Click on the headline to link to the West Coast Port Shutdown website.
Markin comment:
We know that we are only at the very start of an upsurge in the labor movement as witness the stellar exemplary actions by the West Coast activists on December 12, 2011. As I have pointed out in remarks previously made elsewhere as part of the Boston solidarity rally with the West Coast Port Shutdown this is the way forward as we struggle against the ruling class for a very different, more equitable society. Not everything went as well, or as well-attended, as expected including at our rally in solidarity in Boston but we are still exhibiting growing pains in the post-Occupy encampment era which will get sorted out in the future.
******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement going back to the 1930s Great Depression the last time that unemployment, under-employment, and those who have just plain quit looking for work was this high in the American labor force. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay is a formula to spread the available work around. This is no mere propaganda point but shows the way forward toward a more equitable distribution of available work. Work that would be divided through local representative workers’ councils which would act, in one of its capacities, as a giant hiring hall where the jobs would be parceled out. This would be a simpler task now than when it was when first proposed in the 1930s with the vast increase in modern technology that could fairly accurately, via computers, target jobs that need filling and equitably divide up current work. Without the key capitalist necessity of keeping up the rate of profit the social surplus created by that work could be used to redistribute the available work at the same agreed upon rate rather than go into the capitalists’ pockets. The only catch, a big catch one must admit, is that no capitalist, and no capitalist system, is going to do any such thing as implement “30 for 40” so that it will, in the end, be necessary to fight for and win a workers government to implement this demand.
Organize the unorganized is a demand that cries out for solution today now that the organized sectors of the labor movement, both public and private, in America are at historic lows, just over ten percent of the workforce. Part of the task is to reorganize some of the old industries like the automobile industry, now mainly unorganized as new plants come on line and others are abandoned, which used to provide a massive amount of decent jobs with decent benefits but which now have fallen to globalization and the “race to the bottom” bad times. The other sector that desperately need to be organized is to ratchet up the efforts to organize the service industries, hospitals, hotels, hi-tech, restaurants and the like, that have become a dominant aspect of the American economy.
Organize the South-this low wage area, this consciously low-wage area, where many industries land before heading off-shore to even lower wage places cries out for organizing, especially among black and Hispanic workers who form the bulk of this industrial workforce. A corollary to organizing the South is obviously to organize internationally to keep the “race to the bottom” from continually occurring short of being resolved in favor of an international commonwealth of workers’ governments. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of trucks, hundreds of distribution centers. A victory here would be the springboard to a revitalized organized labor movement just as auto and steel lead the industrial union movements of the 1930s. To give an idea of how hard this task might be though someone once argued that it would be easier to organize a workers’ revolution that organize this giant. Well, that’s a thought.
Defend the right of public and private workers to unionize. Simple-No more Wisconsins, no more attacks on collective bargaining the hallmark of a union contract. No reliance on labor boards, arbitration, or bourgeois recall elections either. Unions must keep their independent from government interference. Period.
Guest Commentary
From The Transitional Program Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours
Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.
Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.
Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
* Defend the independence of the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. In 2008 labor, organized labor, spent around 450 million dollars trying to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats (mainly). The results speak for themselves. For those bogus efforts the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea then was (and is, as we come up to another presidential election cycle) that the Democrats (mainly) were “friends of labor.” The past period of cuts-backs, cut-in-the back give backs should put paid to that notion. Although anyone who is politically savvy at all knows that is not true, not true for the labor skates at the top of the movement.
The hard reality is that the labor skates, not used to any form of class struggle or any kind of struggle, know no other way than class-collaboration, arbitration, courts, and every other way to avoid the appearance of strife, strife in defense of the bosses’ profits. The most egregious recent example- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks last summer when they had the company on the run and the subsequent announcement by the company of record profits. That sellout strategy may have worked for the bureaucrats, or rather their “fathers” for a time back in the 1950s “golden age” of labor, but now we are in a very hard and open class war. The rank and file must demand an end to using their precious dues payments period for bourgeois candidates all of whom have turned out to be sworn enemies of labor from Obama on down.
This does not mean not using union dues for political purposes though. On the contrary we need to use them now more than ever in the class battles ahead. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized, organizing the South, organizing Wal-Mart, and other pro-labor causes. Think, for example, of the dough spent on the successful November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio. That type of activity is where labor’s money and other resources should go.
*End the endless wars!- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reaches it final stages, the draw down of non-mercenary forces anyway, we must recognize that we anti-warriors failed, and failed rather spectacularly, to affect that withdrawal after a promising start to our opposition in late 2002 and early 2003 (and a little in 2006). As the endless American-led wars (even if behind the scenes, as in Libya) continue we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan!
U.S. Hands Off Iran!- American (and world) imperialists are ratcheting up their propaganda war (right now) and increased economic sanctions that are a prelude to war well before the dust has settled on the now unsettled situation in Iraq and well before they have even sniffed at an Afghan withdrawal of any import. We will hold our noses, as we did with the Saddam leadership in Iraq and on other occasions, and call for the defense of Iran against the American imperial monster. A victory for the Americans (and their junior partner, Israel) in Iran is not in the interests of the international working class. Especially here in the “belly of the beast” we are duty-bound to call not just for non-intervention but for defense of Iran. We will, believe me we will, deal with the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Islamic fundamentalist in our own way in our own time.
U.S. Hands Off The World!- With the number of “hot spots” that the American imperialists, or one or another of their junior allies, have their hands on in this wicked old world this generic slogan would seem to fill the bill.
Down With The War Budget! Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Wars! Honor World War I German Social-Democratic Party MP, Karl Liebknecht, who did just that. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets (let’s see, right now winding up Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran preparations, China preparations, etc. you get my drift). Then that big leap. The whole damn imperialist military budget. Again, no one said it would be simple. Revolution may be easier that depriving the imperialists of their military money. Well….okay.
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Free Quality Healthcare For All! This would be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The health and welfare of any society’s citizenry is the simple glue that holds that society together. It is no accident that one of the prime concerns of workers states like Cuba, whatever their other political problems, has been to place health care and education front and center and to provide to the best of their capacity for free, quality healthcare and education for all. Even the hide-bound social-democratic-run capitalist governments of Europe have, until recently anyway, placed the “welfare state” protections central to their programs.
Free, quality higher education for all! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! One Hundred, Two Hundred, Many Harvards!
This would again be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The struggle to increase the educational level of a society’s citizenry is another part of the simple glue that holds that society together. Today higher education is being placed out of reach for many working-class and minority families. Hell, it is getting tough for the middle class as well.
Moreover the whole higher educational system is increasing skewed toward those who have better formal preparation and family lives leaving many deserving students in the wilderness. Take the resources of the private institutions and spread them around, throw in hundreds of billions from the government (take from the military budget and the bank bail-out money), get rid of the top heavy and useless college administration apparatuses, mix it up, and let students, teachers, and campus workers run the thing through councils on a democratic basis.
Forgive student debt! The latest reports indicate that college student debt is something like a trillion dollars, give or take a few billion but who is counting. The price of tuition and expenses has gone up dramatically while services have not kept pace. What has happened is that the future highly educated workforce that a modern society, and certainly a socialist society, desperately needs is going to be cast in some form of indentured servitude to the banks or other lending agencies for much of their young working lives. Let the banks take a “hit” for a change!
Stop housing foreclosures now! Hey, everybody, everywhere in the world not just in America should have a safe, clean roof over their heads. Hell, even a single family home that is part of the “American dream,” if that is what they want. We didn’t make the housing crisis in America (or elsewhere, like in Ireland, where the bubble has also burst). The banks did. Their predatory lending practices and slip-shot application processes were out of control. Let them take the “hit” here as well.
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Karl Marx was right way back in the 19th century on his labor theory of value, the workers do produce the social surplus appropriated by the capitalists. Capitalism tends to immiserate the mass of society for the few. Most importantly capitalism, a system that at one time was historically progressive in the fight against feudalism and other ancient forms of production, has turned into its opposite and now is a fetter on production. The current multiple crises spawned by this system show there is no way forward, except that unless we push them out, push them out fast, they will muddle through, again.
Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Socialism is the only serious answer to the human crisis we face economically, socially, culturally and politically. This socialist system is the only one calculated to take one of the great tragedies of life, the struggle for daily survival in a world that we did not create, and replace it with more co-operative human endeavors.
Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. None of the nice things mentioned above can be accomplished without as serious struggle for political power. We need to struggle for an independent working-class-centered political party that we can call our own and where our leaders act as “tribunes of the people” not hacks. The creation of that workers party, however, will get us nowhere unless it fights for a workers government to begin the transition to the next level of human progress on a world-wide scale.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
Saturday, January 07, 2012
The Latest From The “Occupy Oakland” Website-This Is Class War-We Say No More- Take The Offensive- Defend The Occupy Movement!- Defend The Oakland Commune!- A Five Point Program For Discussion
Click on the headline to link to Occupy Oakland website for the latest from the Bay Area vanguard battleground in the struggle for social justice.
******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement going back to the 1930s Great Depression the last time that unemployment, under-employment, and those who have just plain quit looking for work was this high in the American labor force. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay is a formula to spread the available work around. This is no mere propaganda point but shows the way forward toward a more equitable distribution of available work. Work that would be divided through local representative workers’ councils which would act, in one of its capacities, as a giant hiring hall where the jobs would be parceled out. This would be a simpler task now than when it was when first proposed in the 1930s with the vast increase in modern technology that could fairly accurately, via computers, target jobs that need filling and equitably divide up current work. Without the key capitalist necessity of keeping up the rate of profit the social surplus created by that work could be used to redistribute the available work at the same agreed upon rate rather than go into the capitalists’ pockets. The only catch, a big catch one must admit, is that no capitalist, and no capitalist system, is going to do any such thing as implement “30 for 40” so that it will, in the end, be necessary to fight for and win a workers government to implement this demand.
Organize the unorganized is a demand that cries out for solution today now that the organized sectors of the labor movement, both public and private, in America are at historic lows, just over ten percent of the workforce. Part of the task is to reorganize some of the old industries like the automobile industry, now mainly unorganized as new plants come on line and others are abandoned, which used to provide a massive amount of decent jobs with decent benefits but which now have fallen to globalization and the “race to the bottom” bad times. The other sector that desperately need to be organized is to ratchet up the efforts to organize the service industries, hospitals, hotels, hi-tech, restaurants and the like, that have become a dominant aspect of the American economy.
Organize the South-this low wage area, this consciously low-wage area, where many industries land before heading off-shore to even lower wage places cries out for organizing, especially among black and Hispanic workers who form the bulk of this industrial workforce. A corollary to organizing the South is obviously to organize internationally to keep the “race to the bottom” from continually occurring short of being resolved in favor of an international commonwealth of workers’ governments. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of trucks, hundreds of distribution centers. A victory here would be the springboard to a revitalized organized labor movement just as auto and steel lead the industrial union movements of the 1930s. To give an idea of how hard this task might be though someone once argued that it would be easier to organize a workers’ revolution that organize this giant. Well, that’s a thought.
Defend the right of public and private workers to unionize. Simple-No more Wisconsins, no more attacks on collective bargaining the hallmark of a union contract. No reliance on labor boards, arbitration, or bourgeois recall elections either. Unions must keep their independent from government interference. Period.
Guest Commentary
From The Transitional Program Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours
Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.
Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.
Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
* Defend the independence of the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. In 2008 labor, organized labor, spent around 450 million dollars trying to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats (mainly). The results speak for themselves. For those bogus efforts the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea then was (and is, as we come up to another presidential election cycle) that the Democrats (mainly) were “friends of labor.” The past period of cuts-backs, cut-in-the back give backs should put paid to that notion. Although anyone who is politically savvy at all knows that is not true, not true for the labor skates at the top of the movement.
The hard reality is that the labor skates, not used to any form of class struggle or any kind of struggle, know no other way than class-collaboration, arbitration, courts, and every other way to avoid the appearance of strife, strife in defense of the bosses’ profits. The most egregious recent example- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks last summer when they had the company on the run and the subsequent announcement by the company of record profits. That sellout strategy may have worked for the bureaucrats, or rather their “fathers” for a time back in the 1950s “golden age” of labor, but now we are in a very hard and open class war. The rank and file must demand an end to using their precious dues payments period for bourgeois candidates all of whom have turned out to be sworn enemies of labor from Obama on down.
This does not mean not using union dues for political purposes though. On the contrary we need to use them now more than ever in the class battles ahead. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized, organizing the South, organizing Wal-Mart, and other pro-labor causes. Think, for example, of the dough spent on the successful November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio. That type of activity is where labor’s money and other resources should go.
*End the endless wars!- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reaches it final stages, the draw down of non-mercenary forces anyway, we must recognize that we anti-warriors failed, and failed rather spectacularly, to affect that withdrawal after a promising start to our opposition in late 2002 and early 2003 (and a little in 2006). As the endless American-led wars (even if behind the scenes, as in Libya) continue we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan!
U.S. Hands Off Iran!- American (and world) imperialists are ratcheting up their propaganda war (right now) and increased economic sanctions that are a prelude to war well before the dust has settled on the now unsettled situation in Iraq and well before they have even sniffed at an Afghan withdrawal of any import. We will hold our noses, as we did with the Saddam leadership in Iraq and on other occasions, and call for the defense of Iran against the American imperial monster. A victory for the Americans (and their junior partner, Israel) in Iran is not in the interests of the international working class. Especially here in the “belly of the beast” we are duty-bound to call not just for non-intervention but for defense of Iran. We will, believe me we will, deal with the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Islamic fundamentalist in our own way in our own time.
U.S. Hands Off The World!- With the number of “hot spots” that the American imperialists, or one or another of their junior allies, have their hands on in this wicked old world this generic slogan would seem to fill the bill.
Down With The War Budget! Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Wars! Honor World War I German Social-Democratic Party MP, Karl Liebknecht, who did just that. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets (let’s see, right now winding up Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran preparations, China preparations, etc. you get my drift). Then that big leap. The whole damn imperialist military budget. Again, no one said it would be simple. Revolution may be easier that depriving the imperialists of their military money. Well….okay.
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Free Quality Healthcare For All! This would be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The health and welfare of any society’s citizenry is the simple glue that holds that society together. It is no accident that one of the prime concerns of workers states like Cuba, whatever their other political problems, has been to place health care and education front and center and to provide to the best of their capacity for free, quality healthcare and education for all. Even the hide-bound social-democratic-run capitalist governments of Europe have, until recently anyway, placed the “welfare state” protections central to their programs.
Free, quality higher education for all! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! One Hundred, Two Hundred, Many Harvards!
This would again be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The struggle to increase the educational level of a society’s citizenry is another part of the simple glue that holds that society together. Today higher education is being placed out of reach for many working-class and minority families. Hell, it is getting tough for the middle class as well.
Moreover the whole higher educational system is increasing skewed toward those who have better formal preparation and family lives leaving many deserving students in the wilderness. Take the resources of the private institutions and spread them around, throw in hundreds of billions from the government (take from the military budget and the bank bail-out money), get rid of the top heavy and useless college administration apparatuses, mix it up, and let students, teachers, and campus workers run the thing through councils on a democratic basis.
Forgive student debt! The latest reports indicate that college student debt is something like a trillion dollars, give or take a few billion but who is counting. The price of tuition and expenses has gone up dramatically while services have not kept pace. What has happened is that the future highly educated workforce that a modern society, and certainly a socialist society, desperately needs is going to be cast in some form of indentured servitude to the banks or other lending agencies for much of their young working lives. Let the banks take a “hit” for a change!
Stop housing foreclosures now! Hey, everybody, everywhere in the world not just in America should have a safe, clean roof over their heads. Hell, even a single family home that is part of the “American dream,” if that is what they want. We didn’t make the housing crisis in America (or elsewhere, like in Ireland, where the bubble has also burst). The banks did. Their predatory lending practices and slip-shot application processes were out of control. Let them take the “hit” here as well.
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Karl Marx was right way back in the 19th century on his labor theory of value, the workers do produce the social surplus appropriated by the capitalists. Capitalism tends to immiserate the mass of society for the few. Most importantly capitalism, a system that at one time was historically progressive in the fight against feudalism and other ancient forms of production, has turned into its opposite and now is a fetter on production. The current multiple crises spawned by this system show there is no way forward, except that unless we push them out, push them out fast, they will muddle through, again.
Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Socialism is the only serious answer to the human crisis we face economically, socially, culturally and politically. This socialist system is the only one calculated to take one of the great tragedies of life, the struggle for daily survival in a world that we did not create, and replace it with more co-operative human endeavors.
Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. None of the nice things mentioned above can be accomplished without as serious struggle for political power. We need to struggle for an independent working-class-centered political party that we can call our own and where our leaders act as “tribunes of the people” not hacks. The creation of that workers party, however, will get us nowhere unless it fights for a workers government to begin the transition to the next level of human progress on a world-wide scale.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement going back to the 1930s Great Depression the last time that unemployment, under-employment, and those who have just plain quit looking for work was this high in the American labor force. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay is a formula to spread the available work around. This is no mere propaganda point but shows the way forward toward a more equitable distribution of available work. Work that would be divided through local representative workers’ councils which would act, in one of its capacities, as a giant hiring hall where the jobs would be parceled out. This would be a simpler task now than when it was when first proposed in the 1930s with the vast increase in modern technology that could fairly accurately, via computers, target jobs that need filling and equitably divide up current work. Without the key capitalist necessity of keeping up the rate of profit the social surplus created by that work could be used to redistribute the available work at the same agreed upon rate rather than go into the capitalists’ pockets. The only catch, a big catch one must admit, is that no capitalist, and no capitalist system, is going to do any such thing as implement “30 for 40” so that it will, in the end, be necessary to fight for and win a workers government to implement this demand.
Organize the unorganized is a demand that cries out for solution today now that the organized sectors of the labor movement, both public and private, in America are at historic lows, just over ten percent of the workforce. Part of the task is to reorganize some of the old industries like the automobile industry, now mainly unorganized as new plants come on line and others are abandoned, which used to provide a massive amount of decent jobs with decent benefits but which now have fallen to globalization and the “race to the bottom” bad times. The other sector that desperately need to be organized is to ratchet up the efforts to organize the service industries, hospitals, hotels, hi-tech, restaurants and the like, that have become a dominant aspect of the American economy.
Organize the South-this low wage area, this consciously low-wage area, where many industries land before heading off-shore to even lower wage places cries out for organizing, especially among black and Hispanic workers who form the bulk of this industrial workforce. A corollary to organizing the South is obviously to organize internationally to keep the “race to the bottom” from continually occurring short of being resolved in favor of an international commonwealth of workers’ governments. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Organize Wal-Mart- millions of workers, thousands of trucks, hundreds of distribution centers. A victory here would be the springboard to a revitalized organized labor movement just as auto and steel lead the industrial union movements of the 1930s. To give an idea of how hard this task might be though someone once argued that it would be easier to organize a workers’ revolution that organize this giant. Well, that’s a thought.
Defend the right of public and private workers to unionize. Simple-No more Wisconsins, no more attacks on collective bargaining the hallmark of a union contract. No reliance on labor boards, arbitration, or bourgeois recall elections either. Unions must keep their independent from government interference. Period.
Guest Commentary
From The Transitional Program Of The Leon Trotsky-Led Fourth International In 1938Sliding Scale of Wages and Sliding Scale of Hours
Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.
The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.
Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.
Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.
Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.
* Defend the independence of the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. In 2008 labor, organized labor, spent around 450 million dollars trying to elect Barack Obama and other Democrats (mainly). The results speak for themselves. For those bogus efforts the labor skates should have been sent packing long ago. The idea then was (and is, as we come up to another presidential election cycle) that the Democrats (mainly) were “friends of labor.” The past period of cuts-backs, cut-in-the back give backs should put paid to that notion. Although anyone who is politically savvy at all knows that is not true, not true for the labor skates at the top of the movement.
The hard reality is that the labor skates, not used to any form of class struggle or any kind of struggle, know no other way than class-collaboration, arbitration, courts, and every other way to avoid the appearance of strife, strife in defense of the bosses’ profits. The most egregious recent example- the return of the Verizon workers to work after two weeks last summer when they had the company on the run and the subsequent announcement by the company of record profits. That sellout strategy may have worked for the bureaucrats, or rather their “fathers” for a time back in the 1950s “golden age” of labor, but now we are in a very hard and open class war. The rank and file must demand an end to using their precious dues payments period for bourgeois candidates all of whom have turned out to be sworn enemies of labor from Obama on down.
This does not mean not using union dues for political purposes though. On the contrary we need to use them now more than ever in the class battles ahead. Spent the dough on organizing the unorganized, organizing the South, organizing Wal-Mart, and other pro-labor causes. Think, for example, of the dough spent on the successful November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio. That type of activity is where labor’s money and other resources should go.
*End the endless wars!- As the so-called draw-down of American and Allied troops in Iraq reaches it final stages, the draw down of non-mercenary forces anyway, we must recognize that we anti-warriors failed, and failed rather spectacularly, to affect that withdrawal after a promising start to our opposition in late 2002 and early 2003 (and a little in 2006). As the endless American-led wars (even if behind the scenes, as in Libya) continue we had better straighten out our anti-war, anti-imperialist front quickly if we are to have any effect on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan!
U.S. Hands Off Iran!- American (and world) imperialists are ratcheting up their propaganda war (right now) and increased economic sanctions that are a prelude to war well before the dust has settled on the now unsettled situation in Iraq and well before they have even sniffed at an Afghan withdrawal of any import. We will hold our noses, as we did with the Saddam leadership in Iraq and on other occasions, and call for the defense of Iran against the American imperial monster. A victory for the Americans (and their junior partner, Israel) in Iran is not in the interests of the international working class. Especially here in the “belly of the beast” we are duty-bound to call not just for non-intervention but for defense of Iran. We will, believe me we will, deal with the mullahs, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Islamic fundamentalist in our own way in our own time.
U.S. Hands Off The World!- With the number of “hot spots” that the American imperialists, or one or another of their junior allies, have their hands on in this wicked old world this generic slogan would seem to fill the bill.
Down With The War Budget! Not One Penny, Not One Person For The Wars! Honor World War I German Social-Democratic Party MP, Karl Liebknecht, who did just that. The litmus test for every political candidate must be first opposition to the war budgets (let’s see, right now winding up Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran preparations, China preparations, etc. you get my drift). Then that big leap. The whole damn imperialist military budget. Again, no one said it would be simple. Revolution may be easier that depriving the imperialists of their military money. Well….okay.
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Free Quality Healthcare For All! This would be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The health and welfare of any society’s citizenry is the simple glue that holds that society together. It is no accident that one of the prime concerns of workers states like Cuba, whatever their other political problems, has been to place health care and education front and center and to provide to the best of their capacity for free, quality healthcare and education for all. Even the hide-bound social-democratic-run capitalist governments of Europe have, until recently anyway, placed the “welfare state” protections central to their programs.
Free, quality higher education for all! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! One Hundred, Two Hundred, Many Harvards!
This would again be a no-brainer in any rationally based society. The struggle to increase the educational level of a society’s citizenry is another part of the simple glue that holds that society together. Today higher education is being placed out of reach for many working-class and minority families. Hell, it is getting tough for the middle class as well.
Moreover the whole higher educational system is increasing skewed toward those who have better formal preparation and family lives leaving many deserving students in the wilderness. Take the resources of the private institutions and spread them around, throw in hundreds of billions from the government (take from the military budget and the bank bail-out money), get rid of the top heavy and useless college administration apparatuses, mix it up, and let students, teachers, and campus workers run the thing through councils on a democratic basis.
Forgive student debt! The latest reports indicate that college student debt is something like a trillion dollars, give or take a few billion but who is counting. The price of tuition and expenses has gone up dramatically while services have not kept pace. What has happened is that the future highly educated workforce that a modern society, and certainly a socialist society, desperately needs is going to be cast in some form of indentured servitude to the banks or other lending agencies for much of their young working lives. Let the banks take a “hit” for a change!
Stop housing foreclosures now! Hey, everybody, everywhere in the world not just in America should have a safe, clean roof over their heads. Hell, even a single family home that is part of the “American dream,” if that is what they want. We didn’t make the housing crisis in America (or elsewhere, like in Ireland, where the bubble has also burst). The banks did. Their predatory lending practices and slip-shot application processes were out of control. Let them take the “hit” here as well.
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Karl Marx was right way back in the 19th century on his labor theory of value, the workers do produce the social surplus appropriated by the capitalists. Capitalism tends to immiserate the mass of society for the few. Most importantly capitalism, a system that at one time was historically progressive in the fight against feudalism and other ancient forms of production, has turned into its opposite and now is a fetter on production. The current multiple crises spawned by this system show there is no way forward, except that unless we push them out, push them out fast, they will muddle through, again.
Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Socialism is the only serious answer to the human crisis we face economically, socially, culturally and politically. This socialist system is the only one calculated to take one of the great tragedies of life, the struggle for daily survival in a world that we did not create, and replace it with more co-operative human endeavors.
Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed. None of the nice things mentioned above can be accomplished without as serious struggle for political power. We need to struggle for an independent working-class-centered political party that we can call our own and where our leaders act as “tribunes of the people” not hacks. The creation of that workers party, however, will get us nowhere unless it fights for a workers government to begin the transition to the next level of human progress on a world-wide scale.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
From #Ur-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-This Is Class War-We Say No More- Defend The Occupy Movement!-Defend Our Unions! - Defend The Boston Commune! Take The Offensive! - Notes Of A Street Corner Agitator- In Six-Part Harmony
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
*******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
Markin comment:
I have spent the better portion of my life fighting for one progressive cause or another, sometimes one issue, sometimes several issues in tandem. Mainly those fights have been with small crowds about, but not always. The always part is that throughout it all I have been ready, mostly ready anyway, to get up on the street corner soapbox, literally or figuratively as the case called for, and shout out, shout out until I was hoarse at times, the glad tidings of the new more equitable society a-bornin’. The following sketches are representative of those efforts although, except for the last sketch, they are not the actual words used but reflect the moments with a certain literary and political license.
*******
At the Parkman Bandstand on the Tremont Street side of the Boston Common or anyplace in between that location and the Park Street subway station on any one of several early weekday evenings in the summer of 1961. In those days time and space was reserved for anyone to speak from the ever present soapbox (literally a sturdy wooden box that one stood on to be hear above the crowd although the box used may, or may not, have started out life as a container for soap) about any subject that came to mind. Said speeches were, as now, directed to a small lingering audience and a larger indifference (or, occasionally hostile) audience glancing by as they quickly headed home, or went about their shopping business.
As we hone in on the scene the previous speaker, an elderly lady, small, very dignified, very well dressed, and very morally correct, had just finished up her remark sweetly railing against the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the name of her grandchildren’s future. The next speaker, a ragamuffin of a boy of fifteen, me, Peter Paul Markin, red-faced, Irish red-faced from over- exposure at the Adamsville Beach gotten a few days before, was ready to speak. His hands were sweaty, his bedraggled odd-ball Bargain Center purple shirt was wet with the summer humidity moisture that usually kept him indoors on such days, his pants, his de rigueur black chinos without cuffs were clinging to his off-shaped body as he leaped forward to the unknown on his maiden public speech on any subject. He starts a little timidly, weakly, and lowly and is asked to speak up by the few people who have stopped by that moment to listen up to what a mere boy had to say about anything:
“There is an evil in America, a terrible wrong going on right this minute down South, down in places like Alabama and Mississippi and we have to do something about it right now. Most of you have read the news, the news that kids, kids, just like me, except they are black are going up against the police so they do not have to be treated as second-class citizens, or really just to get out of slavery days. And older people too, people who work like slaves on the farms for no money, who can’t vote, can’t pay the money to vote, and can’t get out from under the racists who control their lives. They are fighting too, fighting as best they can under the great leadership of Doctor Martin Luther King who seems to know what he is doing. [From a passer-by: “Nigger-lover, go back to Africa with them, for chrissakes”]. No, no that man has it all wrong we were all born here and this is where the fight is. But you can see what we are up against and not just down South but here on the Common and over in my own hometown, North Adamsville.
Let me continue, although I am a little rattled by what that guy said. See he doesn’t know we are really fighting for him too. What I was trying to say was that we can do something here, here right now. You might have heard last winter that a bunch of college students down in North Carolina, a bunch of black kids and a few white ones too, tried to go eat lunch at Woolworth’s, a place just like the one over on Washington Street. A place where you probably have gone to eat just like me and had one of their great grilled cheese sandwiches, or something. Shouldn’t people be able to do that without being bothered? I want you to help us out by standing with us and do not eat at Woolworths’s okay. [Another voice, this time from the edge of the audience- “Commie, go back to Russia and take your kind with you.”] No, I ain’t no commie, no way, but you don’t have to be a commie to see that it just isn’t right that people can’t eat where they want, or go to school where want or vote just like us.
Let me finish up though so the next speaker can get his turn. What we really need to do is write to our beloved president, our own beloved Irish Jack Kennedy, who last fall when he was running for President I roamed the streets of North Adamsville for putting his literature in doorways and stuff, and tell him to sent his Justice Department people, his brother Bobby, down to Mississippi right now and straighten things out. Straighten things out so that Negros can have the same kind of dreams as he talked about in his inauguration speech in January. Will you do that? Thanks. [Sight applause and a few yeses] “
As I turned to get off the platform to give time to the next speaker from the back of the audience I heard a distinct voice, distinct black southern voice say in a low tone, “Praise be, brother, praise be.”
*******
I have put on my “soapbox” street corner agitation in many corners of this country since that first day going over the summer heated North Adamsville Bridge to Boston and my first Common speech in the summer of 1961. Just now on this May Day 1971 I am standing this Monday morning, wearily standing after very little sleep this past weekend, near the Washington Monument Mall haranguing a crowd of anti-Vietnam War protestors to keep pushing on although we have suffered a grievous defeat this day, a day when we had proclaimed with much bravado that if the government (the Nixon government just then) did not close down the war then we would close down the government. All we have received for our efforts is tears, tear-gas, and massive arrests after being picked off like fleas by the massive police and military presence and not even a close approximation of shutting down this evil government. But tomorrow, literally tomorrow, is another day, and the anti-warriors need some assurance that their efforts will be more fruitful the next day, and the next day, and next until we meet our goal. End that damn war, and end it fast.
I, Peter Paul Markin, this day only a few months out of an army stockade for my military service anti-war work, am again “courting” arrest on the streets of Washington. It is hot in Washington this day, made hotter by the constant running to avoid the cop traps that seem to be everywhere but I made it to the Mall which is something of a “safe haven” from the madness of the tear-gassed streets and baton-wielding cops. Appearance and attire: youth nation de rigueur army jacket (no, not the GI issue one that I was discharged from the service with but a “real” World War II Army-Navy Store purchase, two dollar purchase), bell-bottomed jeans, army boots (boots that I did leave said service with), a flannel shirt against cold nights, and a trusty green knapsack (not Army issue) with all my
possessions. Hair getting longer uncut from Army times and the wisp of a beard growing to manly length, slowly. My mother’s comment: “You dressed better, much better when you were in high school.” Ya Ma, but now it is cool to be unkempt-don’t you get it. But enough let’s listen to this harangue of the maybe hundred plus crowd seeking verbal shelter from the storm:
“Although I was in the military I do not know much about military strategy and tactics since I spent most of my time fighting against the war-machine including time in the stockade. [Audience; light applause] I do know this though we have suffered a defeat, a military-like defeat today in trying to shut down this evil government, this evil Nixon government which has no legitimacy, none at all and wouldn’t even be here if Bobby Kennedy was alive [Audience: a couple of deep boos] Don’t worry out there I am not going to go on about that. We have more pressing business. We still have to shut this evil government down. We have to stand with the heroic struggles of the Vietnamese people who are today, and every day, facing much more than tear-gas, much more than unlawful assembly arrest, facing everything that the American military monster can throw against them, and maybe more that we don’t even know about. Like that Agent-Orange stuff that we keep hearing about that is destroying everything in sight for years in a country that depends on agriculture. [Audience: Right on, brother].
When we take that kind of beating then we will be able to complain, complain a little, but not until then. [Right on!]. Now I know a lot of people have been talking about leaving D.C. because of what happened today but we said yesterday, a lot of us said we were in this for the long haul, right? [Yes, brother from a few voices] Hey I am afraid too. I don’t want to go back to jail, hell no, but if that is my fate then so be it. Like Che said we have to fight here “in the belly of the beast,” and we have to fight proudly since the fate of the earth depends on it. [“Viva, Che!” from several voices]. Now maybe not everybody can be a street fighter, I know that, but stay and support our efforts okay. Steve Sloan will now come up and tell us about tomorrow’s actions. Down with American imperialism! Down with the American war-machine! Long live the people’s struggles!”
*******
A warm California October 1981 day, a warm San Francisco day, not always the same thing despite the travel brochures, as I walk up to the small, jerry-rigged “podium” in a corner of City Hall Plaza to make my one hundred and first, or so it seems speech against the unfolding Reagan “doctrine” in Central America, primarily to blast the Soviet-aided Sandinista government to smithereens (and, incidentally the same to the pesky Salvadoran rebels). Overtly, or covertly, blast to smithereens it does not seem to matter to this rabidly anti-communist cabal who have nightmare visions of Cuba 1959 redux.
I am showing just the slightest sights of age, or rather of losing a certain youthful innocence about our capacity, our left-wing capacity, to build a more equitable society in my lifetime and so my demeanor is a little less the “shout to the rafters” jubilee certainty of ten years ago or so. Showing the age part does enter a little though but the few flecks of grey showing up unwanted in my beard, and in my now shortened hair, shortened against the work-a-day world, the nine-to-five grind that requires certain personal compromises. I still retain, fiercely retain, my working-class casual garb; denim jacket, black chino pants worn since de rigueur high school days, busted-blue work shirt (to show I am one with the companeros perhaps), and stolid black shoes better for walking these protest miles these days than the old Chuck Taylor's of old. Let’s listen up as the last speaker, a very eloquent young women speaking on behalf of the emerging sanctuary movement, a movement responding to the very real fears of some illegal political immigrants from all over Central and South America to be deported back to the “black hole” that awaits them if they have to go back, walks back to her chair:
“Hola, Que Tal, Hermanos and Hermanas, Hello, What’s Up, Brothers and Sisters, there is a madness in the land, in this Norte American land and it has a name. Ronald Reagan. And it has an address. Washington, D.C. And the madness? These cowboys, and you who lived here in California in the 1960s under the cowboy-in-chief know this better than I do, are hell-bent on turning back the clock on any social progress here, or anywhere. And just this minute that anywhere is Central America where we have just gained a victory, a tenuous victory against reaction in Nicaragua, and we are fighting like hell to get one in El Salvador. Long live the Sandinista struggle! Long live the FMLN! [Cheers and chanting of those two slogans]
But as long as American imperialism exists, as long as the greatest military machine in history exists, those steps forward are always in danger. And that is why the help that the Soviet Union is providing, and in my opinion not providing enough of, is important. I have my differences with the Soviets, no question, but on this one they are right, right as rain. [A couple of boos and a “Down with Soviet imperialism” are heard.] To keep the American monster from bringing back the banana republic days, the Somoza dictatorship days.
And that is why we need to keep clear who are friends are here in this proxy war, this proxy Cold War just like in Angola a while back. That is why we must call for stepped up Soviet aid and that is why we here in the “belly of the beast,” as Che used to say, need to take concrete steps to help by providing funds for the Sandinista cause. Their struggle is our struggle. If they lose, we lose. It is that simple. Long live the national liberation struggles. Fight for a Workers Republic in Nicaragua!”
*********
A christ cold day in January, an early January christ cold Park Street subway station on Boston Common 1991 day, the sun going down over the John Hancock building making it even more christ cold as we make a last ditch effort to stop the impending American imperial army (and so-called coalition forces but you know who is running the show) invasion of Iraq over “poor little Kuwait,” jesus. The few hundred people present are forming a circle, a circle of life according to those who insist on such antics, which I assume was meant to ward off the evil spirits and bring peace. Me, I prefer, greatly prefer some labor action, some longshoremen refusing to ship military goods but that is music for the future, maybe. What is not music for the future, and really music from the past, a certain then growing pains past, is that circles, squares, hexagons or whatever geometric shape you are now touting are now replacing the urgency of hard anti-imperialist actions against the American war machine. It is as if this “peace” movement has regressed to those 1961 days when I stood on this very ground and held hands with my line neighbor and spoke of “soft” peace in the world. But that was just youthful ignorance on my part. This christ cold night studied ignorance rules.
Those flecks of grey in beard and hair of ten years ago have marched on, marched on in triumph, although the garments are no longer aged (except of course those chinos, oops, Dockers now, a little larger, a little more room) as I take my turn “in the circle” to have my say after the last dozen speakers have cried to the heavens for peace, like that mantra would solve everything. Listen up to this crowd-pleaser:
“Nobody here should have anything but contempt for Saddam Hussein and what he has done in Kuwait. Let me make that clear, especially clear, since old Saddam used to be American imperialism’s “boy” back in the day when we all loved him, well almost all, okay. Now he is the devil incarnate since his has turned rogue and fouled up the American government’s cozy deals in the oil-rich Middle East.
But this impending war is not about Saddam or what he did or didn’t do to upset the apple cart in the “new world order” that Bush want to put in place. This is about the exercise of American military power, the vaunted war death machine and about American hubris. Now most of the previous speakers, in fact maybe all of them, have chimed in on the need for peace. And, of course, we all want peace, even George H.W. Bush, except his is the peace of the graveyard for the Iraqi people. So here in an America, here in what the great Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara called the “belly of the beast” have a special obligation to oppose the actions of this government. We are duty-bound to defend Iraq against American attack, no question. No question at all. Otherwise we cannot build an anti-war, anti-imperialist movement worthy of the name. The struggle starts here against this government. Down with American imperialism! Defend Iraq Against American Attack!” [Silence, utter silence]
**********
A late September 2001 Boston day, a day before the leaves begin to turn, before the whitened winter sets in but some time after the hellish 9/11 has fully taken its tool on whatever is left of American democracy. A small clot of anti-imperialist fighters is meeting this day in the courtyard quadrangle at Northeastern University to ward off the impending invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 and the search for scapegoats, Taliban/Al Qaeda scapegoats. Meeting at the traditional site of protest in Boston, the Common, is out of the question just now with the fury over the World Trade Center still not abated, no even close. Even this spot, this campus location, is shaky, very shaky, as all thoughts of anti-war, anti-imperialism by students and others have gone out the door. Revenge, revenge is the order of the day for all but this clot, this very small clot of activists standing with me.
Although, perhaps, on this occasion it does not matter, in the interest of literary completeness, the writer’s hair and beard are now completely grey and his garb not significantly different from that of ten years ago. What is different, significantly different from ten years ago is that, for one of the few times in his political career, he is afraid, afraid that he will be pummeled for what he has to say in this deeply hostile post 9/11 environment. That every “commie,” “go back to Russia,” get a job,” “Traitor,” remark of the past pales in the anger he can sense and not just from the usual yahoo sources but from “soccer moms” and others who think about politics about once every ten years. Cup your ear and listen up, listen up hard, because he has a catch in his voice this day:
“No one, not one self-respecting human on this planet can do anything but condemn, condemn in no uncertain terms, the criminal acts that took place in New York at the World Trade Center. That should be clear to all the few who hear me today. But there are larger questions posed, posed long ago by the American imperial state when their government decided, decided consciously to rip up and rule this planet for the few. None here, who were old enough, did anything but condemn the American invasion of Iraq in 1991, and the continuing imperialist-driven economic and military sanctions against that state.
Now we are here confronting another American imperial adventure, the revenge invasion of Afghanistan for the acts of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Organizations that we have no truck with, no truck at all. Over the years I have, and others whom I have worked with have, very easily condemned every act of American imperialist from Vietnam to Serbia, and done so forthrightly. On Afghanistan, and the military invasion this time, we have lost some of those former supporters. Revenge for innocent victims, even by an imperial monster, is hard to resist. But it must be said now if it to be said at all. Down with American imperialism! Hands Off Afghanistan!
To finish up. I have, over the years fought for many unpopular causes, from black civil rights down South facing off against hardened racists, to being called a “communist dupe (and worst)” for the whole range of anti-imperialist actions from Vietnam to Serbia. And I have done so, mainly, out on the streets of this country. Today though I am afraid, afraid for the first time in my long political career, to be out on these protest streets. Not of the hardened racists, not of the know-nothing red-baiters, but of ordinary citizens, friends, neighbors, and in some cases long-time political associates who look at me with hatred or distain. For the first time I thought about taking a political dive on this question of the American invasion of Afghanistan. No, no can do. Down with American imperialism, wherever it rears its ugly head. [Slight applause.]
*******
A fairly warm, fairly warm for mid-December 2011 Boston day turning into night at 4:00 PM standing once again somewhere between the Boston City Hall (now replete with huge circus tent for the latest carnival attraction, Peter Pan) and the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, named ironically, ironically for probably the first big time political figure that I could get my head around back in the day. Today, like many days past since youth I am standing here in opposition to some vile act that so-called “friends of the people” Democrats have done. Here the recent police occupation of the Occupy Boston space at Dewey Square in the name of, in the name of what, order I guess, their order. But I am also here to pass the torch, the torch of a revitalized labor movement that is beginning to stir with this day’s actions out in the West Coast of activists trying to shut down the ports. That is the glad tiding I bring today.
Of course the world has moved on since 2001. Now the populace, in a general and vague way, has repudiated the war in Afghanistan, although no the revenge motive that drove that original support. Economic strife rules the land and a new generation, or the best parts of it, are beginning to stake their claims in the political struggle through the
Occupy movement. A movement that exploded onto the political scene with the advent of Occupy Wall Street in mid-September.
Of course also, as I never tire of saying of late, each new generation must find its own forms of struggle, its own forms of organization, and its own voice. This Occupy movement, unlike other earlier ones, does not depend on trusty bullhorns to get the message out but the “people’s mic” and the very present “mic check” when one wants to speak to the general audience. This form centers on a loud voice and refrain from the crowd to get the speaker’s message to the outer fringes of the audience. Today I prefer the proffered “old-fashioned” bullhorn but after some fumbling I can see the benefits of the “new way” a little better for future reference. Here goes. Oh, just for the record the hair and beard are whiter, much whiter now. And the garb is replete with a pair of New Balance running shoes for easier walking since my knee operation. Farewell, Chuck Taylor’s, sandals and soft shoes. But listen up:
“I will read from prepared notes. Let me explain why. In the old days, my old street corner agitator days, I could whip up a speech off the top of my head. But of late, before the fresh breeze of the Occupy movement blew across the Boston waterfront, I was more used to sitting at tables in small, over-heated rooms. Or participating in small marches, rallies, and vigils where such oratorical skills were not in much demand. But let me get to my main point.
Sisters and brothers, brothers and sisters, no question, no question at all that the recent police occupation at Dewey Square was a big defeat, a big if temporary defeat, for our struggle for freedom of expression and assembly in the public square. In response, over the past few days not a few younger or newer activists, not used to the ebb and flow of the political struggle, the class struggle, have been disheartened and expressed a sense of defeat.
Today though I bring you glad tidings. The sleeping giant of the labor movement has begun to stir. The long night of despair and disorientation is beginning to lift. At the beginning of this year when the struggle of the public workers unions in Wisconsin heated up I, among others, proposed a general strike and solidarity rallies in order to beat back the anti-labor attacks. We were written off as mad men and women, old-time leftists gone off their rockers. General strike, shut down, no, that was okay for those Greek workers who seemed to strike every other day, or those French workers who struck every day. In America, never. And then came the mass actions in Wisconsin, the shut down of the Port Of Oakland on November 2nd, and today’s actions. Now we can quibble over whether such events are real general strikes or not but now the language of general strike and shutdown is firmly etched on labor’s political agenda.
The old Polish socialist scholar, Isaac Deutscher, once remarked back in the 1960s heyday of the anti-Vietnam War movement that he would give up all the endless marches, rallies and vigils for one dock strike against the war. He was right. We have to hit the war-mongers, the capitalists where it hurts-their profits and power. And today’s West Coast actions are proof of that proposition. If the age of the Occupy encampment has passed so too has the age of endless marches, rallies and vigils. They certainly have their place but now we must take the offensive. Now every action must be thought out to measure the effect on breaking the power of the one percent.
I had, several weeks ago, proposed to various people that we shut down the Port of Boston today in solidarity with the West Coast. That proposal was premature considering the situation in the Boston movement. But someday, someday soon, we too will be marching to shut down the port. To shut down GE in Lynn. To shut down the Bank of America. To shut down this government. And maybe not to just shut them down for a day either. I will leave you with this thought. We created the wealth-let’s take it back. Working people and their allies must rule!”
*******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
Markin comment:
I have spent the better portion of my life fighting for one progressive cause or another, sometimes one issue, sometimes several issues in tandem. Mainly those fights have been with small crowds about, but not always. The always part is that throughout it all I have been ready, mostly ready anyway, to get up on the street corner soapbox, literally or figuratively as the case called for, and shout out, shout out until I was hoarse at times, the glad tidings of the new more equitable society a-bornin’. The following sketches are representative of those efforts although, except for the last sketch, they are not the actual words used but reflect the moments with a certain literary and political license.
*******
At the Parkman Bandstand on the Tremont Street side of the Boston Common or anyplace in between that location and the Park Street subway station on any one of several early weekday evenings in the summer of 1961. In those days time and space was reserved for anyone to speak from the ever present soapbox (literally a sturdy wooden box that one stood on to be hear above the crowd although the box used may, or may not, have started out life as a container for soap) about any subject that came to mind. Said speeches were, as now, directed to a small lingering audience and a larger indifference (or, occasionally hostile) audience glancing by as they quickly headed home, or went about their shopping business.
As we hone in on the scene the previous speaker, an elderly lady, small, very dignified, very well dressed, and very morally correct, had just finished up her remark sweetly railing against the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the name of her grandchildren’s future. The next speaker, a ragamuffin of a boy of fifteen, me, Peter Paul Markin, red-faced, Irish red-faced from over- exposure at the Adamsville Beach gotten a few days before, was ready to speak. His hands were sweaty, his bedraggled odd-ball Bargain Center purple shirt was wet with the summer humidity moisture that usually kept him indoors on such days, his pants, his de rigueur black chinos without cuffs were clinging to his off-shaped body as he leaped forward to the unknown on his maiden public speech on any subject. He starts a little timidly, weakly, and lowly and is asked to speak up by the few people who have stopped by that moment to listen up to what a mere boy had to say about anything:
“There is an evil in America, a terrible wrong going on right this minute down South, down in places like Alabama and Mississippi and we have to do something about it right now. Most of you have read the news, the news that kids, kids, just like me, except they are black are going up against the police so they do not have to be treated as second-class citizens, or really just to get out of slavery days. And older people too, people who work like slaves on the farms for no money, who can’t vote, can’t pay the money to vote, and can’t get out from under the racists who control their lives. They are fighting too, fighting as best they can under the great leadership of Doctor Martin Luther King who seems to know what he is doing. [From a passer-by: “Nigger-lover, go back to Africa with them, for chrissakes”]. No, no that man has it all wrong we were all born here and this is where the fight is. But you can see what we are up against and not just down South but here on the Common and over in my own hometown, North Adamsville.
Let me continue, although I am a little rattled by what that guy said. See he doesn’t know we are really fighting for him too. What I was trying to say was that we can do something here, here right now. You might have heard last winter that a bunch of college students down in North Carolina, a bunch of black kids and a few white ones too, tried to go eat lunch at Woolworth’s, a place just like the one over on Washington Street. A place where you probably have gone to eat just like me and had one of their great grilled cheese sandwiches, or something. Shouldn’t people be able to do that without being bothered? I want you to help us out by standing with us and do not eat at Woolworths’s okay. [Another voice, this time from the edge of the audience- “Commie, go back to Russia and take your kind with you.”] No, I ain’t no commie, no way, but you don’t have to be a commie to see that it just isn’t right that people can’t eat where they want, or go to school where want or vote just like us.
Let me finish up though so the next speaker can get his turn. What we really need to do is write to our beloved president, our own beloved Irish Jack Kennedy, who last fall when he was running for President I roamed the streets of North Adamsville for putting his literature in doorways and stuff, and tell him to sent his Justice Department people, his brother Bobby, down to Mississippi right now and straighten things out. Straighten things out so that Negros can have the same kind of dreams as he talked about in his inauguration speech in January. Will you do that? Thanks. [Sight applause and a few yeses] “
As I turned to get off the platform to give time to the next speaker from the back of the audience I heard a distinct voice, distinct black southern voice say in a low tone, “Praise be, brother, praise be.”
*******
I have put on my “soapbox” street corner agitation in many corners of this country since that first day going over the summer heated North Adamsville Bridge to Boston and my first Common speech in the summer of 1961. Just now on this May Day 1971 I am standing this Monday morning, wearily standing after very little sleep this past weekend, near the Washington Monument Mall haranguing a crowd of anti-Vietnam War protestors to keep pushing on although we have suffered a grievous defeat this day, a day when we had proclaimed with much bravado that if the government (the Nixon government just then) did not close down the war then we would close down the government. All we have received for our efforts is tears, tear-gas, and massive arrests after being picked off like fleas by the massive police and military presence and not even a close approximation of shutting down this evil government. But tomorrow, literally tomorrow, is another day, and the anti-warriors need some assurance that their efforts will be more fruitful the next day, and the next day, and next until we meet our goal. End that damn war, and end it fast.
I, Peter Paul Markin, this day only a few months out of an army stockade for my military service anti-war work, am again “courting” arrest on the streets of Washington. It is hot in Washington this day, made hotter by the constant running to avoid the cop traps that seem to be everywhere but I made it to the Mall which is something of a “safe haven” from the madness of the tear-gassed streets and baton-wielding cops. Appearance and attire: youth nation de rigueur army jacket (no, not the GI issue one that I was discharged from the service with but a “real” World War II Army-Navy Store purchase, two dollar purchase), bell-bottomed jeans, army boots (boots that I did leave said service with), a flannel shirt against cold nights, and a trusty green knapsack (not Army issue) with all my
possessions. Hair getting longer uncut from Army times and the wisp of a beard growing to manly length, slowly. My mother’s comment: “You dressed better, much better when you were in high school.” Ya Ma, but now it is cool to be unkempt-don’t you get it. But enough let’s listen to this harangue of the maybe hundred plus crowd seeking verbal shelter from the storm:
“Although I was in the military I do not know much about military strategy and tactics since I spent most of my time fighting against the war-machine including time in the stockade. [Audience; light applause] I do know this though we have suffered a defeat, a military-like defeat today in trying to shut down this evil government, this evil Nixon government which has no legitimacy, none at all and wouldn’t even be here if Bobby Kennedy was alive [Audience: a couple of deep boos] Don’t worry out there I am not going to go on about that. We have more pressing business. We still have to shut this evil government down. We have to stand with the heroic struggles of the Vietnamese people who are today, and every day, facing much more than tear-gas, much more than unlawful assembly arrest, facing everything that the American military monster can throw against them, and maybe more that we don’t even know about. Like that Agent-Orange stuff that we keep hearing about that is destroying everything in sight for years in a country that depends on agriculture. [Audience: Right on, brother].
When we take that kind of beating then we will be able to complain, complain a little, but not until then. [Right on!]. Now I know a lot of people have been talking about leaving D.C. because of what happened today but we said yesterday, a lot of us said we were in this for the long haul, right? [Yes, brother from a few voices] Hey I am afraid too. I don’t want to go back to jail, hell no, but if that is my fate then so be it. Like Che said we have to fight here “in the belly of the beast,” and we have to fight proudly since the fate of the earth depends on it. [“Viva, Che!” from several voices]. Now maybe not everybody can be a street fighter, I know that, but stay and support our efforts okay. Steve Sloan will now come up and tell us about tomorrow’s actions. Down with American imperialism! Down with the American war-machine! Long live the people’s struggles!”
*******
A warm California October 1981 day, a warm San Francisco day, not always the same thing despite the travel brochures, as I walk up to the small, jerry-rigged “podium” in a corner of City Hall Plaza to make my one hundred and first, or so it seems speech against the unfolding Reagan “doctrine” in Central America, primarily to blast the Soviet-aided Sandinista government to smithereens (and, incidentally the same to the pesky Salvadoran rebels). Overtly, or covertly, blast to smithereens it does not seem to matter to this rabidly anti-communist cabal who have nightmare visions of Cuba 1959 redux.
I am showing just the slightest sights of age, or rather of losing a certain youthful innocence about our capacity, our left-wing capacity, to build a more equitable society in my lifetime and so my demeanor is a little less the “shout to the rafters” jubilee certainty of ten years ago or so. Showing the age part does enter a little though but the few flecks of grey showing up unwanted in my beard, and in my now shortened hair, shortened against the work-a-day world, the nine-to-five grind that requires certain personal compromises. I still retain, fiercely retain, my working-class casual garb; denim jacket, black chino pants worn since de rigueur high school days, busted-blue work shirt (to show I am one with the companeros perhaps), and stolid black shoes better for walking these protest miles these days than the old Chuck Taylor's of old. Let’s listen up as the last speaker, a very eloquent young women speaking on behalf of the emerging sanctuary movement, a movement responding to the very real fears of some illegal political immigrants from all over Central and South America to be deported back to the “black hole” that awaits them if they have to go back, walks back to her chair:
“Hola, Que Tal, Hermanos and Hermanas, Hello, What’s Up, Brothers and Sisters, there is a madness in the land, in this Norte American land and it has a name. Ronald Reagan. And it has an address. Washington, D.C. And the madness? These cowboys, and you who lived here in California in the 1960s under the cowboy-in-chief know this better than I do, are hell-bent on turning back the clock on any social progress here, or anywhere. And just this minute that anywhere is Central America where we have just gained a victory, a tenuous victory against reaction in Nicaragua, and we are fighting like hell to get one in El Salvador. Long live the Sandinista struggle! Long live the FMLN! [Cheers and chanting of those two slogans]
But as long as American imperialism exists, as long as the greatest military machine in history exists, those steps forward are always in danger. And that is why the help that the Soviet Union is providing, and in my opinion not providing enough of, is important. I have my differences with the Soviets, no question, but on this one they are right, right as rain. [A couple of boos and a “Down with Soviet imperialism” are heard.] To keep the American monster from bringing back the banana republic days, the Somoza dictatorship days.
And that is why we need to keep clear who are friends are here in this proxy war, this proxy Cold War just like in Angola a while back. That is why we must call for stepped up Soviet aid and that is why we here in the “belly of the beast,” as Che used to say, need to take concrete steps to help by providing funds for the Sandinista cause. Their struggle is our struggle. If they lose, we lose. It is that simple. Long live the national liberation struggles. Fight for a Workers Republic in Nicaragua!”
*********
A christ cold day in January, an early January christ cold Park Street subway station on Boston Common 1991 day, the sun going down over the John Hancock building making it even more christ cold as we make a last ditch effort to stop the impending American imperial army (and so-called coalition forces but you know who is running the show) invasion of Iraq over “poor little Kuwait,” jesus. The few hundred people present are forming a circle, a circle of life according to those who insist on such antics, which I assume was meant to ward off the evil spirits and bring peace. Me, I prefer, greatly prefer some labor action, some longshoremen refusing to ship military goods but that is music for the future, maybe. What is not music for the future, and really music from the past, a certain then growing pains past, is that circles, squares, hexagons or whatever geometric shape you are now touting are now replacing the urgency of hard anti-imperialist actions against the American war machine. It is as if this “peace” movement has regressed to those 1961 days when I stood on this very ground and held hands with my line neighbor and spoke of “soft” peace in the world. But that was just youthful ignorance on my part. This christ cold night studied ignorance rules.
Those flecks of grey in beard and hair of ten years ago have marched on, marched on in triumph, although the garments are no longer aged (except of course those chinos, oops, Dockers now, a little larger, a little more room) as I take my turn “in the circle” to have my say after the last dozen speakers have cried to the heavens for peace, like that mantra would solve everything. Listen up to this crowd-pleaser:
“Nobody here should have anything but contempt for Saddam Hussein and what he has done in Kuwait. Let me make that clear, especially clear, since old Saddam used to be American imperialism’s “boy” back in the day when we all loved him, well almost all, okay. Now he is the devil incarnate since his has turned rogue and fouled up the American government’s cozy deals in the oil-rich Middle East.
But this impending war is not about Saddam or what he did or didn’t do to upset the apple cart in the “new world order” that Bush want to put in place. This is about the exercise of American military power, the vaunted war death machine and about American hubris. Now most of the previous speakers, in fact maybe all of them, have chimed in on the need for peace. And, of course, we all want peace, even George H.W. Bush, except his is the peace of the graveyard for the Iraqi people. So here in an America, here in what the great Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara called the “belly of the beast” have a special obligation to oppose the actions of this government. We are duty-bound to defend Iraq against American attack, no question. No question at all. Otherwise we cannot build an anti-war, anti-imperialist movement worthy of the name. The struggle starts here against this government. Down with American imperialism! Defend Iraq Against American Attack!” [Silence, utter silence]
**********
A late September 2001 Boston day, a day before the leaves begin to turn, before the whitened winter sets in but some time after the hellish 9/11 has fully taken its tool on whatever is left of American democracy. A small clot of anti-imperialist fighters is meeting this day in the courtyard quadrangle at Northeastern University to ward off the impending invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 and the search for scapegoats, Taliban/Al Qaeda scapegoats. Meeting at the traditional site of protest in Boston, the Common, is out of the question just now with the fury over the World Trade Center still not abated, no even close. Even this spot, this campus location, is shaky, very shaky, as all thoughts of anti-war, anti-imperialism by students and others have gone out the door. Revenge, revenge is the order of the day for all but this clot, this very small clot of activists standing with me.
Although, perhaps, on this occasion it does not matter, in the interest of literary completeness, the writer’s hair and beard are now completely grey and his garb not significantly different from that of ten years ago. What is different, significantly different from ten years ago is that, for one of the few times in his political career, he is afraid, afraid that he will be pummeled for what he has to say in this deeply hostile post 9/11 environment. That every “commie,” “go back to Russia,” get a job,” “Traitor,” remark of the past pales in the anger he can sense and not just from the usual yahoo sources but from “soccer moms” and others who think about politics about once every ten years. Cup your ear and listen up, listen up hard, because he has a catch in his voice this day:
“No one, not one self-respecting human on this planet can do anything but condemn, condemn in no uncertain terms, the criminal acts that took place in New York at the World Trade Center. That should be clear to all the few who hear me today. But there are larger questions posed, posed long ago by the American imperial state when their government decided, decided consciously to rip up and rule this planet for the few. None here, who were old enough, did anything but condemn the American invasion of Iraq in 1991, and the continuing imperialist-driven economic and military sanctions against that state.
Now we are here confronting another American imperial adventure, the revenge invasion of Afghanistan for the acts of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Organizations that we have no truck with, no truck at all. Over the years I have, and others whom I have worked with have, very easily condemned every act of American imperialist from Vietnam to Serbia, and done so forthrightly. On Afghanistan, and the military invasion this time, we have lost some of those former supporters. Revenge for innocent victims, even by an imperial monster, is hard to resist. But it must be said now if it to be said at all. Down with American imperialism! Hands Off Afghanistan!
To finish up. I have, over the years fought for many unpopular causes, from black civil rights down South facing off against hardened racists, to being called a “communist dupe (and worst)” for the whole range of anti-imperialist actions from Vietnam to Serbia. And I have done so, mainly, out on the streets of this country. Today though I am afraid, afraid for the first time in my long political career, to be out on these protest streets. Not of the hardened racists, not of the know-nothing red-baiters, but of ordinary citizens, friends, neighbors, and in some cases long-time political associates who look at me with hatred or distain. For the first time I thought about taking a political dive on this question of the American invasion of Afghanistan. No, no can do. Down with American imperialism, wherever it rears its ugly head. [Slight applause.]
*******
A fairly warm, fairly warm for mid-December 2011 Boston day turning into night at 4:00 PM standing once again somewhere between the Boston City Hall (now replete with huge circus tent for the latest carnival attraction, Peter Pan) and the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, named ironically, ironically for probably the first big time political figure that I could get my head around back in the day. Today, like many days past since youth I am standing here in opposition to some vile act that so-called “friends of the people” Democrats have done. Here the recent police occupation of the Occupy Boston space at Dewey Square in the name of, in the name of what, order I guess, their order. But I am also here to pass the torch, the torch of a revitalized labor movement that is beginning to stir with this day’s actions out in the West Coast of activists trying to shut down the ports. That is the glad tiding I bring today.
Of course the world has moved on since 2001. Now the populace, in a general and vague way, has repudiated the war in Afghanistan, although no the revenge motive that drove that original support. Economic strife rules the land and a new generation, or the best parts of it, are beginning to stake their claims in the political struggle through the
Occupy movement. A movement that exploded onto the political scene with the advent of Occupy Wall Street in mid-September.
Of course also, as I never tire of saying of late, each new generation must find its own forms of struggle, its own forms of organization, and its own voice. This Occupy movement, unlike other earlier ones, does not depend on trusty bullhorns to get the message out but the “people’s mic” and the very present “mic check” when one wants to speak to the general audience. This form centers on a loud voice and refrain from the crowd to get the speaker’s message to the outer fringes of the audience. Today I prefer the proffered “old-fashioned” bullhorn but after some fumbling I can see the benefits of the “new way” a little better for future reference. Here goes. Oh, just for the record the hair and beard are whiter, much whiter now. And the garb is replete with a pair of New Balance running shoes for easier walking since my knee operation. Farewell, Chuck Taylor’s, sandals and soft shoes. But listen up:
“I will read from prepared notes. Let me explain why. In the old days, my old street corner agitator days, I could whip up a speech off the top of my head. But of late, before the fresh breeze of the Occupy movement blew across the Boston waterfront, I was more used to sitting at tables in small, over-heated rooms. Or participating in small marches, rallies, and vigils where such oratorical skills were not in much demand. But let me get to my main point.
Sisters and brothers, brothers and sisters, no question, no question at all that the recent police occupation at Dewey Square was a big defeat, a big if temporary defeat, for our struggle for freedom of expression and assembly in the public square. In response, over the past few days not a few younger or newer activists, not used to the ebb and flow of the political struggle, the class struggle, have been disheartened and expressed a sense of defeat.
Today though I bring you glad tidings. The sleeping giant of the labor movement has begun to stir. The long night of despair and disorientation is beginning to lift. At the beginning of this year when the struggle of the public workers unions in Wisconsin heated up I, among others, proposed a general strike and solidarity rallies in order to beat back the anti-labor attacks. We were written off as mad men and women, old-time leftists gone off their rockers. General strike, shut down, no, that was okay for those Greek workers who seemed to strike every other day, or those French workers who struck every day. In America, never. And then came the mass actions in Wisconsin, the shut down of the Port Of Oakland on November 2nd, and today’s actions. Now we can quibble over whether such events are real general strikes or not but now the language of general strike and shutdown is firmly etched on labor’s political agenda.
The old Polish socialist scholar, Isaac Deutscher, once remarked back in the 1960s heyday of the anti-Vietnam War movement that he would give up all the endless marches, rallies and vigils for one dock strike against the war. He was right. We have to hit the war-mongers, the capitalists where it hurts-their profits and power. And today’s West Coast actions are proof of that proposition. If the age of the Occupy encampment has passed so too has the age of endless marches, rallies and vigils. They certainly have their place but now we must take the offensive. Now every action must be thought out to measure the effect on breaking the power of the one percent.
I had, several weeks ago, proposed to various people that we shut down the Port of Boston today in solidarity with the West Coast. That proposal was premature considering the situation in the Boston movement. But someday, someday soon, we too will be marching to shut down the port. To shut down GE in Lynn. To shut down the Bank of America. To shut down this government. And maybe not to just shut them down for a day either. I will leave you with this thought. We created the wealth-let’s take it back. Working people and their allies must rule!”
When The Class-War Was Red Hot- Farrell Dobbs’ “Teamsters Rebellion” (The 1934 Minneapolis Truckers Strikes For Union Recognition) - A Book Review
Click on the headline to link to a James P. Cannon Internet Archive for an online copy of his important Lessons of the Minneapolis Strikes.
Book Review
Teamster Rebellion, Farrell Dobbs, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1974
No question over the past several years (really decades but it is just more public and in our face now) the American working class has taken it on the chin, taken it on the chin big time. What with job losses (and jobs not coming back), paying for bank bail-outs, home foreclosures, effective tax increases (since the rich refuse to pay we pay), mountains of consumer debt, and student loan debt as a lure for the kids there is little to glow about in harsh light of the American Dream. In short, it is not secret that the working class has faced, is facing and, apparently, will continue to face an erosion of its material well-being for the foreseeable future something not seen by most people since the 1930s Great Depression, the time of our grandparents (or, ouch, great-grandparents).
That is this condition will continue unless we take some lessons from those very 1930s and struggle, struggle as a class against the imperial capitalist monster that seems to have all the card decks stacked against us. And that is where the late labor leader (and, for a time, revolutionary socialist) Farrell Dobb’s little book on his (and his comrades) experiences in organizing the truckers of Minneapolis, Teamster’s Rebellion, can help inspire new generations of working people, organized, unorganized, unemployed, homeless, houseless, and just plain desperate, to get out from under. Specific conditions may be different just now from what they were in Dobbs’ 1934 Minneapolis but after re-reading this little organizing gem there was something very, very current about what our forebears faced down there and then.
I write this little review with a special purpose, a purpose driven by the rise of the Occupy movement, in mind. Although the Occupy movement is right now as I write going through some growing pains there are some disturbing trends that I have witnessed since its inception. The main trend for my purposes here includes a rather standoffish attitude toward the working-class, especially the organized working-class, as central to the struggle for a more equitable society rather than as just another numbered victim of American imperialism’s relentless assault on, well, if not the ninety-nine percent then some large percentage of the population. And that is where the lessons of the 1934 Teamster’s strikes comes in as a helpful antidote to that notion. As well as very helpful guide to what Occupy already does fairly well-organize auxiliary aspects of the class struggle like kitchens, libraries, speakers’ bureaus and the like.
A few highlights will illustrate my point. Minneapolis was a notorious anti-labor commercial town (flour, copper, farm goods, etc.) for generations leading up to the 1930s. It had a well-organized, ruthless, and, when necessary, armed business-centered Citizen’s Alliance that mostly kept out the unions for generations. Therefore a central demand, yes a front and center in your face demand, of the working-class there was for independent union recognition by the bosses (they recognized only their own “company” unions, or better, dealt with each individual worker separately). That was the first order of business for those militants, including the leading revolutionary militants (mainly Trotskyists in this situation but others as well). Along with that desire was the idea that those allies (inside workers who loaded the trucks, etc.) of the truckers should also be organized in one industry-wide union rather than the old craft union idea of separate unions for each category of worker (in short, to break the old “divide and conquer” strategy of the bosses and comfort zone of the labor skates).
Now this scenario may not immediately strike any current Occupy sympathizer as particularly germane for today’s struggles but that view would be short-sighted. For what Minneapolis (and the other main class battles of the 1930s in places like San Francisco, Toledo, Flint, and Detroit) demonstrates is the social power of the working class to hit the economic royalists (the name coined for the one- per centers of that day) to shut the capitalist down where it hurts- in their pocketbooks and property. The bosses will let us rant all day, will gladly take (and throw away) all our petitions, will let us use their parks (up to a point as we have found out), and curse them to eternity as long as we don’t touch the two “p’s.” And that is why it is profoundly mistaken to assume that the working class is only along for the ride like everybody else in Occupy. The various recent West Coast port actions is a somewhat skewed way (the longshoremen refused to cross the community picket lines rather than directly shut the ports themselves but the effect was the same-ports shutdown for a period) demonstrate that same proposition.
Beyond that central premise that is bed-rock to understand this book is filled with all kinds of information that is also important to know for any major show-down struggle with the bosses. Such class-war actions have to be carefully planned using every resource available (not just some happenstance thing put together at a whim, or less). So reading about the soup kitchens, the hospital, the make-shift garages (to transport roving pickets, a necessity in the many-sited trucking industry), provisions for entertainment, and a labor daily newspaper to counteract the bourgeois biases of the press sounded awfully familiar to me, and should to you. Some parts Occupy has got right, got right right from the start.
What, disturbingly, has not been right or has been some what blurred today is a clear understanding of the relationship between the bosses and their state (the cops, National Guard, mayors, governors, courts, prisons, etc.) and we the risen people. The militants (beyond the hard “reds”) in Minneapolis probably had some illusions in those institutions starting out, although probably less than those today, a few generations removed from those hard class battles. They soon “learned” about the cops in their three-stage (three separate strike actions from February to August 1934) fight. Learned about cops mostly at the wrong end of a night-stick (or tear-gas grenade) in the famous “Battle of Deputies’ Run”. About the courts and their rough, very rough “justice.” About the militia and who it serves. About the lying bourgeois newspapers and their scare tactics. About who were, and were not, the so-called “friends of labor” from Roosevelt on down. And even about the treachery of the labor skates, particularly the head of the very Teamster Union they were trying to join, Daniel Tobin.
What they also learned though, and we can learn as well, is that through combining together in solidarity in large numbers, through being politically clear-headed, through keeping independent of the main political parties, and most of all having the determination to fight for what you want you can win sometimes in this wicked old world. Read this little book and see if you agree.
Book Review
Teamster Rebellion, Farrell Dobbs, Pathfinder Press, New York, 1974
No question over the past several years (really decades but it is just more public and in our face now) the American working class has taken it on the chin, taken it on the chin big time. What with job losses (and jobs not coming back), paying for bank bail-outs, home foreclosures, effective tax increases (since the rich refuse to pay we pay), mountains of consumer debt, and student loan debt as a lure for the kids there is little to glow about in harsh light of the American Dream. In short, it is not secret that the working class has faced, is facing and, apparently, will continue to face an erosion of its material well-being for the foreseeable future something not seen by most people since the 1930s Great Depression, the time of our grandparents (or, ouch, great-grandparents).
That is this condition will continue unless we take some lessons from those very 1930s and struggle, struggle as a class against the imperial capitalist monster that seems to have all the card decks stacked against us. And that is where the late labor leader (and, for a time, revolutionary socialist) Farrell Dobb’s little book on his (and his comrades) experiences in organizing the truckers of Minneapolis, Teamster’s Rebellion, can help inspire new generations of working people, organized, unorganized, unemployed, homeless, houseless, and just plain desperate, to get out from under. Specific conditions may be different just now from what they were in Dobbs’ 1934 Minneapolis but after re-reading this little organizing gem there was something very, very current about what our forebears faced down there and then.
I write this little review with a special purpose, a purpose driven by the rise of the Occupy movement, in mind. Although the Occupy movement is right now as I write going through some growing pains there are some disturbing trends that I have witnessed since its inception. The main trend for my purposes here includes a rather standoffish attitude toward the working-class, especially the organized working-class, as central to the struggle for a more equitable society rather than as just another numbered victim of American imperialism’s relentless assault on, well, if not the ninety-nine percent then some large percentage of the population. And that is where the lessons of the 1934 Teamster’s strikes comes in as a helpful antidote to that notion. As well as very helpful guide to what Occupy already does fairly well-organize auxiliary aspects of the class struggle like kitchens, libraries, speakers’ bureaus and the like.
A few highlights will illustrate my point. Minneapolis was a notorious anti-labor commercial town (flour, copper, farm goods, etc.) for generations leading up to the 1930s. It had a well-organized, ruthless, and, when necessary, armed business-centered Citizen’s Alliance that mostly kept out the unions for generations. Therefore a central demand, yes a front and center in your face demand, of the working-class there was for independent union recognition by the bosses (they recognized only their own “company” unions, or better, dealt with each individual worker separately). That was the first order of business for those militants, including the leading revolutionary militants (mainly Trotskyists in this situation but others as well). Along with that desire was the idea that those allies (inside workers who loaded the trucks, etc.) of the truckers should also be organized in one industry-wide union rather than the old craft union idea of separate unions for each category of worker (in short, to break the old “divide and conquer” strategy of the bosses and comfort zone of the labor skates).
Now this scenario may not immediately strike any current Occupy sympathizer as particularly germane for today’s struggles but that view would be short-sighted. For what Minneapolis (and the other main class battles of the 1930s in places like San Francisco, Toledo, Flint, and Detroit) demonstrates is the social power of the working class to hit the economic royalists (the name coined for the one- per centers of that day) to shut the capitalist down where it hurts- in their pocketbooks and property. The bosses will let us rant all day, will gladly take (and throw away) all our petitions, will let us use their parks (up to a point as we have found out), and curse them to eternity as long as we don’t touch the two “p’s.” And that is why it is profoundly mistaken to assume that the working class is only along for the ride like everybody else in Occupy. The various recent West Coast port actions is a somewhat skewed way (the longshoremen refused to cross the community picket lines rather than directly shut the ports themselves but the effect was the same-ports shutdown for a period) demonstrate that same proposition.
Beyond that central premise that is bed-rock to understand this book is filled with all kinds of information that is also important to know for any major show-down struggle with the bosses. Such class-war actions have to be carefully planned using every resource available (not just some happenstance thing put together at a whim, or less). So reading about the soup kitchens, the hospital, the make-shift garages (to transport roving pickets, a necessity in the many-sited trucking industry), provisions for entertainment, and a labor daily newspaper to counteract the bourgeois biases of the press sounded awfully familiar to me, and should to you. Some parts Occupy has got right, got right right from the start.
What, disturbingly, has not been right or has been some what blurred today is a clear understanding of the relationship between the bosses and their state (the cops, National Guard, mayors, governors, courts, prisons, etc.) and we the risen people. The militants (beyond the hard “reds”) in Minneapolis probably had some illusions in those institutions starting out, although probably less than those today, a few generations removed from those hard class battles. They soon “learned” about the cops in their three-stage (three separate strike actions from February to August 1934) fight. Learned about cops mostly at the wrong end of a night-stick (or tear-gas grenade) in the famous “Battle of Deputies’ Run”. About the courts and their rough, very rough “justice.” About the militia and who it serves. About the lying bourgeois newspapers and their scare tactics. About who were, and were not, the so-called “friends of labor” from Roosevelt on down. And even about the treachery of the labor skates, particularly the head of the very Teamster Union they were trying to join, Daniel Tobin.
What they also learned though, and we can learn as well, is that through combining together in solidarity in large numbers, through being politically clear-headed, through keeping independent of the main political parties, and most of all having the determination to fight for what you want you can win sometimes in this wicked old world. Read this little book and see if you agree.
Friday, January 06, 2012
From #Ur-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-This Is Class War-We Say No More- Defend The Occupy Movement!-Defend Our Unions! - Defend The Boston Commune! Take The Offensive! - Generals Without An Army?
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
*******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
Peter Paul Markin comment:
Recently my long time friend, Josh Breslin (Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those old enough to recognize that name from half the alterative presses in this country, large and small, over the past forty years or so) sent me an e-mail the contents of which I have commented on in this space under the entry “General Assembly Blues- A Cautionary Tale.” (See post below.)The substance of the piece was that Josh felt that the Occupy idea was ripe for the picking by those bourgeois political forces that were hovering around the movement lately looking like wolves ready to feast on an easy meal. Without going into detail here he also argued that there were some very Potemkin Village-like aspects of the Occupy Boston movement since the police raid on December 10th scattered the tribe. The most remarkable statement though, or at least the one which stuck in my mind after reading his e-mail, was his characterization of Occupy as “generals without an army.’’ That little twist has haunted me not a little since after some thought and some further investigation I find that statement to have some truth in it.
Now some readers of this post will dismiss the whole notion of generals, or at least the free-wheeling use of any military terms when speaking of the movement, out of hand. That would be unfortunate because that expression was merely a short-hand way for Josh to say what many people I have spoke to already sense. This “leaderless” movement has leaders, there is nothing wrong with leaders emerging if based on doing hard political work and winning authority, and that in a very important sense those fairly small numbers whose lives are now entwined with the Occupy movement are de facto leaders and that is just hard political realty. Period
And an equally hard fact is that through the thick and thin of committee meetings, working groups, “rump” General Assemblies (Josh’s word but there is also truth in that characterization as well) and other forms of actions (mainly small, very small) over the past month or so (and thus a mood that pre-dates the demise of Dewey Square) is that the Occupy movement has lost much steam. Some of this was, and should have been, expected. And perhaps with a better political focus here in Boston that may be turned around come spring. But the hard-headed reality is that a lot of possibly very good cadres are spinning their wheels with no forces (or not many) behind them. Others are just doing what comes naturally content to attend endless meetings, discuss endlessly, and let other hostile forces come in and pick those very good cadres clean. Ya, sometime Josh Breslin is clueless on stuff but on this on he is preaching to the converted.
***********
General Assembly Blues- A Cautionary Tale
Peter Paul Markin comment:
I had never seen my old friend Josh Breslin so irate (Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those who know him under that moniker through his various commentary columns in all kind alternative press operations over the past forty years or so). Or rather more correctly I had never read anything of his that practically steamed off the page, the computer screen page that early Monday morning (December 19, 2011, let’s see the time stamp, oh yes, 5:14 AM, Ya early, definitely early for Josh) when I was casually perusing my daily e-mail delete slaughter-house. It seems that he had attended an Occupy Boston General Assembly (GA) meeting the night before over at the hallowed Community Church on Boylston Street (hallowed in leftist circles, I had first gone there long ago to attend a commemoration program for Sacco and Vanzetti). Since the police raid on the Occupy camp at Dewey Square in the early morning hours of December 11th the GAs have been assembling helter-skelter at various locations from the Parkman Bandstand on the Common to various sympathetic indoor as winter sets in locations, mainly churches, in order to keep some continuity during these unsettled times.
At that meeting the main order of business was a simple proposal submitted by the OB Socialist Caucus, a loose group of organizationally-affiliated and unaffiliated people who identify themselves with the socialist cause. The gist of the proposal was to make a forthright statement that Occupy Boston was to be clearly identified, more clearly identified than in any previous document, as independent of the main bourgeois parties, the Democrats in particular, and by implication was not to be a front or voting cattle bloc for any particular organized political operation ready to move in like hungry wolves looking for an easy meal. This proposal never reached a vote, a yea or nay vote, that night because it was “blocked” well before such a vote could be taken by, as Josh called it in his e-mail, the “Rump” assembly (see said e-mail posted below, well the gist of it anyway). The Rump being a minority of those eighty or so brethren in attendance that evening whose maneuver in the consensus-addled GA world stopped the proposal in its tracks. This series of events triggered in Josh some kind of previously well-hidden verbal explosion about the trends that he had witnessed developing in the movement, and that had disturbed him previously. Naturally he had to send his old compadre Peter Paul his bilious e-mail as the first step in his “campaign” to get things off his chest.
A little explanation is in order to gauge the seriousness of Josh’s maddened impulse and, as well, for why I have taken the time to write this little commentary up and pushed it forward. Josh and I go back a long way, back to the summer of love in San Francisco in 1967 when I was on Captain Crunch’s merry prankster magical mystery tour freedom bus and I met Josh, then going under the moniker “Prince Of Love,” on Russian Hill in that town. Ya, I know, we were just a little too self-important on changing the name changed the person thing but that was the way it was. I was, for a while, known as Be-Bop Benny, among other names. He had, after just graduating from high school up in Olde Saco, Maine hitch-hiked across the country to see “what was happening.” We hit it off right away, probably because my being from North Adamsville here in Massachusetts we were the only New Englanders “on the bus,” even though I was a few years older. In any case our friendship survived through thick and thin, even despite his “stealing” my girl, Butterfly Swirl (okay, okay I will stop with the a. k. a’s), from right under my nose during the first few days we knew each other. Part of that thick and thin has been involvement in a long series of left-wing political struggles where we have not always seen eye to eye but have generally been “on the right of the angels.”
And that, roughly, brings us to the present. Along the way, for a number of reason that shall not detain us here, I increasingly came to socialist conclusions abut the nature of American society and the ways to change it. Josh, while always on the cutting edge of those same conclusions, never crossed over and has maintained a studied non-socialist radical position very similar to many that I have run into as the Occupy movement has gathered steam. Although as a paid political commentator for various publications he has always kept a certain skeptical distance from going overboard every time there is the slightest left breeze coming in over Boston Harbor. Until now.
As I have written elsewhere Josh, now retired, still likes to keep his hand in the mix and so has been working on a project that may turn into a book about the Occupy Boston experience. When he first he crossed the river from the wilds of Cambridge he held himself pretty aloof from the doings but soon became totally enmeshed in what was going on. I was, and still am, a lot more skeptical about where the winds are heading. Josh though spent some nights at Dewey Square and got involved in the camp life. He marched up and down the streets of Boston in every possible cause. Brought food and other goods to the site when he came over. Donated money and other resources to the efforts. He even told me that he washed dishes (once) to help out in the kitchen one day. And believe me in the old prankster days the Prince of Love was, well, too “important” to bow down and get his hands wet doing anything as lowly as dishes. So this new experiment (or rather a chance to make up for those youthful mistakes) really energized him.
So when Joshua Lawrence Breslin, on a darkened Monday morning, signals that something is wrong, something is politically wrong with the direction of the movement I listen up. And, perhaps, you should too.
*******
Below I have placed the substance of the e-mail that Josh Breslin sent to me that fateful Monday December 19th morning. This is my summarization of the document which was written by him in our usual “code” and with his usual excessive use of expletives to normal ears so that it would be not understandable to “outsiders.” In short I have edited it as best I could while retaining the political direction. If Josh doesn’t like it then he can, well, sue me. Ha ha. Or better, write his own damn translation. Peter Paul Markin.
December 19, 2011, 5:14 AM to PeterPaulMarkin@yahoo.com:
Pee Pee, [The reader is hereby warned no to make anything out of this old-time nickname, old time going back to childhood North Adamsville working-class neighborhood days, or else.] You won’t believe what those arrogant airheads did last night at the so-called GA. I call it, and you can quote me on this, the “Rump” like back in Oliver Cromwell’s time when a bunch of cronies controlled everything, or else. They “blocked” the proposal to have a clear statement of independence from the damn Democrats (and Republicans too) but we know who really wants in on this movement.
What they did was get together enough people to block the thing even though with a simple majority it could have gotten through. So much for democracy. For once you are right on this blocking and consensus b.s. Now when Miss Betty [Elizabeth Warren] comes a-courting she will have a field day. You and I have disagreed on many things but keeping the bourgeois parties the hell away from our movement (except maybe to do “Jimmy Higgins” work putting up chairs or licking envelopes, stuff like that) has always been something that has united us ever since Chicago in 1968.
You should have heard the reasons given. Naturally the old chestnut- “we don’t want to alienate anyone” (anyone to the left of Genghis Khan, I guess). “It’s too negative.” Like the bourgeoisie gives a damn about negativity as long as they keep their moola and their power. “The statement we have already posted about transparency and independence is good enough” Like that flimsy one-size-fits-all statement has any political meaning at all. And it degenerated from there. I was so mad I had to walk out and get some fresh air.
I am far from giving up on this Occupy movement but in a lot of ways it really is like that guy, that homeless camper guy, I interviewed over at Dewey Square in early November when the weather got a little cold said. He said the place was a Potemkin Village. I thought he meant about people not staying there overnight. But now I think he meant the whole experiment. They, we, are generals without any army right now and nothing that is being done lately is calculated to break out from that situation. Were we this ruthlessly obtuse back in the days? I hope not- Josh
*******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
Peter Paul Markin comment:
Recently my long time friend, Josh Breslin (Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those old enough to recognize that name from half the alterative presses in this country, large and small, over the past forty years or so) sent me an e-mail the contents of which I have commented on in this space under the entry “General Assembly Blues- A Cautionary Tale.” (See post below.)The substance of the piece was that Josh felt that the Occupy idea was ripe for the picking by those bourgeois political forces that were hovering around the movement lately looking like wolves ready to feast on an easy meal. Without going into detail here he also argued that there were some very Potemkin Village-like aspects of the Occupy Boston movement since the police raid on December 10th scattered the tribe. The most remarkable statement though, or at least the one which stuck in my mind after reading his e-mail, was his characterization of Occupy as “generals without an army.’’ That little twist has haunted me not a little since after some thought and some further investigation I find that statement to have some truth in it.
Now some readers of this post will dismiss the whole notion of generals, or at least the free-wheeling use of any military terms when speaking of the movement, out of hand. That would be unfortunate because that expression was merely a short-hand way for Josh to say what many people I have spoke to already sense. This “leaderless” movement has leaders, there is nothing wrong with leaders emerging if based on doing hard political work and winning authority, and that in a very important sense those fairly small numbers whose lives are now entwined with the Occupy movement are de facto leaders and that is just hard political realty. Period
And an equally hard fact is that through the thick and thin of committee meetings, working groups, “rump” General Assemblies (Josh’s word but there is also truth in that characterization as well) and other forms of actions (mainly small, very small) over the past month or so (and thus a mood that pre-dates the demise of Dewey Square) is that the Occupy movement has lost much steam. Some of this was, and should have been, expected. And perhaps with a better political focus here in Boston that may be turned around come spring. But the hard-headed reality is that a lot of possibly very good cadres are spinning their wheels with no forces (or not many) behind them. Others are just doing what comes naturally content to attend endless meetings, discuss endlessly, and let other hostile forces come in and pick those very good cadres clean. Ya, sometime Josh Breslin is clueless on stuff but on this on he is preaching to the converted.
***********
General Assembly Blues- A Cautionary Tale
Peter Paul Markin comment:
I had never seen my old friend Josh Breslin so irate (Joshua Lawrence Breslin for those who know him under that moniker through his various commentary columns in all kind alternative press operations over the past forty years or so). Or rather more correctly I had never read anything of his that practically steamed off the page, the computer screen page that early Monday morning (December 19, 2011, let’s see the time stamp, oh yes, 5:14 AM, Ya early, definitely early for Josh) when I was casually perusing my daily e-mail delete slaughter-house. It seems that he had attended an Occupy Boston General Assembly (GA) meeting the night before over at the hallowed Community Church on Boylston Street (hallowed in leftist circles, I had first gone there long ago to attend a commemoration program for Sacco and Vanzetti). Since the police raid on the Occupy camp at Dewey Square in the early morning hours of December 11th the GAs have been assembling helter-skelter at various locations from the Parkman Bandstand on the Common to various sympathetic indoor as winter sets in locations, mainly churches, in order to keep some continuity during these unsettled times.
At that meeting the main order of business was a simple proposal submitted by the OB Socialist Caucus, a loose group of organizationally-affiliated and unaffiliated people who identify themselves with the socialist cause. The gist of the proposal was to make a forthright statement that Occupy Boston was to be clearly identified, more clearly identified than in any previous document, as independent of the main bourgeois parties, the Democrats in particular, and by implication was not to be a front or voting cattle bloc for any particular organized political operation ready to move in like hungry wolves looking for an easy meal. This proposal never reached a vote, a yea or nay vote, that night because it was “blocked” well before such a vote could be taken by, as Josh called it in his e-mail, the “Rump” assembly (see said e-mail posted below, well the gist of it anyway). The Rump being a minority of those eighty or so brethren in attendance that evening whose maneuver in the consensus-addled GA world stopped the proposal in its tracks. This series of events triggered in Josh some kind of previously well-hidden verbal explosion about the trends that he had witnessed developing in the movement, and that had disturbed him previously. Naturally he had to send his old compadre Peter Paul his bilious e-mail as the first step in his “campaign” to get things off his chest.
A little explanation is in order to gauge the seriousness of Josh’s maddened impulse and, as well, for why I have taken the time to write this little commentary up and pushed it forward. Josh and I go back a long way, back to the summer of love in San Francisco in 1967 when I was on Captain Crunch’s merry prankster magical mystery tour freedom bus and I met Josh, then going under the moniker “Prince Of Love,” on Russian Hill in that town. Ya, I know, we were just a little too self-important on changing the name changed the person thing but that was the way it was. I was, for a while, known as Be-Bop Benny, among other names. He had, after just graduating from high school up in Olde Saco, Maine hitch-hiked across the country to see “what was happening.” We hit it off right away, probably because my being from North Adamsville here in Massachusetts we were the only New Englanders “on the bus,” even though I was a few years older. In any case our friendship survived through thick and thin, even despite his “stealing” my girl, Butterfly Swirl (okay, okay I will stop with the a. k. a’s), from right under my nose during the first few days we knew each other. Part of that thick and thin has been involvement in a long series of left-wing political struggles where we have not always seen eye to eye but have generally been “on the right of the angels.”
And that, roughly, brings us to the present. Along the way, for a number of reason that shall not detain us here, I increasingly came to socialist conclusions abut the nature of American society and the ways to change it. Josh, while always on the cutting edge of those same conclusions, never crossed over and has maintained a studied non-socialist radical position very similar to many that I have run into as the Occupy movement has gathered steam. Although as a paid political commentator for various publications he has always kept a certain skeptical distance from going overboard every time there is the slightest left breeze coming in over Boston Harbor. Until now.
As I have written elsewhere Josh, now retired, still likes to keep his hand in the mix and so has been working on a project that may turn into a book about the Occupy Boston experience. When he first he crossed the river from the wilds of Cambridge he held himself pretty aloof from the doings but soon became totally enmeshed in what was going on. I was, and still am, a lot more skeptical about where the winds are heading. Josh though spent some nights at Dewey Square and got involved in the camp life. He marched up and down the streets of Boston in every possible cause. Brought food and other goods to the site when he came over. Donated money and other resources to the efforts. He even told me that he washed dishes (once) to help out in the kitchen one day. And believe me in the old prankster days the Prince of Love was, well, too “important” to bow down and get his hands wet doing anything as lowly as dishes. So this new experiment (or rather a chance to make up for those youthful mistakes) really energized him.
So when Joshua Lawrence Breslin, on a darkened Monday morning, signals that something is wrong, something is politically wrong with the direction of the movement I listen up. And, perhaps, you should too.
*******
Below I have placed the substance of the e-mail that Josh Breslin sent to me that fateful Monday December 19th morning. This is my summarization of the document which was written by him in our usual “code” and with his usual excessive use of expletives to normal ears so that it would be not understandable to “outsiders.” In short I have edited it as best I could while retaining the political direction. If Josh doesn’t like it then he can, well, sue me. Ha ha. Or better, write his own damn translation. Peter Paul Markin.
December 19, 2011, 5:14 AM to PeterPaulMarkin@yahoo.com:
Pee Pee, [The reader is hereby warned no to make anything out of this old-time nickname, old time going back to childhood North Adamsville working-class neighborhood days, or else.] You won’t believe what those arrogant airheads did last night at the so-called GA. I call it, and you can quote me on this, the “Rump” like back in Oliver Cromwell’s time when a bunch of cronies controlled everything, or else. They “blocked” the proposal to have a clear statement of independence from the damn Democrats (and Republicans too) but we know who really wants in on this movement.
What they did was get together enough people to block the thing even though with a simple majority it could have gotten through. So much for democracy. For once you are right on this blocking and consensus b.s. Now when Miss Betty [Elizabeth Warren] comes a-courting she will have a field day. You and I have disagreed on many things but keeping the bourgeois parties the hell away from our movement (except maybe to do “Jimmy Higgins” work putting up chairs or licking envelopes, stuff like that) has always been something that has united us ever since Chicago in 1968.
You should have heard the reasons given. Naturally the old chestnut- “we don’t want to alienate anyone” (anyone to the left of Genghis Khan, I guess). “It’s too negative.” Like the bourgeoisie gives a damn about negativity as long as they keep their moola and their power. “The statement we have already posted about transparency and independence is good enough” Like that flimsy one-size-fits-all statement has any political meaning at all. And it degenerated from there. I was so mad I had to walk out and get some fresh air.
I am far from giving up on this Occupy movement but in a lot of ways it really is like that guy, that homeless camper guy, I interviewed over at Dewey Square in early November when the weather got a little cold said. He said the place was a Potemkin Village. I thought he meant about people not staying there overnight. But now I think he meant the whole experiment. They, we, are generals without any army right now and nothing that is being done lately is calculated to break out from that situation. Were we this ruthlessly obtuse back in the days? I hope not- Josh
From The “West Coast Port Shutdown” Website-This Is Class War, We Say No More!-Notes Of A Street Corner Agitator- In Six-Part Harmony
Click on the headline to link to the West Coast Port Shutdown website.
******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
Markin comment:
I have spent the better portion of my life fighting for one progressive cause or another, sometimes one issue, sometimes several issues in tandem. Mainly those fights have been with small crowds about, but not always. The always part is that throughout it all I have been ready, mostly ready anyway, to get up on the street corner soapbox, literally or figuratively as the case called for, and shout out, shout out until I was hoarse at times, the glad tidings of the new more equitable society a-bornin’. The following sketches are representative of those efforts although, except for the last sketch, they are not the actual words used but reflect the moments with a certain literary and political license.
*******
At the Parkman Bandstand on the Tremont Street side of the Boston Common or anyplace in between that location and the Park Street subway station on any one of several early weekday evenings in the summer of 1961. In those days time and space was reserved for anyone to speak from the ever present soapbox (literally a sturdy wooden box that one stood on to be hear above the crowd although the box used may, or may not, have started out life as a container for soap) about any subject that came to mind. Said speeches were, as now, directed to a small lingering audience and a larger indifference (or, occasionally hostile) audience glancing by as they quickly headed home, or went about their shopping business.
As we hone in on the scene the previous speaker, an elderly lady, small, very dignified, very well dressed, and very morally correct, had just finished up her remark sweetly railing against the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the name of her grandchildren’s future. The next speaker, a ragamuffin of a boy of fifteen, me, Peter Paul Markin, red-faced, Irish red-faced from over- exposure at the Adamsville Beach gotten a few days before, was ready to speak. His hands were sweaty, his bedraggled odd-ball Bargain Center purple shirt was wet with the summer humidity moisture that usually kept him indoors on such days, his pants, his de rigueur black chinos without cuffs were clinging to his off-shaped body as he leaped forward to the unknown on his maiden public speech on any subject. He starts a little timidly, weakly, and lowly and is asked to speak up by the few people who have stopped by that moment to listen up to what a mere boy had to say about anything:
“There is an evil in America, a terrible wrong going on right this minute down South, down in places like Alabama and Mississippi and we have to do something about it right now. Most of you have read the news, the news that kids, kids, just like me, except they are black are going up against the police so they do not have to be treated as second-class citizens, or really just to get out of slavery days. And older people too, people who work like slaves on the farms for no money, who can’t vote, can’t pay the money to vote, and can’t get out from under the racists who control their lives. They are fighting too, fighting as best they can under the great leadership of Doctor Martin Luther King who seems to know what he is doing. [From a passer-by: “Nigger-lover, go back to Africa with them, for chrissakes”]. No, no that man has it all wrong we were all born here and this is where the fight is. But you can see what we are up against and not just down South but here on the Common and over in my own hometown, North Adamsville.
Let me continue, although I am a little rattled by what that guy said. See he doesn’t know we are really fighting for him too. What I was trying to say was that we can do something here, here right now. You might have heard last winter that a bunch of college students down in North Carolina, a bunch of black kids and a few white ones too, tried to go eat lunch at Woolworth’s, a place just like the one over on Washington Street. A place where you probably have gone to eat just like me and had one of their great grilled cheese sandwiches, or something. Shouldn’t people be able to do that without being bothered? I want you to help us out by standing with us and do not eat at Woolworths’s okay. [Another voice, this time from the edge of the audience- “Commie, go back to Russia and take your kind with you.”] No, I ain’t no commie, no way, but you don’t have to be a commie to see that it just isn’t right that people can’t eat where they want, or go to school where want or vote just like us.
Let me finish up though so the next speaker can get his turn. What we really need to do is write to our beloved president, our own beloved Irish Jack Kennedy, who last fall when he was running for President I roamed the streets of North Adamsville for putting his literature in doorways and stuff, and tell him to sent his Justice Department people, his brother Bobby, down to Mississippi right now and straighten things out. Straighten things out so that Negros can have the same kind of dreams as he talked about in his inauguration speech in January. Will you do that? Thanks. [Sight applause and a few yeses] “
As I turned to get off the platform to give time to the next speaker from the back of the audience I heard a distinct voice, distinct black southern voice say in a low tone, “Praise be, brother, praise be.”
*******
I have put on my “soapbox” street corner agitation in many corners of this country since that first day going over the summer heated North Adamsville Bridge to Boston and my first Common speech in the summer of 1961. Just now on this May Day 1971 I am standing this Monday morning, wearily standing after very little sleep this past weekend, near the Washington Monument Mall haranguing a crowd of anti-Vietnam War protestors to keep pushing on although we have suffered a grievous defeat this day, a day when we had proclaimed with much bravado that if the government (the Nixon government just then) did not close down the war then we would close down the government. All we have received for our efforts is tears, tear-gas, and massive arrests after being picked off like fleas by the massive police and military presence and not even a close approximation of shutting down this evil government. But tomorrow, literally tomorrow, is another day, and the anti-warriors need some assurance that their efforts will be more fruitful the next day, and the next day, and next until we meet our goal. End that damn war, and end it fast.
I, Peter Paul Markin, this day only a few months out of an army stockade for my military service anti-war work, am again “courting” arrest on the streets of Washington. It is hot in Washington this day, made hotter by the constant running to avoid the cop traps that seem to be everywhere but I made it to the Mall which is something of a “safe haven” from the madness of the tear-gassed streets and baton-wielding cops. Appearance and attire: youth nation de rigueur army jacket (no, not the GI issue one that I was discharged from the service with but a “real” World War II Army-Navy Store purchase, two dollar purchase), bell-bottomed jeans, army boots (boots that I did leave said service with), a flannel shirt against cold nights, and a trusty green knapsack (not Army issue) with all my
possessions. Hair getting longer uncut from Army times and the wisp of a beard growing to manly length, slowly. My mother’s comment: “You dressed better, much better when you were in high school.” Ya Ma, but now it is cool to be unkempt-don’t you get it. But enough let’s listen to this harangue of the maybe hundred plus crowd seeking verbal shelter from the storm:
“Although I was in the military I do not know much about military strategy and tactics since I spent most of my time fighting against the war-machine including time in the stockade. [Audience; light applause] I do know this though we have suffered a defeat, a military-like defeat today in trying to shut down this evil government, this evil Nixon government which has no legitimacy, none at all and wouldn’t even be here if Bobby Kennedy was alive [Audience: a couple of deep boos] Don’t worry out there I am not going to go on about that. We have more pressing business. We still have to shut this evil government down. We have to stand with the heroic struggles of the Vietnamese people who are today, and every day, facing much more than tear-gas, much more than unlawful assembly arrest, facing everything that the American military monster can throw against them, and maybe more that we don’t even know about. Like that Agent-Orange stuff that we keep hearing about that is destroying everything in sight for years in a country that depends on agriculture. [Audience: Right on, brother].
When we take that kind of beating then we will be able to complain, complain a little, but not until then. [Right on!]. Now I know a lot of people have been talking about leaving D.C. because of what happened today but we said yesterday, a lot of us said we were in this for the long haul, right? [Yes, brother from a few voices] Hey I am afraid too. I don’t want to go back to jail, hell no, but if that is my fate then so be it. Like Che said we have to fight here “in the belly of the beast,” and we have to fight proudly since the fate of the earth depends on it. [“Viva, Che!” from several voices]. Now maybe not everybody can be a street fighter, I know that, but stay and support our efforts okay. Steve Sloan will now come up and tell us about tomorrow’s actions. Down with American imperialism! Down with the American war-machine! Long live the people’s struggles!”
*******
A warm California October 1981 day, a warm San Francisco day, not always the same thing despite the travel brochures, as I walk up to the small, jerry-rigged “podium” in a corner of City Hall Plaza to make my one hundred and first, or so it seems speech against the unfolding Reagan “doctrine” in Central America, primarily to blast the Soviet-aided Sandinista government to smithereens (and, incidentally the same to the pesky Salvadoran rebels). Overtly, or covertly, blast to smithereens it does not seem to matter to this rabidly anti-communist cabal who have nightmare visions of Cuba 1959 redux.
I am showing just the slightest sights of age, or rather of losing a certain youthful innocence about our capacity, our left-wing capacity, to build a more equitable society in my lifetime and so my demeanor is a little less the “shout to the rafters” jubilee certainty of ten years ago or so. Showing the age part does enter a little though but the few flecks of grey showing up unwanted in my beard, and in my now shortened hair, shortened against the work-a-day world, the nine-to-five grind that requires certain personal compromises. I still retain, fiercely retain, my working-class casual garb; denim jacket, black chino pants worn since de rigueur high school days, busted-blue work shirt (to show I am one with the companeros perhaps), and stolid black shoes better for walking these protest miles these days than the old Chuck Taylor's of old. Let’s listen up as the last speaker, a very eloquent young women speaking on behalf of the emerging sanctuary movement, a movement responding to the very real fears of some illegal political immigrants from all over Central and South America to be deported back to the “black hole” that awaits them if they have to go back, walks back to her chair:
“Hola, Que Tal, Hermanos and Hermanas, Hello, What’s Up, Brothers and Sisters, there is a madness in the land, in this Norte American land and it has a name. Ronald Reagan. And it has an address. Washington, D.C. And the madness? These cowboys, and you who lived here in California in the 1960s under the cowboy-in-chief know this better than I do, are hell-bent on turning back the clock on any social progress here, or anywhere. And just this minute that anywhere is Central America where we have just gained a victory, a tenuous victory against reaction in Nicaragua, and we are fighting like hell to get one in El Salvador. Long live the Sandinista struggle! Long live the FMLN! [Cheers and chanting of those two slogans]
But as long as American imperialism exists, as long as the greatest military machine in history exists, those steps forward are always in danger. And that is why the help that the Soviet Union is providing, and in my opinion not providing enough of, is important. I have my differences with the Soviets, no question, but on this one they are right, right as rain. [A couple of boos and a “Down with Soviet imperialism” are heard.] To keep the American monster from bringing back the banana republic days, the Somoza dictatorship days.
And that is why we need to keep clear who are friends are here in this proxy war, this proxy Cold War just like in Angola a while back. That is why we must call for stepped up Soviet aid and that is why we here in the “belly of the beast,” as Che used to say, need to take concrete steps to help by providing funds for the Sandinista cause. Their struggle is our struggle. If they lose, we lose. It is that simple. Long live the national liberation struggles. Fight for a Workers Republic in Nicaragua!”
*********
A christ cold day in January, an early January christ cold Park Street subway station on Boston Common 1991 day, the sun going down over the John Hancock building making it even more christ cold as we make a last ditch effort to stop the impending American imperial army (and so-called coalition forces but you know who is running the show) invasion of Iraq over “poor little Kuwait,” jesus. The few hundred people present are forming a circle, a circle of life according to those who insist on such antics, which I assume was meant to ward off the evil spirits and bring peace. Me, I prefer, greatly prefer some labor action, some longshoremen refusing to ship military goods but that is music for the future, maybe. What is not music for the future, and really music from the past, a certain then growing pains past, is that circles, squares, hexagons or whatever geometric shape you are now touting are now replacing the urgency of hard anti-imperialist actions against the American war machine. It is as if this “peace” movement has regressed to those 1961 days when I stood on this very ground and held hands with my line neighbor and spoke of “soft” peace in the world. But that was just youthful ignorance on my part. This christ cold night studied ignorance rules.
Those flecks of grey in beard and hair of ten years ago have marched on, marched on in triumph, although the garments are no longer aged (except of course those chinos, oops, Dockers now, a little larger, a little more room) as I take my turn “in the circle” to have my say after the last dozen speakers have cried to the heavens for peace, like that mantra would solve everything. Listen up to this crowd-pleaser:
“Nobody here should have anything but contempt for Saddam Hussein and what he has done in Kuwait. Let me make that clear, especially clear, since old Saddam used to be American imperialism’s “boy” back in the day when we all loved him, well almost all, okay. Now he is the devil incarnate since his has turned rogue and fouled up the American government’s cozy deals in the oil-rich Middle East.
But this impending war is not about Saddam or what he did or didn’t do to upset the apple cart in the “new world order” that Bush want to put in place. This is about the exercise of American military power, the vaunted war death machine and about American hubris. Now most of the previous speakers, in fact maybe all of them, have chimed in on the need for peace. And, of course, we all want peace, even George H.W. Bush, except his is the peace of the graveyard for the Iraqi people. So here in an America, here in what the great Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara called the “belly of the beast” have a special obligation to oppose the actions of this government. We are duty-bound to defend Iraq against American attack, no question. No question at all. Otherwise we cannot build an anti-war, anti-imperialist movement worthy of the name. The struggle starts here against this government. Down with American imperialism! Defend Iraq Against American Attack!” [Silence, utter silence]
**********
A late September 2001 Boston day, a day before the leaves begin to turn, before the whitened winter sets in but some time after the hellish 9/11 has fully taken its tool on whatever is left of American democracy. A small clot of anti-imperialist fighters is meeting this day in the courtyard quadrangle at Northeastern University to ward off the impending invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 and the search for scapegoats, Taliban/Al Qaeda scapegoats. Meeting at the traditional site of protest in Boston, the Common, is out of the question just now with the fury over the World Trade Center still not abated, no even close. Even this spot, this campus location, is shaky, very shaky, as all thoughts of anti-war, anti-imperialism by students and others have gone out the door. Revenge, revenge is the order of the day for all but this clot, this very small clot of activists standing with me.
Although, perhaps, on this occasion it does not matter, in the interest of literary completeness, the writer’s hair and beard are now completely grey and his garb not significantly different from that of ten years ago. What is different, significantly different from ten years ago is that, for one of the few times in his political career, he is afraid, afraid that he will be pummeled for what he has to say in this deeply hostile post 9/11 environment. That every “commie,” “go back to Russia,” get a job,” “Traitor,” remark of the past pales in the anger he can sense and not just from the usual yahoo sources but from “soccer moms” and others who think about politics about once every ten years. Cup your ear and listen up, listen up hard, because he has a catch in his voice this day:
“No one, not one self-respecting human on this planet can do anything but condemn, condemn in no uncertain terms, the criminal acts that took place in New York at the World Trade Center. That should be clear to all the few who hear me today. But there are larger questions posed, posed long ago by the American imperial state when their government decided, decided consciously to rip up and rule this planet for the few. None here, who were old enough, did anything but condemn the American invasion of Iraq in 1991, and the continuing imperialist-driven economic and military sanctions against that state.
Now we are here confronting another American imperial adventure, the revenge invasion of Afghanistan for the acts of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Organizations that we have no truck with, no truck at all. Over the years I have, and others whom I have worked with have, very easily condemned every act of American imperialist from Vietnam to Serbia, and done so forthrightly. On Afghanistan, and the military invasion this time, we have lost some of those former supporters. Revenge for innocent victims, even by an imperial monster, is hard to resist. But it must be said now if it to be said at all. Down with American imperialism! Hands Off Afghanistan!
To finish up. I have, over the years fought for many unpopular causes, from black civil rights down South facing off against hardened racists, to being called a “communist dupe (and worst)” for the whole range of anti-imperialist actions from Vietnam to Serbia. And I have done so, mainly, out on the streets of this country. Today though I am afraid, afraid for the first time in my long political career, to be out on these protest streets. Not of the hardened racists, not of the know-nothing red-baiters, but of ordinary citizens, friends, neighbors, and in some cases long-time political associates who look at me with hatred or distain. For the first time I thought about taking a political dive on this question of the American invasion of Afghanistan. No, no can do. Down with American imperialism, wherever it rears its ugly head. [Slight applause.]
*******
A fairly warm, fairly warm for mid-December 2011 Boston day turning into night at 4:00 PM standing once again somewhere between the Boston City Hall (now replete with huge circus tent for the latest carnival attraction, Peter Pan) and the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, named ironically, ironically for probably the first big time political figure that I could get my head around back in the day. Today, like many days past since youth I am standing here in opposition to some vile act that so-called “friends of the people” Democrats have done. Here the recent police occupation of the Occupy Boston space at Dewey Square in the name of, in the name of what, order I guess, their order. But I am also here to pass the torch, the torch of a revitalized labor movement that is beginning to stir with this day’s actions out in the West Coast of activists trying to shut down the ports. That is the glad tiding I bring today.
Of course the world has moved on since 2001. Now the populace, in a general and vague way, has repudiated the war in Afghanistan, although no the revenge motive that drove that original support. Economic strife rules the land and a new generation, or the best parts of it, are beginning to stake their claims in the political struggle through the
Occupy movement. A movement that exploded onto the political scene with the advent of Occupy Wall Street in mid-September.
Of course also, as I never tire of saying of late, each new generation must find its own forms of struggle, its own forms of organization, and its own voice. This Occupy movement, unlike other earlier ones, does not depend on trusty bullhorns to get the message out but the “people’s mic” and the very present “mic check” when one wants to speak to the general audience. This form centers on a loud voice and refrain from the crowd to get the speaker’s message to the outer fringes of the audience. Today I prefer the proffered “old-fashioned” bullhorn but after some fumbling I can see the benefits of the “new way” a little better for future reference. Here goes. Oh, just for the record the hair and beard are whiter, much whiter now. And the garb is replete with a pair of New Balance running shoes for easier walking since my knee operation. Farewell, Chuck Taylor’s, sandals and soft shoes. But listen up:
“I will read from prepared notes. Let me explain why. In the old days, my old street corner agitator days, I could whip up a speech off the top of my head. But of late, before the fresh breeze of the Occupy movement blew across the Boston waterfront, I was more used to sitting at tables in small, over-heated rooms. Or participating in small marches, rallies, and vigils where such oratorical skills were not in much demand. But let me get to my main point.
Sisters and brothers, brothers and sisters, no question, no question at all that the recent police occupation at Dewey Square was a big defeat, a big if temporary defeat, for our struggle for freedom of expression and assembly in the public square. In response, over the past few days not a few younger or newer activists, not used to the ebb and flow of the political struggle, the class struggle, have been disheartened and expressed a sense of defeat.
Today though I bring you glad tidings. The sleeping giant of the labor movement has begun to stir. The long night of despair and disorientation is beginning to lift. At the beginning of this year when the struggle of the public workers unions in Wisconsin heated up I, among others, proposed a general strike and solidarity rallies in order to beat back the anti-labor attacks. We were written off as mad men and women, old-time leftists gone off their rockers. General strike, shut down, no, that was okay for those Greek workers who seemed to strike every other day, or those French workers who struck every day. In America, never. And then came the mass actions in Wisconsin, the shut down of the Port Of Oakland on November 2nd, and today’s actions. Now we can quibble over whether such events are real general strikes or not but now the language of general strike and shutdown is firmly etched on labor’s political agenda.
The old Polish socialist scholar, Isaac Deutscher, once remarked back in the 1960s heyday of the anti-Vietnam War movement that he would give up all the endless marches, rallies and vigils for one dock strike against the war. He was right. We have to hit the war-mongers, the capitalists where it hurts-their profits and power. And today’s West Coast actions are proof of that proposition. If the age of the Occupy encampment has passed so too has the age of endless marches, rallies and vigils. They certainly have their place but now we must take the offensive. Now every action must be thought out to measure the effect on breaking the power of the one percent.
I had, several weeks ago, proposed to various people that we shut down the Port of Boston today in solidarity with the West Coast. That proposal was premature considering the situation in the Boston movement. But someday, someday soon, we too will be marching to shut down the port. To shut down GE in Lynn. To shut down the Bank of America. To shut down this government. And maybe not to just shut them down for a day either. I will leave you with this thought. We created the wealth-let’s take it back. Working people and their allies must rule!”
******
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend The Occupation Movement And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Occupy Protesters Everywhere!
*******
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
*******
Markin comment:
I have spent the better portion of my life fighting for one progressive cause or another, sometimes one issue, sometimes several issues in tandem. Mainly those fights have been with small crowds about, but not always. The always part is that throughout it all I have been ready, mostly ready anyway, to get up on the street corner soapbox, literally or figuratively as the case called for, and shout out, shout out until I was hoarse at times, the glad tidings of the new more equitable society a-bornin’. The following sketches are representative of those efforts although, except for the last sketch, they are not the actual words used but reflect the moments with a certain literary and political license.
*******
At the Parkman Bandstand on the Tremont Street side of the Boston Common or anyplace in between that location and the Park Street subway station on any one of several early weekday evenings in the summer of 1961. In those days time and space was reserved for anyone to speak from the ever present soapbox (literally a sturdy wooden box that one stood on to be hear above the crowd although the box used may, or may not, have started out life as a container for soap) about any subject that came to mind. Said speeches were, as now, directed to a small lingering audience and a larger indifference (or, occasionally hostile) audience glancing by as they quickly headed home, or went about their shopping business.
As we hone in on the scene the previous speaker, an elderly lady, small, very dignified, very well dressed, and very morally correct, had just finished up her remark sweetly railing against the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the name of her grandchildren’s future. The next speaker, a ragamuffin of a boy of fifteen, me, Peter Paul Markin, red-faced, Irish red-faced from over- exposure at the Adamsville Beach gotten a few days before, was ready to speak. His hands were sweaty, his bedraggled odd-ball Bargain Center purple shirt was wet with the summer humidity moisture that usually kept him indoors on such days, his pants, his de rigueur black chinos without cuffs were clinging to his off-shaped body as he leaped forward to the unknown on his maiden public speech on any subject. He starts a little timidly, weakly, and lowly and is asked to speak up by the few people who have stopped by that moment to listen up to what a mere boy had to say about anything:
“There is an evil in America, a terrible wrong going on right this minute down South, down in places like Alabama and Mississippi and we have to do something about it right now. Most of you have read the news, the news that kids, kids, just like me, except they are black are going up against the police so they do not have to be treated as second-class citizens, or really just to get out of slavery days. And older people too, people who work like slaves on the farms for no money, who can’t vote, can’t pay the money to vote, and can’t get out from under the racists who control their lives. They are fighting too, fighting as best they can under the great leadership of Doctor Martin Luther King who seems to know what he is doing. [From a passer-by: “Nigger-lover, go back to Africa with them, for chrissakes”]. No, no that man has it all wrong we were all born here and this is where the fight is. But you can see what we are up against and not just down South but here on the Common and over in my own hometown, North Adamsville.
Let me continue, although I am a little rattled by what that guy said. See he doesn’t know we are really fighting for him too. What I was trying to say was that we can do something here, here right now. You might have heard last winter that a bunch of college students down in North Carolina, a bunch of black kids and a few white ones too, tried to go eat lunch at Woolworth’s, a place just like the one over on Washington Street. A place where you probably have gone to eat just like me and had one of their great grilled cheese sandwiches, or something. Shouldn’t people be able to do that without being bothered? I want you to help us out by standing with us and do not eat at Woolworths’s okay. [Another voice, this time from the edge of the audience- “Commie, go back to Russia and take your kind with you.”] No, I ain’t no commie, no way, but you don’t have to be a commie to see that it just isn’t right that people can’t eat where they want, or go to school where want or vote just like us.
Let me finish up though so the next speaker can get his turn. What we really need to do is write to our beloved president, our own beloved Irish Jack Kennedy, who last fall when he was running for President I roamed the streets of North Adamsville for putting his literature in doorways and stuff, and tell him to sent his Justice Department people, his brother Bobby, down to Mississippi right now and straighten things out. Straighten things out so that Negros can have the same kind of dreams as he talked about in his inauguration speech in January. Will you do that? Thanks. [Sight applause and a few yeses] “
As I turned to get off the platform to give time to the next speaker from the back of the audience I heard a distinct voice, distinct black southern voice say in a low tone, “Praise be, brother, praise be.”
*******
I have put on my “soapbox” street corner agitation in many corners of this country since that first day going over the summer heated North Adamsville Bridge to Boston and my first Common speech in the summer of 1961. Just now on this May Day 1971 I am standing this Monday morning, wearily standing after very little sleep this past weekend, near the Washington Monument Mall haranguing a crowd of anti-Vietnam War protestors to keep pushing on although we have suffered a grievous defeat this day, a day when we had proclaimed with much bravado that if the government (the Nixon government just then) did not close down the war then we would close down the government. All we have received for our efforts is tears, tear-gas, and massive arrests after being picked off like fleas by the massive police and military presence and not even a close approximation of shutting down this evil government. But tomorrow, literally tomorrow, is another day, and the anti-warriors need some assurance that their efforts will be more fruitful the next day, and the next day, and next until we meet our goal. End that damn war, and end it fast.
I, Peter Paul Markin, this day only a few months out of an army stockade for my military service anti-war work, am again “courting” arrest on the streets of Washington. It is hot in Washington this day, made hotter by the constant running to avoid the cop traps that seem to be everywhere but I made it to the Mall which is something of a “safe haven” from the madness of the tear-gassed streets and baton-wielding cops. Appearance and attire: youth nation de rigueur army jacket (no, not the GI issue one that I was discharged from the service with but a “real” World War II Army-Navy Store purchase, two dollar purchase), bell-bottomed jeans, army boots (boots that I did leave said service with), a flannel shirt against cold nights, and a trusty green knapsack (not Army issue) with all my
possessions. Hair getting longer uncut from Army times and the wisp of a beard growing to manly length, slowly. My mother’s comment: “You dressed better, much better when you were in high school.” Ya Ma, but now it is cool to be unkempt-don’t you get it. But enough let’s listen to this harangue of the maybe hundred plus crowd seeking verbal shelter from the storm:
“Although I was in the military I do not know much about military strategy and tactics since I spent most of my time fighting against the war-machine including time in the stockade. [Audience; light applause] I do know this though we have suffered a defeat, a military-like defeat today in trying to shut down this evil government, this evil Nixon government which has no legitimacy, none at all and wouldn’t even be here if Bobby Kennedy was alive [Audience: a couple of deep boos] Don’t worry out there I am not going to go on about that. We have more pressing business. We still have to shut this evil government down. We have to stand with the heroic struggles of the Vietnamese people who are today, and every day, facing much more than tear-gas, much more than unlawful assembly arrest, facing everything that the American military monster can throw against them, and maybe more that we don’t even know about. Like that Agent-Orange stuff that we keep hearing about that is destroying everything in sight for years in a country that depends on agriculture. [Audience: Right on, brother].
When we take that kind of beating then we will be able to complain, complain a little, but not until then. [Right on!]. Now I know a lot of people have been talking about leaving D.C. because of what happened today but we said yesterday, a lot of us said we were in this for the long haul, right? [Yes, brother from a few voices] Hey I am afraid too. I don’t want to go back to jail, hell no, but if that is my fate then so be it. Like Che said we have to fight here “in the belly of the beast,” and we have to fight proudly since the fate of the earth depends on it. [“Viva, Che!” from several voices]. Now maybe not everybody can be a street fighter, I know that, but stay and support our efforts okay. Steve Sloan will now come up and tell us about tomorrow’s actions. Down with American imperialism! Down with the American war-machine! Long live the people’s struggles!”
*******
A warm California October 1981 day, a warm San Francisco day, not always the same thing despite the travel brochures, as I walk up to the small, jerry-rigged “podium” in a corner of City Hall Plaza to make my one hundred and first, or so it seems speech against the unfolding Reagan “doctrine” in Central America, primarily to blast the Soviet-aided Sandinista government to smithereens (and, incidentally the same to the pesky Salvadoran rebels). Overtly, or covertly, blast to smithereens it does not seem to matter to this rabidly anti-communist cabal who have nightmare visions of Cuba 1959 redux.
I am showing just the slightest sights of age, or rather of losing a certain youthful innocence about our capacity, our left-wing capacity, to build a more equitable society in my lifetime and so my demeanor is a little less the “shout to the rafters” jubilee certainty of ten years ago or so. Showing the age part does enter a little though but the few flecks of grey showing up unwanted in my beard, and in my now shortened hair, shortened against the work-a-day world, the nine-to-five grind that requires certain personal compromises. I still retain, fiercely retain, my working-class casual garb; denim jacket, black chino pants worn since de rigueur high school days, busted-blue work shirt (to show I am one with the companeros perhaps), and stolid black shoes better for walking these protest miles these days than the old Chuck Taylor's of old. Let’s listen up as the last speaker, a very eloquent young women speaking on behalf of the emerging sanctuary movement, a movement responding to the very real fears of some illegal political immigrants from all over Central and South America to be deported back to the “black hole” that awaits them if they have to go back, walks back to her chair:
“Hola, Que Tal, Hermanos and Hermanas, Hello, What’s Up, Brothers and Sisters, there is a madness in the land, in this Norte American land and it has a name. Ronald Reagan. And it has an address. Washington, D.C. And the madness? These cowboys, and you who lived here in California in the 1960s under the cowboy-in-chief know this better than I do, are hell-bent on turning back the clock on any social progress here, or anywhere. And just this minute that anywhere is Central America where we have just gained a victory, a tenuous victory against reaction in Nicaragua, and we are fighting like hell to get one in El Salvador. Long live the Sandinista struggle! Long live the FMLN! [Cheers and chanting of those two slogans]
But as long as American imperialism exists, as long as the greatest military machine in history exists, those steps forward are always in danger. And that is why the help that the Soviet Union is providing, and in my opinion not providing enough of, is important. I have my differences with the Soviets, no question, but on this one they are right, right as rain. [A couple of boos and a “Down with Soviet imperialism” are heard.] To keep the American monster from bringing back the banana republic days, the Somoza dictatorship days.
And that is why we need to keep clear who are friends are here in this proxy war, this proxy Cold War just like in Angola a while back. That is why we must call for stepped up Soviet aid and that is why we here in the “belly of the beast,” as Che used to say, need to take concrete steps to help by providing funds for the Sandinista cause. Their struggle is our struggle. If they lose, we lose. It is that simple. Long live the national liberation struggles. Fight for a Workers Republic in Nicaragua!”
*********
A christ cold day in January, an early January christ cold Park Street subway station on Boston Common 1991 day, the sun going down over the John Hancock building making it even more christ cold as we make a last ditch effort to stop the impending American imperial army (and so-called coalition forces but you know who is running the show) invasion of Iraq over “poor little Kuwait,” jesus. The few hundred people present are forming a circle, a circle of life according to those who insist on such antics, which I assume was meant to ward off the evil spirits and bring peace. Me, I prefer, greatly prefer some labor action, some longshoremen refusing to ship military goods but that is music for the future, maybe. What is not music for the future, and really music from the past, a certain then growing pains past, is that circles, squares, hexagons or whatever geometric shape you are now touting are now replacing the urgency of hard anti-imperialist actions against the American war machine. It is as if this “peace” movement has regressed to those 1961 days when I stood on this very ground and held hands with my line neighbor and spoke of “soft” peace in the world. But that was just youthful ignorance on my part. This christ cold night studied ignorance rules.
Those flecks of grey in beard and hair of ten years ago have marched on, marched on in triumph, although the garments are no longer aged (except of course those chinos, oops, Dockers now, a little larger, a little more room) as I take my turn “in the circle” to have my say after the last dozen speakers have cried to the heavens for peace, like that mantra would solve everything. Listen up to this crowd-pleaser:
“Nobody here should have anything but contempt for Saddam Hussein and what he has done in Kuwait. Let me make that clear, especially clear, since old Saddam used to be American imperialism’s “boy” back in the day when we all loved him, well almost all, okay. Now he is the devil incarnate since his has turned rogue and fouled up the American government’s cozy deals in the oil-rich Middle East.
But this impending war is not about Saddam or what he did or didn’t do to upset the apple cart in the “new world order” that Bush want to put in place. This is about the exercise of American military power, the vaunted war death machine and about American hubris. Now most of the previous speakers, in fact maybe all of them, have chimed in on the need for peace. And, of course, we all want peace, even George H.W. Bush, except his is the peace of the graveyard for the Iraqi people. So here in an America, here in what the great Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara called the “belly of the beast” have a special obligation to oppose the actions of this government. We are duty-bound to defend Iraq against American attack, no question. No question at all. Otherwise we cannot build an anti-war, anti-imperialist movement worthy of the name. The struggle starts here against this government. Down with American imperialism! Defend Iraq Against American Attack!” [Silence, utter silence]
**********
A late September 2001 Boston day, a day before the leaves begin to turn, before the whitened winter sets in but some time after the hellish 9/11 has fully taken its tool on whatever is left of American democracy. A small clot of anti-imperialist fighters is meeting this day in the courtyard quadrangle at Northeastern University to ward off the impending invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 and the search for scapegoats, Taliban/Al Qaeda scapegoats. Meeting at the traditional site of protest in Boston, the Common, is out of the question just now with the fury over the World Trade Center still not abated, no even close. Even this spot, this campus location, is shaky, very shaky, as all thoughts of anti-war, anti-imperialism by students and others have gone out the door. Revenge, revenge is the order of the day for all but this clot, this very small clot of activists standing with me.
Although, perhaps, on this occasion it does not matter, in the interest of literary completeness, the writer’s hair and beard are now completely grey and his garb not significantly different from that of ten years ago. What is different, significantly different from ten years ago is that, for one of the few times in his political career, he is afraid, afraid that he will be pummeled for what he has to say in this deeply hostile post 9/11 environment. That every “commie,” “go back to Russia,” get a job,” “Traitor,” remark of the past pales in the anger he can sense and not just from the usual yahoo sources but from “soccer moms” and others who think about politics about once every ten years. Cup your ear and listen up, listen up hard, because he has a catch in his voice this day:
“No one, not one self-respecting human on this planet can do anything but condemn, condemn in no uncertain terms, the criminal acts that took place in New York at the World Trade Center. That should be clear to all the few who hear me today. But there are larger questions posed, posed long ago by the American imperial state when their government decided, decided consciously to rip up and rule this planet for the few. None here, who were old enough, did anything but condemn the American invasion of Iraq in 1991, and the continuing imperialist-driven economic and military sanctions against that state.
Now we are here confronting another American imperial adventure, the revenge invasion of Afghanistan for the acts of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Organizations that we have no truck with, no truck at all. Over the years I have, and others whom I have worked with have, very easily condemned every act of American imperialist from Vietnam to Serbia, and done so forthrightly. On Afghanistan, and the military invasion this time, we have lost some of those former supporters. Revenge for innocent victims, even by an imperial monster, is hard to resist. But it must be said now if it to be said at all. Down with American imperialism! Hands Off Afghanistan!
To finish up. I have, over the years fought for many unpopular causes, from black civil rights down South facing off against hardened racists, to being called a “communist dupe (and worst)” for the whole range of anti-imperialist actions from Vietnam to Serbia. And I have done so, mainly, out on the streets of this country. Today though I am afraid, afraid for the first time in my long political career, to be out on these protest streets. Not of the hardened racists, not of the know-nothing red-baiters, but of ordinary citizens, friends, neighbors, and in some cases long-time political associates who look at me with hatred or distain. For the first time I thought about taking a political dive on this question of the American invasion of Afghanistan. No, no can do. Down with American imperialism, wherever it rears its ugly head. [Slight applause.]
*******
A fairly warm, fairly warm for mid-December 2011 Boston day turning into night at 4:00 PM standing once again somewhere between the Boston City Hall (now replete with huge circus tent for the latest carnival attraction, Peter Pan) and the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, named ironically, ironically for probably the first big time political figure that I could get my head around back in the day. Today, like many days past since youth I am standing here in opposition to some vile act that so-called “friends of the people” Democrats have done. Here the recent police occupation of the Occupy Boston space at Dewey Square in the name of, in the name of what, order I guess, their order. But I am also here to pass the torch, the torch of a revitalized labor movement that is beginning to stir with this day’s actions out in the West Coast of activists trying to shut down the ports. That is the glad tiding I bring today.
Of course the world has moved on since 2001. Now the populace, in a general and vague way, has repudiated the war in Afghanistan, although no the revenge motive that drove that original support. Economic strife rules the land and a new generation, or the best parts of it, are beginning to stake their claims in the political struggle through the
Occupy movement. A movement that exploded onto the political scene with the advent of Occupy Wall Street in mid-September.
Of course also, as I never tire of saying of late, each new generation must find its own forms of struggle, its own forms of organization, and its own voice. This Occupy movement, unlike other earlier ones, does not depend on trusty bullhorns to get the message out but the “people’s mic” and the very present “mic check” when one wants to speak to the general audience. This form centers on a loud voice and refrain from the crowd to get the speaker’s message to the outer fringes of the audience. Today I prefer the proffered “old-fashioned” bullhorn but after some fumbling I can see the benefits of the “new way” a little better for future reference. Here goes. Oh, just for the record the hair and beard are whiter, much whiter now. And the garb is replete with a pair of New Balance running shoes for easier walking since my knee operation. Farewell, Chuck Taylor’s, sandals and soft shoes. But listen up:
“I will read from prepared notes. Let me explain why. In the old days, my old street corner agitator days, I could whip up a speech off the top of my head. But of late, before the fresh breeze of the Occupy movement blew across the Boston waterfront, I was more used to sitting at tables in small, over-heated rooms. Or participating in small marches, rallies, and vigils where such oratorical skills were not in much demand. But let me get to my main point.
Sisters and brothers, brothers and sisters, no question, no question at all that the recent police occupation at Dewey Square was a big defeat, a big if temporary defeat, for our struggle for freedom of expression and assembly in the public square. In response, over the past few days not a few younger or newer activists, not used to the ebb and flow of the political struggle, the class struggle, have been disheartened and expressed a sense of defeat.
Today though I bring you glad tidings. The sleeping giant of the labor movement has begun to stir. The long night of despair and disorientation is beginning to lift. At the beginning of this year when the struggle of the public workers unions in Wisconsin heated up I, among others, proposed a general strike and solidarity rallies in order to beat back the anti-labor attacks. We were written off as mad men and women, old-time leftists gone off their rockers. General strike, shut down, no, that was okay for those Greek workers who seemed to strike every other day, or those French workers who struck every day. In America, never. And then came the mass actions in Wisconsin, the shut down of the Port Of Oakland on November 2nd, and today’s actions. Now we can quibble over whether such events are real general strikes or not but now the language of general strike and shutdown is firmly etched on labor’s political agenda.
The old Polish socialist scholar, Isaac Deutscher, once remarked back in the 1960s heyday of the anti-Vietnam War movement that he would give up all the endless marches, rallies and vigils for one dock strike against the war. He was right. We have to hit the war-mongers, the capitalists where it hurts-their profits and power. And today’s West Coast actions are proof of that proposition. If the age of the Occupy encampment has passed so too has the age of endless marches, rallies and vigils. They certainly have their place but now we must take the offensive. Now every action must be thought out to measure the effect on breaking the power of the one percent.
I had, several weeks ago, proposed to various people that we shut down the Port of Boston today in solidarity with the West Coast. That proposal was premature considering the situation in the Boston movement. But someday, someday soon, we too will be marching to shut down the port. To shut down GE in Lynn. To shut down the Bank of America. To shut down this government. And maybe not to just shut them down for a day either. I will leave you with this thought. We created the wealth-let’s take it back. Working people and their allies must rule!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)