Click on the headline to link to a the Private Bradley Manning Petition website page.
Markin comment:
The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a fall trial. Those of us who support his cause should redouble our efforts to secure his freedom. For the past several months there has been a weekly vigil in Greater Boston across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the vigil’s duration) in Somerville from 1:00-2:00 PM on Fridays. This vigil has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly vigil in some location in your town whether it is in the Boston area or Berkeley. And please sign the petition for his release. I have placed links to the Manning Network and Manning Square website below.
Bradley Manning Support Network
http://www.bradleymanning.org/
Manning Square website
http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/
The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Bradley Manning’s cause.
Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of, Private Bradley Manning.
We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq War timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning.
I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.
I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.
These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.
Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Free Bradley Manning Now!
************
"God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms...
I want people to see the truth... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."
—online chat attributed to Army RFC Bradley Manning
Accused Wikileaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning,
a 23-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, is accused of sharing a video of the killing of civilians— including two Reuters journalists—by a US helicopter in Baghdad, Iraq with the Wikileaks website.
He is also charged with blowing the whistle on the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and revealing US diplomatic cables. In short, he's been charged with telling us the truth.
The video and documents have illuminated the true number and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, human rights abuses by U.S.-funded contractors and foreign militaries, and the role that spying and brines play in international diplomacy.
Half of every edition of The New York Times has cited one or more of these documents during the past year. The leaks have caused Amnesty International to hail Wikileaks for catalyzing the democratic middle eastern revolutions and changing journalism forever.
What happens now is up to YOU!
Never before in U.S. history has someone been charged with "Aiding the enemy through indirect means" by making information public.
A massive; popular outpouring of support for Bradley Manning is needed to save his life.
We are at a turning point in our nation's history. Will we as a public demand greater transparency and accountability from pur elected leaders? Will we be governed by fear and secrecy? Will we accept endless war fought with our tax dollars? Or, will we demand the right to know the truth—the real foundation of democracy.
Here are some actions you should take now to support Bradley:
» Visitwww.standwithbrad.org to sign the petition. Then join our photo petition at iam.bradleymanning.org
» Join our facebook page, savebradley,
to receive campaign updates, and follow SaveBradley on twitter
» Visitwww.bradleymanning.org and
download our Organizer Toolkit to learn howyou can educate community members, gain media attention, and donate toward Bradley's defense.
The People Have the Right to Know...
Visit wvwv.braclleymaiiniiig.org to learn howyou can take action!
************
What did WikiLeaks reveal?
.
"In no case shall information be classified... in order to: conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency... or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security."
—Executive Order 13526, Sec. 7.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations
"Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is this awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest."
—Robert Gates, Unites States Secretary of Defense
PFC Bradley Manning is a US Army intelligence specialist who is accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks, an organization that he allegedly understood would release portions of the information to news organizations and ultimately to the public.
Was the information that PFC Manning is accused of leaking classified for our protection and national security, as government officials contend? Or do the revelations provide the American public with information that we should have had access to in the first place? Just
what are these revelations? Below are some key facts that PFC Manning is accused of making public.
There is an official policy to ignore torture in Iraq.
The "Iraq War Logs" published by WikiLeaks revealed that thousands of reports of prisoner abuse and torture had been filed against the Iraqi Security Forces. Medical evidence detailed how prisoners had been whipped with heavy cables across the feet, hung from ceiling hooks, suffered holes being bored into their legs with electric drills, urinated upon, and sexually assaulted. These logs also revealed the existence of "Frago 242,"an order implemented in 2004 not to investigate allegations of abuse against the. Iraqi government This order is a direct violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, which was ratified by the United States in 1994. The Convention prohibits the Armed Forces from transferring a detainee to other countries "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." According to the State Department's own reports, the U.S. government was already aware that the Iraqi Security Forces engaged in torture (1).
U.S. officials were told to cover up evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan.
U.S. defense contractors were brought under much tighter supervision after leaked diplomatic cables revealed that they had been complicit in child trafficking activities. DynCorp — a powerful defense contracting firm that claims almost $2 billion per year in revenue from U.S. tax dollars — threw a party for Afghan security recruits featuring boys purchased from child traffickers for entertainment. DynCorp had already faced human trafficking charges before this incident took place. According to the cables, Afghan Interior minister HanifAtmar urged the assistant US ambassadorto"quash"the story.These revelations have been a driving factor behind recent calls for the removal of all U.S. defense contractors from Afghanistan (2).
Guantanamo prison has held mostly innocent people and low-level operatives.
The Guantanamo Files describe how detainees were arrested based on what the New York Times referred to as highly subjective evidence. For example, some poor farmers were captured after they were found wearing a common watch or a jacket that was the same as those also worn by Al Queda operatives. How quickly innocent prisoners were released was heavily dependent on their country of origin. Because the evidence collected against Guantanamo prisoners is not permissible in U.S. courts, the U.S. State Department has offered millions of dollars to other countries to take and try our prisoners. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable written on April 17, 2009, the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners requested that the National Court indict six former U.S. officials for creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture against five Spanish prisoners. However,"Senator Mel Martinez... met Acting FM [Foreign Minister] AngelLossada... on April 15. Martinez... -underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship"(3).
There is an official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even though the Bush and Obama Administrations maintained publicly that there was no official count of civilian casualties, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs showed that this claim was false. Between 2004 and 2009, the U.S. government counted a total of 109,000 deaths in Iraq, with 66,081 classified as non-combatants. This means that for every Iraqi death that is classified as a combatant, two innocent men, women or children are also killed (4),
FOOTNOTES:
(1)Alex Spillius, "Wikileaks: Iraq War Logs show US ignored torture allega-
tions,"Telegraph, October 22,2010. http://www.telegrapti.co.uk/news/
woridnews/middleeast/iraq/8082223/WiMleab-lraq-War-Logs-show-US-
ignored-torture-allegations.html.
(2)foreign contractors hired Afghan 'dancing boys; WikiLeaks cable
reveals'guanJian.co.uk, December 2,2010, http://www.guardian.co.tik/
world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys
(3) Scott Shane and Benjamin Weiser.The Guatanamo Files: Judging Detainees'Risk, Often With Rawed Evidence'New York Times, April 24,2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/2S/world/guantanamo-files-flawed-evidence-for-assessing-risk.html;'US embassy cables: Don't pursue Guantanamo criminal case, says Spanish attorney general'guardian.co.uk, December 1,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776.
(4) Iraq War Logs Reveal 15,000 Previously Unlisted Civilian Deaths,' guard-ian.co.uk, October 22,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/won'd/2010/ oct/22/true-civilian-body-count-iraq
Thursday, May 10, 2012
From Smedley Butler Veterans For Peace-Veterans Peace Team, face to face with police on May Day
OCCUPY SPRING
Veterans Peace Team, face to face with police on May Day
by Nathan Schneider | May 4, 2012, 4:12 pm
Tarak Kauff of Veterans Peace Team holds Veterans for Peace flag while awaiting arrest on May 1. Photo by J.A. Myerson, via Twitter.
Unlike some of Occupy Wall Street’s iconic actions in recent months, May Day did not include a scene of mass arrest. Several dozen arrests were scattered throughout the day and night during various marches and actions. But, as never before in the movement’s short history, arrests of military veterans in particular featured prominently.
The day’s first arrest was of OWS regular Bill Steyert, who momentarily blocked the intersection at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, waving a yellow flag, just as the morning “99 Pickets” actions were beginning. Among the last and most dramatic arrests were of members of the newly-formed Veterans Peace Team, at a memorial dedicated to Vietnam veterans.
As night fell and tens of thousands of marchers arrived at New York’s Financial District, police blockades thwarted Occupiers’ plans to hold an after-party in Battery Park. Those who remained gathered instead at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza on Water Street. A drum circle played, while others formed a large assembly in the round, amplifying each other’s voices with the “people’s mic.” There, Tarak Kauff, a founder of Veterans Peace Team and a longtime Veterans for Peace member, announced that his group would stand on the front lines before the police, who were already surrounding the area by the hundreds. Referring to the environmental crisis and the prolonged wars on behalf of powerful interests, he told the crowd, “We are in a fight for survival.”
Kauff and seven other Veterans Peace Team members, along with two clergymen, would be arrested within the hour, holding their ground at the memorial.
Veterans Peace Team began organizing and training late last year, as a wave of evictions and violent repression against the Occupy movement spread across the United States. Their first mission, however, was abroad — in support of those resisting the construction of a military base on South Korea’s Jeju Island. The South Korean government deemed these American veterans enough of a threat to warrant deporting them from the country upon arrival.
In late March, Veterans Peace Team took part in an OWS march against police brutality, and its members have been in ongoing discussions with the OWS Direct Action Working Group before that and since. Symbolic arrests like what Veterans Peace Team practiced on May Day, along with the recent “Cardboard Roses” civil disobedience actions on Wall Street, have been part of OWS’ ongoing search for the means, post-encampment, to make its message heard and resonate.
After his release from police custody, I spoke with Tarak Kauff about the action.
What led Veterans Peace Team to join Occupy Wall Street on May Day?
A number of us have been involved in the Occupy movement since, well, before the beginning, and we had been following the organizing leading up to May Day. We say in our statement of purpose, “As veterans, we stand with the Occupy movement as members of the 99 percent and oppose any and all use of force by police against peaceful protesters exercising their right to peaceably assemble to seek redress of grievances.” We were aware of the potential for police violence and wanted to be on the scene both as people participating in May Day and also as U.S. military veterans and allies to stand, if needed and requested, as a front line facing the police.
Did you know that you’d be arrested that day? Did you have an idea of what the circumstances would be?
We were aware of the possibility of arrest but were not specifically looking to be arrested. We actually did not have any idea how this would play out but were on call in case of a situation where police repression seemed imminent. I don’t think anyone knew how this would eventually evolve, as the police were calling the shots, erecting barricades and directing the march where they wanted it to go. It wound up at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza, an appropriate place for us to take a stand.
You spoke to a large assembly there as people were discussing whether or not to stay past the 10 p.m. closure of the memorial. What did you think when others didn’t seem to be staying? What did you do?
At the assembly it initially looked like the crowd was determined to stay, so we made the decision to stand as a front-line buffer between the police and the Occupiers. We had already lined up with two of the clergy from Occupy Faith, one of whom was a Vietnam veteran, and at that point we were committed. But, just a few moments before the police moved in, we were told that the crowd was leaving. Though we probably had time to change our minds, we felt it would not be appropriate at that point to leave. We had every right to be where we were and stand there. I could understand the Occupiers leaving; the police presence was massive and there was a possibility of arrests and violence from the police. A lot of these kids have been roughed up before and the prospect of a day or two in the Tombs is not appealing. I think it would have been great if they stayed, but I don’t blame them for leaving.
How did the police treat you? Do you think they treated you any differently for being veterans?
They treated us generally with respect. I think there were a few factors — firstly, that we were veterans, secondly, that we obviously were not resisting and, thirdly, that our attitude was not confrontational or angry, just determined. We recognize that they are human beings. We understand fully that the police protect the interests of the ruling elite or the 1 percent, but we treat them as individuals, not as enemies. I often see that many of them have considerable anger, fear and the capacity to be brutal, but there are also many who are good, decent people who sympathize with the Occupy movement. You can see it in their faces and in how they act. We were lucky; the cops who made the arrests were all pretty decent, and a few of them even expressed considerable sympathy for the Occupy movement during the booking process.
Why is it so important to have a group composed mainly of veterans? Is it more a matter of who veterans are, or of how they tend to operate?
For whatever strange reason, veterans of military service get a certain amount of respect and credibility from the public. Often, even the police will say, “Thank you for your service.” Many police officers are vets and identify with us, so our presence could discourage violence on their part. If not, then the world will see the system using violence on its own military veterans. Of course, we realize that while in the military we were actually serving the 1 percent, who profit off of war and exploitation. Because of that, when we now denounce war and its many attendant evils, people tend to realize that many of us are speaking and acting from experience. So it’s more a matter of who we are than anything else. I think that anyone can operate with discipline, purpose and integrity. You don’t have to be a vet. Some of our best members are non-veteran allies.
Do you have plans for future actions?
Yes. We will be in Chicago at the NATO protests, and we have a letter for NATO which we intend to deliver in person. If we are stopped at the barricades, we will stay there without anger or hatred, face to face with the police state.
Veterans Peace Team, face to face with police on May Day
by Nathan Schneider | May 4, 2012, 4:12 pm
Tarak Kauff of Veterans Peace Team holds Veterans for Peace flag while awaiting arrest on May 1. Photo by J.A. Myerson, via Twitter.
Unlike some of Occupy Wall Street’s iconic actions in recent months, May Day did not include a scene of mass arrest. Several dozen arrests were scattered throughout the day and night during various marches and actions. But, as never before in the movement’s short history, arrests of military veterans in particular featured prominently.
The day’s first arrest was of OWS regular Bill Steyert, who momentarily blocked the intersection at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, waving a yellow flag, just as the morning “99 Pickets” actions were beginning. Among the last and most dramatic arrests were of members of the newly-formed Veterans Peace Team, at a memorial dedicated to Vietnam veterans.
As night fell and tens of thousands of marchers arrived at New York’s Financial District, police blockades thwarted Occupiers’ plans to hold an after-party in Battery Park. Those who remained gathered instead at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza on Water Street. A drum circle played, while others formed a large assembly in the round, amplifying each other’s voices with the “people’s mic.” There, Tarak Kauff, a founder of Veterans Peace Team and a longtime Veterans for Peace member, announced that his group would stand on the front lines before the police, who were already surrounding the area by the hundreds. Referring to the environmental crisis and the prolonged wars on behalf of powerful interests, he told the crowd, “We are in a fight for survival.”
Kauff and seven other Veterans Peace Team members, along with two clergymen, would be arrested within the hour, holding their ground at the memorial.
Veterans Peace Team began organizing and training late last year, as a wave of evictions and violent repression against the Occupy movement spread across the United States. Their first mission, however, was abroad — in support of those resisting the construction of a military base on South Korea’s Jeju Island. The South Korean government deemed these American veterans enough of a threat to warrant deporting them from the country upon arrival.
In late March, Veterans Peace Team took part in an OWS march against police brutality, and its members have been in ongoing discussions with the OWS Direct Action Working Group before that and since. Symbolic arrests like what Veterans Peace Team practiced on May Day, along with the recent “Cardboard Roses” civil disobedience actions on Wall Street, have been part of OWS’ ongoing search for the means, post-encampment, to make its message heard and resonate.
After his release from police custody, I spoke with Tarak Kauff about the action.
What led Veterans Peace Team to join Occupy Wall Street on May Day?
A number of us have been involved in the Occupy movement since, well, before the beginning, and we had been following the organizing leading up to May Day. We say in our statement of purpose, “As veterans, we stand with the Occupy movement as members of the 99 percent and oppose any and all use of force by police against peaceful protesters exercising their right to peaceably assemble to seek redress of grievances.” We were aware of the potential for police violence and wanted to be on the scene both as people participating in May Day and also as U.S. military veterans and allies to stand, if needed and requested, as a front line facing the police.
Did you know that you’d be arrested that day? Did you have an idea of what the circumstances would be?
We were aware of the possibility of arrest but were not specifically looking to be arrested. We actually did not have any idea how this would play out but were on call in case of a situation where police repression seemed imminent. I don’t think anyone knew how this would eventually evolve, as the police were calling the shots, erecting barricades and directing the march where they wanted it to go. It wound up at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza, an appropriate place for us to take a stand.
You spoke to a large assembly there as people were discussing whether or not to stay past the 10 p.m. closure of the memorial. What did you think when others didn’t seem to be staying? What did you do?
At the assembly it initially looked like the crowd was determined to stay, so we made the decision to stand as a front-line buffer between the police and the Occupiers. We had already lined up with two of the clergy from Occupy Faith, one of whom was a Vietnam veteran, and at that point we were committed. But, just a few moments before the police moved in, we were told that the crowd was leaving. Though we probably had time to change our minds, we felt it would not be appropriate at that point to leave. We had every right to be where we were and stand there. I could understand the Occupiers leaving; the police presence was massive and there was a possibility of arrests and violence from the police. A lot of these kids have been roughed up before and the prospect of a day or two in the Tombs is not appealing. I think it would have been great if they stayed, but I don’t blame them for leaving.
How did the police treat you? Do you think they treated you any differently for being veterans?
They treated us generally with respect. I think there were a few factors — firstly, that we were veterans, secondly, that we obviously were not resisting and, thirdly, that our attitude was not confrontational or angry, just determined. We recognize that they are human beings. We understand fully that the police protect the interests of the ruling elite or the 1 percent, but we treat them as individuals, not as enemies. I often see that many of them have considerable anger, fear and the capacity to be brutal, but there are also many who are good, decent people who sympathize with the Occupy movement. You can see it in their faces and in how they act. We were lucky; the cops who made the arrests were all pretty decent, and a few of them even expressed considerable sympathy for the Occupy movement during the booking process.
Why is it so important to have a group composed mainly of veterans? Is it more a matter of who veterans are, or of how they tend to operate?
For whatever strange reason, veterans of military service get a certain amount of respect and credibility from the public. Often, even the police will say, “Thank you for your service.” Many police officers are vets and identify with us, so our presence could discourage violence on their part. If not, then the world will see the system using violence on its own military veterans. Of course, we realize that while in the military we were actually serving the 1 percent, who profit off of war and exploitation. Because of that, when we now denounce war and its many attendant evils, people tend to realize that many of us are speaking and acting from experience. So it’s more a matter of who we are than anything else. I think that anyone can operate with discipline, purpose and integrity. You don’t have to be a vet. Some of our best members are non-veteran allies.
Do you have plans for future actions?
Yes. We will be in Chicago at the NATO protests, and we have a letter for NATO which we intend to deliver in person. If we are stopped at the barricades, we will stay there without anger or hatred, face to face with the police state.
Budget for All!-The Massachusetts Referendum to Stop the Cuts • Invest in Jobs • Tax the 1% • End the Wars
Markin comment:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.
************
Budget for All!-The Massachusetts Referendum to Stop the Cuts • Invest in Jobs • Tax the 1% • End the Wars
Tell Your State Rep
Whom do we talk to next? After the energizing campaign kickoff on Sunday everyone's out there talking to neighbors and co-workers. But one group of decision makers also needs to hear from us: your state rep. and senator. You can find your legislator by clicking on this link. Watch this space for a list of key points to raise with them.
Our Question
Shall the state Representative (or Senator) from this district be instructed to vote in favor of a resolution calling upon the Congress and the President to:
1. Prevent cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans benefits, or to housing, food and unemployment assistance;
2. Create and protect jobs by investing in manufacturing, schools, housing, renewable energy, transportation and other public services;
3. Provide new revenues for these purposes and to reduce the long-term federal deficit by closing corporate tax loopholes, ending offshore tax havens, and raising taxes on incomes over $250,000; and
4. Redirect military spending to these domestic needs by reducing the military budget, ending the war in Afghanistan and bringing U.S. troops home safely now.
Write a Letter! Bring Common Sense to Budget Conversations
There's a whole lot of crazy talk in Washington about the budget. The House even passed a bill further cutting programs for working people so that they can fund weapon systems! So it's time to turn the conversation around, says campaigner Paul Shannon, "with a letter writing drive that let's the public know about the costs of Washington's priorities and tells them about the Budget-for-All signature gathering."
The campaign has provided a sample text that can be copied from this webpage or simply downloaded (both files have the same text, one is in Word format and the other is a plain text) and modified by you. Click on "read more" below for the letter and to download the files.
Read more about Write a Letter! Bring Common Sense to Budget Conversations.
Boston area outreach this weekend
Tue, 05/08/2012 - 17:45. | cole.
Join one of these groups as we gather petition signatures this weekend!
Saturday, May 12
Cambridge: 10am. Meet at Au Bon Pain, 684 Massachusetts Ave., near Central Square. Contact Mass. Peace Action or Paul Shannon at AFSC to sign up.
Brookline: 12:00 noon-1pm. Meet at Coolidge Corner and look for the multi-colored peace flags. Contact Frank Farlow to sign up, or just come by.
Sunday, May 13
Dorchester: 7:15am. Collect signatures at the Mother's Day Walk for Peace. Meet with Dorchester People for Peace at Town Field, Fields Corner.
Newton: 1pm. Spring Fair, at City Hall, 1000 Commonwealth Ave. Meet at the Newton Dialogues on Peace & War table.
Sign up on the volunteer form.
Only the signatures of registered voters are valid, others don’t count. (The voter may fill in a registration card and sign the petition on the same day.)
Collect only signatures from one city or town on any given petition page (print the name of that city or town in the space at the bottom).
Signatures from another city or town must be written on a different petition form designated for that city or town.
Collect only signatures from one State Rep or State Senate district on any given petition page. Be sure you know the exact boundaries of the district you are collecting for before you go out. Check our Targeted Districts list if necessary.
A district might contain some complete towns and some partial towns. For the partial towns, you'll need a map or street list in order to find out whether a given voter's address is in your district!
Using a laptop or smartphone, you can also go to wheredoivotema.org to find out which district a given address is in. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom where it says "New District Information".
Petitions are ready! Pick them up at:
Mass. Alliance of HUD Tenants, 42 Seaverns Ave., Jamaica Plain. Contact Michael Kane, michaelkane@saveourhomes.org, 617-233-1885
American Friends Service Committee (starting 4/27), 2161 Masschusetts Ave., Cambridge. Contact Paul Shannon, pshannon@afsc.org, 617-661-6130 (w) or 617 623 5288 (h).
American Friends Service Committee (starting appx. 5/3), 2 Conz St. Suite 2B, Northampton. Contact Jeff Napolitano, jnapolitano@afsc.org, 413-584-8975
To add your organization’s name to the list of endorsers, fill in this form.
Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/245861088845210/.
Download and print the referendum flyer.
See the lists of districts we are targeting and those in which we need coordinators here. District maps are available here.
Can you help collect signatures? Volunteers are needed across the Commonwealth to gather 200 signatures per state representative district between April 26 and July 3. If you are interested in helping out, sign up here or contact one of the above names.
The Referendum Kick-Off Meeting will be held Sunday, May 6, 2-5 p.m. at Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave, 5th Floor, Boston. Take the T to Chinatown station.
We will live-stream the meeting for those who cannot attend in person. The stream will be on http://masspeaceaction.org/1980 and will also be available afterwards.
The meeting will include training on:
1) The policy issues which the Referendum addresses, and on how to talk to voters about those messages
2) How to gather signatures correctly. Registered voters. Districts. Voter file lists.
3) Review of the districts we are targeting, and what the members attending the meeting can plug in.
Also, a Referendum Planning Meeting will be held every Friday at 3-5 p.m. Contact Paul Shannon, pshannon@afsc.org, for details.
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.
************
Budget for All!-The Massachusetts Referendum to Stop the Cuts • Invest in Jobs • Tax the 1% • End the Wars
Tell Your State Rep
Whom do we talk to next? After the energizing campaign kickoff on Sunday everyone's out there talking to neighbors and co-workers. But one group of decision makers also needs to hear from us: your state rep. and senator. You can find your legislator by clicking on this link. Watch this space for a list of key points to raise with them.
Our Question
Shall the state Representative (or Senator) from this district be instructed to vote in favor of a resolution calling upon the Congress and the President to:
1. Prevent cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans benefits, or to housing, food and unemployment assistance;
2. Create and protect jobs by investing in manufacturing, schools, housing, renewable energy, transportation and other public services;
3. Provide new revenues for these purposes and to reduce the long-term federal deficit by closing corporate tax loopholes, ending offshore tax havens, and raising taxes on incomes over $250,000; and
4. Redirect military spending to these domestic needs by reducing the military budget, ending the war in Afghanistan and bringing U.S. troops home safely now.
Write a Letter! Bring Common Sense to Budget Conversations
There's a whole lot of crazy talk in Washington about the budget. The House even passed a bill further cutting programs for working people so that they can fund weapon systems! So it's time to turn the conversation around, says campaigner Paul Shannon, "with a letter writing drive that let's the public know about the costs of Washington's priorities and tells them about the Budget-for-All signature gathering."
The campaign has provided a sample text that can be copied from this webpage or simply downloaded (both files have the same text, one is in Word format and the other is a plain text) and modified by you. Click on "read more" below for the letter and to download the files.
Read more about Write a Letter! Bring Common Sense to Budget Conversations.
Boston area outreach this weekend
Tue, 05/08/2012 - 17:45. | cole.
Join one of these groups as we gather petition signatures this weekend!
Saturday, May 12
Cambridge: 10am. Meet at Au Bon Pain, 684 Massachusetts Ave., near Central Square. Contact Mass. Peace Action or Paul Shannon at AFSC to sign up.
Brookline: 12:00 noon-1pm. Meet at Coolidge Corner and look for the multi-colored peace flags. Contact Frank Farlow to sign up, or just come by.
Sunday, May 13
Dorchester: 7:15am. Collect signatures at the Mother's Day Walk for Peace. Meet with Dorchester People for Peace at Town Field, Fields Corner.
Newton: 1pm. Spring Fair, at City Hall, 1000 Commonwealth Ave. Meet at the Newton Dialogues on Peace & War table.
Sign up on the volunteer form.
Only the signatures of registered voters are valid, others don’t count. (The voter may fill in a registration card and sign the petition on the same day.)
Collect only signatures from one city or town on any given petition page (print the name of that city or town in the space at the bottom).
Signatures from another city or town must be written on a different petition form designated for that city or town.
Collect only signatures from one State Rep or State Senate district on any given petition page. Be sure you know the exact boundaries of the district you are collecting for before you go out. Check our Targeted Districts list if necessary.
A district might contain some complete towns and some partial towns. For the partial towns, you'll need a map or street list in order to find out whether a given voter's address is in your district!
Using a laptop or smartphone, you can also go to wheredoivotema.org to find out which district a given address is in. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom where it says "New District Information".
Petitions are ready! Pick them up at:
Mass. Alliance of HUD Tenants, 42 Seaverns Ave., Jamaica Plain. Contact Michael Kane, michaelkane@saveourhomes.org, 617-233-1885
American Friends Service Committee (starting 4/27), 2161 Masschusetts Ave., Cambridge. Contact Paul Shannon, pshannon@afsc.org, 617-661-6130 (w) or 617 623 5288 (h).
American Friends Service Committee (starting appx. 5/3), 2 Conz St. Suite 2B, Northampton. Contact Jeff Napolitano, jnapolitano@afsc.org, 413-584-8975
To add your organization’s name to the list of endorsers, fill in this form.
Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/245861088845210/.
Download and print the referendum flyer.
See the lists of districts we are targeting and those in which we need coordinators here. District maps are available here.
Can you help collect signatures? Volunteers are needed across the Commonwealth to gather 200 signatures per state representative district between April 26 and July 3. If you are interested in helping out, sign up here or contact one of the above names.
The Referendum Kick-Off Meeting will be held Sunday, May 6, 2-5 p.m. at Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave, 5th Floor, Boston. Take the T to Chinatown station.
We will live-stream the meeting for those who cannot attend in person. The stream will be on http://masspeaceaction.org/1980 and will also be available afterwards.
The meeting will include training on:
1) The policy issues which the Referendum addresses, and on how to talk to voters about those messages
2) How to gather signatures correctly. Registered voters. Districts. Voter file lists.
3) Review of the districts we are targeting, and what the members attending the meeting can plug in.
Also, a Referendum Planning Meeting will be held every Friday at 3-5 p.m. Contact Paul Shannon, pshannon@afsc.org, for details.
In Boston-From The Smedley Butler Veterans For Peace-The Mothers Day Walk for Peace In Dorchester-May 13th
Smedleys,
Please mark the following dates and please read this e-mail
Sunday, May 13 – Mothers Day March for Peace – Dorchester (see info below)
Monday, May 14 – Smedley Monthly Meeting – St. Peters Episcopal, Cambridge
Monday, May 28 – Memorial Day Event – Christopher Columbus Park, Boston
Sunday, June 3 – Dorchester Parade – Dorchester
June 8 & 9 – Smedley Get-a-Way – York Beace Maine.
We recognize there are a number of activities we are involved within the next month.
Please try and participate in as many of the above activities that you can. We realize there are two events in Dorchester, three weeks apart. One is the Mothers Day March for Peace and the other is the Dorchester Parade. Both are important, if you can only make one, we suggest the Dorchester Parade. There are tens of thousands watching this parade, it will be an excellent opportunity to get our message of peace out to all these folks. The Smedleys used to have a pretty good contingent in this parade in the past. We are hoping to have as many flags and banners in the air as possible once again.
Information on our next meeting, Memorial Day, Dorchester Parade and the Smedley Get-a-Way will come in future e-mails.
For right now we want to give you some information on the Mothers Day Walk for Peace.
Mothers Day Walk for Peace
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Town Field Park, Fields Corner, Dorchester
Registration Begins: 7:00 am
Walk Begins: 8:30 am
Our brother Winston Warfield lives in Dorchester and sees the violence in his neighborhood on a regular basis. He has signed the Smedleys up as participants to walk for Peace on Mothers Day and we hope as many Smedleys and Samanthas as possible will try and make it. This is a fundraiser and Winston has challenged the Smedleys to raise $500.00
Please click on the following link and make a pledge for the VFP Walkers.
https://www.kintera.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=1012315&lis=1&kntae1012315=BCCB8A175070442D89DC257CD14E7086&supId=358877717&team=5081014
Why is there a Mother's Day Walk for Peace?
The Mother's Day Walk for Peace began in 1996 for families who had lost their children to violence. On a day that we celebrate mothers and children, the Walk became a place for families and friends to feel support and love with thousands of others who pledge their commitment to peace. Through the years, it has become a way for thousands of people to financially support the work of the Peace Institute.
Who Participates in the Walk?
The Walk draws people from the immediate community and outside Boston. Anuyone who wants to end violence and help families work through their pain can walk and pledge. Each uear we are join by thousands of people from he business community, city and state elected officials, professionals from alw enforcement, criminal justice, health care, the faith community, and hundreds of men, women, and children from the surviving families of homicide victims.
For more information and directions etc – See link to the flyer for the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace:
http://www.kintera.org/atf/cf/%7B7cb966a0-f947-4689-86da-351cb3c70848%7D/DRAFTWALKBROCHURE.PDF
Please come and support this important event.
Thank you.
Pat, Winston and the people of the Dorchester neighborhood
Please mark the following dates and please read this e-mail
Sunday, May 13 – Mothers Day March for Peace – Dorchester (see info below)
Monday, May 14 – Smedley Monthly Meeting – St. Peters Episcopal, Cambridge
Monday, May 28 – Memorial Day Event – Christopher Columbus Park, Boston
Sunday, June 3 – Dorchester Parade – Dorchester
June 8 & 9 – Smedley Get-a-Way – York Beace Maine.
We recognize there are a number of activities we are involved within the next month.
Please try and participate in as many of the above activities that you can. We realize there are two events in Dorchester, three weeks apart. One is the Mothers Day March for Peace and the other is the Dorchester Parade. Both are important, if you can only make one, we suggest the Dorchester Parade. There are tens of thousands watching this parade, it will be an excellent opportunity to get our message of peace out to all these folks. The Smedleys used to have a pretty good contingent in this parade in the past. We are hoping to have as many flags and banners in the air as possible once again.
Information on our next meeting, Memorial Day, Dorchester Parade and the Smedley Get-a-Way will come in future e-mails.
For right now we want to give you some information on the Mothers Day Walk for Peace.
Mothers Day Walk for Peace
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Town Field Park, Fields Corner, Dorchester
Registration Begins: 7:00 am
Walk Begins: 8:30 am
Our brother Winston Warfield lives in Dorchester and sees the violence in his neighborhood on a regular basis. He has signed the Smedleys up as participants to walk for Peace on Mothers Day and we hope as many Smedleys and Samanthas as possible will try and make it. This is a fundraiser and Winston has challenged the Smedleys to raise $500.00
Please click on the following link and make a pledge for the VFP Walkers.
https://www.kintera.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=1012315&lis=1&kntae1012315=BCCB8A175070442D89DC257CD14E7086&supId=358877717&team=5081014
Why is there a Mother's Day Walk for Peace?
The Mother's Day Walk for Peace began in 1996 for families who had lost their children to violence. On a day that we celebrate mothers and children, the Walk became a place for families and friends to feel support and love with thousands of others who pledge their commitment to peace. Through the years, it has become a way for thousands of people to financially support the work of the Peace Institute.
Who Participates in the Walk?
The Walk draws people from the immediate community and outside Boston. Anuyone who wants to end violence and help families work through their pain can walk and pledge. Each uear we are join by thousands of people from he business community, city and state elected officials, professionals from alw enforcement, criminal justice, health care, the faith community, and hundreds of men, women, and children from the surviving families of homicide victims.
For more information and directions etc – See link to the flyer for the Mother’s Day Walk for Peace:
http://www.kintera.org/atf/cf/%7B7cb966a0-f947-4689-86da-351cb3c70848%7D/DRAFTWALKBROCHURE.PDF
Please come and support this important event.
Thank you.
Pat, Winston and the people of the Dorchester neighborhood
From The Coalition of Immokalee Workers-#6 on the Chipotle List is ready for your review!
#6 on the Chipotle List is ready for your review!
#6 on the Chipotle list is ready for your review!
Our series continues... Plus, a special bonus: A long-overdue Chipotle media round up!
#6: "You may be interested to hear that Chipotle has supported the CIW."
Fact: Unless by "interested" Chipotle means "shocked," we, as the hypothetical supportee, would beg to differ.
This one is almost too easy, but the List must go on...
The online dictionary defines "support" as:
"a. To aid the cause, policy, or interests of;
b. To argue in favor of; advocate;...
... to give approval to (a cause, principle, etc.), to subscribe to;"
And here's how Chipotle CEO Steve Ells expressed his "support" for the CIW, during a November, 2009, presentation at the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School of Business:
“Of course I’m not in favor of slavery! But signing an agreement [with the CIW] does not actually change those conditions for farmworkers. I mean, they just don’t see the bigger picture,” he continued. “To change the fast-food paradigm is huge. We’re trying to do the right thing.” read more
So, you can judge for yourself whether Mr. Ells' words can be construed as supportive, but as the purported recipients of Chipotle's "aid" and "approval", we think we have something of a say in this, and our verdict is unequivocal: No, Chipotle does not in fact support the CIW.
Go to the CIW website today to read more from #6 on the Chipotle List and for the Chipotle media round-up!
You are subscribed to the CIW Mailing List as: alfredjohnson34@comcast.net
Click here to unsubscribe.
Coalition of Immokalee Workers • PO Box 603, Immokalee, FL 34143 • (239) 657-8311 • workers@ciw-online.org
#6 on the Chipotle list is ready for your review!
Our series continues... Plus, a special bonus: A long-overdue Chipotle media round up!
#6: "You may be interested to hear that Chipotle has supported the CIW."
Fact: Unless by "interested" Chipotle means "shocked," we, as the hypothetical supportee, would beg to differ.
This one is almost too easy, but the List must go on...
The online dictionary defines "support" as:
"a. To aid the cause, policy, or interests of;
b. To argue in favor of; advocate;...
... to give approval to (a cause, principle, etc.), to subscribe to;"
And here's how Chipotle CEO Steve Ells expressed his "support" for the CIW, during a November, 2009, presentation at the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School of Business:
“Of course I’m not in favor of slavery! But signing an agreement [with the CIW] does not actually change those conditions for farmworkers. I mean, they just don’t see the bigger picture,” he continued. “To change the fast-food paradigm is huge. We’re trying to do the right thing.” read more
So, you can judge for yourself whether Mr. Ells' words can be construed as supportive, but as the purported recipients of Chipotle's "aid" and "approval", we think we have something of a say in this, and our verdict is unequivocal: No, Chipotle does not in fact support the CIW.
Go to the CIW website today to read more from #6 on the Chipotle List and for the Chipotle media round-up!
You are subscribed to the CIW Mailing List as: alfredjohnson34@comcast.net
Click here to unsubscribe.
Coalition of Immokalee Workers • PO Box 603, Immokalee, FL 34143 • (239) 657-8311 • workers@ciw-online.org
In Boston-Afghanistan: The Case for Immediate Withdrawal- THURSDAY, May 10, 7PM
THU 7PM: Forum on "Afghanistan: The Case for Immediate Withdrawal"
Afghanistan: The Case for Immediate Withdrawal
Public Forum by the International Socialist Organization
THURSDAY, May 10, 7PM
Conference Room at Haymarket People's Fund (buzz 4)
42 Seaverns Ave, Jamaica Plain, Boston
(Orange Line to Green Street)
With the recent scandals of US soldiers taking pictures of Taliban
fighters, the burning of the Koran on a US base, and killing spree of
16 innocent civilians by a US soldier, it is clear that nothing has
changed 10 years since the US has occupied and decimated Afghanistan.
While the 1% and the Media, the Pentagon and the US Government try to
cast these as individual events, nothing can be farther from the
truth. Innocent Afghani’s are paying the price for US Imperialism to
secure profits and military aggression. Come hear the International
Socialist Organization make a case of why, still after 10-year
occupying Afghanistan, the solution to the Afghanistan War is still
immediate withdrawal.
Read more about it at SocialistWorker.org:
The forever war
When Barack Obama talked last week about the end of the war in
Afghanistan, he didn't mention that by his timeline, it isn't even
half over, reports Eric Ruder.
http://socialistworker.org/2012/05/07/forever-war
The unraveling occupation
Nicole Colson reports on the quagmire of the U.S. occupation in
Afghanistan--and why 10 years after the war began, the U.S. must get
out.
http://socialistworker.org/2012/04/10/the-unraveling-occupation
www.bostonsocialism.org
contact@bostonsocialism.org
Afghanistan: The Case for Immediate Withdrawal
Public Forum by the International Socialist Organization
THURSDAY, May 10, 7PM
Conference Room at Haymarket People's Fund (buzz 4)
42 Seaverns Ave, Jamaica Plain, Boston
(Orange Line to Green Street)
With the recent scandals of US soldiers taking pictures of Taliban
fighters, the burning of the Koran on a US base, and killing spree of
16 innocent civilians by a US soldier, it is clear that nothing has
changed 10 years since the US has occupied and decimated Afghanistan.
While the 1% and the Media, the Pentagon and the US Government try to
cast these as individual events, nothing can be farther from the
truth. Innocent Afghani’s are paying the price for US Imperialism to
secure profits and military aggression. Come hear the International
Socialist Organization make a case of why, still after 10-year
occupying Afghanistan, the solution to the Afghanistan War is still
immediate withdrawal.
Read more about it at SocialistWorker.org:
The forever war
When Barack Obama talked last week about the end of the war in
Afghanistan, he didn't mention that by his timeline, it isn't even
half over, reports Eric Ruder.
http://socialistworker.org/2012/05/07/forever-war
The unraveling occupation
Nicole Colson reports on the quagmire of the U.S. occupation in
Afghanistan--and why 10 years after the war began, the U.S. must get
out.
http://socialistworker.org/2012/04/10/the-unraveling-occupation
www.bostonsocialism.org
contact@bostonsocialism.org
FromThe Coalition Of Immokalee Workers-Left Behind: Slavery Museum in Lakeland, CIW in Dallas, and more!
Left Behind: Slavery Museum in Lakeland, CIW in Dallas, and more!
Left behind...
Students at Lakeland's George Jenkins High (named after the founder of the Publix supermarket chain) experience the weight of a full tomato bucket during the visit of the Modern-Day Slavery Museum to the school last month.
Things can get a little hectic in the Campaign for Fair Food and, as a result, every now and then we look around and realize that we have allowed a number of great stories fall by the wayside while we try to keep up with all the day-to-day happenings. And so today, in order that those stories do not molder away forever under stacks of the very latest news at Campaign headquarters, we are debuting an update that will appear from time to time in these pages that we call "Left Behind".
So go to the CIW website today to see the complete "Left Behind" update, including more from the Modern-Day Slavery Museum visit to Lakeland, news from a CIW panel discussion in Dallas with Eva Longoria (yes, that Eva Longoria) and WalMart, and a Media Round-Up!
Left behind...
Students at Lakeland's George Jenkins High (named after the founder of the Publix supermarket chain) experience the weight of a full tomato bucket during the visit of the Modern-Day Slavery Museum to the school last month.
Things can get a little hectic in the Campaign for Fair Food and, as a result, every now and then we look around and realize that we have allowed a number of great stories fall by the wayside while we try to keep up with all the day-to-day happenings. And so today, in order that those stories do not molder away forever under stacks of the very latest news at Campaign headquarters, we are debuting an update that will appear from time to time in these pages that we call "Left Behind".
So go to the CIW website today to see the complete "Left Behind" update, including more from the Modern-Day Slavery Museum visit to Lakeland, news from a CIW panel discussion in Dallas with Eva Longoria (yes, that Eva Longoria) and WalMart, and a Media Round-Up!
Live from the Labor Notes Conference
Live from the Labor Notes Conference
Records are being broken all over the place as 1,500 union activists, worker center members, and workplace troublemakers are gathering in Chicago for the biggest Labor Notes conference yet. Photo: Jim West.
They have a huge list of almost 150 workshops, meetings, and plenaries ready for them, not to mention a full program of actions in support of local workers, music, art, film, and plenty of opportunities to build the networks that make our movement strong (and maybe shake a few tail feathers in the process).
Participants are learning foundational union skills and creative tactics. One workshop promises training in "strategic mischief." Meanwhile others prepped for debates, including a Saturday session that will ask if Mayor Rahm Emanuel's attacks on teachers and other public workers in Chicago will make the city this year’s Madison. Here's how the Community Media Workshop described it:
It’s one of dozens of workshops that will be attended by 1,500 rank-and-file activists and leaders at the national conference of Labor Notes, a magazine that’s advocated labor democracy and militancy for over 30 years.
Topics cover a wide range, from broad political themes to nuts-and-bolts organizing. International speakers will address European workers’ response to austerity, labor and the Egyptian democracy movement, and Japanese labor’s response to the Fukushima crisis.
You can still jump in if you're close by and haven't registered yet. Come register on site at the conference hotel get a dose of inspiration at our biggest conference yet.
Records are being broken all over the place as 1,500 union activists, worker center members, and workplace troublemakers are gathering in Chicago for the biggest Labor Notes conference yet. Photo: Jim West.
They have a huge list of almost 150 workshops, meetings, and plenaries ready for them, not to mention a full program of actions in support of local workers, music, art, film, and plenty of opportunities to build the networks that make our movement strong (and maybe shake a few tail feathers in the process).
Participants are learning foundational union skills and creative tactics. One workshop promises training in "strategic mischief." Meanwhile others prepped for debates, including a Saturday session that will ask if Mayor Rahm Emanuel's attacks on teachers and other public workers in Chicago will make the city this year’s Madison. Here's how the Community Media Workshop described it:
It’s one of dozens of workshops that will be attended by 1,500 rank-and-file activists and leaders at the national conference of Labor Notes, a magazine that’s advocated labor democracy and militancy for over 30 years.
Topics cover a wide range, from broad political themes to nuts-and-bolts organizing. International speakers will address European workers’ response to austerity, labor and the Egyptian democracy movement, and Japanese labor’s response to the Fukushima crisis.
You can still jump in if you're close by and haven't registered yet. Come register on site at the conference hotel get a dose of inspiration at our biggest conference yet.
Chicago Counter-Summit, Demonstration: Say No to NATO!
Chicago Counter-Summit, Demonstration: Say No to NATO!
There will be more than 50 heads of state participating in the upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago May 20-21.
The NATO Summit's agenda aims to:
Establish support for a US military presence through 2024 in Afghanistan
Commit to spending billions of dollars to arm and support over-sized Afghan security forces that are unsustainable
Reaffirm NATO as a global military alliance and preparations for “New Strategic Concept” wars like the disastrous Libyan military intervention.
May 18-19, Counter-Summit: The Network for a NATO-Free Future has organized the Counter-Summit for Peace and Economic Justice May 18-19. To push back against this agenda, the counter summit will offer plenary sessions and 28 workshops featuring analysis, trainings, and campaigns designed to bring the troops home, to move the money from the Pentagon to meet real human needs and to create a more peaceful, just and secure world.
Bringing together activists from across the U.S. and around the world, the counter-summit will provide rare and critically important opportunities to learn from one another, to network and to build more cohesive peace, economic and social justice movements.
Speakers include Phyllis Bennis, Medea Benjamin, Roger Cole, Bruce Gagnon, Sarita Gupta, Judith LeBlanc, Peter Lems, Tom Hayden, Vijay Prashad, Kathy Kelly.
You’ll find the conference agenda, a complete list of speakers, workshops, and other useful information regarding the conference at the NATO-Free Future web site. Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/CounterSummit
May 20, March and Rally to Protest NATO, starting at noon at Petrillo Bandshell. Organized by the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (cang8). The Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) will be marching with us in solidarity. At the end of the march, within sight and sound of McCormick Place, members of IVAW will conduct the closing ceremony where they will return their medals to NATO. It will be a moving event, and not to be missed.
For march route, resources, housing board, and other information, go to www.cang8.org.
A better, more peaceful, secure and prosperous world is possible. Please come to Chicago!
There will be more than 50 heads of state participating in the upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago May 20-21.
The NATO Summit's agenda aims to:
Establish support for a US military presence through 2024 in Afghanistan
Commit to spending billions of dollars to arm and support over-sized Afghan security forces that are unsustainable
Reaffirm NATO as a global military alliance and preparations for “New Strategic Concept” wars like the disastrous Libyan military intervention.
May 18-19, Counter-Summit: The Network for a NATO-Free Future has organized the Counter-Summit for Peace and Economic Justice May 18-19. To push back against this agenda, the counter summit will offer plenary sessions and 28 workshops featuring analysis, trainings, and campaigns designed to bring the troops home, to move the money from the Pentagon to meet real human needs and to create a more peaceful, just and secure world.
Bringing together activists from across the U.S. and around the world, the counter-summit will provide rare and critically important opportunities to learn from one another, to network and to build more cohesive peace, economic and social justice movements.
Speakers include Phyllis Bennis, Medea Benjamin, Roger Cole, Bruce Gagnon, Sarita Gupta, Judith LeBlanc, Peter Lems, Tom Hayden, Vijay Prashad, Kathy Kelly.
You’ll find the conference agenda, a complete list of speakers, workshops, and other useful information regarding the conference at the NATO-Free Future web site. Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/CounterSummit
May 20, March and Rally to Protest NATO, starting at noon at Petrillo Bandshell. Organized by the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (cang8). The Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) will be marching with us in solidarity. At the end of the march, within sight and sound of McCormick Place, members of IVAW will conduct the closing ceremony where they will return their medals to NATO. It will be a moving event, and not to be missed.
For march route, resources, housing board, and other information, go to www.cang8.org.
A better, more peaceful, secure and prosperous world is possible. Please come to Chicago!
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
On The 100th Anniversary Of The 1912 Presidential Election- From The Pen Of Early American Socialist Leader Eugene V. Debs- Industrial Unionism
Click on the headline to link to the Eugene V. Debs Marxist Internet Archive website article listed in the headline..
Markin comment on this From The Pen Of Eugene V. Debs series:
The Political Evolution of Eugene V. Debs
For many reasons, the most important of which for our purposes here are the question of the nature of the revolutionary party and of revolutionary leadership, the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was a turning point in the international labor movement. In its aftermath, there was a definitive and I would argue, necessary split, between those leftists (and here I use that term generically to mean socialists, communists, anarchists, syndicalists and the like) who sought to reform the capitalist state from within and those who saw that it needed to be destroyed “root and branch” and new institutions established to create a more just society. This division today continues, in truncated form to be sure, to define the contours of the question. The heroic American pre- World War II socialist labor leader and icon, Eugene V. Debs, contained within his personal political trajectory all the contradictions of that split. As will be described below in more detail we honor Debs for his generosity of socialist spirit while at the same time underscoring that his profile is, in the final analysis, not that of something who could have led a proletarian revolution in the earlier part of the 20th century.
Debs was above all others except, perhaps, “Big Bill” Haywood in the pre-World War I movement. For details of why that was so and a strong biographic sketch it is still necessary to go Ray Ginger’s “The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs”. I will review that effort in this space at a later time. For now though let me give the highlights I found that every serious labor militant or every serious student of socialism needs to think through.
If history has told us anything over the past one hundred and fifty years plus of the organized labor movement it is that mere trade union consciousness under conditions of capitalist domination, while commendable and necessary, is merely the beginning of wisdom. By now several generations of labor militants have passed through the school of trade unionism with varying results; although precious few have gone beyond that to the class consciousness necessary to “turn the world upside down” to use an old expression from the 17th century English Revolution. In the late 19th when American capitalism was consolidating itself and moving onto its industrial phases the landscape was filled with pitched class battles between labor and capital.
One of those key battles in the 1890’s was led by one Eugene V. Debs and his American Railway Union against the mammoth rail giant, The Pullman Company. At that time the rails were the key mode of transportation in the bustling new industrial capitalist commerce. At that time, by his own reckoning, Debs saw the struggle from a merely trade unionist point of view, that is a specific localized economic struggle for better wages and conditions rather than taking on the capitalist system and its state. That strike was defeated and as a result Debs and others became “guests” of that state in a local jail in Illinois for six months or so. The key conclusion drawn from this ‘lesson’, for our purposes, was that Debs personally finally realized that the close connection between the capitalists and THEIR state (troops, media, jails, courts) was organic and needed to be addressed.
Development of working class political class consciousness comes in many ways; I know that from my own personal experiences running up against the capitalist state. For Debs this “up close and personal” confrontation with the capitalist drove him, reluctantly at first and with some reservations, to see the need for socialist solutions to the plight of the workingman (and women). In Debs’ case this involved an early infatuation with the ideas of cooperative commonwealths then popular among radicals as a way to basically provide a parallel alternative society away from capitalism. Well again, having gone thorough that same kind of process of conversion myself (in my case 'autonomous' urban communes, you know, the “hippie” experience of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s); Debs fairly quickly came to realize that an organized political response was necessary and he linked up his efforts with the emerging American Socialist Party.
Before World War I the major political model for politically organizing the working class was provided by the Marxist-dominated German Social Democratic Party. At that time, and in this period of pre-imperialist capitalist development, this was unquestionably the model to be followed. By way of explanation the key organizing principle of that organization, besides providing party discipline for united action, was to create a “big tent” party for the social transformation of society. Under that rubric the notion was to organize anyone and everyone, from socialist-feminists, socialist vegetarians, pacifists, municipal reformers, incipient trade union bureaucrats, hard core reformists, evolutionary socialists and- revolutionaries like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg who we honor to this day. The American Social Party that Debs joined exhibited all those tendencies (and some even more outlandish) of the German model. And as long as no great events acted to disrupt the “unity” of this amorphous formation the various tensions within the organization concerning reform or revolution were subdued for a time. Not forever though.
Various revolutionary tendencies within the workers’ movement have historically had opposing positions concerning parliamentary politics: what to do politically while waiting for the opportune moment to take political power. The controversy centered (and today centers around) whether to run for elective executive and/or legislative offices. Since World War I a very strong argument has developed that revolutionaries should not run for executive offices of the capitalist state on the principle that we do not want to be responsible for the running of the capitalist state. On the other hand running for legislative office under the principle of acting as “tribunes of the people” continues to have validity. The case of the German revolutionary social democrat Karl Liebknecht using his legislative office to denounce the German war effort DURING the war is a very high-level expression of that position. This question, arguably, was a little less clears in the pre-war period.
If Eugene V. Debs is remembered politically today it is probably for his five famous runs for the American presidency (one, in 1920, run from jail) from 1900 to 1920 (except 1916). Of those the most famous is the 1912 four- way fight (Teddy Roosevelt and his “Bull Moose” Party providing the fourth) in which he got almost a million votes and something like 5 percent of the vote- this is the high water mark of socialist electoral politics then and now. I would only mention that a strong argument could be made here for support of the idea of a revolutionary (and, at least until the early 1920’s Debs considered himself, subjectively, a revolutionary) running for executive office- the presidency- without violating political principle (of course, with the always present proviso that if elected he would refuse to serve). Certainly the issues to be fought around- the emerging American imperial presence in the world, the fierce wage struggles, the capitalist trustification and cartelization of industry, the complicity of the courts, the struggle for women’s right to vote, the struggle against the emerging anti- black Jim Crow regime in the South would make such a platform a useful propaganda tool. Especially since Debs was one of the premier socialist orators of the day, if perhaps too flowery and long-winded for today’s eye or ear.
As the American Socialist Party developed in the early 20th century, and grew by leaps and bounds in this period, a somewhat parallel development was occurring somewhat outside this basically parliamentary movement. In 1905, led by the revolutionary militant “Big Bill” Haywood and with an enthusiastic (then) Debs present probably the most famous mass militant labor organization in American history was formed, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies). As it name denotes this organization stood as, in effect, the nucleus of the industrial unionism that would win the day among the unorganized in the 1930’s with the efforts of the CIO. But it also was, as James P. Cannon an early IWW organizer noted in one of his books, the nucleus of a revolutionary political party. One of the reasons, among others, for its demise was that it never was able to resolve that contradiction between party and union. But that is an analysis for another day.
What is important to note here is that organization form fit in, very nicely indeed, with Debs’ notions of organizing the unorganized, the need for industrial unionization (as opposed to the prevailing narrow craft orientation of the Samuel Gompers-led AFL). Nevertheless Debs, to his credit, was no “dual unionist”, that is, committed to ignoring or going around the AFL and establishing “revolutionary” unions. This question of “boring from within” organized labor or “dual unions” continues to this day, and historically has been a very thorny question among militants faced with the bureaucratic inertia of the trade union bureaucracy. Debs came down on the side of the angels on this one (even if he later took unfavorable positions on IWW actions).
Although Debs is probably best known for his presidential runs (including that one from Atlanta prison in 1920 that I always enjoy seeing pictures of the one where he converses with his campaign staff in his cell) he really should be, if he is remembered for only one thing, remembered for his principled opposition to American war preparedness and eventual entry into World War I in 1917. Although it is unclear in my mind how much of Debs’ position stemmed from personal pacifism, how much from Hoosier isolationism (after all he was the quintessential Midwestern labor politician, having been raised in and lived all his life in Indiana) and how much was an anti-imperialist statement he nevertheless, of all major socialist spokesmen to speak nothing of major politicians in general , was virtually alone in his opposition when Woodrow Wilson pulled the hammer down and entered American forces into the European conflict.
That, my friends, should command respect from almost everyone, political friend or foe alike. Needless to say for his opposition he was eventually tried and convicted of, of all things, the catch-all charge of sedition and conspiracy. Some things never change. Moreover, that prison term is why Debs had to run from prison in 1920.
I started out this exposition of Debs’ political trajectory under the sign of the Russian Revolution and here I come full circle. I have, I believe, highlighted the points that we honor Debs for and now to balance the wheel we need to discuss his shortcomings (which are also a reflection of the shortcomings of the internationalist socialist movement then, and now). The almost universal betrayal of its anti- war positions of the pre-war international social democracy, as organized in the Second International and led by the German Party, by its subordination to the war aims of its respective individual capitalist governments exposed a deep crevice in the theory and practice of the movement.
As the experiences of the Russian revolution pointed out it was no longer possible for reformists and revolutionaries to coexist in the same party. Literally, on more than one occasion, these formally connected tendencies were on opposite sides of the barricades when the social tensions of society exploded. It was not a pretty sight and called for a splitting and realignment of the revolutionary forces internationally. The organizational expression of this was the formation, in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, of the Communist International in 1919. Part of that process, in America, included a left-wing split (or purge depending on the source read) and the creation, at first, of two communist organizations. As the most authoritative left-wing socialist of the day one would have thought that Debs would have inclined to the communists. That was not to be the case as he stayed with the remnant of the American Socialist Party until his death in the late 1920’s.
No one would argue that the early communist movement in America was not filled with more than its share of political mistakes, wild boys and just plain weirdness but that is where the revolutionaries were in the 1920’s. And this brings us really to Debs’ ultimate problem as a socialist leader and why I made that statement above that he could not lead a proletarian revolution in America, assuming that he was his desire. Debs had a life-long aversion to political faction and in-fighting. I would agree, as any rational radical politician would, that faction and in-fighting are not virtuous in and of themselves and are a net drain on the tasks of propaganda, recruitment and united front actions that should drive left-wing political work. However, as critical turning points in the international socialist movement have shown, sometimes the tensions between the political appetites of supposed like-minded individuals cannot be contained in one organization. This question is most dramatically posed, of course, in a revolutionary period when the tensions are whittled down to choices for or against the revolution. One side of the barricade or the other.
That said, Debs’ personality, demeanor and ultimately his political program of trying to keep “big tent” socialist together tarnished his image as a socialist leader. Debs’ positions on convicts, women, and blacks, education, religion and government. Debs was no theorist, socialist or otherwise, and many of his positions would not pass muster among radicals today. I note his economic determinist argument that the black question is subsumed in the class question. I have discussed this question elsewhere and will not address it here. I would only note, for a socialist, his position is just flat out wrong. I also note that, outside his support for women’s suffrage and working women’s rights to equal pay his attitude toward women was strictly Victorian. As was his wishy-washy attitude toward religion. Eugene V. Debs, warts and all, nevertheless deserves a fair nod from history as the premier American socialist of the pre-World War I period.
Markin comment on this From The Pen Of Eugene V. Debs series:
The Political Evolution of Eugene V. Debs
For many reasons, the most important of which for our purposes here are the question of the nature of the revolutionary party and of revolutionary leadership, the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was a turning point in the international labor movement. In its aftermath, there was a definitive and I would argue, necessary split, between those leftists (and here I use that term generically to mean socialists, communists, anarchists, syndicalists and the like) who sought to reform the capitalist state from within and those who saw that it needed to be destroyed “root and branch” and new institutions established to create a more just society. This division today continues, in truncated form to be sure, to define the contours of the question. The heroic American pre- World War II socialist labor leader and icon, Eugene V. Debs, contained within his personal political trajectory all the contradictions of that split. As will be described below in more detail we honor Debs for his generosity of socialist spirit while at the same time underscoring that his profile is, in the final analysis, not that of something who could have led a proletarian revolution in the earlier part of the 20th century.
Debs was above all others except, perhaps, “Big Bill” Haywood in the pre-World War I movement. For details of why that was so and a strong biographic sketch it is still necessary to go Ray Ginger’s “The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs”. I will review that effort in this space at a later time. For now though let me give the highlights I found that every serious labor militant or every serious student of socialism needs to think through.
If history has told us anything over the past one hundred and fifty years plus of the organized labor movement it is that mere trade union consciousness under conditions of capitalist domination, while commendable and necessary, is merely the beginning of wisdom. By now several generations of labor militants have passed through the school of trade unionism with varying results; although precious few have gone beyond that to the class consciousness necessary to “turn the world upside down” to use an old expression from the 17th century English Revolution. In the late 19th when American capitalism was consolidating itself and moving onto its industrial phases the landscape was filled with pitched class battles between labor and capital.
One of those key battles in the 1890’s was led by one Eugene V. Debs and his American Railway Union against the mammoth rail giant, The Pullman Company. At that time the rails were the key mode of transportation in the bustling new industrial capitalist commerce. At that time, by his own reckoning, Debs saw the struggle from a merely trade unionist point of view, that is a specific localized economic struggle for better wages and conditions rather than taking on the capitalist system and its state. That strike was defeated and as a result Debs and others became “guests” of that state in a local jail in Illinois for six months or so. The key conclusion drawn from this ‘lesson’, for our purposes, was that Debs personally finally realized that the close connection between the capitalists and THEIR state (troops, media, jails, courts) was organic and needed to be addressed.
Development of working class political class consciousness comes in many ways; I know that from my own personal experiences running up against the capitalist state. For Debs this “up close and personal” confrontation with the capitalist drove him, reluctantly at first and with some reservations, to see the need for socialist solutions to the plight of the workingman (and women). In Debs’ case this involved an early infatuation with the ideas of cooperative commonwealths then popular among radicals as a way to basically provide a parallel alternative society away from capitalism. Well again, having gone thorough that same kind of process of conversion myself (in my case 'autonomous' urban communes, you know, the “hippie” experience of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s); Debs fairly quickly came to realize that an organized political response was necessary and he linked up his efforts with the emerging American Socialist Party.
Before World War I the major political model for politically organizing the working class was provided by the Marxist-dominated German Social Democratic Party. At that time, and in this period of pre-imperialist capitalist development, this was unquestionably the model to be followed. By way of explanation the key organizing principle of that organization, besides providing party discipline for united action, was to create a “big tent” party for the social transformation of society. Under that rubric the notion was to organize anyone and everyone, from socialist-feminists, socialist vegetarians, pacifists, municipal reformers, incipient trade union bureaucrats, hard core reformists, evolutionary socialists and- revolutionaries like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg who we honor to this day. The American Social Party that Debs joined exhibited all those tendencies (and some even more outlandish) of the German model. And as long as no great events acted to disrupt the “unity” of this amorphous formation the various tensions within the organization concerning reform or revolution were subdued for a time. Not forever though.
Various revolutionary tendencies within the workers’ movement have historically had opposing positions concerning parliamentary politics: what to do politically while waiting for the opportune moment to take political power. The controversy centered (and today centers around) whether to run for elective executive and/or legislative offices. Since World War I a very strong argument has developed that revolutionaries should not run for executive offices of the capitalist state on the principle that we do not want to be responsible for the running of the capitalist state. On the other hand running for legislative office under the principle of acting as “tribunes of the people” continues to have validity. The case of the German revolutionary social democrat Karl Liebknecht using his legislative office to denounce the German war effort DURING the war is a very high-level expression of that position. This question, arguably, was a little less clears in the pre-war period.
If Eugene V. Debs is remembered politically today it is probably for his five famous runs for the American presidency (one, in 1920, run from jail) from 1900 to 1920 (except 1916). Of those the most famous is the 1912 four- way fight (Teddy Roosevelt and his “Bull Moose” Party providing the fourth) in which he got almost a million votes and something like 5 percent of the vote- this is the high water mark of socialist electoral politics then and now. I would only mention that a strong argument could be made here for support of the idea of a revolutionary (and, at least until the early 1920’s Debs considered himself, subjectively, a revolutionary) running for executive office- the presidency- without violating political principle (of course, with the always present proviso that if elected he would refuse to serve). Certainly the issues to be fought around- the emerging American imperial presence in the world, the fierce wage struggles, the capitalist trustification and cartelization of industry, the complicity of the courts, the struggle for women’s right to vote, the struggle against the emerging anti- black Jim Crow regime in the South would make such a platform a useful propaganda tool. Especially since Debs was one of the premier socialist orators of the day, if perhaps too flowery and long-winded for today’s eye or ear.
As the American Socialist Party developed in the early 20th century, and grew by leaps and bounds in this period, a somewhat parallel development was occurring somewhat outside this basically parliamentary movement. In 1905, led by the revolutionary militant “Big Bill” Haywood and with an enthusiastic (then) Debs present probably the most famous mass militant labor organization in American history was formed, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies). As it name denotes this organization stood as, in effect, the nucleus of the industrial unionism that would win the day among the unorganized in the 1930’s with the efforts of the CIO. But it also was, as James P. Cannon an early IWW organizer noted in one of his books, the nucleus of a revolutionary political party. One of the reasons, among others, for its demise was that it never was able to resolve that contradiction between party and union. But that is an analysis for another day.
What is important to note here is that organization form fit in, very nicely indeed, with Debs’ notions of organizing the unorganized, the need for industrial unionization (as opposed to the prevailing narrow craft orientation of the Samuel Gompers-led AFL). Nevertheless Debs, to his credit, was no “dual unionist”, that is, committed to ignoring or going around the AFL and establishing “revolutionary” unions. This question of “boring from within” organized labor or “dual unions” continues to this day, and historically has been a very thorny question among militants faced with the bureaucratic inertia of the trade union bureaucracy. Debs came down on the side of the angels on this one (even if he later took unfavorable positions on IWW actions).
Although Debs is probably best known for his presidential runs (including that one from Atlanta prison in 1920 that I always enjoy seeing pictures of the one where he converses with his campaign staff in his cell) he really should be, if he is remembered for only one thing, remembered for his principled opposition to American war preparedness and eventual entry into World War I in 1917. Although it is unclear in my mind how much of Debs’ position stemmed from personal pacifism, how much from Hoosier isolationism (after all he was the quintessential Midwestern labor politician, having been raised in and lived all his life in Indiana) and how much was an anti-imperialist statement he nevertheless, of all major socialist spokesmen to speak nothing of major politicians in general , was virtually alone in his opposition when Woodrow Wilson pulled the hammer down and entered American forces into the European conflict.
That, my friends, should command respect from almost everyone, political friend or foe alike. Needless to say for his opposition he was eventually tried and convicted of, of all things, the catch-all charge of sedition and conspiracy. Some things never change. Moreover, that prison term is why Debs had to run from prison in 1920.
I started out this exposition of Debs’ political trajectory under the sign of the Russian Revolution and here I come full circle. I have, I believe, highlighted the points that we honor Debs for and now to balance the wheel we need to discuss his shortcomings (which are also a reflection of the shortcomings of the internationalist socialist movement then, and now). The almost universal betrayal of its anti- war positions of the pre-war international social democracy, as organized in the Second International and led by the German Party, by its subordination to the war aims of its respective individual capitalist governments exposed a deep crevice in the theory and practice of the movement.
As the experiences of the Russian revolution pointed out it was no longer possible for reformists and revolutionaries to coexist in the same party. Literally, on more than one occasion, these formally connected tendencies were on opposite sides of the barricades when the social tensions of society exploded. It was not a pretty sight and called for a splitting and realignment of the revolutionary forces internationally. The organizational expression of this was the formation, in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, of the Communist International in 1919. Part of that process, in America, included a left-wing split (or purge depending on the source read) and the creation, at first, of two communist organizations. As the most authoritative left-wing socialist of the day one would have thought that Debs would have inclined to the communists. That was not to be the case as he stayed with the remnant of the American Socialist Party until his death in the late 1920’s.
No one would argue that the early communist movement in America was not filled with more than its share of political mistakes, wild boys and just plain weirdness but that is where the revolutionaries were in the 1920’s. And this brings us really to Debs’ ultimate problem as a socialist leader and why I made that statement above that he could not lead a proletarian revolution in America, assuming that he was his desire. Debs had a life-long aversion to political faction and in-fighting. I would agree, as any rational radical politician would, that faction and in-fighting are not virtuous in and of themselves and are a net drain on the tasks of propaganda, recruitment and united front actions that should drive left-wing political work. However, as critical turning points in the international socialist movement have shown, sometimes the tensions between the political appetites of supposed like-minded individuals cannot be contained in one organization. This question is most dramatically posed, of course, in a revolutionary period when the tensions are whittled down to choices for or against the revolution. One side of the barricade or the other.
That said, Debs’ personality, demeanor and ultimately his political program of trying to keep “big tent” socialist together tarnished his image as a socialist leader. Debs’ positions on convicts, women, and blacks, education, religion and government. Debs was no theorist, socialist or otherwise, and many of his positions would not pass muster among radicals today. I note his economic determinist argument that the black question is subsumed in the class question. I have discussed this question elsewhere and will not address it here. I would only note, for a socialist, his position is just flat out wrong. I also note that, outside his support for women’s suffrage and working women’s rights to equal pay his attitude toward women was strictly Victorian. As was his wishy-washy attitude toward religion. Eugene V. Debs, warts and all, nevertheless deserves a fair nod from history as the premier American socialist of the pre-World War I period.
A Girl Has Got To Do What A Girl Has Got To Do-19th Century-Style- “Jane Eyre” –A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the latest film adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
DVD Review
Jane Eyre, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, 2011.
Okay, okay I will freely confess that as a boy I did not, I steadfastly did not, read a girls’ book, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. And I did not, as we live a confessional age, read her sisters’ books or even, damned to hell, Jane Austen’s stuff. And you would not have either (or at least not have said so publicly) any place near my corner boys society growing up absurd in the 1950s old North Adamsville neighborhood. See you either didn’t read, and made a big virtues out of it preferring chasing cars and girls, or for those like my corner boy, Frankie Larkin, and me, who did we read mad Jack Kerouac, or besotted Scott Fitzgerald, or best of all, the max daddy mad adventurer Ernest Hemingway. Period.
Moreover if we didn’t read guy novelists then we were crazy (and make that I was crazy) for history books. But not girls’ books, no way. Which is a shame in a way because the trials and tribulations of Jane Eyre (and other female characters created by 19th European women writers, and not just women writers either, like the aforementioned Jane Austen) related experiences of class, race and social oppression (intertwined with a little off-hand romance to sell books then, and now, to the female reading public) that resonate with this writer today.
So it is something of a gift from the heavens that over the past couple of decades many of the writers that I did not read, steadfastly did not read in case you forgot, have had their work adapted to the screen. Happily this is true for the film under review. That means that this reviewer gets to, as he has on other occasions, see the story line of the book unfold in order to determine whether he would decide to read this book after viewing the film.
And the judgment? There is now a high bar for British romances set by Ms. Austen, most notably with her Miss Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice in the matter of 19th century sensibility. While that standard was not surpassed in this film Ms. Bronte (and the actors here) did give a very decent sense of the oddball (to our eyes), anti-democratic and socially savage way that women, women of no means (or no known means), were shunted off in the backwoods of society.
But spunk is a value we can all appreciate and to use a more modern phrase than would be proper in jolly old England back in the day to describe the evolving plot line- a girl has got tot do what a girl has got to do. On that level this thing is a classic girl (okay woman, Ms. Eyre) meets boy (okay man, Mr. Rochester) story. And, lo and behold, the girl is actually ten times stronger than the boy. And, frankly, twenty times more interesting. Maybe that is why I, steadfastly, did not read Jane Eyre and the others then. But I will now.
DVD Review
Jane Eyre, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, 2011.
Okay, okay I will freely confess that as a boy I did not, I steadfastly did not, read a girls’ book, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. And I did not, as we live a confessional age, read her sisters’ books or even, damned to hell, Jane Austen’s stuff. And you would not have either (or at least not have said so publicly) any place near my corner boys society growing up absurd in the 1950s old North Adamsville neighborhood. See you either didn’t read, and made a big virtues out of it preferring chasing cars and girls, or for those like my corner boy, Frankie Larkin, and me, who did we read mad Jack Kerouac, or besotted Scott Fitzgerald, or best of all, the max daddy mad adventurer Ernest Hemingway. Period.
Moreover if we didn’t read guy novelists then we were crazy (and make that I was crazy) for history books. But not girls’ books, no way. Which is a shame in a way because the trials and tribulations of Jane Eyre (and other female characters created by 19th European women writers, and not just women writers either, like the aforementioned Jane Austen) related experiences of class, race and social oppression (intertwined with a little off-hand romance to sell books then, and now, to the female reading public) that resonate with this writer today.
So it is something of a gift from the heavens that over the past couple of decades many of the writers that I did not read, steadfastly did not read in case you forgot, have had their work adapted to the screen. Happily this is true for the film under review. That means that this reviewer gets to, as he has on other occasions, see the story line of the book unfold in order to determine whether he would decide to read this book after viewing the film.
And the judgment? There is now a high bar for British romances set by Ms. Austen, most notably with her Miss Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice in the matter of 19th century sensibility. While that standard was not surpassed in this film Ms. Bronte (and the actors here) did give a very decent sense of the oddball (to our eyes), anti-democratic and socially savage way that women, women of no means (or no known means), were shunted off in the backwoods of society.
But spunk is a value we can all appreciate and to use a more modern phrase than would be proper in jolly old England back in the day to describe the evolving plot line- a girl has got tot do what a girl has got to do. On that level this thing is a classic girl (okay woman, Ms. Eyre) meets boy (okay man, Mr. Rochester) story. And, lo and behold, the girl is actually ten times stronger than the boy. And, frankly, twenty times more interesting. Maybe that is why I, steadfastly, did not read Jane Eyre and the others then. But I will now.
Transition To Love-Observing Nature's Law of Interdependence
Markin comment:
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.
***********
Observing Nature's Law of Interdependence
For decades, leading scientists have been trying to explain to us Nature's law of interdependence, which also includes us, humans. And because of that law, we cannot keep avoiding one another.
On the contrary, our interdependence is constantly growing - moment to moment, day to day. Historians and economists warn against nations adopting policies of protectionism and isolation in an effort to secure them from the harms of the global crisis by disconnecting themselves from one another.'
These warnings are valid because they are based on thorough knowledge of history, which shows that such attempts oppose the trajectory of human development that dictates for us to seek each other's company. So it has been, since humanity's dawn. Yet, our desire for isolation and independence, the culmination of our egoistic growth, has led us to the global crisis we are experiencing today.
This begs a question: Is it really to our benefit? After all, perhaps Nature is steering us toward a new and better life, while we, humankind, keep stomping our feet in a stubborn tantrum - we want what we want and we want it now, regardless of what it is going to cost.
In other words, to know and ignore the truth about our collective predicament is similar to knowing and ignoring the laws of physics: being aware of gravity and still jumping off a roof leads to a predictable consequence -we'll get hurt!
All our technological and scientific achievements, along with the theoretical and experiential knowledge we have accumulated over the course of history, had but one simple objective: to learn the laws of Nature so we could become its master and use it to our benefit.
To use the previous example with the law of gravity—not only have we learned to avoid its harmful aspect (falling down and getting hurt) but we also applied it to various areas of life: construction, transportation, and so on. Similarly, Nature's laws can be applied to repair our relationships, the broken human connection between people, societies, and nations.
The deeper our knowledge of the laws of Nature, particularly laws pertaining to environment, society, individual and social psychology, the more correctly we can carry them out and quickly and efficiently fix the broken bonds tying us together. The only other option is to initiate a "divorce", with all that it entails - a world war ending in millions of casualties.
Essentially, the crisis is overtaking the family we call humanity. But if we heal the connection between us, we will resolve all existing manifestations of the crisis. It is our duty to awaken everyone to the fact that we must consider everybody's welfare, all seven billion of us, and in return, find a life of peace, security, and happiness. The bottom line is that we must take responsibility for one another just as in a family and healthy ecosystem.
A Glimpse into the New World
One may ask, "How do we help to bring this new integrated world about, where everybody willingly accepts and joyfully follows the law of interdependence and mutual responsibility?
It has to start with a motivation to study ourselves: what it means to be a complete human being, what the correct environment is, and how we can influence one another favorably - in a manner that is good for everyone. To accomplish that, each of us must become a self-observing scientist, an analyst who studies him or herself as a unique contributor to the common happiness, and the society as a whole - as the most natural, nurturing element necessary for raising a wholesome human being.
This requires that we first learn how to get along and co-exist with others and know how to prevent mindless, impulsive conflicts, fraught with total destruction.
The entire history of human development was propelled by the notion that some new social, political, or economic system would serve us better than the previous one. If that's true, why are we still not living in the happy future, after we've tried all known paradigms? The answer is - they all failed.
Hence, these days humanity finds itself at odds with what used to be the ultimate goal - pleasure. It simply became too hard to reach. Today, we are more apathetic than anxious, disillusioned than hopeful, drained of ambition and ideals.
Clearly, our next evolutionary state must be fundamentally different from the current one, which brings us hardly any satisfaction, but is replete with disappointment, frustration, and fatigue. We are no longer thrilled with this world. It has become so corrupt and saturated by our egos that by obeying them, we are placing ourselves and each other in great danger.
We are becoming increasingly aware that there is nothing in this world to build on. Marriage, friendship, work, government -these anchors of human life are shaken and have nearly collapsed, which prompts us to seek how to reform, rebuild them so as to make these essential social rudiments match the structure of the harmonious world we all desire. Therefore, as we evaluate our lives and count disappointments, let's try to view it as a transition into the new life and opportunity to change.
This is a special time indeed, as we zoom down the road to a brand new world. The signs are getting clearer as we approach a future where we feel interconnected, equal, like one great family whose members are mutually responsible and therefore prosperous and happy.
It serves us to study the rules of the road -this new world's laws - so we can transition from childhood to maturity smoothly and painlessly. Until now, we were evolving by Nature's push, being programmed with new
desires and forced to actualize them.
This is no longer the case. As we stare down the blind alley - the egoistic self - we must assess our next step with a new, altruist attitude: What is our next destination and how will we get there?
Unlike our previous, instinctive behaviors in times of transition, today's shift requires our conscious participation. Instead of being blind passengers rowing down the river of life, we must assume the driver's seat in this evolutionary process.
For the first time in history. Nature is demanding that all of us, without exception achieve complete comprehension of who we are, the world we live in, and why we are in it to begin with. Our primary duty is to understand and know the essence of life, if we wish to be truly human.
MUTUAL
RESPONSIBILITY
Our Website:
www.mutualresponsibiiity.org
Our Facebook:
http://on.fb.me/mutualresponsibility
Got questions?
info@mutualresponsibility.org
I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts.
***********
Observing Nature's Law of Interdependence
For decades, leading scientists have been trying to explain to us Nature's law of interdependence, which also includes us, humans. And because of that law, we cannot keep avoiding one another.
On the contrary, our interdependence is constantly growing - moment to moment, day to day. Historians and economists warn against nations adopting policies of protectionism and isolation in an effort to secure them from the harms of the global crisis by disconnecting themselves from one another.'
These warnings are valid because they are based on thorough knowledge of history, which shows that such attempts oppose the trajectory of human development that dictates for us to seek each other's company. So it has been, since humanity's dawn. Yet, our desire for isolation and independence, the culmination of our egoistic growth, has led us to the global crisis we are experiencing today.
This begs a question: Is it really to our benefit? After all, perhaps Nature is steering us toward a new and better life, while we, humankind, keep stomping our feet in a stubborn tantrum - we want what we want and we want it now, regardless of what it is going to cost.
In other words, to know and ignore the truth about our collective predicament is similar to knowing and ignoring the laws of physics: being aware of gravity and still jumping off a roof leads to a predictable consequence -we'll get hurt!
All our technological and scientific achievements, along with the theoretical and experiential knowledge we have accumulated over the course of history, had but one simple objective: to learn the laws of Nature so we could become its master and use it to our benefit.
To use the previous example with the law of gravity—not only have we learned to avoid its harmful aspect (falling down and getting hurt) but we also applied it to various areas of life: construction, transportation, and so on. Similarly, Nature's laws can be applied to repair our relationships, the broken human connection between people, societies, and nations.
The deeper our knowledge of the laws of Nature, particularly laws pertaining to environment, society, individual and social psychology, the more correctly we can carry them out and quickly and efficiently fix the broken bonds tying us together. The only other option is to initiate a "divorce", with all that it entails - a world war ending in millions of casualties.
Essentially, the crisis is overtaking the family we call humanity. But if we heal the connection between us, we will resolve all existing manifestations of the crisis. It is our duty to awaken everyone to the fact that we must consider everybody's welfare, all seven billion of us, and in return, find a life of peace, security, and happiness. The bottom line is that we must take responsibility for one another just as in a family and healthy ecosystem.
A Glimpse into the New World
One may ask, "How do we help to bring this new integrated world about, where everybody willingly accepts and joyfully follows the law of interdependence and mutual responsibility?
It has to start with a motivation to study ourselves: what it means to be a complete human being, what the correct environment is, and how we can influence one another favorably - in a manner that is good for everyone. To accomplish that, each of us must become a self-observing scientist, an analyst who studies him or herself as a unique contributor to the common happiness, and the society as a whole - as the most natural, nurturing element necessary for raising a wholesome human being.
This requires that we first learn how to get along and co-exist with others and know how to prevent mindless, impulsive conflicts, fraught with total destruction.
The entire history of human development was propelled by the notion that some new social, political, or economic system would serve us better than the previous one. If that's true, why are we still not living in the happy future, after we've tried all known paradigms? The answer is - they all failed.
Hence, these days humanity finds itself at odds with what used to be the ultimate goal - pleasure. It simply became too hard to reach. Today, we are more apathetic than anxious, disillusioned than hopeful, drained of ambition and ideals.
Clearly, our next evolutionary state must be fundamentally different from the current one, which brings us hardly any satisfaction, but is replete with disappointment, frustration, and fatigue. We are no longer thrilled with this world. It has become so corrupt and saturated by our egos that by obeying them, we are placing ourselves and each other in great danger.
We are becoming increasingly aware that there is nothing in this world to build on. Marriage, friendship, work, government -these anchors of human life are shaken and have nearly collapsed, which prompts us to seek how to reform, rebuild them so as to make these essential social rudiments match the structure of the harmonious world we all desire. Therefore, as we evaluate our lives and count disappointments, let's try to view it as a transition into the new life and opportunity to change.
This is a special time indeed, as we zoom down the road to a brand new world. The signs are getting clearer as we approach a future where we feel interconnected, equal, like one great family whose members are mutually responsible and therefore prosperous and happy.
It serves us to study the rules of the road -this new world's laws - so we can transition from childhood to maturity smoothly and painlessly. Until now, we were evolving by Nature's push, being programmed with new
desires and forced to actualize them.
This is no longer the case. As we stare down the blind alley - the egoistic self - we must assess our next step with a new, altruist attitude: What is our next destination and how will we get there?
Unlike our previous, instinctive behaviors in times of transition, today's shift requires our conscious participation. Instead of being blind passengers rowing down the river of life, we must assume the driver's seat in this evolutionary process.
For the first time in history. Nature is demanding that all of us, without exception achieve complete comprehension of who we are, the world we live in, and why we are in it to begin with. Our primary duty is to understand and know the essence of life, if we wish to be truly human.
MUTUAL
RESPONSIBILITY
Our Website:
www.mutualresponsibiiity.org
Our Facebook:
http://on.fb.me/mutualresponsibility
Got questions?
info@mutualresponsibility.org
Show your Support for HUCTW 2012 Contract Negotiations-Victory To The Harvard Clerical And Technical Workers!
Click on the headline to link to the Harvard Clerical And Technical Workers Union website.
SOLIDARITY-NEGOTIATION-PROGRESS
Show your Support for HUCTW 2012 Contract Negotiations:
We make progress when members contribute our ideas & show we care. HUCTW leaders want and need your participation at the upcoming
"Show Your Support" events happening
across the University in the next two weeks
Plan to attend this event closest to you:
TUESDAY, MAY 8
Stop by anytime between 12:30 - 1:30 PM
Lawn space outside between Littauer Hall, Science Center, & Austin Hall Rain location: Science Center Lobby on the Littauer Hall side
Meet members of the Negotiating Team: talk with us and show your support for
Negotiations
Talk with co-workers from nearby buildings: meet new people, share ideas
Pick up the Negotiation 2012 Union button and wear proudly
Write a message of support on the "solidarity graffiti" wall
You bring your lunch and we'll bring cookies for dessert
If you can help with this Show Your Support event, please email huctw.info@huctw.org If you are unable to attend the event closest to you, contact us for other locations
Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers
15 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 02138
617-661-8289
www.huctw.org
SOLIDARITY-NEGOTIATION-PROGRESS
Show your Support for HUCTW 2012 Contract Negotiations:
We make progress when members contribute our ideas & show we care. HUCTW leaders want and need your participation at the upcoming
"Show Your Support" events happening
across the University in the next two weeks
Plan to attend this event closest to you:
TUESDAY, MAY 8
Stop by anytime between 12:30 - 1:30 PM
Lawn space outside between Littauer Hall, Science Center, & Austin Hall Rain location: Science Center Lobby on the Littauer Hall side
Meet members of the Negotiating Team: talk with us and show your support for
Negotiations
Talk with co-workers from nearby buildings: meet new people, share ideas
Pick up the Negotiation 2012 Union button and wear proudly
Write a message of support on the "solidarity graffiti" wall
You bring your lunch and we'll bring cookies for dessert
If you can help with this Show Your Support event, please email huctw.info@huctw.org If you are unable to attend the event closest to you, contact us for other locations
Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers
15 Mt. Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 02138
617-661-8289
www.huctw.org
Occupy Quincy (And Others) Bank Of America Stand-Out In Quincy (Ma)- Today May 9th-4:00PM-Quincy Square
99% Spring Bank Protest
Quincy Center, 1400 Hancock Street (Map)
Quincy, MA 02169
Wednesday, May 9th, 4:00 PM
Let's keep the momentum going! Please sign up for this gathering right away!
Message from your host, Richard H.: Join us on Wednesday, May 9th at 4pm outside of Bank of America at 1400 Hancock Street, Quincy, MA. In 2010, Bank of America received a refund of $1.9 Billion from the IRS on $4.4 Billion in profits while at the same time they took nearly $1 Trillion in Bailout money from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve! Enough is enough...join us to hold Bank of America accountable for not paying their fair share of taxes and gaming the system to enrich their executives, defraud customers, illegally foreclose on Americans' homes and destroying our economy! They expect us to be silent and not stand up to their money and power - let us not be silent any longer. Let us unite and hold Bank of America to account. Together, we can change the world. We look forward to seeing on May 9th.
Quincy Center, 1400 Hancock Street (Map)
Quincy, MA 02169
Wednesday, May 9th, 4:00 PM
Let's keep the momentum going! Please sign up for this gathering right away!
Message from your host, Richard H.: Join us on Wednesday, May 9th at 4pm outside of Bank of America at 1400 Hancock Street, Quincy, MA. In 2010, Bank of America received a refund of $1.9 Billion from the IRS on $4.4 Billion in profits while at the same time they took nearly $1 Trillion in Bailout money from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve! Enough is enough...join us to hold Bank of America accountable for not paying their fair share of taxes and gaming the system to enrich their executives, defraud customers, illegally foreclose on Americans' homes and destroying our economy! They expect us to be silent and not stand up to their money and power - let us not be silent any longer. Let us unite and hold Bank of America to account. Together, we can change the world. We look forward to seeing on May 9th.
On The 100th Anniversary Of The 1912 Presidential Election- From The Pen Of Early American Socialist Leader Eugene V. Debs- Speech To Founding Convention Of The Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW, Wobblies)(1905)
Click on the headline to link to the Eugene V. Debs Marxist Internet Archive website article listed in the headline..
Markin comment on this From The Pen Of Eugene V. Debs series:
The Political Evolution of Eugene V. Debs
For many reasons, the most important of which for our purposes here are the question of the nature of the revolutionary party and of revolutionary leadership, the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was a turning point in the international labor movement. In its aftermath, there was a definitive and I would argue, necessary split, between those leftists (and here I use that term generically to mean socialists, communists, anarchists, syndicalists and the like) who sought to reform the capitalist state from within and those who saw that it needed to be destroyed “root and branch” and new institutions established to create a more just society. This division today continues, in truncated form to be sure, to define the contours of the question. The heroic American pre- World War II socialist labor leader and icon, Eugene V. Debs, contained within his personal political trajectory all the contradictions of that split. As will be described below in more detail we honor Debs for his generosity of socialist spirit while at the same time underscoring that his profile is, in the final analysis, not that of something who could have led a proletarian revolution in the earlier part of the 20th century.
Debs was above all others except, perhaps, “Big Bill” Haywood in the pre-World War I movement. For details of why that was so and a strong biographic sketch it is still necessary to go Ray Ginger’s “The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs”. I will review that effort in this space at a later time. For now though let me give the highlights I found that every serious labor militant or every serious student of socialism needs to think through.
If history has told us anything over the past one hundred and fifty years plus of the organized labor movement it is that mere trade union consciousness under conditions of capitalist domination, while commendable and necessary, is merely the beginning of wisdom. By now several generations of labor militants have passed through the school of trade unionism with varying results; although precious few have gone beyond that to the class consciousness necessary to “turn the world upside down” to use an old expression from the 17th century English Revolution. In the late 19th when American capitalism was consolidating itself and moving onto its industrial phases the landscape was filled with pitched class battles between labor and capital.
One of those key battles in the 1890’s was led by one Eugene V. Debs and his American Railway Union against the mammoth rail giant, The Pullman Company. At that time the rails were the key mode of transportation in the bustling new industrial capitalist commerce. At that time, by his own reckoning, Debs saw the struggle from a merely trade unionist point of view, that is a specific localized economic struggle for better wages and conditions rather than taking on the capitalist system and its state. That strike was defeated and as a result Debs and others became “guests” of that state in a local jail in Illinois for six months or so. The key conclusion drawn from this ‘lesson’, for our purposes, was that Debs personally finally realized that the close connection between the capitalists and THEIR state (troops, media, jails, courts) was organic and needed to be addressed.
Development of working class political class consciousness comes in many ways; I know that from my own personal experiences running up against the capitalist state. For Debs this “up close and personal” confrontation with the capitalist drove him, reluctantly at first and with some reservations, to see the need for socialist solutions to the plight of the workingman (and women). In Debs’ case this involved an early infatuation with the ideas of cooperative commonwealths then popular among radicals as a way to basically provide a parallel alternative society away from capitalism. Well again, having gone thorough that same kind of process of conversion myself (in my case 'autonomous' urban communes, you know, the “hippie” experience of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s); Debs fairly quickly came to realize that an organized political response was necessary and he linked up his efforts with the emerging American Socialist Party.
Before World War I the major political model for politically organizing the working class was provided by the Marxist-dominated German Social Democratic Party. At that time, and in this period of pre-imperialist capitalist development, this was unquestionably the model to be followed. By way of explanation the key organizing principle of that organization, besides providing party discipline for united action, was to create a “big tent” party for the social transformation of society. Under that rubric the notion was to organize anyone and everyone, from socialist-feminists, socialist vegetarians, pacifists, municipal reformers, incipient trade union bureaucrats, hard core reformists, evolutionary socialists and- revolutionaries like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg who we honor to this day. The American Social Party that Debs joined exhibited all those tendencies (and some even more outlandish) of the German model. And as long as no great events acted to disrupt the “unity” of this amorphous formation the various tensions within the organization concerning reform or revolution were subdued for a time. Not forever though.
Various revolutionary tendencies within the workers’ movement have historically had opposing positions concerning parliamentary politics: what to do politically while waiting for the opportune moment to take political power. The controversy centered (and today centers around) whether to run for elective executive and/or legislative offices. Since World War I a very strong argument has developed that revolutionaries should not run for executive offices of the capitalist state on the principle that we do not want to be responsible for the running of the capitalist state. On the other hand running for legislative office under the principle of acting as “tribunes of the people” continues to have validity. The case of the German revolutionary social democrat Karl Liebknecht using his legislative office to denounce the German war effort DURING the war is a very high-level expression of that position. This question, arguably, was a little less clears in the pre-war period.
If Eugene V. Debs is remembered politically today it is probably for his five famous runs for the American presidency (one, in 1920, run from jail) from 1900 to 1920 (except 1916). Of those the most famous is the 1912 four- way fight (Teddy Roosevelt and his “Bull Moose” Party providing the fourth) in which he got almost a million votes and something like 5 percent of the vote- this is the high water mark of socialist electoral politics then and now. I would only mention that a strong argument could be made here for support of the idea of a revolutionary (and, at least until the early 1920’s Debs considered himself, subjectively, a revolutionary) running for executive office- the presidency- without violating political principle (of course, with the always present proviso that if elected he would refuse to serve). Certainly the issues to be fought around- the emerging American imperial presence in the world, the fierce wage struggles, the capitalist trustification and cartelization of industry, the complicity of the courts, the struggle for women’s right to vote, the struggle against the emerging anti- black Jim Crow regime in the South would make such a platform a useful propaganda tool. Especially since Debs was one of the premier socialist orators of the day, if perhaps too flowery and long-winded for today’s eye or ear.
As the American Socialist Party developed in the early 20th century, and grew by leaps and bounds in this period, a somewhat parallel development was occurring somewhat outside this basically parliamentary movement. In 1905, led by the revolutionary militant “Big Bill” Haywood and with an enthusiastic (then) Debs present probably the most famous mass militant labor organization in American history was formed, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies). As it name denotes this organization stood as, in effect, the nucleus of the industrial unionism that would win the day among the unorganized in the 1930’s with the efforts of the CIO. But it also was, as James P. Cannon an early IWW organizer noted in one of his books, the nucleus of a revolutionary political party. One of the reasons, among others, for its demise was that it never was able to resolve that contradiction between party and union. But that is an analysis for another day.
What is important to note here is that organization form fit in, very nicely indeed, with Debs’ notions of organizing the unorganized, the need for industrial unionization (as opposed to the prevailing narrow craft orientation of the Samuel Gompers-led AFL). Nevertheless Debs, to his credit, was no “dual unionist”, that is, committed to ignoring or going around the AFL and establishing “revolutionary” unions. This question of “boring from within” organized labor or “dual unions” continues to this day, and historically has been a very thorny question among militants faced with the bureaucratic inertia of the trade union bureaucracy. Debs came down on the side of the angels on this one (even if he later took unfavorable positions on IWW actions).
Although Debs is probably best known for his presidential runs (including that one from Atlanta prison in 1920 that I always enjoy seeing pictures of the one where he converses with his campaign staff in his cell) he really should be, if he is remembered for only one thing, remembered for his principled opposition to American war preparedness and eventual entry into World War I in 1917. Although it is unclear in my mind how much of Debs’ position stemmed from personal pacifism, how much from Hoosier isolationism (after all he was the quintessential Midwestern labor politician, having been raised in and lived all his life in Indiana) and how much was an anti-imperialist statement he nevertheless, of all major socialist spokesmen to speak nothing of major politicians in general , was virtually alone in his opposition when Woodrow Wilson pulled the hammer down and entered American forces into the European conflict.
That, my friends, should command respect from almost everyone, political friend or foe alike. Needless to say for his opposition he was eventually tried and convicted of, of all things, the catch-all charge of sedition and conspiracy. Some things never change. Moreover, that prison term is why Debs had to run from prison in 1920.
I started out this exposition of Debs’ political trajectory under the sign of the Russian Revolution and here I come full circle. I have, I believe, highlighted the points that we honor Debs for and now to balance the wheel we need to discuss his shortcomings (which are also a reflection of the shortcomings of the internationalist socialist movement then, and now). The almost universal betrayal of its anti- war positions of the pre-war international social democracy, as organized in the Second International and led by the German Party, by its subordination to the war aims of its respective individual capitalist governments exposed a deep crevice in the theory and practice of the movement.
As the experiences of the Russian revolution pointed out it was no longer possible for reformists and revolutionaries to coexist in the same party. Literally, on more than one occasion, these formally connected tendencies were on opposite sides of the barricades when the social tensions of society exploded. It was not a pretty sight and called for a splitting and realignment of the revolutionary forces internationally. The organizational expression of this was the formation, in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, of the Communist International in 1919. Part of that process, in America, included a left-wing split (or purge depending on the source read) and the creation, at first, of two communist organizations. As the most authoritative left-wing socialist of the day one would have thought that Debs would have inclined to the communists. That was not to be the case as he stayed with the remnant of the American Socialist Party until his death in the late 1920’s.
No one would argue that the early communist movement in America was not filled with more than its share of political mistakes, wild boys and just plain weirdness but that is where the revolutionaries were in the 1920’s. And this brings us really to Debs’ ultimate problem as a socialist leader and why I made that statement above that he could not lead a proletarian revolution in America, assuming that he was his desire. Debs had a life-long aversion to political faction and in-fighting. I would agree, as any rational radical politician would, that faction and in-fighting are not virtuous in and of themselves and are a net drain on the tasks of propaganda, recruitment and united front actions that should drive left-wing political work. However, as critical turning points in the international socialist movement have shown, sometimes the tensions between the political appetites of supposed like-minded individuals cannot be contained in one organization. This question is most dramatically posed, of course, in a revolutionary period when the tensions are whittled down to choices for or against the revolution. One side of the barricade or the other.
That said, Debs’ personality, demeanor and ultimately his political program of trying to keep “big tent” socialist together tarnished his image as a socialist leader. Debs’ positions on convicts, women, and blacks, education, religion and government. Debs was no theorist, socialist or otherwise, and many of his positions would not pass muster among radicals today. I note his economic determinist argument that the black question is subsumed in the class question. I have discussed this question elsewhere and will not address it here. I would only note, for a socialist, his position is just flat out wrong. I also note that, outside his support for women’s suffrage and working women’s rights to equal pay his attitude toward women was strictly Victorian. As was his wishy-washy attitude toward religion. Eugene V. Debs, warts and all, nevertheless deserves a fair nod from history as the premier American socialist of the pre-World War I period.
Markin comment on this From The Pen Of Eugene V. Debs series:
The Political Evolution of Eugene V. Debs
For many reasons, the most important of which for our purposes here are the question of the nature of the revolutionary party and of revolutionary leadership, the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was a turning point in the international labor movement. In its aftermath, there was a definitive and I would argue, necessary split, between those leftists (and here I use that term generically to mean socialists, communists, anarchists, syndicalists and the like) who sought to reform the capitalist state from within and those who saw that it needed to be destroyed “root and branch” and new institutions established to create a more just society. This division today continues, in truncated form to be sure, to define the contours of the question. The heroic American pre- World War II socialist labor leader and icon, Eugene V. Debs, contained within his personal political trajectory all the contradictions of that split. As will be described below in more detail we honor Debs for his generosity of socialist spirit while at the same time underscoring that his profile is, in the final analysis, not that of something who could have led a proletarian revolution in the earlier part of the 20th century.
Debs was above all others except, perhaps, “Big Bill” Haywood in the pre-World War I movement. For details of why that was so and a strong biographic sketch it is still necessary to go Ray Ginger’s “The Bending Cross: A Biography of Eugene V. Debs”. I will review that effort in this space at a later time. For now though let me give the highlights I found that every serious labor militant or every serious student of socialism needs to think through.
If history has told us anything over the past one hundred and fifty years plus of the organized labor movement it is that mere trade union consciousness under conditions of capitalist domination, while commendable and necessary, is merely the beginning of wisdom. By now several generations of labor militants have passed through the school of trade unionism with varying results; although precious few have gone beyond that to the class consciousness necessary to “turn the world upside down” to use an old expression from the 17th century English Revolution. In the late 19th when American capitalism was consolidating itself and moving onto its industrial phases the landscape was filled with pitched class battles between labor and capital.
One of those key battles in the 1890’s was led by one Eugene V. Debs and his American Railway Union against the mammoth rail giant, The Pullman Company. At that time the rails were the key mode of transportation in the bustling new industrial capitalist commerce. At that time, by his own reckoning, Debs saw the struggle from a merely trade unionist point of view, that is a specific localized economic struggle for better wages and conditions rather than taking on the capitalist system and its state. That strike was defeated and as a result Debs and others became “guests” of that state in a local jail in Illinois for six months or so. The key conclusion drawn from this ‘lesson’, for our purposes, was that Debs personally finally realized that the close connection between the capitalists and THEIR state (troops, media, jails, courts) was organic and needed to be addressed.
Development of working class political class consciousness comes in many ways; I know that from my own personal experiences running up against the capitalist state. For Debs this “up close and personal” confrontation with the capitalist drove him, reluctantly at first and with some reservations, to see the need for socialist solutions to the plight of the workingman (and women). In Debs’ case this involved an early infatuation with the ideas of cooperative commonwealths then popular among radicals as a way to basically provide a parallel alternative society away from capitalism. Well again, having gone thorough that same kind of process of conversion myself (in my case 'autonomous' urban communes, you know, the “hippie” experience of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s); Debs fairly quickly came to realize that an organized political response was necessary and he linked up his efforts with the emerging American Socialist Party.
Before World War I the major political model for politically organizing the working class was provided by the Marxist-dominated German Social Democratic Party. At that time, and in this period of pre-imperialist capitalist development, this was unquestionably the model to be followed. By way of explanation the key organizing principle of that organization, besides providing party discipline for united action, was to create a “big tent” party for the social transformation of society. Under that rubric the notion was to organize anyone and everyone, from socialist-feminists, socialist vegetarians, pacifists, municipal reformers, incipient trade union bureaucrats, hard core reformists, evolutionary socialists and- revolutionaries like Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg who we honor to this day. The American Social Party that Debs joined exhibited all those tendencies (and some even more outlandish) of the German model. And as long as no great events acted to disrupt the “unity” of this amorphous formation the various tensions within the organization concerning reform or revolution were subdued for a time. Not forever though.
Various revolutionary tendencies within the workers’ movement have historically had opposing positions concerning parliamentary politics: what to do politically while waiting for the opportune moment to take political power. The controversy centered (and today centers around) whether to run for elective executive and/or legislative offices. Since World War I a very strong argument has developed that revolutionaries should not run for executive offices of the capitalist state on the principle that we do not want to be responsible for the running of the capitalist state. On the other hand running for legislative office under the principle of acting as “tribunes of the people” continues to have validity. The case of the German revolutionary social democrat Karl Liebknecht using his legislative office to denounce the German war effort DURING the war is a very high-level expression of that position. This question, arguably, was a little less clears in the pre-war period.
If Eugene V. Debs is remembered politically today it is probably for his five famous runs for the American presidency (one, in 1920, run from jail) from 1900 to 1920 (except 1916). Of those the most famous is the 1912 four- way fight (Teddy Roosevelt and his “Bull Moose” Party providing the fourth) in which he got almost a million votes and something like 5 percent of the vote- this is the high water mark of socialist electoral politics then and now. I would only mention that a strong argument could be made here for support of the idea of a revolutionary (and, at least until the early 1920’s Debs considered himself, subjectively, a revolutionary) running for executive office- the presidency- without violating political principle (of course, with the always present proviso that if elected he would refuse to serve). Certainly the issues to be fought around- the emerging American imperial presence in the world, the fierce wage struggles, the capitalist trustification and cartelization of industry, the complicity of the courts, the struggle for women’s right to vote, the struggle against the emerging anti- black Jim Crow regime in the South would make such a platform a useful propaganda tool. Especially since Debs was one of the premier socialist orators of the day, if perhaps too flowery and long-winded for today’s eye or ear.
As the American Socialist Party developed in the early 20th century, and grew by leaps and bounds in this period, a somewhat parallel development was occurring somewhat outside this basically parliamentary movement. In 1905, led by the revolutionary militant “Big Bill” Haywood and with an enthusiastic (then) Debs present probably the most famous mass militant labor organization in American history was formed, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies). As it name denotes this organization stood as, in effect, the nucleus of the industrial unionism that would win the day among the unorganized in the 1930’s with the efforts of the CIO. But it also was, as James P. Cannon an early IWW organizer noted in one of his books, the nucleus of a revolutionary political party. One of the reasons, among others, for its demise was that it never was able to resolve that contradiction between party and union. But that is an analysis for another day.
What is important to note here is that organization form fit in, very nicely indeed, with Debs’ notions of organizing the unorganized, the need for industrial unionization (as opposed to the prevailing narrow craft orientation of the Samuel Gompers-led AFL). Nevertheless Debs, to his credit, was no “dual unionist”, that is, committed to ignoring or going around the AFL and establishing “revolutionary” unions. This question of “boring from within” organized labor or “dual unions” continues to this day, and historically has been a very thorny question among militants faced with the bureaucratic inertia of the trade union bureaucracy. Debs came down on the side of the angels on this one (even if he later took unfavorable positions on IWW actions).
Although Debs is probably best known for his presidential runs (including that one from Atlanta prison in 1920 that I always enjoy seeing pictures of the one where he converses with his campaign staff in his cell) he really should be, if he is remembered for only one thing, remembered for his principled opposition to American war preparedness and eventual entry into World War I in 1917. Although it is unclear in my mind how much of Debs’ position stemmed from personal pacifism, how much from Hoosier isolationism (after all he was the quintessential Midwestern labor politician, having been raised in and lived all his life in Indiana) and how much was an anti-imperialist statement he nevertheless, of all major socialist spokesmen to speak nothing of major politicians in general , was virtually alone in his opposition when Woodrow Wilson pulled the hammer down and entered American forces into the European conflict.
That, my friends, should command respect from almost everyone, political friend or foe alike. Needless to say for his opposition he was eventually tried and convicted of, of all things, the catch-all charge of sedition and conspiracy. Some things never change. Moreover, that prison term is why Debs had to run from prison in 1920.
I started out this exposition of Debs’ political trajectory under the sign of the Russian Revolution and here I come full circle. I have, I believe, highlighted the points that we honor Debs for and now to balance the wheel we need to discuss his shortcomings (which are also a reflection of the shortcomings of the internationalist socialist movement then, and now). The almost universal betrayal of its anti- war positions of the pre-war international social democracy, as organized in the Second International and led by the German Party, by its subordination to the war aims of its respective individual capitalist governments exposed a deep crevice in the theory and practice of the movement.
As the experiences of the Russian revolution pointed out it was no longer possible for reformists and revolutionaries to coexist in the same party. Literally, on more than one occasion, these formally connected tendencies were on opposite sides of the barricades when the social tensions of society exploded. It was not a pretty sight and called for a splitting and realignment of the revolutionary forces internationally. The organizational expression of this was the formation, in the aftermath of the Russian revolution, of the Communist International in 1919. Part of that process, in America, included a left-wing split (or purge depending on the source read) and the creation, at first, of two communist organizations. As the most authoritative left-wing socialist of the day one would have thought that Debs would have inclined to the communists. That was not to be the case as he stayed with the remnant of the American Socialist Party until his death in the late 1920’s.
No one would argue that the early communist movement in America was not filled with more than its share of political mistakes, wild boys and just plain weirdness but that is where the revolutionaries were in the 1920’s. And this brings us really to Debs’ ultimate problem as a socialist leader and why I made that statement above that he could not lead a proletarian revolution in America, assuming that he was his desire. Debs had a life-long aversion to political faction and in-fighting. I would agree, as any rational radical politician would, that faction and in-fighting are not virtuous in and of themselves and are a net drain on the tasks of propaganda, recruitment and united front actions that should drive left-wing political work. However, as critical turning points in the international socialist movement have shown, sometimes the tensions between the political appetites of supposed like-minded individuals cannot be contained in one organization. This question is most dramatically posed, of course, in a revolutionary period when the tensions are whittled down to choices for or against the revolution. One side of the barricade or the other.
That said, Debs’ personality, demeanor and ultimately his political program of trying to keep “big tent” socialist together tarnished his image as a socialist leader. Debs’ positions on convicts, women, and blacks, education, religion and government. Debs was no theorist, socialist or otherwise, and many of his positions would not pass muster among radicals today. I note his economic determinist argument that the black question is subsumed in the class question. I have discussed this question elsewhere and will not address it here. I would only note, for a socialist, his position is just flat out wrong. I also note that, outside his support for women’s suffrage and working women’s rights to equal pay his attitude toward women was strictly Victorian. As was his wishy-washy attitude toward religion. Eugene V. Debs, warts and all, nevertheless deserves a fair nod from history as the premier American socialist of the pre-World War I period.
From #Ur-Occupied Boston (#Ur-Tomemonos Boston)-General Assembly-The Embryo Of An Alternate Government-Learn The Lessons Of History-Lessons From The Utopian Socialists- Charles Fourier and The Phalanx Movement-“The Passionate Series”
Click on the headline to link to the archives of the Occupy Boston General Assembly minutes from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. The General Assembly is the core political institution of the Occupy movement. Some of the minutes will reflect the growing pains of that movement and its concepts of political organization. Note that I used the word embryo in the headline and I believe that gives a fair estimate of its status, and its possibilities.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
*******
Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization (the General Assembly, its unrepresentative nature and its undemocratic consensus process) and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call ourselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
**********
In the recent past as part of my one of my commentaries I noted the following:
“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the ‘new world’ we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”
A couple of the people that I have talked to lately were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one of the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial doesn’t work- checks and balances-form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)
I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those of the "one percent" having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one.
Previous historical models readily come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.
In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started this Lessons Of History series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right of public and private sector workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dues on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*******
Charles Fourier (1772-1837)
“The Passionate Series”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape, 1972;
First Published: in 1822, Théorie de l'unité universelle.
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The series of groups is the method adopted by God in the organisation of the kingdoms of nature and of all created things. The naturalists, in their theories and classifications, have unanimously accepted this system of organisation; they could not have departed from it without coming into conflict with nature and falling into confusion.[28]
If human passions and personalities were not subject, like the material realms, to organisation by series of groups, man would be out of unity with the universe; there would be duplicity of system and incoherence between the material and passional worlds. If man aspires to social unity, he should seek it by adhering to the serial order to which God has subjected all of nature.
A passionate series is a league or affiliation of several small groups, each animated by some nuance or variety of a passion. The passion in question is the generic passion for the whole series. Thus if twenty groups cultivate twenty different types of roses, the generic passion of their series is rose-growing; the groups cultivating the white rose, the yellow rose, the moss-rose, etc., represent its varieties.
To take another example: twelve groups are engaged in the cultivation of twelve different flowers. The tulip is cultivated by one group, the jonquil by another, etc. These twelve groups together constitute a series of flower-growers whose generic function is the cultivation of flowers. The flowers are distributed according to a scale of tastes, each group cultivating the variety of flower for which it has a special fondness.
Passions limited to a single individual are not admissible in the serial mechanism. Three individuals — A, B, C — like their bread salted in different ways: A likes his almost unsalted; B likes his moderately salted; C prefers heavily salted bread. These three people are in a state of graduated dissonance which does not lend itself to the creation of serial accords. For such accords to take place there must be a number of groups linked in ascending and descending order.
A proper group should have from seven to nine members at the minimum in order to permit the development of balanced or equilibrated rivalries among its members. In the passionate series, then, we cannot base our calculations upon isolated individuals. The intrigues of a series could not be maintained by twelve individuals with a passion for the cultivation of twelve different flowers. This will be proved in the body of the treatise. For the time being it should be kept in mind that the term passionate series always refers to an affiliation of groups and never of individuals.
Thus the three individuals. mentioned above — A, B, C — could not form a series of breadists or bread-lovers. But if instead of three people we suppose thirty — namely, eight of taste A, ten of taste B, twelve of taste C — they would form a passionate series, that is, an affiliation of groups with graduated and contrasted tastes. Their joint activity and their cabalistic discords would create the intrigues necessary to bake excellent bread and grow fine wheat.[29]
The passionate series always strive toward some useful end such as the increase of wealth or the perfection of work even when they are engaged in leisure activities like music.
A series cannot be organised with less than three groups, for it needs a middle element to keep the two contrasting extremes in balance. A balance may also be established among four groups, provided their properties and relations correspond to those of a geometrical proportion.
When there are more than four groups in a series, they should be divided into three bodies, forming a center and two wings, or into four bodies, forming a quadrille. In each body of groups the varieties which are closely allied and homogeneous are united.
The societary order must thus employ and develop all varieties of taste and character in a scale of nuanced gradations. It forms a group to represent each variety without making any judgment concerning the merit of a particular taste. All tastes and penchants are good and they all have their uses, provided they can be made to form a series with ascending and descending wings and transitional groups at either extreme to represent uncommon and peculiar tastes. When a series is arranged in this manner, according to the methods which will be explained in the body of the treatise, each of its groups will cooperate harmonically with all the others, be they a hundred in number. The groups will resemble the cogs in a wheel which are all useful provided they mesh properly.
The calculus of the passionate series is going to establish a principle flattering to the whole human race: it will demonstrate that all tastes which are not harmful or annoying to others have a valuable function in the societary state. They will become useful as soon as they are developed in series — that is, according to a graduated scale in which each nuance of taste is represented by a group.
Thus the theory of association is nothing more than the art of forming and activating passionate series. As soon as this science has been discovered on a globe, it can at once establish social unity and attain individual and collective happiness. Thus it is a matter of urgent necessity for the human race to acquire a knowledge of this theory.
The passionate series must be contrasted, interlocked, and kept in a state of rivalry and exaltation. A series failing to fulfil these conditions could not perform its functions in the mechanism of Harmony.
A series must be contrasted — that is, its groups must be arranged in ascending and descending order. Thus to form a series of a hundred individuals classed according to age the following division should be adopted:
Ascending Wing: Groups of infants and children.
Center of the Series: Groups of adolescents and adults.
Descending Wing: Groups of aged persons.
The same method should be followed in classifying series of passions and character traits.
This method serves to bring out contrasts and hence to produce enthusiasm in the various groups. Each group becomes passionately addicted to its own dominant penchant or special taste. At the same time it develops contrasting tastes and penchants, and it becomes critical of the penchants and occupations of the contiguous groups in the series, with which it is in rivalry.
This system of progressive or graduated classification creates sympathies and alliances between the contrasted groups, and a antipathies or dissidences between contiguous groups with similar tastes.
The series needs discords as much as it needs harmonies. It must be stimulated by a host of rival pretensions which will give rise to cabalistic alliances and become a spur to emulation. Without contrasts it would be impossible to form leagues between the groups and create enthusiasm; the series would lack ardour for its labours, and its work would be inferior in quality and quantity.
The second necessary condition is to establish intrigues and active rivalries within a series. Since this should result from the regularity of contrasts and the graduated distribution of nuances or varieties, it may be said that this second condition is fulfilled once the first is satisfied. Of course there is more to say about the means by which intrigues are created, but that will come later.
The third condition to be fulfilled is that of the meshing or linkage of the different series. This can take place only if the groups change their work at frequent intervals, say every hour or at most every two hours. For example, a man may be employed:
At 5: 00 A.M. in a group of shepherds.
At 7: 00 A. M. in a group of field-workers.
At 9: 00 A. M. in a group of gardeners.
A session of two hours’ duration is the longest admissible in Harmony; enthusiasm cannot last any longer than that. If the work is unattractive in itself, the session should be reduced to one hour.
In the example just given the three series of shepherds, fieldworkers and gardeners will become meshed by the process of reciprocal interchange of members. It is not necessary for this interchange to be complete — for each of the twenty men engaged in tending flocks to go off and work in the fields at 7:00. All that is necessary is for each series to provide the others with several members taken from its different groups. The exchange of a few members will suffice to establish a linkage or meshing between the different series.
A passionate series acting in isolation would be useless and could perform no functions of a harmonic character. Nothing would be easier than to organise one or more industrial series in a large city like Paris. They might be engaged in the growing of flowers or fruit or anything else, but they would be completely useless. At least fifty series are necessary to fulfil the third condition, that of meshing. It is for this reason that the theory of association cannot be tried out on a small number of people, say twenty families or one hundred individuals. At least four hundred people — men, women and children — would be necessary to form and mesh the fifty series required to activate the mechanism of simple association. To organise a compound association at least four hundred series, requiring fifteen or sixteen hundred people, would be needed.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers! Drop All Charges Against All Protesters Everywhere!
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It, It’s Ours! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
*******
Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization (the General Assembly, its unrepresentative nature and its undemocratic consensus process) and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call ourselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
**********
In the recent past as part of my one of my commentaries I noted the following:
“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the ‘new world’ we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”
A couple of the people that I have talked to lately were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world a-borning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one of the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial doesn’t work- checks and balances-form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)
I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those of the "one percent" having no named politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one.
Previous historical models readily come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.
In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started this Lessons Of History series with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France and today’s presentation noted in the headline continues on in that same vein.
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-Mart- Defend the right of public and private sector workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dues on organizing the unorganized and other labor-specific causes (example, the November, 2011 anti-union recall referendum in Ohio).
*End the endless wars!- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops (And Mercenaries) From Afghanistan! Hands Off Pakistan! Hands Off Iran! Hands Off The World!
*Fight for a social agenda for working people!. Quality Healthcare For All! Nationalize the colleges and universities under student-teacher-campus worker control! Forgive student debt! Stop housing foreclosures!
*We created the wealth, let’s take it back. Take the struggle for our daily bread off the historic agenda. Build a workers party that fights for a workers government to unite all the oppressed.
Emblazon on our red banner-Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*******
Charles Fourier (1772-1837)
“The Passionate Series”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier. Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction. Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Published by Jonathan Cape, 1972;
First Published: in 1822, Théorie de l'unité universelle.
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The series of groups is the method adopted by God in the organisation of the kingdoms of nature and of all created things. The naturalists, in their theories and classifications, have unanimously accepted this system of organisation; they could not have departed from it without coming into conflict with nature and falling into confusion.[28]
If human passions and personalities were not subject, like the material realms, to organisation by series of groups, man would be out of unity with the universe; there would be duplicity of system and incoherence between the material and passional worlds. If man aspires to social unity, he should seek it by adhering to the serial order to which God has subjected all of nature.
A passionate series is a league or affiliation of several small groups, each animated by some nuance or variety of a passion. The passion in question is the generic passion for the whole series. Thus if twenty groups cultivate twenty different types of roses, the generic passion of their series is rose-growing; the groups cultivating the white rose, the yellow rose, the moss-rose, etc., represent its varieties.
To take another example: twelve groups are engaged in the cultivation of twelve different flowers. The tulip is cultivated by one group, the jonquil by another, etc. These twelve groups together constitute a series of flower-growers whose generic function is the cultivation of flowers. The flowers are distributed according to a scale of tastes, each group cultivating the variety of flower for which it has a special fondness.
Passions limited to a single individual are not admissible in the serial mechanism. Three individuals — A, B, C — like their bread salted in different ways: A likes his almost unsalted; B likes his moderately salted; C prefers heavily salted bread. These three people are in a state of graduated dissonance which does not lend itself to the creation of serial accords. For such accords to take place there must be a number of groups linked in ascending and descending order.
A proper group should have from seven to nine members at the minimum in order to permit the development of balanced or equilibrated rivalries among its members. In the passionate series, then, we cannot base our calculations upon isolated individuals. The intrigues of a series could not be maintained by twelve individuals with a passion for the cultivation of twelve different flowers. This will be proved in the body of the treatise. For the time being it should be kept in mind that the term passionate series always refers to an affiliation of groups and never of individuals.
Thus the three individuals. mentioned above — A, B, C — could not form a series of breadists or bread-lovers. But if instead of three people we suppose thirty — namely, eight of taste A, ten of taste B, twelve of taste C — they would form a passionate series, that is, an affiliation of groups with graduated and contrasted tastes. Their joint activity and their cabalistic discords would create the intrigues necessary to bake excellent bread and grow fine wheat.[29]
The passionate series always strive toward some useful end such as the increase of wealth or the perfection of work even when they are engaged in leisure activities like music.
A series cannot be organised with less than three groups, for it needs a middle element to keep the two contrasting extremes in balance. A balance may also be established among four groups, provided their properties and relations correspond to those of a geometrical proportion.
When there are more than four groups in a series, they should be divided into three bodies, forming a center and two wings, or into four bodies, forming a quadrille. In each body of groups the varieties which are closely allied and homogeneous are united.
The societary order must thus employ and develop all varieties of taste and character in a scale of nuanced gradations. It forms a group to represent each variety without making any judgment concerning the merit of a particular taste. All tastes and penchants are good and they all have their uses, provided they can be made to form a series with ascending and descending wings and transitional groups at either extreme to represent uncommon and peculiar tastes. When a series is arranged in this manner, according to the methods which will be explained in the body of the treatise, each of its groups will cooperate harmonically with all the others, be they a hundred in number. The groups will resemble the cogs in a wheel which are all useful provided they mesh properly.
The calculus of the passionate series is going to establish a principle flattering to the whole human race: it will demonstrate that all tastes which are not harmful or annoying to others have a valuable function in the societary state. They will become useful as soon as they are developed in series — that is, according to a graduated scale in which each nuance of taste is represented by a group.
Thus the theory of association is nothing more than the art of forming and activating passionate series. As soon as this science has been discovered on a globe, it can at once establish social unity and attain individual and collective happiness. Thus it is a matter of urgent necessity for the human race to acquire a knowledge of this theory.
The passionate series must be contrasted, interlocked, and kept in a state of rivalry and exaltation. A series failing to fulfil these conditions could not perform its functions in the mechanism of Harmony.
A series must be contrasted — that is, its groups must be arranged in ascending and descending order. Thus to form a series of a hundred individuals classed according to age the following division should be adopted:
Ascending Wing: Groups of infants and children.
Center of the Series: Groups of adolescents and adults.
Descending Wing: Groups of aged persons.
The same method should be followed in classifying series of passions and character traits.
This method serves to bring out contrasts and hence to produce enthusiasm in the various groups. Each group becomes passionately addicted to its own dominant penchant or special taste. At the same time it develops contrasting tastes and penchants, and it becomes critical of the penchants and occupations of the contiguous groups in the series, with which it is in rivalry.
This system of progressive or graduated classification creates sympathies and alliances between the contrasted groups, and a antipathies or dissidences between contiguous groups with similar tastes.
The series needs discords as much as it needs harmonies. It must be stimulated by a host of rival pretensions which will give rise to cabalistic alliances and become a spur to emulation. Without contrasts it would be impossible to form leagues between the groups and create enthusiasm; the series would lack ardour for its labours, and its work would be inferior in quality and quantity.
The second necessary condition is to establish intrigues and active rivalries within a series. Since this should result from the regularity of contrasts and the graduated distribution of nuances or varieties, it may be said that this second condition is fulfilled once the first is satisfied. Of course there is more to say about the means by which intrigues are created, but that will come later.
The third condition to be fulfilled is that of the meshing or linkage of the different series. This can take place only if the groups change their work at frequent intervals, say every hour or at most every two hours. For example, a man may be employed:
At 5: 00 A.M. in a group of shepherds.
At 7: 00 A. M. in a group of field-workers.
At 9: 00 A. M. in a group of gardeners.
A session of two hours’ duration is the longest admissible in Harmony; enthusiasm cannot last any longer than that. If the work is unattractive in itself, the session should be reduced to one hour.
In the example just given the three series of shepherds, fieldworkers and gardeners will become meshed by the process of reciprocal interchange of members. It is not necessary for this interchange to be complete — for each of the twenty men engaged in tending flocks to go off and work in the fields at 7:00. All that is necessary is for each series to provide the others with several members taken from its different groups. The exchange of a few members will suffice to establish a linkage or meshing between the different series.
A passionate series acting in isolation would be useless and could perform no functions of a harmonic character. Nothing would be easier than to organise one or more industrial series in a large city like Paris. They might be engaged in the growing of flowers or fruit or anything else, but they would be completely useless. At least fifty series are necessary to fulfil the third condition, that of meshing. It is for this reason that the theory of association cannot be tried out on a small number of people, say twenty families or one hundred individuals. At least four hundred people — men, women and children — would be necessary to form and mesh the fifty series required to activate the mechanism of simple association. To organise a compound association at least four hundred series, requiring fifteen or sixteen hundred people, would be needed.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Thoroughly Modern Miss Delysia LaFosse - Reflected
I have spent no little “cyberspace” ink in the recent past swearing off femme fatales in crime noirs, mainly crime noirs from their heyday in the 1940s and 1950s. I had grown tired, very tired, of two-timing dames (to speak nothing of those three, or hell more, timing frails) who saw nothing wrong, nothing in the world wrong, with off-handedly putting a couple of slugs in the likes of a prince valiant like Robert Mitchum as Jane Greer did in Out Of The Past just for trying to help her out of a jam, or seven. And him half-smiling, an ironic smirk really, half-wishing that finally just maybe he would be over her with those sweet embedded slugs. Ya, sure Robert, keep thinking she would ever loosen the claws she had into you. Sweet dreams, and RIP brother.
Or some half-addled, half-smitten, half-snake bitten, free-wheeling, half-mad poet fellow, blood cursed, irish blackie trying to shake off some tainted married woman and getting shook, getting square- framed, framed just for laughs to prove she could do it and slug-filled too. Framed hard right, framed hard left but framed and set up, with an invisible bulls-eye target right in the middle of his head, for the big house and the big tumble jolt without tears, or a look back, by a blond Rita Hayworth to Orson Welles in The Lady From Shang-hai (really not her color, blond, but that is a tale for another day and they don’t have to be blond to get to you in their clutches). And he, even after the mirror glass shattered, and he knew she was dead and gone and good riddance, would still remember, remember into old age remember, that first fragrance, some orchid scent, and that first look, some hidden larcenous look, as he walked along beside her and wonder where he had let her down. Have another shot, irish blackie, have one on me some cold dark night just before dream time.
Or, or, and just one last faint fragrance remembrance, this time maybe some blue dahlia scent or some oriental herbal splash, splashed on stone white-pancake faced killer in skirts who couldn’t play it straight for a minute and who just wanted her damn bird, and gold. And the stuff of dreams. And an off-hand slug in some desire belly on the way and falls, just not her’s. And not averse, not at all, to piling up the corpses high, to high heaven if necessary, to get them, the dreams that is, as Mary Astor did to dear, dear sturdy, worldly Humphrey Bogart, hell she even got to Bogie, in The Maltese Falcon. And he, hard guy, seen it all, done it all, will in fact spend many a long winter evening building a whiskey bottle pyramid to her, or that scent, always wondering if she had only played it straight for one minute what would have happened. But enough.
Fortunately after successful completion of the twelve –step femme fatale withdrawal program I am now cured, cured forever and a day, of those bad femmes. Jane Greer? I don’t believe I know the name. Rita Hayworth? Didn’t she marry some high sheriff over in Africa or something? Mary Astor? Is that some relative of John Jacob Astor? See, cured, fixed, done with all of that.
But what if, just for the sake of argument you understand, I had been on the wrong path, and got waylaid by those bad femmes. What about “good” femme fatales, or wannabes (from Pittsburg no less-pig iron steel provider to a hungry metal-craving world), who maybe are just a little screwy (okay, okay a lot screwy) and don’t even know how to handle a rod, or want to. Just men. And can warble you to tears when called upon. Well then fetchingly, and every other which way desirable, Miss Delysia LaFosse is just the type for you (and for me, especially sans those pistols that my, eh, advisors, have warned me off of ).
Rodded up, or not, Miss LaFosse knew one thing though, and knew it well in her time, in her post jazz- etched time, in her London just before the blitz 1939 time (and would have known it well in 1039 time and would know it well in 3039 time)- a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do. And while she may not have had a devil’s sinister heart she shared that truth with Miss Greer, Miss Hayworth, and Miss Astor. And so more than one man had to pay, pay the freight some way, if not with his life then still some way for that simple truth.
But even smart and wise girls from brawny Pittsburgh trapped in blitz-ready London can’t get things untangled all by their lonesome, especially screwy (if fetchingly so, okay) dames who are trying to work every angle by not working every angle and just letting thing fall where they will. What if all any self-respecting femme fatale, notorious for working the mantrap alone and net-less, really needed to stay away from hard guys, hard liquor, hard grifts, and mean streets was a sort of “fairy godmother” posing as a “social secretary” to work her plans. Especially if that social secretary was a wise and wishful aide, every way wise and wishful way. Then, my friends, you would have the substance of a plot for something of a little romantic comedy/social commentary/ nostalgia piece. And good PR for the femme fatale racket to boot.
And what if that good Miss LaFosse, aided by that help, not only untangled the little romantic triangle she had not worked every angle into with three beautiful young men who came of age after the war, the First World War that is, and who had “designs” on her free-wheeling spirit could sing your blues away. With no off-hand femme fatale gun play to “resolve” her fickle lifestyle dilemmas. Yes, what then. And I would not even be breaking twelve-step. Praise be.
Or some half-addled, half-smitten, half-snake bitten, free-wheeling, half-mad poet fellow, blood cursed, irish blackie trying to shake off some tainted married woman and getting shook, getting square- framed, framed just for laughs to prove she could do it and slug-filled too. Framed hard right, framed hard left but framed and set up, with an invisible bulls-eye target right in the middle of his head, for the big house and the big tumble jolt without tears, or a look back, by a blond Rita Hayworth to Orson Welles in The Lady From Shang-hai (really not her color, blond, but that is a tale for another day and they don’t have to be blond to get to you in their clutches). And he, even after the mirror glass shattered, and he knew she was dead and gone and good riddance, would still remember, remember into old age remember, that first fragrance, some orchid scent, and that first look, some hidden larcenous look, as he walked along beside her and wonder where he had let her down. Have another shot, irish blackie, have one on me some cold dark night just before dream time.
Or, or, and just one last faint fragrance remembrance, this time maybe some blue dahlia scent or some oriental herbal splash, splashed on stone white-pancake faced killer in skirts who couldn’t play it straight for a minute and who just wanted her damn bird, and gold. And the stuff of dreams. And an off-hand slug in some desire belly on the way and falls, just not her’s. And not averse, not at all, to piling up the corpses high, to high heaven if necessary, to get them, the dreams that is, as Mary Astor did to dear, dear sturdy, worldly Humphrey Bogart, hell she even got to Bogie, in The Maltese Falcon. And he, hard guy, seen it all, done it all, will in fact spend many a long winter evening building a whiskey bottle pyramid to her, or that scent, always wondering if she had only played it straight for one minute what would have happened. But enough.
Fortunately after successful completion of the twelve –step femme fatale withdrawal program I am now cured, cured forever and a day, of those bad femmes. Jane Greer? I don’t believe I know the name. Rita Hayworth? Didn’t she marry some high sheriff over in Africa or something? Mary Astor? Is that some relative of John Jacob Astor? See, cured, fixed, done with all of that.
But what if, just for the sake of argument you understand, I had been on the wrong path, and got waylaid by those bad femmes. What about “good” femme fatales, or wannabes (from Pittsburg no less-pig iron steel provider to a hungry metal-craving world), who maybe are just a little screwy (okay, okay a lot screwy) and don’t even know how to handle a rod, or want to. Just men. And can warble you to tears when called upon. Well then fetchingly, and every other which way desirable, Miss Delysia LaFosse is just the type for you (and for me, especially sans those pistols that my, eh, advisors, have warned me off of ).
Rodded up, or not, Miss LaFosse knew one thing though, and knew it well in her time, in her post jazz- etched time, in her London just before the blitz 1939 time (and would have known it well in 1039 time and would know it well in 3039 time)- a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do. And while she may not have had a devil’s sinister heart she shared that truth with Miss Greer, Miss Hayworth, and Miss Astor. And so more than one man had to pay, pay the freight some way, if not with his life then still some way for that simple truth.
But even smart and wise girls from brawny Pittsburgh trapped in blitz-ready London can’t get things untangled all by their lonesome, especially screwy (if fetchingly so, okay) dames who are trying to work every angle by not working every angle and just letting thing fall where they will. What if all any self-respecting femme fatale, notorious for working the mantrap alone and net-less, really needed to stay away from hard guys, hard liquor, hard grifts, and mean streets was a sort of “fairy godmother” posing as a “social secretary” to work her plans. Especially if that social secretary was a wise and wishful aide, every way wise and wishful way. Then, my friends, you would have the substance of a plot for something of a little romantic comedy/social commentary/ nostalgia piece. And good PR for the femme fatale racket to boot.
And what if that good Miss LaFosse, aided by that help, not only untangled the little romantic triangle she had not worked every angle into with three beautiful young men who came of age after the war, the First World War that is, and who had “designs” on her free-wheeling spirit could sing your blues away. With no off-hand femme fatale gun play to “resolve” her fickle lifestyle dilemmas. Yes, what then. And I would not even be breaking twelve-step. Praise be.
In Boston-Support the Hardworking Contracted Janitors at 31 St. James!
Support the Hardworking Contracted Janitors at 31 St. James!
Almost 20 contracted janitors that clean 31 St. James Avenue are at risk of losing their jobs on May 11 due to no fault of their own. Many of these contracted janitors, like Ludivia (pictured), have worked at 31 St. James for years.
The contracted janitors are at risk of losing their jobs because the building owner, Capital Properties, has decided to contract the building's cleaning services to an irresponsible contractor that pays lower wages with little or no benefits. This decision not only puts the contracted janitors at 31 St. James at risk, but also threatens the standards of Boston's cleaning industry.
**********
"I love my job and have worked here many years. I'm afraid that my family will lose our home if I lose my job at 31 St. James/'
Ludivia Velez
Contracteded janitor at 31 St. James
Ludivia Velez has worked at 31 St. James for 11 years and is one of the contracted janitors who faces losing her job on May 11th. Ludivia works two jobs so she and her husband can afford a house to provide a safe and stable environment to raise their son. She leaves the house at 6:30 in the morning for her first job at a hotel kitchen , goes straight to her second job cleaning 31 St. James, and does not get home until 11:00 at night.
If she loses her job at 31 St. James, she is afraid that her family will be unable to make the mortgage payments and will face foreclosure.
***********
As people across the world honor International Workers Day today, please sign the petition to show that the contracted janitors at 31 St. James are valued and respected.
Please sign petition today to support the hardworking contracted janitors
St. James.
seiu615.org * SEIU Local 615 * 26 West St. Boston, MA 02111 * 61 "-523-6150 * facebook.com/seiu615 *
No request to cease services or deliveries.
Almost 20 contracted janitors that clean 31 St. James Avenue are at risk of losing their jobs on May 11 due to no fault of their own. Many of these contracted janitors, like Ludivia (pictured), have worked at 31 St. James for years.
The contracted janitors are at risk of losing their jobs because the building owner, Capital Properties, has decided to contract the building's cleaning services to an irresponsible contractor that pays lower wages with little or no benefits. This decision not only puts the contracted janitors at 31 St. James at risk, but also threatens the standards of Boston's cleaning industry.
**********
"I love my job and have worked here many years. I'm afraid that my family will lose our home if I lose my job at 31 St. James/'
Ludivia Velez
Contracteded janitor at 31 St. James
Ludivia Velez has worked at 31 St. James for 11 years and is one of the contracted janitors who faces losing her job on May 11th. Ludivia works two jobs so she and her husband can afford a house to provide a safe and stable environment to raise their son. She leaves the house at 6:30 in the morning for her first job at a hotel kitchen , goes straight to her second job cleaning 31 St. James, and does not get home until 11:00 at night.
If she loses her job at 31 St. James, she is afraid that her family will be unable to make the mortgage payments and will face foreclosure.
***********
As people across the world honor International Workers Day today, please sign the petition to show that the contracted janitors at 31 St. James are valued and respected.
Please sign petition today to support the hardworking contracted janitors
St. James.
seiu615.org * SEIU Local 615 * 26 West St. Boston, MA 02111 * 61 "-523-6150 * facebook.com/seiu615 *
No request to cease services or deliveries.
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