction and are okay with drowning us all if their profit-driven boat floats.<br /><br /><b>Four: </b>Socialism is not about "big government" and "the government"<b> </b>giving orders. If society goes through the work of building new democratic social institutions, committing to restoring the environment, planning where our resources will and won't go, committing to racial and gender justice, and ensuring that everyone has rights and a voice and all that is needed to live then the nature and purpose of government changes. Each one of us may have less stuff, and less junk will be produced, but all of us will have what we need within reason. No society, including capitalism, is static. Our question for Wheeler & Company: what stops capitalism from moving from a system of free enterprise and inequalities to fascism?<br /><br /><b>Five: </b>Not everyone in Wheeler's room wants fairness---probably no one in that room does, in fact. The idea that taking care of one another means stealing from someone is only logical under capitalism, but it skips over a key point: the capitalists make their wealth through the thefts of time, labor, land, and the national sovereignty of colonized and oppressed peoples, and through gendered and racialized oppression and the destruction of our environment. Still, there is something in Wheeler's argument that's correct in a sense. If we do have to "steal" from someone to help one another then let's do that by expropriating the wealth of those who have taken our labor, land, resources, and rights. Socialism is about building society based on the democratic understandings that an injury to one is an injury to all and that power should flow from each of us as we are able to those who do productive labor in order that all of us should be free and provided for without exploitation. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-83843913622582497282021-05-09T16:31:00.001-07:002021-05-09T16:31:52.902-07:00How We Struck the Flint Red Cross for Six Week, Cleaned Their Clock, and Had Lots of Fun! Part 2<p> In union slang, the Flint Red Cross, was a "hot shop". Hot shops tend to be smaller workplaces, as little as 10 or 12 folks, maybe around 100 or so workers at maximum. To union organizers, a hot shop seems to happen out of thin air, and are seen as workers' reactions to things deeply internal within the employer and its workers. The "hot shop" breakout might happen because the bosses are brutal, or have lost all credibility with with the workers through a longstanding series of lies and broken promises. Sometimes instead, it's the poor wages and maybe a history of wage theft. Often it's a matter of all of the above and then some more too. </p><p>A "hot shop" happens when one or two of the workers decide that they've have enough of the boss' s behavior, and they pick up the phone and call a union.</p><p>Personally, I didn't like "hot shop" organizing. "Hot shops" meant that the workers had had enough of the bosses; but what the workers were really asking for was to be rescued by the union, which is not the same thing as forming a union.</p><p>For instance, when I was leaving Ithaca, NY in 2019, I did a little picketing with the Painters and Allied Trades Union, Local 11 who had organized a rather large non-profit providing housing services to poor people. The Painters organized the workers and got the workers a first contract, and then a second contract. </p><p>However, as the second contract expired, a de-certification petition had been filed by a few anti-union members of the bargaining unit (with the bosses' help of course). Management had enough "showing of interest" to get a de-certification election on the board.</p><p>Meanwhile, few workers took part in supporting the union; either through internal activity, or walking the picket line (informational picket; not a strike). Local 11's organizers were having a hard time communicating with bargaining unit union members. The union leadership inside the non-profit had lost credibility (through years of being ineffective); and things were pretty bleak.</p><p>The problem was this. After organizing and obtaining a couple of contracts, the Painters Union Local 11 figured the workers could take it from there. From Painters Local 11's point of view, workers now had all the necessary tools provided through the contract and labor law, and that would be enough for the workers to run their own show.</p><p>The Painters Union was wrong. The tools were not enough. In spite of being a union shop, with recognized stewards and a good grievance procedure, in spite of the union including a large majority of workers within the company itself, the workers within the bargaining unit continued to let the employer govern as if there was no union at all.</p><p>By the time the de-certification petition had been filed, the non-profit's management had re-written their job classifications and moved a substantial number of important positions to non-union, outside-the-bargaining unit positions. Stewards and workers never protested, never confronted their bosses, and let the damages mount.</p><p>Painters. Local 11 organizers felt terrible. I spent a number of hours walking the picket line with Local 11's organizing director, a real good and dedicated unionist named Travis. Travis felt terrible about what had happened. He need not have felt so guilty. It was an honest mistake. The problem was that Local 11 never figured on the amount of hand holding, and the amount of support, that would be necessary to teach modern non-profit workers from within a union bargaining unit, how to actually becoming a functional and organic union.</p><p>I do believe the Painters Union and pro-union workers prevailed in the end. It took a pile of Unfair Labor Practice charges filed by Local 11, and a community campaign aimed at pressuring so called "progressive" members of the non-profit's board (this campaign was run by the Tompkins County Workers' Center and local 11). But there was never any real fight back by the non-profit's union workers.</p><p>I remember another "hot shop" I worked on when with I was with OPEIU. It was a small credit union with maybe 12 to 15 workers. On the last night of bargaining, the woman who had made the original call to the union told me, "If I was out of work, I'd cross a picket line to keep my kids fed, and I wouldn't feel bad about it"; I felt like stepping outside and slitting my wrists. </p><p>The difference between the Flint Red Cross workers, and "hot shop" workers (and indeed many longer term union workplaces) in my mind comes down to this: The Flint Red Cross workers knew they needed to have a union, and that they needed to act like a union, in order to get what they needed.</p><p>I'm stealing a quote here from Ralph Chaplin's, "Solidarity Forever". But Flint Red Cross workers understood Chaplin's opening lines from the start:</p><p>"When the union's inspiration through the workers blood shall run <br /> there can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun". </p><p>Many union bargaining teams will focus on constructing neat, logical arguments as to why they should have better wages, or better safety conditions, or whatever. Thus, the effort becomes one of convincing the employer, through logical appeals and and moral arguments, to be a better employer. </p><p>The problem in modern bargaining comes down to the fact that employers generally don'r care if they're logical, nice or morally responsible. Thus, collective bargaining becomes collective begging, and what's missing is that the union neither tries, or wants to even think about using its inherent power towards achieving what workers need and want.</p><p>To my mind, the difference between Flint Red Cross workers and most 1970s through 2020 collective bargaining episodes is simply this: the Flint Red Cross strike happened in Flint!</p><p>Flint, simply was a union town and a UAW town. Even in 1993-1994, Flint remained a union town. In truth, by 1993, the UAW had been having its butt kicked for the last decade and a half. By 1993, thousands and thousands of autoworkers had been laid off with no hope of return, the parts subsidiary operations (like "Delco", and "Delphi") were gone to the South or Mexico. Auto workers themselves were working five to six 12 hour shifts per week under break-neck conditions; it was not a happy time for auto workers.</p><p>Yet Flint still remembered the 1937 GM sit down strike, when the power of the workers broke GM's power and forced GM to recognize the UAW. </p><p>In 1993, there were a few participants of the 1937 strike still around. There were a lot more children of the strikers still around, and even more grandchildren. Everybody in Flint remembered the 37 sit down strike, and people in Flint were still proud of what they did in 1937.</p><p>The Flint Red Cross strikers very much remembered the 1937 sit down strike. While many union organizers would describe the Flint Red Cross as a "hot shop"; a spontaneous revolt of the Red Cross workers, it was in truth anything but. </p><p>In reality, the Flint Red Cross strike had a history that was 57 years old by 1994. Everything the Flint Red Cross workers did in 1994 was seen through the prism of 1937 Flint. This was where Gary, the management attorney, went all wrong. Gary read <u>Forbes</u>, and <u>The Wall</u> <u>Street Journal</u>, didn't know his local history, the power of culture, and didn't listen to the workers. As a result, Gary deeply believed that the Red Cross workers would never strike, because that's what <u>Forbes</u> said.</p><p>On the other hand, the Flint Red Cross workers had the attitude that if it could be done in 1937, it could be done in 1994 as well. This is the power of a history and culture. If you can imagine winning, you probably can win!</p><p><b>Some thoughts on the Amazon organizing drive in Alabama, and the PRO Act</b></p><p>When the Amazon Bessemer election results were released, the fact that struck me the most was that around 2,600 workers never cast a ballot. It may very well be that Amazon was able to "disappear" a lot of workers' ballots, but I can't imagine Amazon made 2,600 ballots disappear. </p><p>I don't know what went on in the Bessemer, Amazon warehouse. The union; the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU), filed something like 24 Unfair Labor Practice charges against Amazon, and an NLRB hearing will be held soon to adjudicate the ULPs. Once the hearings are complete and decisions rendered, we'll all know a lot more about what happened in the warehouse, and maybe have a better idea as to what happened to 2,600 ballots. </p><p>My theory? The vast majority of the 2,600 missing ballots were simply never cast. </p><p>Consider this: Amazon workers are people, just like everybody else. They have things that matter in their lives, and things that don't matter too. My guess is that there were thousands of Amazon workers who just didn't see the union vote as really pertaining to their lives, or didn't see the union vote as important enough to take a stand. </p><p>Obviously, the Bessemer warehouse was a very tense place throughout the union organizing drive. Pro-union workers wanted to talk, Amazon made it clear that it didn't want workers to talk at all, on or off the job. Meanwhile, Amazon had the anti-union propaganda machine blaring on a constant 24/7 basis throughout the organizing drive, and bosses was probably watching all their employees.</p><p>Unless an Amazon worker is really committed to the union and know's what they want, the atmosphere at work is going to put a real premium on workers' taking a kind of "duck and cover" approach, aimed at surviving the organizing drive. The "duck and cover" approach is amplified to an even greater extent when supervisors query workers on how they will vote in the union election (even though such queries are patently illegal). This "duck and cover" approach was probably the survival philosophy behind a lot of "no union" votes too. </p><p>The above is not a judgement or criticism of the workers; it's just the way things are and the way things can go in an organizing drive.</p><p>There's no doubt that the Amazon-RWDSU vote was a defeat. The RWSDU made a number of crucial mistakes in their strategic approach to the organizing drive. If you want to know more about the RWDSU, and a pretty long list of strategic and tactical mistakes, you can read union organizer, Jane McAlevey's interview here:</p><p> (https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/amazon-bessemer-union-campaign-rwdsu-jane-mcalevey). </p><p>But this article is not about critiquing the RWDSU; it is about something different.</p><p>The Bessemer Amazon organizing drive was indeed a defeat; but it was not a loss.</p><p>If you take a long range look at the Bessemer organizing drive, it's worth noting that there are now about 1,700 workers who voted "yes" in the union drive. These are the 1,700 odd workers who stood firm, in spite of the pressure from Amazon, it's endless mandatory anti-union meetings, the constant surveillance by supervisors, and always, the threat of being fired.</p><p>These 1,700 workers are now tempered and hardened. They've been through the worst and held firm. There's probably another couple of thousand workers who voted "no", or didn't vote at all who will be thinking about the drive for a long time to come. </p><p>Additionally, there are workers looking at organizing across Amazon America. They now know what Amazon is likely to throw at them, and will have a much better chance of countering Amazon from what they've learned through the Bessemer organizing drive. All of these factors need to be placed in the "gains" column if one wants an honest assessment of the Bessemer drive and is also looking towards the future.</p><p>And then, there's the PRO Act.</p><p>Honestly, I don't think workers and unions will get the PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize Act), at least not in the foreseeable future. The margins in the Congress are just too thin to get something like the PRO Act voted through. There aren't the numbers in the Senate to overcome an inevitable filibuster., Just to dampen expectations even more, though Joe Manchin has signed onto the PRO Act, I have doubts that he'll set aside the inevitable filibuster in order to pass the PRO Act. He's that kind of guy.</p><p>A lot of Leftists, especially Leftists who are for Labor, but not part of Labor, have placed a great deal of hope in the Bessemer Union drive and passage of the PRO Act. </p><p>With both these events, the non-Labor Left is looking for a magic bullet; the "Great Pumpkin" event that will change Labor's fortunes on a dime, leading to the organization of millions and millions of workers and entry into a new age of broad sunny uplands.</p><p>The problem is that the RWDSU would have needed a divine miracle to win the Bessemer vote, and the PRO Act, in order to pass, will require a miracle as well. </p><p>The truth is that workers and unions won't get the PRO Act until bosses and their corporations are willing to accept the PRO Act as an acceptable alternative to the endless chaos of strikes and other worker actions aimed at disrupting industrial production and the global economy. This is how and why The National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, and I'm afraid, this is the only recipe that will get us the PRO Act.</p><p>I'm seriously suggesting that unions, workers and the Left take the long view when it comes to workers in unions. Consider these facts and comparisons over the long haul of American labor history: </p><p>The first mass strike in the United States was the Great Railroad Strike of 1873. It took 60 years from this seminal event to the passage of the NLR Act of 1935. </p><p>In that 60 years, there were innumerable coal strikes conducted by workers from the United Mine Workers, Western Federation of Miners, and the IWW. These strikes were brutal. At Blair Mountain, coal miners were bombed by the Army Air Corp. In the eastern Colorado coal fields strike of 1927, striking IWW coal miners were gunned down by National Guard troops and a host of the owners' private security armies. </p><p>There were textile workers strikes such as the "Bread and Roses" strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912. The "Bread and Roses" strike is famous throughout the world. </p><p>And how about the Homestead Steel strike of the 1892? </p><p>Or the Pullman Car strike of 1894. How about the McKees Rock strike of 1909? </p><p>Let's not forget the Seattle General Strike of 1919. Or the TUUL (Trade Union Unity League) organizing drives that happened throughout the South in the late 1920s and early 1930s. </p><p>Or the IWW strikes throughout the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest and the South. </p><p>The 1937 Sit-Down strike didn't just happen out of thin air either. The Communist Party: the Socialist Party; the IWW; AJ Muste and a Christian socialist oriented set of labor unions; all were actively organizing auto workers in Detroit and Ohio since at least the mid 1920s, (Note: AJ Muste was a Congregationalist Minister and the leader of the 1931 Toledo, Ohio, Autolite strike).</p><p>Preceding events to the 1937 Sit Down strike were the 1931 Autolite strike and the 1932 Hunger March where unemployed auto workers were met with armed resistance from law enforcement resulting in four deaths and a host of injuries. </p><p>And of course, Auto workers in Detroit were very aware of what was happening in other industries. For instance, the 1934 ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) strike and Portland, Oregon general strike where the ILWU was able to effectively strike every port on the west coast.</p><p>In that long list of strikes above, there are very few victories. The 1934 west coast longshore strike was a victory. To this day, the ILWU controls the labor process at every port on the west coast. The 1937 sit-down strike was a victory too. The roof is in the fact that the UAW exists to this day.</p><p>In the above list of strikes, Lawrence, Massachusetts was a half-win. Wages rose but the IWW was not able to build a lasting organization of textile workers. Same goes for the Mckees Rock strike of 1909.</p><p>Most everything else listed falls in the category of defeats, if you measure a defeat based on what the workers demanded versus what was achieved. </p><p>But none of the listed strikes were losses. In defeat after defeat, every time, workers came back stronger, ranks deeper, resolve greater. Every defeat had the effect of deepening class consciousness across the working class.</p><p>So, why would it be different now? As I look at it, we'll be defeated, and defeated again, over and over again, until we win. </p><p>A lot of Leftists out there are thinking we're a lot stronger than we really are; thus the crushed and despairing emotions when the struggle of the moment fails.</p><p>The key here is to not fixate on the struggle at hand, betting everything we have in the hope that this time, the "Great Pumpkin" will rise. It's really all about momentum, and building momentum is really what labor organizing is all about. </p><p>Let's start with where we're at right now. The fact of the matter is that most American unions are weak, and most American workers are weak too. Both would gain a lot if unions and workers' organizations got off the internet and stopped waiting for the next "hot shop" call. </p><p>Instead, maybe unions should start setting up permanent store fronts and become a part of the community they're trying to organize? Maybe all of us in the working class movement should start thinking in terms of talking to workers of all stripes every day; more community hot lines; more workers' drop-in centers; more education and accessible discussion of why it matters to be a class-conscious worker and what it will really take to start winning the fight against the bosses? This might be the kind of stuff that builds the kind of momentum necessary in order to win.</p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Chuck Wynnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14128584408651801497noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-62585378472293395282021-04-29T17:01:00.002-07:002021-04-29T17:01:37.960-07:00How We Struck the Flint Red Cross for Six Weeks, Cleaned Their Clock, and Had Lots of Fun (Part 1)<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Note: This is a two part article. Part One below is the narrative of the strike including some neccesary background information. Part 2 is an analysis and commentary as to why the strike was successful, and will include what lessons I learned through the strike, and how what I learned is relevant to the recent Amazon organizing drive and the current PRO Act legislation,) </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-52c80a02-7fff-ba21-8090-52775b36b1ee"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first union staff job I had was with OPEIU (Office and Professional Employees International Union), Local 459, headquartered in Lansing, Michigan. For a number of years, I had been serving as the shop steward at the Lansing Red Cross in “Distribution Department;, that is the Lansing Red Cross’s blood shipping operation. In 1987, I received a call from Local 459’s one staff representative, asking if I wanted to come on board as a second staff representative? I agreed to join Local 459’s staff.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fast forward to 1992 through 1994. Local 459 had just won an NLRB election certifying that Local 459 was the bargaining union for about 60 phlebotomists, nurses and drivers at the Flint, Michigan Red Cross’s blood operation. The key issue was wages. Yeah, it was 1992 through 1994, wages were a lot lower overall and everywhere (politically, us on the Left were pushing for $10 minimum wage). But the Flint Red Cross’s wages were particularly bad. We had workers in the bargaining unit working for wages in the area of $5.80 to $6.30 an hour, and these were drivers and phlebotomists who ran the Red Cross’s mobile blood drives on a daily basis.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once the organizing drive was completed, I took over as the bargaining representative from the union as we moved on to negotiating the first contract. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first contract was hard bargaining. There was certainly a struggle over wages, but the real difficulty was that wages were all over the map. Workers were hired by the Red Cross at all sorts of different rates, often regardless of classification and experience. The result was we had people working radically different wage rates, within the same classifications, with an often 50% differential between workers. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What the first contract achieved was a series of classification wage scales with a progressive wage structure, some pretty good boilerplate language (“boilerplate” language is a short-hand expression for the union rights, workers’ rights, and non-economic portions of the contract). Some workers (especially low-paid) received some pretty good wage increases (on paper). The raises were in the area of 5% to 8% for the low paid workers. But, like we often joked, 10% of nothing is still nothing. And of course, the middle and upper waged workers got comparatively much smaller raises. So, lots had not been solved with the first contract, and thus, the first contract had a short duration of one year.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The second contract came around pretty soon (one year contract). From the start, before the first proposal was written, before the bargaining team had been elected, the atmosphere around the second contract had escalated. At the first union meeting around the upcoming contract, I could literally feel and smell a strike in the offing; it was palpable,I knew a strike was going to happen, it was, as the expression goes, “in the air”. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most unions will go to great lengths to avoid a strike. For lots of unions, especially after the de-industrialization of the 1980s, including capitals’ use of permanent replacements (scabs) to bust strikes, a strike was seen as a very risky affair. Everything, the bargaining unit, the contract, the workers themselves, could be lost in a strike. Lots of unions looked on strikes as an existential threat to themselves, and management attorneys and companies knew it! This is still, even in 2021, the feeling of many unions when it comes to strikes.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Local 459, me, the workers at the Flint Red Cross knew better (and Lansing Red Cross, we’d struck the Lansing Red Cross on a number of occasions with very good results). The Flint Red Cross, in the event of a strike, was very vulnerable. If the Red Cross tried using replacements (permanent and temporary), they’d never be invited to run a mobile blood draw again in any union shop, and the UAW was still a big player in Michigan. Likewise, we knew that the Flint Red Cross was contracted to many hospitals in Michigan’s lower east region. We knew that if we could stop Flint’s mobile blood drives, they’d be forced to import the blood and blood products from the Lansing Red Cross and Detroit Red Cross in order to fulfill their contractual obligations to regional hospitals; a real economic blow to the Flint Red Cross! </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While everybody agreed that the first contract was insufficient, nobody was mad at the union, the bargaining team, or me. The bargaining team for the first contract was re-elected. I was welcomed back with open arms. I embraced the strike threat that was simmering among the workers and bargaining team, because the bargaining team and I agreed that we could indeed beat the Flint Red Cross!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our bargaining proposals were a bit revolutionary as well. Instead of raises based on percentages, we decided we’d bargain wages based on flat rate dollar amounts. Thus, our initial wage proposal was for a flat rate of $1 per hour. We proposed flat rates because a flat rate structure is most effective in raising wages quickly for low paid workers and because percentage based wage increases lead to greater and greater wage differences between higher paid and low paid workers over time; something we didn’t want to do. We also proposed a series of wage differentials on top of the flat rate, as many of the drivers and phlebotomists were at work at 4 in the morning, or returning back from a drive in the evening.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other thing we did which was a bit unusual was that we took a strike vote as bargaining was beginning. We asked members to authorize the bargaining team to call a strike if a strike was necessary. In a well attended meeting, members voted by over 90% to allow the bargaining team to call a strike. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bargaining was indeed slow and tedious. Our proposal for $1 per hour was met with a counter proposal for a 1% wage increase. As we got near the end of bargaining, the Flint Red Cross threw in an extra percent to 2%, and then, as things were meeting their climax, they threw in another whopping ½% wage increase.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Flint Red Cross’s management kept talking about how they didn’t have the money to fund our raises; that we’d break their bank. In truth, they were in pretty bad economic shape after years and years of mis-management. On the other hand, we kept telling management that their economic problems were their problems and not ours. Our problem we told them was extremely low wages, and our position is that we were not going to continue to subsidize their economic mis-management on our backs. Management wasn’t budging, and we weren’t either. A war was in the offing!</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Strike Begins:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Red Cross proposed mediation, and we agreed. We got a real good Federal Mediator, a woman who had spent decades as a negotiator for the Teamsters before becoming a mediat</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But meditation didn’t work. The Red Cross’s lead negotiator was a hired management attorney named Gary (last name not used to protect Gary’s identi Seems that Gary held the opinion that workers and their union would never strike, period. Gary’s approach was that it was the 1990s, and unions didn’t strike anymore. Gary looked at a trend and mistook this trend for an absolute rule.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even as we fine tuned strike plans in the presence of the mediator, I believe her name was Beth (we wanted Beth to be able to tell management that indeed a strike was imminent, which Beth dutifully did). All the same, Beth struck out too, in great frustration also calling Gary and managements’ team a bunch of idiots.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Truth be told, loose strike planning began almost immediately after the ratification of the first contract. My contribution to the strike strategy was a suggestion that we develop “flying pickets”.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Very simply, the Flint Red Cross collected most of their blood donations through mobile donation drives held throughout the Flint Red Cross’s region. The Flint Red Cross also had a substation for blood collection in Alpena, Michigan, about 200 miles away in the northern region of Michaigan’s lower peninsula. Alpena based workers were also part of the union and were active as well. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Red Cross never used temporary or permanent replacement workers. But the Red Cross tried to run mobile blood drives during the strike using management staff. Our “flying pickets” would show up at the mobile blood drive, set up pickets, and basically reduced mobile blood drives to collection levels that could be counted on the fingers of one hand.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Workers loved the “flying picket” concept!. The mechanics of the flying pickets were run by one of the drivers, Barney, who was also on the bargaining team. Barney made contact with sympathizers in the Lab (outside the bargaining unit) and thus we had a little spy network who would tell us day by day where the mobile blood drive was going. From there, Barney would line up the picketers and drivers, and we never missed a mobile blood drive.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The International Union came through big time. With a strike vote of over 90%, the International approved the strike, which in turn opened up the International strike fund, which meant the Union covered healthcare premiums, and paid workers who picketed $200 per week in strike pay for the duration of the strike. If readers remember, we had workers making as little as $5.80 to $6.00 per hour. If you do the math, $6.00 per hour, at 40 hours is a working wage of $240 per week. With a $200 strike benefit, lots of workers weren’t losing that much money. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Secondly, the bargaining team and Union set up picketing requirements in order to receive strike pay, and strike pay was paid in cash on the picket line. You had to be an active striker to get the strike benefits. In practice, just about everyone did their picket duty happily….. Solidarity Forever was an active force in this strike.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then there was the weather. As I remember, the strike began on June 1, in the spring going into summer. The weather was beautiful (Michigan is a hard place if you have to strike in winter). With workers receiving decent strike benefits there was no atmosphere of the wolf being at the door for any of the strikers. Thus, the picket line stretched out in front of the Red Cross increasingly took on the feel of a daily picnic and barbeque. A grill was out on the picket line every day. Sympathetic visitors were always offered a hamburger or hot dog. The umbrellas and sun shades were always set up. Workers were pretty impressed with what they were doing.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last to mention is the contract campaign itself. Early in the strike planning stage, a woman named Maria was put in charge of the contract campaign. Maria didn’t make a big deal of the contract campaign. On the first day of the strike, Maria simply grabbed a few of the lower paid strikers and they just disappeared.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maria and her delegation showed up again at the end of the day. Seems that Maria and her delegation made the rounds. First they visited the UAW CAP council. Not a big, planned meeting; Maria and her delegation just showed up with picket signs and asked the UAW to cancel all the blood drives scheduled by UAW and GM in the auto factories, for the duration of the strike. The UAW responded by canceling all of its blood drives.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From there, Maria and workers went to the Urban League and got the Urban League to endorse the strike as an anti-poverty action. Finally, the delegation stopped at the United Way. The United Way offered all sorts of help in keeping strikers solvent, which we really didn’t need. The Flint Red Cross was however a major recipient of United Way donations for its non-blood related services and the United Way didn’t want to be known as a social service organization that was funding an agency being struck for low wages.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For me, the whole experience of the Flint Red Cross strike was surprising in that it was such an easy strike for me, as the staff rep. From the start, the strike was run by the strikers. Once Maria and her delegation had done their diplomatic mission, and Barney had the flying pickets organized, the strike ran itself. Anyone on the bargaining team, or for that matter, anyone on the picket line was perfectly capable of speaking to the press, OPEIU Local 459 itself was an amalgamated Local with 44 bargaining units spread across Michigan’s lower peninsula. Thus, with only two staff reps, it just wasn’t possible for a staff rep to be on the picket line every day; which really didn’t matter because the workers were running the strike just fine.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The strike itself was a war of attrition. We knew we were impacting the Red Cross’s economics severely. Management and Gary were starting to figure out that workers were miles from being beaten. For instance, we had some bargaining sessions during the strike. Thus, I would occasionally need to talk to Gary to schedule the bargaining sessions. As time went on, Gary would make some sly comments looking for information; like, “Your folks must be getting desperate”. I’d respond to Gary, “Oh no, not desperate at all. We’re doing just fine, you should stop by our picket line sometime, and if you’re really nice, I bet the strikers would be happy to get you a hamburger or hotdog”. This was not what Gary wanted to hear!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Six weeks into the strike, Beth the Mediator, scheduled a bargaining session. This session was different. Management began agreeing to some of our economic issues like shift differentials, and another half percent on wages. We held firm on wages. Management then caucused for a long time. Late afternoon turned into evening. Finally, the Director of the Flint Red Cross, a guy named Fred Wilson, came in alone to meet with our bargaining team. Fred said simply this: “You win. I don’t know where the money is going to come from to pay for the wages, but this strike is killing us and it needs to end”. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So this is how 60 odd strikers beat the Flint Red Cross.</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Chuck Wynnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14128584408651801497noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-6303245059900411932021-04-12T10:58:00.002-07:002021-04-12T10:58:27.499-07:00SALEM, OREGON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA PRESS RELEASE AND MEDIA ADVISORY ON RECENT SALEM-KEIZER SCHOOL BOARD ACTIONS AND A SECOND SOCIAL MEDIA STATEMENT FROM SALEM DSASALEM, OREGON DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA PRESS RELEASE AND MEDIA ADVISORY ON RECENT SALEM-KEIZER SCHOOL BOARD ACTIONS AND A SECOND SOCIAL MEDIA STATEMENT FROM SALEM DSA<div><br /></div><div>(503) 877-5147 <br />info@SalemDSA.org <br /><br />Salem Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) protests in the strongest possible terms the efforts by Salem-Keizer School Board Chair Satya Chandragiri and other Board members to deny recognition to a student journalist and to associate this denial with DSA and our support for her recent work. This student journalist was due to be recognized as the 2021 Oregon High School Journalist of the Year, but Chandragiri and his clique pulled this recognition and claimed to be doing so in part because DSA posted an article by her about the Board on our Facebook page. <br /><br />Salem DSA believes that Salem-Keizer School Board Chair Satya Chandragiri and other Board members are engaging in an attempt to intimidate a journalist and punish free speech because this student journalist exposed unethical funding mechanisms that have been used to elect a right-wing majority to the School Board. Similar means of funding far-right candidates have emerged in the current race for four Board seats that will be decided on May 18, 2021. Dirty money in politics locks out the voices of people of color, students, the poor, and the working-class. This and dysfunctionality at the Board level, disrespect for people of color and workers, premature school reopenings, and the Chair and the Board majority stifling discussion are the real issues before us. Chandragiri and his allies are engaging in subterfuge. <br /><br />Salem DSA notes that Chandragiri and others are engaging in red-baiting to make their case and are using DSA as their target. The intimidation of journalists, punishing free speech, and red-baiting have a long history in the United States and are used by the most totalitarian forces when they feel threatened. Senator Joe McCarthy did just this between 1950 and 1954. Salem DSA also notes that another elected official who apparently supports Chandragiri and his clique is using Chandragiri’s stand to shamelessly promote four conservative candidates for Board seats by attempting to gin up the public’s emotions and causing DSA to be attacked. <br /><br />DSA has no connection to the journalist beyond supporting some of her work and appreciating her efforts to shed light on the hidden funding of right-wing School Board candidates. DSA members are active in the Salem-Keizer community by supporting veterans’ housing, serving in our unions, helping the houseless, teaching, volunteering for community projects, and advocating publicly for social, gender, racial, worker, immigrant, and environmental justice. We are parents, educational workers, service providers, lodge members, community gardeners, students, youth who are trying to find a human future. We are care providers and we are differently-abled. We are environmentalists. We are blue-collar, poor, middle-class. We are people of color and we are white. We are multi-generational. We are LGBTQIA+ and we are straight. We come from many faith traditions or we are humanists. We are your family, neighbors, and co-workers. We are transparent in our program, in our goals, and in our organizing. <br /><br />We do not insist that anyone agree with us. We do insist that the rights to free association and free speech must be respected, and we believe that Chandragiri and certain of his allies are attempting to suppress these rights. We call upon the community to reject red-baiting, division, suppression, and backroom politics. <br /><br />Salem DSA believes that our most reliable allies are the working-class and oppressed peoples. We call upon our allies to stand together for civil liberties and rights, to vote for positive change on May 18, to support the PRO Act and Labor’s political program in Oregon, to help win healthcare for all, to proclaim that Black Lives Matter, to work for a Green New Deal, and to protest attempts to stifle quality journalism.</div><div><br /></div><div><u><b>And Salem DSA has also issued the following:</b></u></div><div><br /></div>Democratic Socialists of America (<a href="http://dsausa.org/">dsausa.org</a>) supports student organizing for democratic control over their learning and working conditions, particularly through our youth and student section Young Democratic Socialists of America (<a href="http://y.dsausa.org/">y.dsausa.org</a>). Salem DSA (<a href="http://salemdsa.org/">SalemDSA.org</a>) is the local chapter for all DSA members in Marion and Polk County, and we all volunteer our time to organize for economic and social justice.<br /><br />We absolutely support the reporting by Salem-Keizer student Eddy Binford-Ross about the <a href="https://clypian.com/2021/03/21/scandals-special-interests-and-dysfunction-plague-sk-school-board/">many problems with our current School Board</a>, just as we continue our full support for the years-long campaign led by Salem-Keizer students in Latinos Unidos Siempre (LUS) to <a href="https://www.youthmandate.com/arrested-learning">end the school-to-prison pipeline</a>. Building knowledge and building unity is what changes the balance of power, and the work of these students is a model for all students in the District.<br /><br />Chair Chandragiri is not fooling anyone: he’s <a href="https://www.salemreporter.com/posts/4024/salem-keizer-school-board-delays-recognition-of-student-journalist-following-critical-coverage-of-school-board-campaigns">choosing to deny recognition</a> to one of Salem-Keizer’s most accomplished students because she criticized his politics. This is not new for the Chair, who has a history of silencing all voices who disagree with him or his far-right financial backers, although he has gone to new depths of pettiness by singling out one student in this case.<br /><br />In <a href="https://www.salemreporter.com/posts/3279/a-divided-salem-keizer-school-board-votes-to-allow-chair-to-cut-off-derogatory-name-calling-comments">December 2020</a> he shamefully equated public accountability of elected officials to domestic violence, hoping he could ignore LUS’s calls to end the SRO contract (<a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2021/03/salem-keizer-school-district-ends-police-contract-for-officers-in-schools.html">a fight he eventually lost</a>). His new strawman argument is textbook red-baiting. Fred Hampton said, “socialism is the people. If you're afraid of socialism, you're afraid of yourself.” So far Chair Chandragiri has made it clear that he’s afraid of socialism and that he’s afraid of the people—at least the ones who don’t agree with him.<br /><br />Eddy Binford-Ross has nothing but support and solidarity from Salem DSA. If simply sharing her reporting on Facebook is enough to make Chair Chandragiri and his rich donors nervous, we will feel even better about continuing to do so. We are confident that she will continue to uphold her journalistic integrity in the face of the Chair’s petty rudeness, which is nothing compared to the police violence she faced while reporting in Portland through clouds of teargas last summer.<br /><br />We urge the Salem-Keizer community to read the March 21 article “<a href="https://clypian.com/2021/03/21/scandals-special-interests-and-dysfunction-plague-sk-school-board/">Scandals, Special Interests And Dysfunction Plague School Board</a>” and to join with us in winning the School Board back for students, school workers, and the community by voting for all four progressive candidates by May 18th: Osvaldo Avila, Ashley Carson Cottingham, María Cecilia Hinojos Pressey, and Karina Guzmán Ortiz. Contact us at info@SalemDSA.org for ways to get involved.<br /><br />In solidarity,<br /><br />Salem DSA Steering Committee<br /><br />April 11, 2021Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-81221080100374809172021-02-11T09:26:00.000-08:002021-02-11T09:26:07.438-08:00Radical Unity by Garrett Snedaker<p><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><i>We are borrowing this post that has been circulating by e-mail because we think that it makes many points that are worth debating and because it expresses in plain language what we think needs to be heard by some local activists who are looking Left.</i></b></span></span></p><p>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In spite of some tall hurdles, the opportunity is there for the Democratic Party to help transform society, at a time when the Republican Party is having trouble controlling a monster of its own making. The Democratic Party, though, must be willing to transform itself, requiring new strategies and an impassioned commitment to the sorts of reforms the Democratic Party has long dismissed as too radical. Some will argue that what we really need is a new political party, but I don’t see that as being a viable option, and for the purposes of this essay I’m not considering it. The Democratic Party will need to engage in outreach to rural Americans, as well as cynical or apathetic nonvoters. But not by appealing to a supposed centrism, or by being progressive only in rhetoric and not in deed. On the contrary, the Democratic Party must fully embrace a progressive populism. Frustration with the status quo, including incrementalism, is boiling over. We don’t have time for standard operating procedure, thanks in large part to climate change, nor is it capable of building the sort of broad support needed to, at long last, realize an egalitarian, just and humane society. Before diving into what exactly I think the Democratic Party should be doing, let’s consider some substantial impediments and how we got to where we are.</span></span></p><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The US political system is, despite claims to the contrary, incredibly anti-democratic. Defending the US Senate by saying it represents the states and not individuals is disingenuous. As </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.vox.com/2018/10/13/17971340/the-senate-represents-states-not-people-constitution-kavanaugh-supreme-court&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNGxsZBe1SH-fi9qVai98pdm12ULww" href="https://www.vox.com/2018/10/13/17971340/the-senate-represents-states-not-people-constitution-kavanaugh-supreme-court" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hans Noel of Vox</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">asks, "Why should it have a veto on any legislation that has nothing to do with states as states?" The US Senate also hands out lifetime appointments to those who rule on matters that affect individuals. It does so in a country that is vastly different than the one of 13 colonies and 2.5 million people. In the 18th century, there were no examples of population disparities that even remotely rival the disparity between California and Wyoming. The anti-majoritarian nature of our political system is only going to get worse, unless we expand who constitutes the majority. It has been estimated that by the year 2040, approximately two-thirds of the US population will be represented by just 30 US Senators. US residents are increasingly concentrated with more than half the US population living in just over 140 of the more than 3000 counties. More than 80 percent of the US population</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNHxzUaUqA3ZkAq9rdM9O6OfnIlSHA" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lives in urban areas</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, whereas only about half did so a century ago and only a fraction as many when the nation's constitution was written. It is now a consistent threat that the electoral college,</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/electoral-college-slavery-constitution&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNGYoPzi2CmFde1tfqsFEP6OR6MsYQ" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/electoral-college-slavery-constitution" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a remnant of slavery</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, will be won by a presidential candidate who loses the popular vote by millions. Meanwhile, the supposed people's house, the US House of Representatives, is plagued by gerrymandered, winner-take-all</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.fairvote.org/?page%3D765&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNH-tO6tpnTWVzqq2KsYV10XdIMFrg" href="http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=765" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">single-member districts</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. State assemblies,</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.gq.com/story/republican-gerrymandering-wisconsin&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNFn4_fyOLb3TovG7rihyn3Ykz41Gw" href="https://www.gq.com/story/republican-gerrymandering-wisconsin" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">such as the one in Wisconsin</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, suffer the same ills. If that wasn't enough, the US political scene is awash in</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/14/look-power-shadows-watch-sheldon-whitehouse-shine-light-dark-money-operation-behind&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNHWadGNEIEpNNn5syd-iqFiuvOGCg" href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/14/look-power-shadows-watch-sheldon-whitehouse-shine-light-dark-money-operation-behind" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dark money</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those features of the US political system give aid and comfort to the Republican Party of the 21st century. Still, when Republicans saw the writing on the wall decades ago, they couldn't have liked what they were reading. Demographic shifts, social mores and scientific knowledge were all working against them, meaning an anti-majoritarian political system might not be sufficient to maintain plutocracy. It became imperative that the GOP create an alternate reality, in which the bulk of their base now resides. Trump or Trumpism didn't happen in a vacuum. 50 years of increasingly cruel, unhinged rhetoric and policy is what created a Republican Party that's now dominated by the likes of Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, Jim Jordan, Steve King, Joni Ernst, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, Louie Gohmert and some who openly subscribe to QAnonsense. </span></p><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When people have a different take on the causes, effects and proper response to a given set of facts, a potentially constructive debate might ensue. When people deny facts and invent their own "alternative facts," no such potential exists. Various surveys have shown that a majority of Republicans disbelieve everything from climate science to evolution to Barack Obama's birth certificate to the results of the 2020 presidential election. A 2014 poll of Louisiana Republicans found that more respondents blamed Obama than blamed George W. Bush for the federal government's poor response to 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Such ignorance seems benign when considering that, at present, millions of people seem to believe Donald Trump and JFK, Jr. are leading an effort to prevent "Deep State" Democrats from eating babies in pizza shop basements. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has attributed wildfires to Jewish space lasers, and claims school shootings are false flag operations, yet all but 11 of her GOP colleagues were unwilling to strip her of committee assignments, much less demand her resignation. How in the world did we get here? Contributing factors include social media, the longstanding right wing dominance of talk radio and the 24/7 infotainment industry. The Republican Party itself, though, started laying the groundwork for this alternate reality long ago.</span></p><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy took advantage of a backlash to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNGgu_09tkuMbOO71lCiKr-eutauqg" href="https://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Powell Memorandum</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of the early 1970s served as a blueprint for the corporatization of a nation that, thanks in large part to FDR's New Deal, had seen a reduction in the wealth gap and substantial growth of a middle class. In the late '70s, Moral Majority was founded and worked diligently at turning hate into a family value.</span></p><span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ronald Reagan, like Margaret Thatcher across the pond, would take the right wing revolution to new heights. Dog whistling, anti-government vitriol and deregulation have been just a few of the tools used. Long before Trump's big lie about the 2020 election being stolen or climate change being a hoax (while, mind you, he applies for a permit to build a giant seawall around his resort in Ireland), there was the big lie known as trickle-down economics, or what George H. W. Bush referred to as "voodoo." </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the same time profit and not the public interest became primary for an increasingly consolidated media, and the Fairness Doctrine was being repealed, the Republican Party sold another big lie when successfully implanting into the public consciousness the "liberal media" critique. It took the obscene egregiousness of Donald Trump and an insurrection for the infotainment industry to somewhat come to its senses regarding its habit of promoting false equivalencies, suggesting a warped sense of what constitutes fairness. Chris Cilliza,</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rand-paul-s-ridiculous-answer-on-whether-the-election-was-stolen/ar-BB1d4s8s?ocid%3Dmsnews&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNGf8gL1KUpXkVEmF39QBnLUq_03pw" href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rand-paul-s-ridiculous-answer-on-whether-the-election-was-stolen/ar-BB1d4s8s?ocid=msnews" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">writing for CNN</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, quotes Rand Paul regarding his 2020 election fraud claims: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Historically what would happen is if I said that I thought that there was fraud, you would interview someone else who said there wasn't. But now you insert yourself in the middle and say that the absolute fact is that everything that I'm saying is a lie." Cilliza responds, "This is a classic appeal to both-sider-ism by Paul. His argument goes like this: I can say anything I want and it's not the job of the media to litigate whether it's true or not. Instead, there should be another guest on the show who says the opposite of what I am saying -- and then the viewers can decide who is right and who is wrong." Cilliza, to his credit, then adds a sad truth: "Paul is right that journalism, for far too long, worked like this." Indeed, for far too long, the media has been like the Discovery Institute with their</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNHy1Pwe1kb0Rrz83Wy3BxH7Tg7inA" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Teach the Controversy"</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> campaign. I'm not confident that those days are over, as the profit motive remains in place.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That said, the two major political parties have not functioned as disparately as rhetoric suggests, though they have been moving apart of late. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most unfortunately, many in the Democratic Party establishment have also subscribed to neoliberalism, while maintaining a relatively progressive take on social issues. It is also undeniable that members of both parties have been and remain beholden to moneyed interests. Then-candidate Joe Biden</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNEDucXEulO24_zFcU-B1nVaGrh19A" href="https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">assured wealthy donors</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> at a private fundraiser that, if he becomes president, "No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.” Disgust with corruption in Washington is not unjustified, even if those chanting "drain the swamp" have failed to see that their political heroes are themselves swamp creatures. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, what is the Democratic Party to do, especially if the anti-democratic system within which it operates is virtually reform-proof? Simply put, Democrats and other organizations must help build the massive multiracial working class alliance that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Hampton and other '60s radicals were attempting to build, that Reverend William Barber is attempting to build today with his Poor People's Campaign. Such an alliance must include millions of rural Americans who currently either don't vote or vote Republican. The Democratic Party must abandon neoliberalism and assist in the development of class consciousness around support for universal programs like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, worker-owned cooperatives, campaign finance reform, and universal access to preschool and college via progressive taxation and a wealth tax. None of this is to say the Democratic Party shouldn't also concern itself with ending white supremacy and patriarchy. But framing matters, tactics matter and disingenuous prioritization is transparent.</span></p><span class="im" style="background-color: white; color: #500050; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Far too many members of the Democratic Party establishment seem more interested in ensuring that thirteen percent of hedge fund managers are black than in ending predatory capitalism, as if a lack of diversity is the utmost concern. In</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-017-9476-3&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNGAr7WUTd7zZwNZnEfPGewRPEicYw" href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-017-9476-3" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a 2018 article</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Adolph Reed, Jr.</span><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">writes, "Even when its proponents believe themselves to be radicals, this antiracist politics is a professional-managerial class politics. Its adherents are not concerned with trying to generate the large, broad political base needed to pursue a transformative agenda because they are committed fundamentally to pursuit of racial parity within neoliberalism, not social transformation. In fact, antiracist activists’ and pundits’ insistence during the 2016 election campaign that Bernie Sanders did not address black concerns made that point very clearly because nearly every item on the Sanders campaign’s policy agenda—from the Robin Hood tax on billionaires to free public higher education to the $15/h minimum wage, a single-payer health care system, etc. (Sanders for President)—would disproportionately benefit black and Hispanic populations that are disproportionately working class."</span></p><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we're to build an egalitarian, humane nation and world, having only 51 or even 60 percent of the people on board isn't going to cut it. Besides, it is unwise and demonstrates a lack of compassion to leave so many people feeling like they don't belong. But what will unite the masses? Getting money and its corruptive influence out of politics is a concept that people from all across the political spectrum can undoubtedly support. Quality, affordable health care and a living wage are things most everyone wants. With the right framing and persistent outreach, support for community-controlled policing can possibly be developed by tapping into the same desire many have for local control of schools. While many have bought into the notion that climate change is a hoax, those same individuals can understand the importance of breathing clean air and drinking clean water. The Green New Deal is a jobs bill as much as a climate change mitigation bill. Those working in the fossil fuel industry, in Wyoming and North Dakota and elsewhere, need some assurance that shutting down fossil fuel production doesn't mean destroying their livelihood. Green infrastructure projects are key. Another helpful move would be bringing back the Fairness Doctrine and encouraging educators to teach media literacy. The bottom line is that transforming society won't happen with a return to the pre-Trump "normal." </span></p><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Above all, I'm advocating that the Democratic Party, along with other organizations, invest heavily in outreach and movement building, particularly in rural areas. And not just during election cycles but between election cycles. Pay people a living wage to knock on doors and hang out at diners and have conversations that uncover common ground. Not for the purpose of helping a candidate win or a ballot measure pass, but to build sustainable solidarity. Face-to-face interactions, once they become safe again, are ideal. The recruiting, planning and paid training can start right away, online or possibly in person. These solidarity organizers must be trained in diplomacy, in how to listen and respond as opposed to react. They should be armed with knowledge, but studies demonstrate that</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNEIJS9g1oUUXb4fGBM4HoFDrPyp8A" href="http://archive.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"facts backfire,"</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> so organizers must also understand that emotional appeals are vital. There may need to be some biting of tongues at times, not as a suppression of values but as a way to build bridges. Plant seeds that will hopefully take root in the minds of those who may have some detestable views, but do so gracefully, knowing there's more to people than their worst misconceptions. These outreach efforts should extend to the tens of millions of adults who don't vote, at least partly on account of feeling like politicians aren't making their lives appreciably better. </span></p><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'll close with a quote from Dr. King's brilliant 1967</span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam&source=gmail&ust=1613149513475000&usg=AFQjCNFLxMWfs1k7Zlr9Rx9xn9Tz1BoAww" href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Beyond Vietnam"</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> speech, when he called for something that has yet come to pass but still can. "</span><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing‐oriented' society to a 'person‐oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered…True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. </span><span style="background-color: #fbfbf9; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, 'This is not just.'...</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” </span></p><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Garrett Snedaker</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2/4/2021</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-10427140154068410822021-01-21T16:31:00.003-08:002021-01-24T15:17:54.286-08:00We say that struggle resolves all contradictions. What does this mean? Part 3 of 3.<p>Our working-class and nationally oppressed peoples are in
constant crises, and over the last decade or longer we have seen more of our
people showing up with depression, anxiety disorders, social phobias, addictions,
and more. We have seen some comrades move from the Left to the far-right not
because they have changed their politics so much as they have strong emotional
reactions to certain people or to conflict. This is political—this happens
because capitalism is in crisis and throws people overboard. It would be one
thing if we could put empathy into action and build groups to self-manage their
care and healing, occupy a hospital or non-profit and put forward demands, and
formulate a program and practice based on oppression and liberation to confront
these crises. The comrades who criticize us for ableism and for not doing this
are not wrong; we are failing to address crises, and we often view these crises
as personal. But we do not have the tools, and we cannot get all of the tools
needed, to address the crises that confront our people.</p><p>In fact, we do not talk much about “our people” and take
responsibility for what is, after all, the country in which we live. Socialist
and liberation movements the world over root themselves in the progressive
national traditions of their peoples as they resolve the contradictions between
their movements and the masses. We are barely in a place where we can talk
about solidarity, but we are caught in a situation where some comrades want us
to---or need us to---talk about and practice empathy and mutual aid instead,
and they damn us when we do not. We need comrade doctors and comrade therapists
badly. We are fighting a war of sorts, and every army needs a field hospital.
But we also need to know and identify with several tens of millions of people
here who are now strangers to us. The particular crises experienced by our
people form material impositions by capitalism and also demonstrate our
shortcomings.<br /><br />These difficulties do not excuse us from serving the people and putting "serving" in the proper contexts so that it is not understood as charity or as mutual aid. I recently attended a Web event hosted by a militant Kurdish and Turkish socialist organization that had therapists speaking to their audience, calming and hopeful live music, and a compassionate woman comrade who facilitated the event and gave an in-depth political analysis. We can do this. </p><p>The DSA chapter problems referred to here have taken
place within particular contexts. These events transpired while the fascist
attacks were underway in D.C. and Salem, or in their aftermath. They took place
as a new political moment is opening, and one that most (but not all) of
us worked for. They took place as COVID continued to take an out-of-proportion
toll in our community. There are particular crises of capitalism present, one of which is increasing automation (and many fewer jobs to return to) as COVID continues and another of which is the purchasing of corporate debt and the consequences of that. The DSA chapter problems occurred as movements around us began to push
back, and perhaps to advance. This push-back gives us new opportunities and
challenges.</p><p>Those are some of the objective conditions that we work with. But there is a
contradictory subjective set of conditions as well to consider. There is an
experiential gap between leaders and members, and similar gaps between members,
and McCarthyite anti-communism is sometimes present and is allowed. A woman
comrade has to steel herself for certain meetings because she experiences
mansplaining and sniping comments from other comrades. Chapter leadership does
not collectively engage with members when backsteps occur. We have no base in
the labor movement or in workplace organizing, although we have many union
members. A couple of comrades tend to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, a few are
anarchists, at least two are close to the Solidarity organization, and others
fit well into DSA’s “big tent.” But one comrade opposes new anti-terrorism
legislation aimed at the far-right, one wants to leave all political questions
to “the workers” to settle after they take power, we are attempting to study
the Labor Theory of Value because we do not have similar understandings of
exploitation and oppression, we do not have unity around the question(s) of
self-determination, we passed a resolution calling on Salem’s conservative
mayor to lead an anti-racist effort and exceed his authority in certain areas
without much discussion. and the comrade who advanced some caustic criticisms
mentioned above was told that perhaps he should leave DSA.</p><p>In other words, we sometimes depoliticize ourselves, and
this time we did it when having the right political line and practice is of
special importance. And if what we do is not political, then it becomes
personal and we are struggling with feelings and past slights that cannot be
put away. We thus take on some aspects of our opposition.</p><p>The opposite of “big tent,” or the answer to it and to
the movement-destructive behaviors that sometimes come with it, are neither
narrow Left sects nor purges. Just the opposite is true: we need a more
politicized DSA, with declared factions and tendencies and deep work among the
working-class and nationally oppressed masses. There is a need in the U.S.
right now for principled mass social-democratic politics and organizing, so
let’s think about redesign. Principled mass social-democratic politics should
be the right pole or wall of DSA, and with that being the space where DSA’s
politics begin. People who are active every day and sharing leadership and
activity and participating in actions find ways to resolve or work with their
differences that others cannot. They develop a common rhythm of work, and they
set about building capacity for struggle and leadership among workers and
oppressed peoples. They do that, or they perish. If the numbers of people so
engaged do not increase and do not take leadership---if the quantities and
qualities of the peoples’ forces do not change for the better---we lose. A
principled, mass social-democratic “big tent” organization is needed, but
within that effort there should be room for organizations that distinguish
between cadre members (the decisive force who unite, serve, and lead the
people) and other members as well as organizations in which people are
educated, tested, and given the space and means to evolve politically before
they become full members. The contradictions between a “big tent” organization
and other forms of organization can work for the good if we assume that clear
thinking, unity through shared struggles, and a “no enemies on the Left” policy
prevails.</p><p>We have some great advancements to point to that
illustrate this dynamic of people learning to work together and moving
Leftward: Salem DSA’s socialist environmentalism, the Chapter’s abilities in
initiating and carrying though on some community projects, our ability and
willingness to take part in an important coalition effort despite being a
minority within that coalition, participation in some electoral work and an
almost-won in a City council race, and a willingness by some comrades to study
the Labor Theory of Value and engage with basic Marxism. This inspires and
empowers people to do additional planning for 2021. One question that we have
to answer is if this forward motion weighs more than our backsteps. Another
question is how we deliberately correct backward motion.</p><p>The primary contradiction is between the working-class
and oppressed peoples and capitalism. The secondary contradiction for us is
between ourselves and the working-class and nationally oppressed peoples. You
can either love the people or hate the system; the choice you make will put you
in one place or another. This is one link between the two separate
contradictions. The primary contradiction and how we respond to it with the
masses are all that we should have room for dealing with in our movement and in
DSA. Our work starts with grasping the contradictions. Our growth comes with
understanding the overall nature of contradiction and development—and not just
with understanding these, but with working with them and applying what we learn
in every aspect of our lives. Expect contradiction and conflict, but look at
each situation and ask how it arrived at a specific stage and what is happening
within it and around it and is moving it forward or backward. We should not
over-emphasize negation, but we should not lead with conciliation either. Apply
this to relationships in the here-and-now because all relationships are areas
of struggle, and all relationships and struggles are joined.</p><p>What does this mean in practice for us? Study, engage in
mass work, form political factions within DSA as our mass work moves ahead,
recognize and respect differences within a socialist framework, reject
liberalism and defeatism within and amongst ourselves, let those who do the
work speak first, agree that there is no right to speak without first
understanding what is at issue, help people develop within and through the
organization rather than quickly place them into positions of responsibility, broaden
our base and our leadership more carefully than we do, move people and
ourselves to the Left, understand this this movement to the Left occurs in
stages, and understand that the contradictions between ourselves and the ruling
class are fundamentally and irreversibly antagonistic but that the
contradictions between ourselves and the masses are not. These methods of work
have been formed and tested in every successful revolution. Political debates and discussions are not arguments, and they should not be sources of bitterness. If differences are handled correctly the discussions over differences should lead to greater unity. And remember what Amilcar Cabral said: "Responsible members must take life seriously, conscious of their responsibilities, thoughtful about carrying them out, and with a comradeship based on work and duty done. Nothing of this is incompatible with the joy of living, or with love for life and its amusements, or with confidence in the future and in our work...." All of this is what we
mean when we say that struggle resolves all contradictions.</p><p>The working-class and nationally oppressed peoples are
our only bastions, our only means of defending ourselves. They are the only
forces that can lead a revolution. If it seems that the people are opposed to
us, or that they consider us to be their enemy, this is because we have not
correctly resolved the contradictions between us.</p><p>Further and better reading:</p><p>1. Mao's On Contradiction: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm</p><p>2. Zhou Enlai's Guidelines for Myself: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm</p><p>3. Stalin on dialectical materialism: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm</p><p>4. M.N. Roy on patriotism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/roy/1923/06/12.htm</p><p>5. Marlene Dixon on the oppression of women: https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/dixon-marlene/class-struggle.htm</p><p>6. Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism:https://archive.org/details/fundamentalsofma0000unse</p><p>7. Amilcar Cabral Tell no lies, Claim no easy victories: https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/cabral/1965/tnlcnev.htm</p><p> </p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-57356880811121073222021-01-21T15:51:00.003-08:002021-01-21T16:34:58.099-08:00We say that struggle resolves all contradictions. What does that mean? Part 2 of 3.To this point this has been a poor and second-hand introduction to dialectical materialism. Here is how this works out in practice in a political organization, and here is how we answer the question of what we mean when we say that struggle resolves all contradictions.<div><br /></div><div>Most of the labor and radical political organizations that I have been involved with have had a group of leaders and activists and a rank-and-file who tune in and out. Whether the leaders and activists intend to or not, they often build a moat around themselves. They do ever more work but their energies and numbers diminish over time. At some point some of them turn on one another or turn on the rank-and-file. The rank-and-file, for their part, might have a transactional or user mentality, or they may have signed on because they are good with the organization’s program, or because they want to give financial support but not do more, or because the right person or the right moment needed to move them has not arrived. Leadership may also fall into transactionalism, meaning that inducements of one kind or another are used to get members or to build projects. Or leadership may conciliate with members’ inaction, or they may keep looking for the right thing or a right moment to move people.</div><div><br /></div><div>Being a socialist does not mean that one is free of all capitalist influences or individualism. And being a socialist now, when much of the U.S. Left has arrived where they are through the Occupy and Sanders movements or through a battered labor movement, often means that counter-culturalism, so-called “identity politics,” forms of liberalism and anarchism, tendencies to work for change “from above” rather than with workers and nationally oppressed peoples at the grassroots, going to the many manuals for social change that are out there for answers, living in the world of the non-profits, and not engaging with the classics of socialism runs pretty strong. We have seen in a very short time the practical disappearance in many areas of a traditional, militant, self-educated Left made up of workers and nationally oppressed peoples. And it is not only that we have seen this disappearance, but that it has been a forced disappearance in some sense, driven by ageism, nihilism, anarchism, and liberalism on the Left.</div><div><br /></div><div>What we know, or what we think we know, is that if you do not build activism into an organization from its first minutes you end up with inactivism, busyness (not organizing), or division. And we know, or we think we know, that if you do for people what they can do for themselves you diminish their ability to lead and limit their identification with the organization. We know that not all motion is forward motion, but it is questionable if we can identify backward motion when we see it and if we know how to stop it. We should know that learning history is a subversive act, and that we have a responsibility or right to insist that everyone take up the tools of theory and practice as they enter our organizations. We know, or we should know from the labor movement, that an organizer can spend all day preaching unity, but when one person says “Maybe we’ll get fired if we protest” the group falls apart. The Left has our equivalents: personal attacks, anti-communism, the “white fragility” line all set activity back. We know that people will enter a house with many wide-open doors, but we should also know that not everyone coming through the doors is someone you want planning your next party and deciding who is going to serve the punch at the party. We should know that we cannot tell people to bugger off and expect heir cooperation or open ears.</div><div><br /></div><div>When these problems occur in the context of a “big tent” socialist organization like a chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) the undemocratic underpinnings of the organization become more problematic. We should not expect a socialist organization in the U.S. right now to be fully democratic, fully participatory, and fully attuned to what the working-class and oppressed peoples are thinking and doing. And it is not that DSA is primarily undemocratic in its structure or decision-making, but that the “big tent” formulation is, in itself, undemocratic. “Big tent” means, on the one hand, that all “democratic socialists” are welcome---a good thing when “democratic” refers to democracy in motion but a bad thing when it refers to a specific social-democratic tradition or some form of Left liberalism. On the other hand, “big tent” also means that there will be problems with decision-making, focus, and attention to national projects. People will drop in and out. What we think of as “political line” and “mass work”---the two necessary aspects of activism that are in non-antagonistic opposition to one another---will not be taken up by the entire organization, or at least not in the same ways and at the same times.</div><div><br /></div><div>A comrade who is not engaged in mass work but who has a long history of activism and leadership will be prone to take occasional swipes at other comrades, and especially those in leadership. His comments can be caustic and can be heard as blow-offs to the Chapter, although this is not his intention. This is what isolation accomplishes in many situations. The leadership is feeling burdened with the work that they do and the relatively low numbers of people involved; they are understandably defensive when attacked. Both the comrade who is attacking and those who are feeling the attack understand that there are openings for DSA and for socialism that are being missed. Both are aware that each meeting creates more work, and neither is completely confidant that they are moving in the right direction quickly enough. The former cannot hear the others asking for his participation (too often on their terms, and not on his), and the latter keeps on taking on work as if their energy is infinite and as if their methods of work are democratic.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because we have a “big tent” organization we cannot find unity on questions of self-determination, defunding the police or putting police under community control, some of the basics of exploitation, and the role of the state. We do not have a commonly shared analysis of colonialism and imperialism. We have not discussed or come up with a shared analysis of the coup attempt in D.C. or the fascist threat here in Oregon. The people in the organization who have backgrounds in Marxism and organizing drop the ball when it comes to discussing these questions, engaging in education, and doing practical work in these areas---or we conciliate with liberalism or anarchism.</div><div><br /></div><div>And because we all live in the U.S. and drink deeply from this culture, we see our failures in individual terms, we excuse them as matters of personal angst or exhaustion, we burn out, or we conciliate in less-than-principled ways---or we gather up our toys and go home angry and sulk. Political disagreements are taken as personal affronts, and this is sometimes inescapable when political line is distorted and expressed in caustic terms. Anyone active in the labor and Left movements meets a good number of alcoholics and dopers, burn outs, angry people, mansplainers, too-busy people, and droners. What they share in common are unhealthy relationships to power and individualism that negate collective work and power. We over-emphasize the role of negation in making change, if we think about how change happens at all. But for us, as socialists, the problem should be less about what is healthy or unhealthy and more about what it takes in terms of our relations to the masses to get on and stay on a path to working-class power.</div><div><br /></div><div>These turns signify bourgeois or petty-bourgeois intrusions into our movement, or at least an absence of criticism and self-criticism and support for those of us who want to grow and do better. They have their complementary political positions in opposition to theory and intellectual development on the Left, political defeatism and indecisiveness, a distrust or rejection of paths to power, and an inability or unwillingness to think dialectically and work with the push and pull of political struggle. This is where we get Trotskyism and reflexive anti-communism and anti-Stalinism from. This is where unprincipled coalition activity (and not united fronts) comes from.<br /><br />Go <a href="https://oregonsocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2021/01/w-say-that-struggle-resolves-all.html">here</a> for Part 3.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-81888445874135755502021-01-21T15:47:00.001-08:002021-01-21T16:33:13.151-08:00We say that struggle resolves all contradictions. What does that mean? Part 1 of 3We say that struggle resolves all contradictions. What does that mean?<div><br /></div><div>In the sense that we use the word, “contradiction” we are talking about opposition that occurs within and between people, and within and between contending forces and within and between things as well. Opposition and struggle---contradiction---are natural and universal. Opposition and struggle are the means by which things change, and since everything is in development and motion then change is also on-going and constant. Contradictions may be antagonistic or non-antagonistic, but they are ever-present.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is not that unrelated people or forces or things come into contact and conflict with one another, but that there are interrelationships at work, and that people and forces and things have distinct stages of development and self-development. If we want to understand someone or something, we must look at a web of relations and relationships, the history of development that is at work, what is intrinsic and what is external, and what contradictions are present. You must enter and experience the environment of what it is that you are studying in order to know it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Grasping contradiction is a way of understanding the mutually exclusive and opposing tendencies that develop within, and are present in, everything within us and around us, including our thoughts and thinking and even motion itself. The most common way that we have of talking about this in talking about water. When water is heated to certain point it becomes steam, and in so doing the quantity and quality of the water is changed. Motion (heat) creates changes in quantity and quality. Heat is itself the product of opposing forces. But even without heat water will undergo other changes as well, although it appears to be still: evaporation, or freezing to become slush or ice come readily to mind. The parallel for us is that the “motion” of social movements creates changes in the qualities of societies and changes in the numbers of people involved and in the qualities of their thinking, their work, and their cultures.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since contradiction and change are universal and constant, then, something of the past, something of the present, and something of the future is always present. The quantities and qualities of what is around us are changing. What is new supersedes what is old. Old conditions (old forces, old quantities, old qualities, and old contradictions) may be defeated, but some part of the past goes into the new thing that has been created and new contradictions and struggles are born. Interdependence means that in the process of change the aspects that exist within something become their opposites. Think here about how the organisms that eventually made human life possible developed in stages over long periods of time.</div><div><br />Here we also often use the example of capitalists and capitalism: the capitalists were a subordinated force within feudalism, and capitalism existed in an embryonic state, but through a clash between rival means of producing and distributing commodities the capitalists and capitalism took power. This was “progressive” in the sense that productive powers were freed up and the mechanisms of production and distribution could acquire social characteristics---more people involved, triumphs for science, an end to a dying order that was being crushed under its own weight---but it was oppressive in the sense that the new order rested on the subjugation of working-classes and nationally oppressed peoples and new levels of environmental destruction and slavery continued and took new forms. Also, capitalism continued and deepened the contradiction between people and nature. The primary contradictions that quickly emerged were between capitalism and capitalists, on the one hand, and the working-classes and nationally oppressed peoples on the other hand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Socialism must emerge as a new form of production and distribution and take on the task of restoring to us a place within nature. Socialism will not come as a clean slate, but will carry something from capitalism within it. It took changes in quantities and qualities---of people, of the means by which things were produced and distributed, of thinking and science, of class relations, of cultures---to give capitalism its victory. But in its victory capitalism created its opposing forces in the forms of workers and nationally oppressed peoples. Just so with socialism: something from capitalism will be present, the work of building socialism will; be present, and in this work are the seeds of communism.</div><div><br /></div><div>The new most often replaces the old in a capitalist society when there is clarity among the working-class and oppressed masses around what the primary and secondary contradictions are and when antagonism defines the struggle between contending ideas and social forces. Antagonism is not always necessary or present, but it is a stage in contradiction and struggle. We have implied or said so far that contradiction and struggle are not the same, that as something is negated something else is created, that this is on-going and constant, that changes in quantities and qualities are most deeply imbedded in these processes, that the new supersedes the old and carries in it something of the old and the present and the new, that there is a unity in opposites in the sense that every thing is identified by the opposing forces within and around it and by its history of development, and that under certain conditions opposing forces with some thing can coexist and “become one another” by creating a new identity. Negation is of course a necessary step or stage, but negation is itself negated through development and the role of negation should not be over-emphasized.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some of our critics object by saying that cooperation and mutual aid are responsible for development. We respond that even in situations where mutual aid is predominant, it is so because existence is itself a contradictory state (life opposing death or decay, motion as a contradictory state, apparent solidarity existing as necessity) and so it is a matter of struggle. Some of our critics object by emphasizing spontaneity and randomness, but we respond that these are limited factors in development and exist in relation to (as relative to) other forces. Some of our critics say that we should be agnostics, or “objective,” in our approach, but we say that (human) activity is primary in all things and that it is through action and understanding action that relative truth comes to be understood; there is no limit to (human) activity and understanding. Some of our critics say that we leave no room for idealism, and they are correct in the sense that we do not believe that ideas have power or meaning by themselves. Other critics say that we make no room for freedom or will, and we say that we understand freedom to be the recognition of necessity and that it is the people---and people alone---who make history. We add to that that history is the “space” in which human beings develop.<br /><br />Go <a href="https://oregonsocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2021/01/we-say-that-struggle-resolves-all_21.html">here</a> for Part 2. <br /><br /> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-14933945364742568922021-01-08T10:56:00.004-08:002021-01-08T11:27:46.693-08:00Some Notes On Our Present Moment---Part Three Of Three<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/2021/01/06/954124446/states-also-see-protests-and-angry-responses-to-d-c-violence">Salem, Oregon---our town---has been highlighted as a center of far-right terrorism and activism.</a> Here is recurring fascist violence, and the right-wing won most of the local and state electoral contests in November and controls the County Commission and the School Board. Attending the counter-protests can be unsafe, and they are not organized on a united-front basis that builds and broadens our capacity to fight and win. A door opened for broad anti-fascist and anti-racist unity last spring and then closed and has remained closed. The pandemic has been disempowering---or our response to it has been. Radical forces have not consolidated and put forward an all-people’s political program while the right-wing has consolidated and put forward a program of sorts, or a warped explanation of what’s going on. Liberals have erred on the school reopenings and the matter of school district liability for the spread of COVID at work. Liberal faith in the system seems to have been strengthened even as the system falters. They continue to take a top-down approach in many areas, and they continue to write off the working-class except when our votes are needed.<div><br /></div><div>Attempts were recently made by the far-right to intimidate staff from the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration at their homes while the right-wing Freedom Foundation seeks to bust public employee unions, and now anti-maskers are attacking retail workers on their jobs in Salem. Intentionally or not, they are working hand-in-hand against working people. Where are our liberal and radical friends when it comes to attacks against workers and our unions? Where are our unions when it comes to leading an all-peoples front against our enemies? We return to the point that solidarity is not a two-way street in Salem, and we add that it sometimes feels that this is by design and intent by some people.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our City Council appears to be progressive in much the same way that a few members of our School Board and the Superintendent once appeared to be progressive, but the people now have only two or three voices on the City Council (and none at the School Board). The real estate industry, the Chamber of Commerce, the banks, and the Salem Leadership Foundation are positioned to head off progressive change, and they are probably relieved that they have not taken heat for their roles over the past year. The police and the people who work behind the scenes at the County, City, and School Board levels work very hard to redirect that heat and deplete our progressive energy. Many non-profits help to soften the blow and redirect our energy and heat as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>Politics here remains a matter of personalities---Paul Evans’ push for power, Shemia Fagan’s extended run for Governor, the short-lived Tina Kotek/Janelle Bynum controversy and deal, Bill Post on the radio, the right-wing focus on Kate Brown. Politics should be about political programs, struggle, and forward motion. <a href="https://johnpavlovitz.com/2020/10/18/no-i-wont-agree-to-disagree-youre-just-wrong/">It should not be about agreeing to disagree or conciliating</a> or convincing people that we’re all on the same team; there is an “us” and a “them” that needs to be understood and used correctly. What force is there in Salem, or in Oregon, that can make politics all about a working-class and oppressed peoples’ struggle for forward movement?</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, we must ask how is it that Rep. Nearman may have let the fascists into the State Capitol on December 21, that Rep. Cliff Bentz supports Trump and the right-wing terrorists and holds office, that Rep. Bill Post can waffle on the coup attempt and still hold office and be named as Assistant Deputy Leader of the Oregon House Republicans? Post’s case is instructive: he is no doubt getting support and protection from agribusiness for his effort to cut the agriculture minimum wage for workers under 21 years of age.</div><div><br /></div><div>We have been through the fires, but rural Oregon continues to suffer. We are hitting a high point in new COVID cases, and Marion County’s infections and deaths are way out of line with our population numbers and our healthcare systems. Houselessness appears to be growing. These are systemic problems that are not going to be solved by individual effort, but saying this does not get individuals off the hook. If we dwell only on the bad news and our desperation, we disempower ourselves and one another. Radicals here are indeed surrounded. Breaking out of this encirclement can only be done by building relations with the working-class and oppressed peoples and through strategic united front (coalition) work. <br /><br /> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-17597360397624940512021-01-08T10:53:00.008-08:002021-01-08T11:59:10.482-08:00Some Notes On Our Present Moment---Part Two Of ThreeA statement from Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) reinforces what gets called “liberal identity politics” when they say, “This was scripted white supremacist violence instigated by Trump.” We agree with DSA that Representative Ilhan Omar’s impeachment attempt and Representative Cori Bush’s effort to expel Republicans who tried to block the election deserve full support, but DSA is misstating what fascism is and they aren’t talking about building or consolidating an anti-fascist united front. <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/01/how-progressive-democrats-almost-re-elected-trump/">A statement from Howie Hawkins of the Green Party</a> (remember them?) on January 1 took the Left to task for supposedly retreating to the right. Hawkins prescribed less unity for the Left as his cure and put forward no ideas on how to fight and win in the present moment. The “We knew this was coming!” crowd didn’t know this was coming, or wasn’t prepared even if they did. The people who scoff and say that this insurrection or attempted coup was poorly prepared forget that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch">the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923</a> was also a sloppy job. Coups and insurrections often do not succeed on their first or second or third attempts---think of Turkey----but they are staging grounds and they consolidate power. The liberals must be pushed and pulled to follow through on impeachment and prosecutions of Trump and his allies; this a moment to open political options and build unity, not to further confine ourselves.<div><br /></div><div>We do not defend science and logic, or reason, only because they are under attack by our enemies, but because science and logic are political questions. Each class---workers, the middle-class, the bosses---has a science and logic that meets its interests and needs, whether they fully realize this or not. <a href="https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm">The workers have dialectical materialism</a>. That is a political matter. But for reason of any kind to hold sway, reasonable people must hold power---and the question of power is also a political question. The broad question of this moment is one of who will hold power, who will be excluded from holding power, and under what conditions this will take place.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our radical friends who return from the future with prognostications of “all will be well” or “we are all doomed” should at least have the good graces to bring the winning Lotto numbers back with them if they really wish to be helpful.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://organizingupgrade.com/georgia-shows-the-way-d-c-shows-the-stakes/?link_id=2&can_id=25a5d824f0169483f12baa27aea38462&source=email-happening-now-towards-a-new-majority&email_referrer=email_1038125&email_subject=georgia-shows-the-way-dc-shows-the-stakes">It is now a true saying that if Georgia shows then way, then D.C. shows the stakes.</a> But there is something else: it is not our liberal friends, or even many of our revolutionary comrades, who form the directly opposite and absolutely necessary opposing force to what happened in D.C. The necessary effective counter-push against the right-wing is coming from the Solid and Black Belt South and from workers in industries and professions most directly affected by the pandemic and people of color in communities where the police killings have happened and where there are existing traditions of fighting back. But these people cannot fight alone and win. The concept that solidarity is a two-way street built from necessity has been sacrificed and must be repurposed.</div><div><br /></div><div>We should share with the liberals an absolute abhorrence of seeing the Confederate flag carried in the Capitol, or anywhere, and react with the same abhorrence and anger to the Camp Auschwitz sweatshirts. We should hold up <a href="https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/yesterdays-insurrection-was-attack-on-democracy-white-supremacists-and-fascists">the union statements condemning the fascists</a> and use them to organize fellow union members into the movement. We should look soberly at the election numbers and stay with the base, the grassroots, and figure out how to win people over during the pandemic.</div><div><br /></div><div>The media and certain politicians have been building narratives that will allow some Republicans to survive this moment politically and go on to win future elections by giving space to the Republicans who suddenly oppose Trump and street violence. That sets a low bar, but it feeds bipartisanship and may be used by Democrats to justify compromises. “We finally found some moderate Republicans!” The media and certain politicians have also been working for quite a while to find the roots of our crises in Russia, and not here at home. A liberal friend even sent along a meme of the Republican leadership under a hammer and sickle yesterday. Much is being done by the Centrists to salvage part of the right-wing and strengthen the Democratic party's Centrists, once more excluding the Left. It is not that the Democratic Party’s Centrism should not be reconstructed or saved, but that a Left-Center alliance would be of greater help, and would be more viable, than an alliance between the media and the center of the Democratic party or an alliance between centrist Democrats and the Right.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our liberal friends walk into the media trap with their glasses off. Some of our radical friends either insist that the Left should have no ties to the center and that we should not consult the liberal media, or their criticisms are formulated in ways that prevent building unity. It’s as if the hard-fought election that we just went through didn’t teach us anything and that we didn’t win and lose ground in the elections in the same moment. <a href="https://portside.org/2020-11-09/post-election-reckoning-new-hypotheses-road-ahead">The most capable voices on the Left analyzed the election results and argued that a Biden/Harris win would give us a new terrain to struggle on</a>, and that waging that political struggle is all-important, but many of us remain mired in ultra-leftism and instinctively reject an organizing strategy and tactics that take us beyond Left circles and to the masses.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-59752875603513152772021-01-08T10:50:00.005-08:002021-01-08T12:02:57.950-08:00Some Notes On Our Present Moment--Part One of ThreeIt is understandable that people will respond to the multiple crises of the current moment reflexively, reaching for what is past and comfortable to sustain them in a new and difficult time. Armies are always fighting the last war. Revolutions perform seances to find their justification in the languages and personages of the past. Liberalism still looks to Rousseau’s Social Contract of 1762. When we speak of what is reactionary in honest terms, we are describing what has arisen in reaction to progress, or in reaction to forward movement. We are thus describing that familiar and comfortable political space that is a refuge from reality. Change, struggle, and contradiction form our material reality; everything within and around us is constantly in motion and development. Every reactionary idea or trend denies those aspects of reality and provides an alternate myth (racism, misogyny, false histories). We now find ourselves having to defend science and logic against a New Confederacy, a particular form of fascism that looks back 100 years to the racism and xenophobia and anti-union corporate-led offensives of the 1920s, and even further back to the defeat of Reconstruction, and then still further back in time.<div><br /></div><div>Looking for comfort in the past and sentimentality are understandable, but they are things to struggle against and to defeat within ourselves and around us.</div><div><br /></div><div>The “slow-motion coup” from the far-right that has been unfolding for years now has accelerated in recent days. It may change its form, but its essential content will remain and it will threaten progress for years to come. Bear in mind that this movement organized and consolidated as revenge, as a death cult, as a revolt against science and logic, as offensive tactics and strategies of the New Confederacy, as a force that at once does the militant and political work of a section of capitalism and, at the same time, is a response to globalism and neoliberalism.</div><div><br /></div><div>Revenge because the far-right, steeped in racism, could not abide the Obama presidency and political advancements by people of color, however insufficient that administration was and however tenuous these advancements have been. A death cult because deteriorating social conditions are causing widespread misery and addiction and lifespans are generally decreasing. A death cult because the far-right has no answer to the pandemic and will surrender to it, or will sacrifice large numbers of people to the pandemic who they regard as expendable and as surplus populations. A death cult because individualism in the U.S. conspires with powerlessness and a lack of critical thinking skills to the point that self-harm and suicide, and not collective action, are our responses to oppression. Masses of people, and particularly white working-class people, struggle to come to terms with the reality that the capitalists have played us like chumps, and they seek refuge in self-destructive behaviors. A revolt against science and logic because these disprove superstitions, challenge the right-wing ideologically, challenge the death cult, and point to a human future.</div><div><br /></div><div>The New Confederacy drew its strength from the remnants of the southern planters and aristocracy, their political servants, the segregationists, and the industrialists who moved production to the south. These forces then allied with other reactionary forces allied with agribusiness and meatpacking and sections of heavy industry in a desperate attempt to maintain profits. The south’s competitive edge has been dulled as automation has increased and as China becomes responsible for greater shares of the world’s gross domestic product. The New Confederacy thus represents a brutal form of economic and political management, or dictatorship we might say, that divides workers by race, age, gender, and citizenship/immigration status. Every murder by the cops has come as a means of taking revenge on people of color and the poor and as a means of disciplining all oppressed peoples and the entire working-class, regardless of the color of our skin. White privilege exists, and racism and class oppression are the fault lines of American society, but being “less oppressed” should not be confused with privilege.</div><div><br /></div><div>When we say that the New Confederacy is consolidating as a fascist movement what we mean is that it is finding its political identity as an explicitly reactionary movement, that it is finding internal unity and is becoming self-aware, that it is gaining a consciousness of its role in carrying out the policies and actions required for racial and class oppression, and that its gangs are building cohesion through street brawls with BLM and anti-fascist demonstrators and the cops. The sudden abandonment of “Back the Blue” by the New Confederates here in Oregon signifies a stage of consolidation in their movement, a stage that occurs in most fascist movements. They experience internal contradictions and divisions, they’re aren’t without fault lines, but they also have unique aspects; their protests and violence are not spontaneous, and they will conform in every respect to other fascist movements.</div><div><br /></div><div>The militant political work of a section of capitalism was accomplished in the Malheur occupation (a front for agribusiness), the giveaways to the energy sector and the repression of protests against the pipelines, the police and extra-judicial killings of people of color, the decimation of unions, the pressures brought by the anti-maskers and the people who want to keep businesses running during the pandemic. The thugs in the streets and in the suits are all about doing this work, and they use one another. We say that this is a response to globalism and neoliberalism, and that the street thugs and suits use one another, because our enemies do not come all from one social class and they are not (yet) of one mind. Some have no objective interest in the system and do what they do out of anger and despair and because they are losing whatever economic security they had and because it is so difficult to come to terms with being played by the capitalist elites. It is easier to blame the person of color---or, if you are a right-wing person of color, take on a colonized mindset---or an immigrant than it is to take responsibility and fight your boss, your landlord, the banks, and their defenders. The suits, on the other hand, represent some parts of finance capital (parts of the banking and real estate industries), agribusiness and meatpacking, and parts of the energy sector. If they could settle their disagreements with the larger financial sector and basic industry, and resolve problems of trade and hold on to world market share at the same time, we would find ourselves in a fascist state as soon as they felt threatened and motivated to take power. We’re not there yet, but we’re closer to that and to civil war than most of us realize.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, we spend too much time looking for one sign or another of fascism, instances of this or that class moving to the right. We follow Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” remark, we allow talk of “white trash,” we spotlight particular corporations. And so we lose sight of <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/">Clara Zetkin’s</a> famous point that the nucleus of fascist movements are "the politically homeless, the socially uprooted, the destitute and disillusioned." The fascists themselves have said “We want to glorify war---the only cure for the world---militarism, patriotism, the destructive gestures of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for women.” (Flippo Tommaso Mainetti, founder of the Futurist movement and a supporter of Mussolini) The initial incoherence of the movement is not its failure or something for us to ridicule or debate; this incoherence is the movement’s strength.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our liberal friends want to dissect and ridicule this incoherence and are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME">shocked, shocked</a> to find that Hillary Clinton’s deplorables would attempt a coup here. “This is not America!” they say. <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/7/us_foreign_election_interference_allan_nairn">But the United States is the home base of coups the world over.</a> “Our democracy!” they say. But this has always been a democracy for the wealthy---a democracy worth defending against the fascists and racists, but still a democracy for the wealthy. “Our democracy is sacred!”---but it isn’t. Democracy here is relative, as it is everywhere and always, and it is not above or beyond human beings and human experiences. “This is white privilege!”---but this mistakes a stage in fascist consolidation with the entirety of the fascist project and implies that anti-racism is, by itself, the counter to fascism.</div><div><br /></div><div>And we have more liberal outrage: “Where the hell were the Capitol Police!” and “These people are traitors!” and “They should be tried for treason!” and “So disheartening to see the unrest/protests that are happening in our Nation's capital…I don't care what your political views are or who you voted for, this is NOT right. This is AMERICA!” and “Seditionists and domestic terrorists!” ---but this appropriation of conservative rhetoric does harm because it gives the work of defending democratic principles over to the police, it can be used against those of us who have or will occupy government buildings for good reason, these words come back to bite us whenever we use them, and this rhetoric privileges and obscures the true nature of the imperialist United States. It does matter who voted and who people voted for. The implication is that coups are okay elsewhere, but not here, and that the events of this week are something other than political. Forgotten is how and why the ball got dropped in 2015 when attempts were made at the federal level to list the fascist organizations for what they are and hell broke loose.</div><div><br /></div><div>We and our radical friends have our own versions of this outrage. “This has killed the Republican Party!” and “This is a dreadful day for the right….The case can now be made that the entire GOP is bent on wrecking democracy, and the cops in every state have been actively involved. This is not a coup. It's a premature orgasm.” and “Trump is finished at this point. The failed lawsuits, street scuffles with militia yahoos and Proud Boy wannabes, and endless talking about 'Trump's coup' and whatever else is a distraction from the real struggles.”---these back-from-the-future pronouncements have yet to be realized, they say or imply that our opposition has imploded, they don’t look at how political struggle occurs, they talk about “real struggles” that do not (yet) have mass support and action.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-50686824707087749862020-04-30T09:05:00.001-07:002020-04-30T09:15:26.443-07:00A Minimum Program For Social Change And Revolution Several comrades recently put together a minimum program for social change leading to revolution. What this means is described below.<br />
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At the very end of this introduction is a link to the minimum program itself<br />
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People who identify with the goals of the minimum program in the short-run or in the long-run are encouraged to be in touch.<br />
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This minimum program is not the final word. Other comrades from around the U.S. are also thinking along these lines. The Left is going to have to adopt programs that speak to both winnable goals and carry us forward if we are going to make it through the current crises. Our primary task right now is in defeating the ultra-right in November, allying with others, winning over critical numbers of people to our programs through practical work, and moving from a defensive to an offensive position.<br />
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The logic of our position on defeating the ultra-right is given <a href="https://oregonsocialistrenewal.blogspot.com/2020/04/vote-democratic-not-in-support-of-biden.html">here</a>.<br />
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This program owes a great deal to the Movement For Black Lives Platform.<br />
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<b>INTRODUCTION</b> </div>
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A minimum program attempts to put forward reforms that can be won now, under capitalism, that will improve our lives, restore and extend democracy, and involve more people in the fight for a socialist future.<br />
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First, a minimum program attempts to build unity between socialists, nationally oppressed and working-class people, and non-socialists, on the basis of shared demands that can be won through unity, organizing and mass mobilization. A minimum program appeals to the core forces needed for social change because without the unity of those core forces change is impossible. The core social forces are workers, people of color, women, youth, LGBTQIA+ people, small farmers, middle-class people who are facing dislocation, and people who are politically liberal or centrist and who no longer have a political home. A minimum program provides a basis for discussion and forward movement. A movement for democracy can become a movement for radical democracy. A radical-democratic movement can become a revolutionary movement. A revolutionary movement can become a socialist movement. Socialism brings power to the workers and all of the oppressed.</div>
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Second, a minimum program guards against those who think that no reform can ever be radical enough and those who always put radical demands on the back burner. A minimum program does this by connecting demands to one another and building a program from those connections. A minimum program expresses confidence in the core forces. We understand that forward motion depends on theory, struggle, organization and leadership at work among the core forces. When these are weaker, there is little or no forward motion. When these are stronger, people learn and accomplish in a few weeks or months what it might take them years to accomplish otherwise.</div>
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Third, a minimum program attempts to describe the demands needed to beat back the corporations and the rich who control the corporations, racism, misogyny, bigotry and all of the prejudices and superstitions that divide the working-class and oppressed peoples. It attempts to build anti-imperialism and anti-monopoly capitalism on an inclusive and democratic basis. It presupposes that a broad and radical-democratic movement can win people over in large numbers and transform our lives. It also presupposes that the capitalists and the state will react harshly and that the only real protection anyone has is with their comrades.</div>
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Fourth, a minimum program represents an effort by socialists to break out of isolation, connect with the core forces mentioned above, join them in their struggles, test socialist theories and practice, and build a path to revolutionary-democratic power for oppressed peoples. Leadership and power come through organizing and fighting back against oppression. We are about full participation in working-class and nationally oppressed struggles, learning and sharing responsibilities with our comrades in struggle, taking on responsibilities in these struggles, and building leadership through action and accountability.</div>
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Fifth, these reforms build a bridge between the present and the future as more and more working class and oppressed people are drawn into the fight for a better world, and thus learn what democracy looks and feels like. As workers and oppressed people organize for radical social change, campaigns and movements will be sparked, which will necessarily raise the level of political development and self-organization of the working class and its allies. As workers and their allies struggle for their objectives, a sense of the power of a united working class and people becomes evident, and with this power, workers and their allies become increasingly aware of their ability to reconstruct society according to their own precepts and principles. In a word, the working class and its allies learn that we can do anything.</div>
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This minimum program owes a great debt to the Movement for Black Lives Platform. We welcome your criticism and support. We look forward to discussing these points with you and joining with you.<br />
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<a href="https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Aa86bb8cc-4560-448f-867c-d54604b3a7bf">https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3Aa86bb8cc-4560-448f-867c-d54604b3a7bf</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-12268456405082382020-04-25T21:27:00.000-07:002020-04-30T09:12:44.585-07:00Vote Democratic not in support of Biden (or another nominee) or against Trump, but in order to help defeat the ultra-right and raise the level of contradiction between a left-center coalition and the far-right<br />
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The Left in the United States seems to be forever at a
crossroads, and there seems to always be someone present proclaiming that being
at a crossroads constitutes a crisis for the Left. These polemics have been
with us for at least 75 years. People come to the Left and leave, and times and
conditions change, but for some of us only an unreasonable and impoverished sense
of crisis remains.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The problems with these formulations seem clearer to me
at this moment than they have in the past. We on the Left can be so
inward-looking that we speak in languages that those around us often don’t
understand and have no reason to concern themselves with. We have an
exaggerated sense of our own importance. We adopt a middle-class framework when
we fail to understand why everyone doesn’t share our opinions. We assume that
all of those who disagree with us have been duped by the media or can’t think
logically, and we either don’t struggle with people over ideology or we make
conversation a one-way street when we do. There is also a middle-class idea
prevalent on the Left that says when we don’t get what we want from an
organization or a movement we are free from our obligations to struggle over
ideas and free to walk away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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People arriving on the Left now are arriving under
different circumstances than people who arrived four or six years ago, and
those people arrived under different conditions than people who were
radicalized in the Occupy movement or in the 2008 period. Radicalization today
might come through the strike wave of the last two years, through the Sanders
movement, or through the way that the COVID-19 virus has emerged and is being
handled. There are qualitative differences between these people and those who
were radicalized under the impact of Black Lives Matter and related movement.
These new lefts, working-class lefts, and people of color lefts are also
different than the Old Left that is passing on and the radicals who joined the
movement in the 1970s and 1980s. We may agree on a few basics or share an
instinctive anti-capitalism, but there our commonality and solidarity often stop.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The jail breaks from these problems are found in studying
Marxist theory with others, engaging in the hard work of organizing for change,
critiquing our actions and views with others, improving our collective
practice, and returning again to Marxist theory as a guidepost. The immediate
barriers to doing this are that individualism runs deep in the United States and
in our movement, that theory and practice look like salad bars to many of us,
that the leading Left organization in the U.S. discourages engagement with
Marxism, and that we have not found a widely-agree-upon way to combine theory
and practice to win people over to revolutionary politics. In fact, we lack
agreement on what “revolutionary politics” means and how important it is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In better times---in a revolutionary moment---we would
not have to struggle over the definitions of words. We would have general agreement
on what words like “capitalism,” “socialism,” “fascism,” and “solidarity” mean.
We would feel committed to struggling with one another as comrades. We would
not be in a place where so many of us begin with saying “I believe that…” and
then make an essentially moral point based only on our morality and leave it there,
not basing our opinions on theory or practice or Marxist science. We would not
believe that all ideas have equal weight. We would uphold the principle that ideas
are tied to classes and lived experiences. But we are not in a revolutionary
moment.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Sanders movement has been a necessary defensive
effort. The movement’s program formed around undoing the damage done by past
Republican and Democratic administrations and by the 2007-2008 economic
meltdown, and so it has been a patchwork of needed reforms that speak to almost
everyone and no one at the same time. It could speak from the standpoint of
policy and had a needed flexibility on policy issues. Its collective defense of
its populist and social democratic principles and its resiliency have been
admirable. The movement’s ability to inspire people and birth its future in
young and dynamic representatives to the left of Sanders illustrates how
political struggle moves forwards and backwards in stages. The Sanders movement
has helped to lay a foundation for on-going organizing and political victories.
If the Left does not drop the ball, and if we change course and hold the
biggest part of our base and expand that base through alliances, this could be
the last election in which we face such limited choices.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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On the other hand, the Sanders movement has been a
cross-class movement, but it has barely reached the point of being an alliance.
It has been over-confident and dogmatic. It did not ally with Warren’s movement
or move those forces leftward, ensuring that neither would succeed. It could
not hold a coalition of the Democratic Party’s left together.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Left bears some responsibility for the Sanders
movement’s naivete. This naivete and the Left’s internal weaknesses work
together to prevent us from acknowledging our weaknesses and errors. This
allows the Sanders movement and the Left to blame Americans and Trump for our failures
and to excuse ourselves from self-criticism. This inability to do
self-criticism and change course means that our errors will not be corrected. We
allowed the Sanders movement to substitute for a mature Left and speak to the
American people in our name instead of doing the hard work ourselves. Large
numbers of people have moved in our direction, but the Left cannot win a
national campaign under current conditions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Sanders movement is not what a strategic and tactical
offensive from the Left should look like. Neither was Occupy, or the recent
strike wave, or the Warren campaign. These are all notable and necessary
political formations, but they are not strategic and tactical offensives by the
Left. The question is not about the “purity” of these formations. Rather, the
point revolves around the related questions of whether or not a strategic and
tactical offensive from the Left is possible at this stage and what the
relationships should be between the Left, the social movements, and the
political center. Now the question is how the Left should relate to the Biden
campaign and the political center and how we can defeat Trump.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In a Left-led campaign we would be able to distinguish
between stages of struggle and think in terms of strategic leadership. We would
have agreement and clarity around objectives and distinguish between our
primary and reserve forces. These forces would be mobilized to unite large
numbers of people and exploit our opposition’s vulnerabilities. In a struggle
for democracy this would mean building a majority. In a more revolutionary moment,
a majority might not be as decisive. Having a party of our own and rooting our
party among the masses of working-class and specially exploited and oppressed
peoples, with a tested political line and leadership structures, would be more
decisive.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Political alignment would be very different than it is
now. We would know what is important to the masses of working-class and
oppressed peoples and what they’re taking action on. National campaigns would
not depend on six or eight great senators and articulating needed reform and
make-up packages. Something like a broad united front would exist at the
grassroots, and it would be led by women, people of color, the working-class
and all of the core forces needed for social change. Those core forces might or
might not remain in the Democratic Party under those conditions. We would have
many candidates and many electoral successes, all backed up by street heat.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But we live within the working-class that exists, not the
one that we want to exist. The new left, and particularly the youth and many of
those most attached to the Sanders and Warren campaigns, are struggling with
this. It’s difficult to acknowledge that our views are not widely shared or
have not been well-communicated. It’s also difficult to dig in and summon the
patience to be critical and self-critical in a Marxist framework and to go
about the work of organizing and thinking 10 years ahead. I doubt that many of
those who have come to us through the Sanders movement will make this leap now.
They may find a place in a cause-of-the-month DSA that is preoccupied with
processes and policies and never gets down to Marxism or they may withdraw from
politics entirely. It is unlikely, though not impossible, that DSA will be fully transformed and will educate them in socialist basics. This is an all-around loss
because we all have much to learn from one another and DSA has its moments in
the sun.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s step back and consider the following:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The core forces needed for social change remain
largely within the Democratic Party.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The Left needs these core forces, and should be
about the work of giving them the space to look leftwards.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The core forces have divided their votes between
Sanders, Warren, and Biden. They constitute an important bloc in the
rank-and-file of the political center. Those who live in the Black Belt and
Solid South made a necessary political calculation to vote as they did. That
calculation and their votes must be respected.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->To remain aloof from the core forces, to view
involvement with working-class and oppressed peoples as optional in any way,
and to assume that Left or progressive politics constitutes an entitlement to
leadership among them is to abandon radical politics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Abstaining from voting with the core forces and
struggling with them and learning from them breaks faith with the core forces.
Breaking faith is a final and decisive act. No one can abstain from working
with the core forces, or working against their interests, and expect to be
welcomed in later and taken seriously.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Our American history has evolved under the
special conditions of the color and class lines being determinative factors. The
struggles waged by people of color and working-class people have moved the
center to the left, or have created openings for this to happen. Lincoln was
forced to adopt an abolitionist program because of slave revolts. Roosevelt was
forced to open the New Deal by working-class upsurges.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The Democratic Party exists as a cross-class
alliance of various contradictory social forces. In this sense it is not a
bourgeois party, and it seems unlikely that can be transformed into a labor or
social democratic party. We cannot say that the parties or the candidates are
the same.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Americans have not undertaken the great fights
for social change when things are at their worst. Rather, our struggles gain
support when social conditions begin to shift for the better and when
advancement is blocked or progress is slowed. The labor movement of the 1930s
did not make its greatest advances in the depths of the Depression but when bad
conditions eased somewhat. The modern civil rights movement took on a mass
character when social advancements were made possible and were promised but were
not equally distributed in the post-World War Two economic boom. The Left would
have been frozen out of these movements had we not abandoned our dogmatism and
sectarianism.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The “Bernie or Bust” and anti-Biden rhetoric
from some people on the Left shows a lack of flexibility and a distance from
the working-class and oppressed peoples. It also reflects the opportunism of
social democrats and anarchists. This finds its main expression in DSA. This
lack of flexibility doesn’t work for Sanders, since he has rejected a “Bernie
or bust” position. It does not help move Biden or any other potential nominee
to the left. And since it finds its primary expression in DSA, with its social
democratic and anarchist biases, the “Bernie or Bust” and anti-Biden rhetoric
complicates building a revolutionary political party in the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The Henry Wallace 1948 Presidential campaign was
a desperate but noble attempt to hold on to the Left of the New Deal coalition
under Roosevelt and mobilize for jobs, equality, peace, and democracy. That
effort had internal weaknesses and was crushed by the onset of the Cold War,
but sections of the Wallace movement held the line and influenced the New Left
years later. The Humphrey and McCarthy campaigns were insurance policies
against a resurgence of the left-of-center and people-of-color coalition that
had moved the Wallace campaign. Jesse Jackson’s 1988 Presidential campaign
carried some of the heritage of the Wallace campaign with it. Jackson was to
the left of where Sanders is today and did relatively well. The Sanders
campaign has proceeded as if it is the first of its kind, and people entering
the socialist movement today lack a needed sense of history and development. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->If we fully participated in the Democratic Party
on the basis of being the forces needed to carry out the most progressive
aspects of their program where it intersects with ours, and if we used this as
a means of learning and teaching and as a platform to advocate for a more aggressive political push by the Democrats,
we would stand a better chance of winning great numbers of the core forces to
our side and changing the debate within the Democratic Party. We need the will to earn leadership and respect by doing the hard work in principled ways. This is not about
reforming or transforming the Democratic Party, which might be a by-product of
our work if it occurred, but of making socialism and socialist practice
accessible to people at the grassroots. It would be better to attempt this and
to change course later if it did not work or to be expelled by a Democratic
establishment then it would be to reject attempting this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p>Consider the following practical-philosophical points:</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The most advanced or radical ideas are not those
that we come up with in our heads. Rather, the most advanced and radical ideas
are those that we can rally most of the core forces around.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The most “revolutionary” ideas are not always
the most radical. A “revolutionary” position may feel good, but it has to meet
the tests of resonating with the core forces and fitting into the ebb and flow
of organizing and struggle.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->It is struggle that resolves differences.
Investigate and study, act, evaluate, and act again in order to arrive at a
correct position. Sterile debates set us back.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->There are correct and incorrect ideas. We discover
what is correct and incorrect by acting with others.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->No tactic is wrong in itself, but strategies and
tactics must correspond to stages or moments in real time. Abstaining from
voting or from allying with the political center might make sense when we have
tens of millions of people with us. Who needs an alliance with the center or
participation in elections when we can wage mass strikes and civil disobedience
to win radical demands? But abstaining from voting now breaks faith with the
core forces and isolates us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->To say that Biden or some other Democratic
nominee is unelectable is to say that there are inevitabilities, which is to
deny the power of the people and the ebb and flow of struggle. It is the people
who make history, not defeatists. We mobilized millions to defeat fascism in
Europe, over 100,000 people participated in the Long March in China, we
mobilized to beat Jim Crow segregation in the US, we overthrew apartheid, and
we beat American imperialism in Cuba and Vietnam. Our history is that of being
told that the prisons will outlast us—and then we tear the prisons down. We can
stop fascism in the U.S. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Political alliances are a necessary foundation
for political strategies and tactics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->A movement for democracy can become a movement
for radical democracy. A radical-democratic movement can become a revolutionary
movement. A revolutionary movement can become a socialist movement. Socialism
brings power to the workers and all of the oppressed. There are necessary
stages to development, and occasional leaps, that call forth different
alliances, but alliances are needed at each stage.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Alliances are a matter for the present, not the
future. We are in a defensive stage and engaged in a struggle for democracy.
Under these conditions our main task is to unite the many against the few,
build capacity to fight and win within that cross-class and all-people’s
alliance, stop the Republicans, involve or win over tens of millions of people,
and build a path to democratic power. That will move us from being on the defense
to going on the offense.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->In doing so we must be honest about our politics
and state our disagreements with others, but this must be done in constructive
ways. This implies that we have a political line and are grounded in that line
and that we are rejecting whatever seeks to substitute for a political line.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->We are not anarchists. We support the conquest
of state power by the working-class and oppressed peoples, the creation of the
democratic means to carry out planning and distribution of value and wealth,
self-determination for oppressed peoples, and the eventual use of legal
coercive means against the exploiters.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Some on the Left talk about “class struggle elections”
and a “rank-and-file strategy” as if the center of political gravity is with
the Left, as if the class struggle is on the offensive now, as if the Left is
leading the class struggle and doesn’t need allies, and as if union leaders
form the main barrier against class struggles. This is self-isolation, an
add-on to the “Bernie or Bust” tendency. DSA and others who roll with this are
painting themselves into a corner at a time when there is a breeze---not a
wind, but a breeze---in our sails. Let’s instead talk about “class struggle
elections” and a “rank-and-file strategy” in terms of the labor movement
leading a coalition with a “bargaining for the common good” platform; mass
union organizing; the need to build worker leadership in the joint struggle
against the Republicans, monopoly capital, and COVID-19; or in winning survival
space and gains in the Solid or Black Belt South, among indigenous peoples, and
in immigrant communities.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p>In line with this, I am recommending</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That the Left devote our collective energies
where they exist to the study of Marxism.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That we actively engage in debates and in
political alliances with the center and that we leverage our positive relations
with the center to win a more progressive Democratic Party platform and move
forward more progressive candidates.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That we act within social movements on the basis
of where the most progressive aspects of the Democratic platform and our
program intersects.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That we push for a debt jubilee, jobs or income
now, a Green New Deal, and a full minimum program for social change based on
the programs of the Movement for Black Lives, the Sanders campaign, and the
labor movement.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That we commit to voting for Democratic Party
nominees now.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That we support using the Democratic Party
convention as a primary means of making the case against Trump to the American
people.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That we vote Democratic not in support of Biden (or
another nominee) or against Trump, but in order to help defeat the ultra-right
and raise the level of contradiction between a left-center coalition and the
far-right.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That we prepare ourselves to either provide an
opening for a Democratic president and the center to move leftwards if they win
or to wage the most militant workplace and community struggles possible in
coalition with the core forces if the Democrats lose.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->That we endorse a revolutionary path and, in
that context, work for Democratic candidates without endorsing them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-32117371254678422642020-04-22T21:01:00.000-07:002020-04-22T21:01:42.117-07:00A Response to the Biden Campaign Proposals on Health Care and Student Debt<br /><b><i><u>The following was submitted by a comrade:</u></i></b><div>
<br /></div>
<div>
“Sorry Joe, it Just Doesn’t Cut It”<br /><br />So, here’s the scenario, at least in my head. Joe Biden is in negotiations with The Left; it’s like bargaining a labor contract. The Democrats and Joe Biden want “Unity” across the Democratic Party as it faces Trump in the November election.<div>
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The Left is interested in moving its agenda forward.</div>
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<div>
On April 9, in that quest for Unity, the Joe Biden campaign offered two policy initiatives meant to placate and get the Left on board with the Biden campaign. The two policies are student debt relief and healthcare/health insurance.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Back to the contract bargaining scenario that’s in my head. The Biden campaign gave us two proposals on April 9. Because the scenario is in my head, I get to be the Left’s spokesperson. What do we say in response to the April 9 proposals?</div>
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In my head, the response goes like this:</div>
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<div>
Me: “Let me respond to your proposals of the other day. First, I want to say we appreciate your efforts and movement in the direction of accommodating the policy concerns of The Left. We know you want to get us on board, and we know you’re trying to figure a way to adjust your positions in the interests of the working class, oppressed people, rural workers and immigrants. However, in response to your proposals of April 9 – sorry, Joe -- but the proposals just don’t cut it, and I’ll tell you why:</div>
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First: Student debt. What’s wrong with you guys? So, poor kids who have incurred debt at a private college or university don’t get debt relief help? Why? Do you feel a need to punish poor and working class students who took out loans to go to a private university? Or, are you trying to punish private universities and colleges by holding their students hostage?</div>
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Two: Why are graduate students not covered by your student debt policy? Graduate students have personal student debt that’s in the six figures range. Graduated graduate students are also academics. Yet these academics are faced with years of bouncing across the country from low paid one-year contract to another low paid one- year contract, just like the Middle Ages! Is this how we want to further higher education? By systematically immiserating those who are the backbone of higher education in the USA?</div>
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Three: Joe, your proposal on student debt offers no structural changes to higher education. We bail out some students now? Start the student debt crisis over again with a new generation?</div>
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Four: If you really want The Left on board, stop your damned means testing. When you means test, there are always winners and losers. Some poor working class kid who made a big mistake and went to a private college, what are you going to say to them? “Sorry kid, you’ll have to pay the full $70K in student debt because you went to a private college”? </div>
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This is what happens when you means test. You divide winners and losers based on a shallow ideology of who “deserves”, who doesn’t, and all the arbitrary and bureaucratic divisions you put in place to enforce the separation of the “deserving”, from those who were on the losing side of the political deal, those dumb, poor, pampered working class kids who went to a private college.</div>
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You can do a lot better!</div>
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On to healthcare:</div>
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Me: So, Joe, your proposal to drop Medicare eligibility to age 60? You know, if you can find a way to include the first 60 years of life too? Then we’d be talking!! Which leads us to the public option…</div>
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<br />We’re not impressed with a public option. Why? Because a public option is just another insurance plan out there. Just like Obama Care, there will be co-pays and deductibles up the wazoo, and there will be monthly premiums. In the spirit of Obama Care too, you will be offering higher quality healthcare plans, with lower deductibles and co-pays to those who can afford the high premium, and those who are working class with low incomes, who are stuck with “silver” and “bronze” plans, who face deductibles of $1500 and $6000 respectively. Congrats here! Because you’ve actually built a health insurance program which economically punishes working class people when they seek healthcare!</div>
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If you want to push the public option, and want us on the Left to buy-in, you’re off to a bad start. Here’s a hint -- the devil is always in the details!</div>
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If you want to get the Left even talking to you on healthcare, you better put a public option out there that starts at 100% subsidized premiums for the lower 90% of the population.</div>
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Second, don’t even think about putting co-pays and deductibles in your public option. Every co-pay and deductible is an obstacle in the way of actually receiving healthcare!…. Medicare for All would be so much cost-effective, efficient, and user friendly! But if you insist on subsidizing the health insurance corporations……</div>
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Joe, you know, the biggest problem is we just don’t see things the way you do. We have funny ideas, like “An injury to One is an Injury to All”. We know that nobody is better off unless all people are better off. You guys on the other hand through peoples’ lives around like they’re gambling chips. Everything is about the deal; who will be short changed so that others can get a better deal? Sorry, but we don’t think the way.</div>
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To sum things up, Joe, your proposals of April 9 just don’t cut it! If you want “enthusiasm” for your campaign, from the Left, you’ll have to do miles and miles better then your proposals of April 9.” </div>
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<b>Out of My Head and Back to Reality</b></div>
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In reality, I have a pretty low bar with this Presidential election. I will vote for Joe whether he becomes more Left friendly or not. My vote for Joe is based on one important criteria; Donald Trump is a Fascist and Joe Biden is not. For me it’s that simple!</div>
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I’m also a responsible socialist (at least I’d like to think so). Therefore, I think I have a duty to talk to the rest of my comrades, friends, co-workers and family about being responsible and voting for Biden.</div>
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My Biden rap is already worked out, it goes like this: “You will get nothing by voting for Joe Biden, but you will have stopped Fascism in the USA!” Adding a little substance here, a Biden win means that Latinx DREAMERS will get to stay in the US, that voter suppression of oppressed people will be significantly slowed down, we’ll be able to stop gender-based concentration camps of the US-Mexican border, and the Constitution and a republic will be maintained.</div>
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I think it’s an honest rap and accurately reflects what’s at stake. But it’s not an inspiring rap.</div>
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Many people on the Left will decide to be “responsible” and vote for Biden in order to stop Fascism. On the other hand, many on the Left will see voting for Biden as a surrender of their principles, and among some, there’s a search for serious vengeance.</div>
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Anger from the Left, especially youth, are the wages Biden and the Democratic Establishment have earned in their all-out war against the Bernie Sanders’ campaign and every proposal it made. These voters and activists will have a real hard time forgiving Joe Biden and the DNC.</div>
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So, what can I say? If Biden and the Democratic establishment want even a sliver of “enthusiasm” from the Left, they’re going to have to do a whole lot better!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6725396603205530908.post-69310072457411221422019-11-02T11:34:00.000-07:002019-11-02T11:34:02.556-07:00Understanding Hong KongImagine that Japan occupied San Francisco in the 1880s, forcing the US government to sign a 100 year 'lease' for the territory. Imagine that the Japanese abolished all democratic rights in the city, and ruled through a colonial government appointed directly by Tokyo. Non-Japanese residents of San Francisco became second class citizens and are forced to live in overcrowded slums to make room for upscale Japanese businesses; these businesses display notices saying "No Whites or dogs". The Japanese colonial administration imposes Japanese culture, language, and economic institutions by fiat. Anything non-Japanese is deemed inferior, and Japanese chauvinism is reflected at every level of society, including education.<br />
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After a century of occupation, the Japanese finally agree to return San Francisco to the United States. However, they stipulate that the colonial administration must remain intact; there will be no elections, the economy will continue to be dominated by Japanese businesses, and colonial-era Japanese laws and values will remain in place. This compromise is called 'one country, two systems'.<br />
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After a few years, San Francisco begins to lag behind the rest of the US economically, causing discontent among the working population who continue to labor under colonial conditions despite the end of formal Japanese rule. Pro-Japanese demonstrators demand that the Emperor 'free' them from the US; they wave the Japanese colonial flag, and fly to Tokyo to meet with representatives of the Japanese government. The Japanese media paints the demonstrators as 'pro-democracy', ignoring their government's obvious role in the unrest; the US government is, meanwhile, denounced as 'oppressive' for attempting to exercise sovereignty over its territory.<br />
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strannikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00532464960144087283noreply@blogger.com0