Click on the headline to link to an NPR entry on the passing of Irish-American author Frank McCourt On July 20, 2009
Book Review
Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir Of Childhood, Frank McCourt, Flamingo, London, 1997
Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes is probably the easiest review that I have had to write since I have been doing such reviews in this space. Why? Frank McCourt’s book of childhood memoirs is my story. No. Not in the details of his life’s story, or mine. But rather how the fact of being Irish, of being poor, and of being uprooted affected your childhood, and later times as well. And those traumas, for good or evil, crossed generational lines. McCourt, we are told as his story unfolds, was born in America of immigrants of the diaspora after Irish independence who, for one reason or another, returned to the old country in defeat in the 1930’s. As McCourt noted right at the beginning, that fact in itself provides a rather ironic twist if one is familiar with Irish history and the endless waves of migration (at least until very recently and now that has again been reversed with the latest “troubles”).
McCourt was, in any case, thus a child of the Great Depression and World War II, the generation of my parents, as it was refracted through Ireland during that period. I, on the other hand, am a child of the 1960’s, the “Generation of ‘68” here in America born of the dreaded Irish Catholic-English Protestant combination- and raised in an Irish Catholic enclave. Nevertheless the pages of this memoir are filled to the brim with the results of the emotional (and sometimes physical scars) of being “shanty” Irish (and decidedly not “lace curtain” or “chandelier,” the other “classes” of the dispensation) in this world that hit home, and hit home hard, to this reader.
That said, we do not share the terrible effect that “the drink” (nice way to put it, right) had on creating his dysfunctional family with his father’s, Malachi McCourt’s, crazed need for the alcohol “cure” in order to drown his sorrows and his bitternesses and the fact that his great moment in life, his "fifteen minutes offame" was his bit for “the cause” (of Irish independence). A familiar story in the Irish community here, and in the old country, but my father, my poor old shambles of a father, seldom drank, although he too was constantly out of work and shared with Frank’s father that same bitterness about his fate. A quiet despair bitterness that touched the whole family, and touched every even small event, good or bad, sometimes the good worst than the bad. My father was uneducated, lacking in skills, and prospects and as a “hillbilly” Protestant Southerner from coal country down in Kentucky was thus, an ‘outsider’ in the Boston milieu like Frank’s father had been in Limerick. That is the commonality that caught my eye (and sometimes my throat) as I read of Frank’s youthful trials, tribulations and adventures. McCourt’s ability to tap into that “mystical” something is what makes this a fine read, whether you are Irish or not.
Throughout the book McCourt’s woe-begotten but fatally prideful father is constantly referred to in the Irish-town working class poor ghetto of Limerick (and elsewhere, as well, but the heart of the story is told from there) as having an "odd manner." This reflects a certain clannishness against those from the North of Ireland (Dare I say it, the area then known as Ulster) and a sneaking suspicion amount that crowd of some alien (meaning English Protestant) heritage. As the book progresses that odd trait is transferred (by heredity?) to Frank in his various wanderings, enterprise, and desires. What joins us together then is that "odd manner" that gets repeatedly invoked throughout the book. Frank survived to tell the tale. As did I. But in both cases it appears to have been a near thing.
There is more that unites us. The shame culture, not an exclusive Irish Catholic property but very strong nevertheless, drilled in by the clannishness, the closeness of neighbors, the Catholic religion and by the bloody outsiders- usually but not always Protestants of some sort (as least for blame purposes- you know, the eight hundred years of British tyranny in the misty past, although very real to be sure). All driven, and driven hard, by not having nearly enough of this world’s goods. Every time I read a passage about the lack of food, the quality of the food, the conditions of the various tenements that the McCourt family lived in, the lack of adequate and clean clothing, I cringed at the thoughts from my own childhood. Or during the various times when his family was seriously down and out and his mother, the beloved Angela of the title, had to humble herself and beg for charity, of one form or another, from some institution that existed mainly to berate the poor. I can remember own my mother’s plaintive cry when my brothers and I misbehaved that the next step was the county poor farm.
And how about the false pride and skewed order of priorities? Frank’s father was a flat-out drunk and was totally irresponsible. From a child's perspective, however, he was still your dad and must be given the respect accordingly, especially against the viciousness of the outside world. But life’s disappointments for the father also get reflected in the expectations of the son. The dreams are smaller. Here, the horizons are pretty small when a governmental job with its security just above the “dole” is the touchstone of respectability. Sean O’Casey was able to make enduring plays from the slums of Dublin out of this material. And Frank McCourt enduring literature. Thanks, brother.
Note: The movie version of “Angela’s Ashes” pretty fairly reflects the intentions of Frank McCourt in his childhood memoirs and follows the book accordingly, without the usual dramatic embellishments of that medium. The story line is so strong it needs no such “touch-ups.” Particularly compelling is the very visual "piss pot" sense of utter poverty down at the base of Irish society in Frank McCourt’s childhood.
The two songs below are constantly being sung by Frank McCourt's father when he is "on the drink" to give a little musical flavor to this entry.
"Roddy McCorly"
O see the fleet-foot host of men, who march with faces drawn,
From farmstead and from fishers' cot, along the banks of Ban;
They come with vengeance in their eyes. Too late! Too late are they,
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
Up the narrow street he stepped, so smiling, proud and young.
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung;
There's ne'er a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
When last this narrow street he trod, his shining pike in hand
Behind him marched, in grim array, a earnest stalwart band.
To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
There's never a one of all your dead more bravely died in fray
Than he who marches to his fate in Toomebridge town today; ray
True to the last! True to the last, he treads the upwards way,
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
"Kevin Barry"
In MOUNT JOY jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the 'cause of liberty
Just a lad of eighteen summers
Yet no true man can deny
As he walked to death that morning
He proudly held his head up high
Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
The British laws may crush the Irish
But cannot keep their spirits down
Just before he faced the hangman
In his dreary prison cell
The British soldiers tortured Barry
Just because he would not tell
The name of all his brave companions
And other things they wished to know
Turn informer or we'll kill you
Kevin Barry answered no
Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
Whose cruel laws may crush the Irish
But CANNOT KEEP their spirits down
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
From The AP-DA dropping death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal
Markin comment:
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man. Free Mumia!
**********
DA dropping death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal
KATHY MATHESON, AP
32 minutes ago
PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors have called off their 30-year battle to execute former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal for murdering a white police officer, putting to an end the racially charged case that became a major battleground in the fight over the death penalty.
Flanked by the police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision Wednesday, just two days short of the 30th anniversary of the killing. He said continuing to seek death penalty would open the case to "an unknowable number of years" of appeals.
"There's never been any doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982," said Williams, the city's first black district attorney. "While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs."
Abu-Jamal was convicted of fatally shooting Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. He was sentenced to death after his trial the following year.
Abu-Jamal, who has been incarcerated in a western Pennsylvania prison, has garnered worldwide support from those who believe he was the victim of a racially biased justice system.
The conviction was upheld through years of legal appeals. But a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing after ruling the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the case in October. That forced prosecutors to decide if they wanted to again pursue the death penalty through a new sentencing hearing or accept a life sentence.
Williams said he reached the decision to drop the death penalty bid with the blessing of Maureen Faulkner, who said another sentencing hearing would undoubtedly be just the beginning of another long, arduous appeals process.
"Another penalty proceeding would open the case to the repetition of the state appeals process and an unknowable number of years of federal review again, even if we were successful," Williams said. He also said that after nearly three decades, some witnesses have died or are otherwise unreliable.
Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, who represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals, applauded the decision.
"There is no question that justice is served when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned," Ritter said. "Thirty years later, the district attorney's decision not to seek a new death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."
According to trial testimony, Abu-Jamal saw his brother scuffle with the young patrolman during a 4 a.m. traffic stop in 1981 and ran toward the scene. Police found Abu-Jamal wounded by a round from Faulkner's gun. Faulkner, shot several times, was killed. A .38-caliber revolver registered to Abu-Jamal was found at the scene with five spent shell casings.
The officer's widow, Maureen Faulkner, has tried to remain visible over the years to ensure that her husband is not forgotten. They were 25-year-old newlyweds when he died.
"My family and I have endured a three-decade ordeal at the hands of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters, who in many cases never even took the time to educate themselves about the case before lending their names, giving their support and advocating for his freedom," Maureen Faulkner said Wednesday. "All of this has taken an unimaginable physical, emotional and financial toll on each of us."
Abu-Jamal, born Wesley Cook, turned 58 earlier this year.
His writings and radio broadcasts from death row made him a cause celebre and the subject of numerous books and movies. His own 1995 book, "Live From Death Row," describes prison life and calls the justice system racist and ruled by political expediency.
Abu-Jamal, a one-time journalist, garnered worldwide support from the "Free Mumia" movement. Hundreds of vocal supporters and death-penalty opponents regularly turn out for court hearings in his case, even though Abu-Jamal is rarely entitled to attend.
His message resonated particularly on college campuses and in the movie and music industries — actors Mike Farrell and Tim Robbins were among dozens of luminaries who used a New York Times ad to advocate for a new trial, and the Beastie Boys played a concert to raise money for Abu-Jamal's defense fund.
Over the years, Abu-Jamal has challenged the predominantly white makeup of the jury, instructions given to jurors and the statements of eyewitnesses. He has also alleged ineffective counsel, racism by the trial judge and that another man confessed to the crime.
Maureen Faulkner railed against what she called the justice system's "dirty little secret" — the difficulty of putting condemned killers to death. Pennsylvania has put to death three people since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, and all three had willingly given up on their appeals.
Faulkner lashed out at the judges who overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence, calling them "dishonest cowards" who, she said, oppose the death penalty.
"The disgusting reality with the death penalty in Pennsylvania is that the fix is in before the hearing even begins," she said.
Faulkner also vowed to fight anyone who tries to extract special treatment for Abu-Jamal, advocating instead that he be moved to the general population after being taken off death row.
"I will not stand by and see him coddled, as he has been in the past," Faulkner said. "And I am heartened that he will be taken from the protective cloister he has been living in all these years and begin living among his own kind — the thugs and common criminals that infest our prisons."
Both sides have events planned to mark the anniversary of Faulkner's death and Abu-Jamal's subsequent arrest.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal, including Princeton professor Cornel West, have a symposium planned Friday at the National Constitution Center for the man they call an "innocent revolutionary and celebrated journalist."
Maureen Faulkner, Williams and others involved in the prosecution will gather in suburban Philadelphia to mark the anniversary this week for a screening of the anti-Mumia documentary by Philadelphia filmmaker Tigre Hill.
___
Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale contributed to this story.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man. Free Mumia!
**********
DA dropping death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal
KATHY MATHESON, AP
32 minutes ago
PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors have called off their 30-year battle to execute former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal for murdering a white police officer, putting to an end the racially charged case that became a major battleground in the fight over the death penalty.
Flanked by the police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision Wednesday, just two days short of the 30th anniversary of the killing. He said continuing to seek death penalty would open the case to "an unknowable number of years" of appeals.
"There's never been any doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982," said Williams, the city's first black district attorney. "While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs."
Abu-Jamal was convicted of fatally shooting Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. He was sentenced to death after his trial the following year.
Abu-Jamal, who has been incarcerated in a western Pennsylvania prison, has garnered worldwide support from those who believe he was the victim of a racially biased justice system.
The conviction was upheld through years of legal appeals. But a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing after ruling the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the case in October. That forced prosecutors to decide if they wanted to again pursue the death penalty through a new sentencing hearing or accept a life sentence.
Williams said he reached the decision to drop the death penalty bid with the blessing of Maureen Faulkner, who said another sentencing hearing would undoubtedly be just the beginning of another long, arduous appeals process.
"Another penalty proceeding would open the case to the repetition of the state appeals process and an unknowable number of years of federal review again, even if we were successful," Williams said. He also said that after nearly three decades, some witnesses have died or are otherwise unreliable.
Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, who represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals, applauded the decision.
"There is no question that justice is served when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned," Ritter said. "Thirty years later, the district attorney's decision not to seek a new death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."
According to trial testimony, Abu-Jamal saw his brother scuffle with the young patrolman during a 4 a.m. traffic stop in 1981 and ran toward the scene. Police found Abu-Jamal wounded by a round from Faulkner's gun. Faulkner, shot several times, was killed. A .38-caliber revolver registered to Abu-Jamal was found at the scene with five spent shell casings.
The officer's widow, Maureen Faulkner, has tried to remain visible over the years to ensure that her husband is not forgotten. They were 25-year-old newlyweds when he died.
"My family and I have endured a three-decade ordeal at the hands of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters, who in many cases never even took the time to educate themselves about the case before lending their names, giving their support and advocating for his freedom," Maureen Faulkner said Wednesday. "All of this has taken an unimaginable physical, emotional and financial toll on each of us."
Abu-Jamal, born Wesley Cook, turned 58 earlier this year.
His writings and radio broadcasts from death row made him a cause celebre and the subject of numerous books and movies. His own 1995 book, "Live From Death Row," describes prison life and calls the justice system racist and ruled by political expediency.
Abu-Jamal, a one-time journalist, garnered worldwide support from the "Free Mumia" movement. Hundreds of vocal supporters and death-penalty opponents regularly turn out for court hearings in his case, even though Abu-Jamal is rarely entitled to attend.
His message resonated particularly on college campuses and in the movie and music industries — actors Mike Farrell and Tim Robbins were among dozens of luminaries who used a New York Times ad to advocate for a new trial, and the Beastie Boys played a concert to raise money for Abu-Jamal's defense fund.
Over the years, Abu-Jamal has challenged the predominantly white makeup of the jury, instructions given to jurors and the statements of eyewitnesses. He has also alleged ineffective counsel, racism by the trial judge and that another man confessed to the crime.
Maureen Faulkner railed against what she called the justice system's "dirty little secret" — the difficulty of putting condemned killers to death. Pennsylvania has put to death three people since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, and all three had willingly given up on their appeals.
Faulkner lashed out at the judges who overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence, calling them "dishonest cowards" who, she said, oppose the death penalty.
"The disgusting reality with the death penalty in Pennsylvania is that the fix is in before the hearing even begins," she said.
Faulkner also vowed to fight anyone who tries to extract special treatment for Abu-Jamal, advocating instead that he be moved to the general population after being taken off death row.
"I will not stand by and see him coddled, as he has been in the past," Faulkner said. "And I am heartened that he will be taken from the protective cloister he has been living in all these years and begin living among his own kind — the thugs and common criminals that infest our prisons."
Both sides have events planned to mark the anniversary of Faulkner's death and Abu-Jamal's subsequent arrest.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal, including Princeton professor Cornel West, have a symposium planned Friday at the National Constitution Center for the man they call an "innocent revolutionary and celebrated journalist."
Maureen Faulkner, Williams and others involved in the prosecution will gather in suburban Philadelphia to mark the anniversary this week for a screening of the anti-Mumia documentary by Philadelphia filmmaker Tigre Hill.
___
Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale contributed to this story.
From The Partisan Defense Committee-The 26th Holiday Appeal In Support Of Class-War Prisoners
Click on the headline to link to the Partisan Defense Committee website.
Reposted from the American Left History blog, dated December 1, 2010.
Markin comment:
I like to think of myself as a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, an organization committed to social and political defense cases and causes in the interests of the working class and, at this time of the year, to raising funds to support the class-war prisoners’ stipend program. Normally I do not need any prompting in the matter. This year, however, in light of the addition of Attorney Lynne Stewart (yes, I know, she has been disbarred but that does not make her less of a people’s attorney in my eyes) to the stipend program, I read the 25th Anniversary Appeal article in Workers Vanguard No. 969 where I was startled to note how many of the names, organizations, and political philosophies mentioned there hark back to my own radical coming of age, and the need for class struggle defense in the late 1960s (although I may not have used that exact term at the time).
That recognition included names like black liberation fighter George Jackson, present class-war prisoner Hugo Pinell’s San Quentin Six comrade; the Black Panthers, as represented here by two of the Omaha Three (Poindexter and wa Langa), in their better days and in the days when we needed, desperately needed, to fight for their defense in places from Oakland to New Haven; the struggle, the fierce struggle, against the death penalty as represented in Mumia’s case today; the Ohio 7 and the Weather Underground who, rightly or wrongly, were committed to building a second front against American imperialism, and who most of the left, the respectable left, abandoned; and, of course, Leonard Peltier and the Native American struggles from Pine Ridge to the Southwest. It has been a long time and victories few. I could go on but you get the point.
That point also includes the hard fact that we have paid a high price, a very high price, for not winning back in the late 1960s and early 1970s when we last had this capitalist imperialist society on the ropes. Maybe it was political immaturity, maybe it was cranky theory, maybe it was elitism, hell, maybe it was just old-fashioned hubris but we let them off the hook. And have had to fight forty years of rear-guard “culture wars” since just to keep from falling further behind.
And the class-war prisoners, our class-war prisoners, have had to face their “justice” and their prisons. That lesson should be etched in the memory of every pro-working class militant today. And this, as well, as a quick glance at the news these days should make every liberation fighter realize; the difference between being on one side of that prison wall and the other is a very close thing when the bourgeois decides to pull the hammer down. The support of class-war prisoners is thus not charity, as International Labor Defense founder James P. Cannon noted back in the 1920s, but a duty of those fighters outside the walls. Today I do my duty, and gladly.
***********
Workers Vanguard No. 991 25 November 2011
Free the Class-War Prisoners!
26th Annual PDC Holiday Appeal
An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
The holiday season is once again upon us. Any day now, we’ll be assaulted 24/7 with commercials hawking the latest PlayStations, full-page newspaper ads featuring Christmas lingerie and jewelry, sitcoms with oafish dads sporting hideous Christmas ties and endless broadcasts of the movie about the Midwestern banker who, thanks to his guardian angel Clarence, discovers that “It’s a Wonderful Life.” For most, this year’s holidays mean that the bosses are in the Bahamas sucking up single malt scotch while paychecks are replaced with pink slips and the Santa shimmying down the chimney is a marshal serving a foreclosure notice. At the same time, poor families debate whether the small bit of money set aside for the holidays will be spent on presents or a bus ticket to visit their loved ones behind bars.
For us, this time of year is an occasion to redouble our commitment to those among the inhabitants of America’s vast network of prisons who were singled out for standing up to racist capitalist oppression—the class-war prisoners. Twenty-six years ago, the Partisan Defense Committee revived the program of the early International Labor Defense (ILD) under its secretary, James P. Cannon, of sending stipends to the class-war prisoners—irrespective of their political views or affiliations. As Cannon wrote:
“In one sense of the word the whole of capitalist society is a prison. For the great mass of people who do the hard, useful work there is no such word as freedom. They come and go at the order of a few. Their lives are regulated according to the needs and wishes of a few. A censorship is put upon their words and deeds. The fruits of their labor are taken from them. And if, by chance, they have the instinct and spirit to rebel, if they take their place in the vanguard of the fight for justice, the prisons are waiting.”
—James P. Cannon, “The Cause that Passes Through a Prison” (Labor Defender, September 1926)
We provide monthly stipends to 16 class-war prisoners and holiday gifts for them and their families. The $25 monthly stipends help ease a little bit the horrors of “life” in capitalist dungeons. More importantly, they are a necessary expression of solidarity with these prisoners—a message that they are not forgotten.
Since we initiated this program in 1986, we have provided stipends to over 30 class-war prisoners around the world. Among the first was former Black Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt), who spent 27 years in prison, for a crime that the state authorities knew that he did not commit, before being released in 1997. Geronimo died in June, an untimely death undoubtedly linked to his many years in prison.
Most of the class-war prisoners who receive PDC stipends have already spent decades in prison, and the capitalist rulers are determined not only to see them die behind bars but also to repeatedly subject them to harassment and degradation. American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier wrote us about his recent transfer to a prison in Florida far from his family and supporters, where the authorities placed him in a cell with a skinhead sporting on his back a tattoo of a KKK nightrider!
For those behind bars, the human tragedies that befall us all are made ever more acute by the enforced separation from family and friends. Jaan Laaman recently informed us of the death of his son Rick. Earlier this year, death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal lost his sister, Lydia Barashango, who was a tireless activist in Mumia’s fight for freedom. Mumia also had the bittersweet experience of seeing his son, Jamal Hart, railroaded to prison on bogus gun-possession charges in retaliation for speaking out on his father’s behalf, finally released from prison after serving every single day of his 15 and a half year sentence.
Persecution of those imprisoned for their political views and actions has not only continued unabated, but Obama and his top cop, Attorney General Eric Holder, are making reservations for many more to join those already behind bars. The Obama administration has expanded the repressive measures adopted during the Clinton/Bush years that are being wielded against those who propelled him into office—labor, blacks, immigrants and liberal youth. Obama has used the “anti-terror” laws to target leftist supporters of Latin American guerrillas and oppressed Palestinians, far surpassed the Bush regime in deporting immigrants and carried out the assassination abroad of an American citizen without even the pretense of charges or a trial.
The struggle to free the class-war prisoners is critical to educating a new generation of fighters against exploitation and oppression—a schooling centered on the role of the capitalist state, comprising the military, cops, courts and prisons. In recent weeks, the young activists of the “Occupy” protests have been on the receiving end of pepper spray, tear gas and police truncheons, with thousands arrested—a small taste not only of the daily hell of life for black people in this country but also what the bosses’ government unleashes against workers when they engage in class struggle. This was seen in the brutal cop attacks and arrests this September of over 130 leaders, members and supporters of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Longview, Washington. In its battle with the giant union-busting EGT grain exporter, the union has engaged in the kind of militant labor actions that built this country’s industrial unions. A defeat in Longview would be a body blow against the ILWU as a whole.
The 16 class-war prisoners receiving stipends from the PDC are listed below:
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther Party spokesman, a well-known supporter of the MOVE organization and an award-winning journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless.” This year the Philadelphia district attorney’s office unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the death penalty for this class-war prisoner. The D.A. now has until mid April to convene a new sentencing hearing, the sole purpose of which would be to determine whether Mumia is to be again sentenced to death or will rot in prison for life.
This December marks the 30th anniversary of Mumia’s arrest for a killing that the cops know he did not commit. Mumia was framed up for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. Mountains of documentation proving Mumia’s innocence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner, have been submitted to the courts. But from top to bottom, the courts have repeatedly refused to hear this overwhelming evidence.
While others plead with the current U.S. president and his attorney general to “investigate” violations of Mumia’s “civil rights,” the PDC says that Mumia’s fate cannot be left in the hands of the government of the capitalists. The racist rulers hate Mumia because they see in him the spectre of black revolt. The stakes are high and the situation is grim, but any real fight for Mumia’s freedom must be based on class-struggle opposition to the capitalist rulers, who have entombed this innocent black man for more than half his life.
Leonard Peltier is an internationally renowned class-war prisoner. Peltier’s incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier’s frame-up trial, for the 1975 deaths of two marauding FBI agents in what had become a war zone on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation, shows what capitalist “justice” is all about. Although the lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct, the 67-year-old Peltier is still locked away. This year, Peltier, who suffers from multiple serious medical conditions, was thrown into solitary confinement and then transferred to Florida, far from his family. He is not scheduled to be reconsidered for parole for another 13 years.
Eight MOVE members—Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa, Eddie Africa and Phil Africa—are in their 34th year in prison. They were sentenced to 30 to 100 years after the 8 August 1978 siege of their Philadelphia home by over 600 heavily armed cops, having been falsely convicted of killing a police officer who died in the cops’ own cross fire. In 1985, eleven of their MOVE family members, including five children, were massacred by Philly cops in collaboration with the Feds. After more than three decades of unjust incarceration, most of these innocent prisoners had parole hearings this year, but none were released.
Lynne Stewart is a radical lawyer incarcerated for defending her client, a blind Egyptian cleric imprisoned for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s. Last year, she was resentenced to ten years, more than quadrupling her earlier sentence, in a loud affirmation by the Obama administration that there will be no let-up in the massive attack on democratic rights under the “war on terror.” Stewart, now over 72 years old and suffering from breast cancer, is known for her defense of Black Panthers, radical leftists and others reviled by the capitalist state.
Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning are the two remaining anti-imperialist activists known as the Ohio 7 still in prison, convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank “expropriations” and bombings of symbols of U.S. imperialism, such as military and corporate offices, in the late 1970s and ’80s. Before their arrests in 1984 and 1985, the Ohio 7 were targets of massive manhunts. Their children were kidnapped at gunpoint by the Feds.
The Ohio 7’s politics were once shared by thousands of radicals during the Vietnam antiwar movement and by New Leftists who wrote off the possibility of winning the working class to a revolutionary program and saw themselves as an auxiliary of Third World liberation movements. But, like the Weathermen before them, the Ohio 7 were spurned by the “respectable” left. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not a crime. They should not have served a day in prison.
Ed Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa are former Black Panther supporters and leaders of the Omaha, Nebraska, National Committee to Combat Fascism. They were victims of the FBI’s deadly COINTELPRO operation under which 38 Black Panther Party members were killed and hundreds more imprisoned on frame-up charges. Poindexter and Mondo were railroaded to prison and sentenced to life for a 1970 explosion that killed a cop, and they have now served more than 40 years in jail. Nebraska courts have repeatedly denied Poindexter and Mondo new trials despite the fact that a crucial piece of evidence excluded from the original trial, a 911 audio tape long suppressed by the FBI, proved that testimony of the state’s key witness was perjured.
Hugo Pinell, the last of the San Quentin 6 still in prison, has been in solitary isolation for more than four decades. He was a militant anti-racist leader of prison rights organizing along with George Jackson, his comrade and mentor, who was gunned down by prison guards in 1971. Despite numerous letters of support and no disciplinary write-ups for over 28 years, Pinell was again denied parole in 2009. Now in his 60s, Pinell continues to serve a life sentence at the notorious torture chamber, Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit in California, a focal point for two recent hunger strikes against grotesquely inhuman conditions.
Contribute now! All proceeds from the Holiday Appeals will go to the Class-War Prisoners Stipend Fund. This is not charity but an elementary act of solidarity with those imprisoned for their opposition to racist capitalism and imperialist depredations. Send your contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013; (212) 406-4252.
Reposted from the American Left History blog, dated December 1, 2010.
Markin comment:
I like to think of myself as a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, an organization committed to social and political defense cases and causes in the interests of the working class and, at this time of the year, to raising funds to support the class-war prisoners’ stipend program. Normally I do not need any prompting in the matter. This year, however, in light of the addition of Attorney Lynne Stewart (yes, I know, she has been disbarred but that does not make her less of a people’s attorney in my eyes) to the stipend program, I read the 25th Anniversary Appeal article in Workers Vanguard No. 969 where I was startled to note how many of the names, organizations, and political philosophies mentioned there hark back to my own radical coming of age, and the need for class struggle defense in the late 1960s (although I may not have used that exact term at the time).
That recognition included names like black liberation fighter George Jackson, present class-war prisoner Hugo Pinell’s San Quentin Six comrade; the Black Panthers, as represented here by two of the Omaha Three (Poindexter and wa Langa), in their better days and in the days when we needed, desperately needed, to fight for their defense in places from Oakland to New Haven; the struggle, the fierce struggle, against the death penalty as represented in Mumia’s case today; the Ohio 7 and the Weather Underground who, rightly or wrongly, were committed to building a second front against American imperialism, and who most of the left, the respectable left, abandoned; and, of course, Leonard Peltier and the Native American struggles from Pine Ridge to the Southwest. It has been a long time and victories few. I could go on but you get the point.
That point also includes the hard fact that we have paid a high price, a very high price, for not winning back in the late 1960s and early 1970s when we last had this capitalist imperialist society on the ropes. Maybe it was political immaturity, maybe it was cranky theory, maybe it was elitism, hell, maybe it was just old-fashioned hubris but we let them off the hook. And have had to fight forty years of rear-guard “culture wars” since just to keep from falling further behind.
And the class-war prisoners, our class-war prisoners, have had to face their “justice” and their prisons. That lesson should be etched in the memory of every pro-working class militant today. And this, as well, as a quick glance at the news these days should make every liberation fighter realize; the difference between being on one side of that prison wall and the other is a very close thing when the bourgeois decides to pull the hammer down. The support of class-war prisoners is thus not charity, as International Labor Defense founder James P. Cannon noted back in the 1920s, but a duty of those fighters outside the walls. Today I do my duty, and gladly.
***********
Workers Vanguard No. 991 25 November 2011
Free the Class-War Prisoners!
26th Annual PDC Holiday Appeal
An Injury to One Is an Injury to All!
(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)
The holiday season is once again upon us. Any day now, we’ll be assaulted 24/7 with commercials hawking the latest PlayStations, full-page newspaper ads featuring Christmas lingerie and jewelry, sitcoms with oafish dads sporting hideous Christmas ties and endless broadcasts of the movie about the Midwestern banker who, thanks to his guardian angel Clarence, discovers that “It’s a Wonderful Life.” For most, this year’s holidays mean that the bosses are in the Bahamas sucking up single malt scotch while paychecks are replaced with pink slips and the Santa shimmying down the chimney is a marshal serving a foreclosure notice. At the same time, poor families debate whether the small bit of money set aside for the holidays will be spent on presents or a bus ticket to visit their loved ones behind bars.
For us, this time of year is an occasion to redouble our commitment to those among the inhabitants of America’s vast network of prisons who were singled out for standing up to racist capitalist oppression—the class-war prisoners. Twenty-six years ago, the Partisan Defense Committee revived the program of the early International Labor Defense (ILD) under its secretary, James P. Cannon, of sending stipends to the class-war prisoners—irrespective of their political views or affiliations. As Cannon wrote:
“In one sense of the word the whole of capitalist society is a prison. For the great mass of people who do the hard, useful work there is no such word as freedom. They come and go at the order of a few. Their lives are regulated according to the needs and wishes of a few. A censorship is put upon their words and deeds. The fruits of their labor are taken from them. And if, by chance, they have the instinct and spirit to rebel, if they take their place in the vanguard of the fight for justice, the prisons are waiting.”
—James P. Cannon, “The Cause that Passes Through a Prison” (Labor Defender, September 1926)
We provide monthly stipends to 16 class-war prisoners and holiday gifts for them and their families. The $25 monthly stipends help ease a little bit the horrors of “life” in capitalist dungeons. More importantly, they are a necessary expression of solidarity with these prisoners—a message that they are not forgotten.
Since we initiated this program in 1986, we have provided stipends to over 30 class-war prisoners around the world. Among the first was former Black Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt), who spent 27 years in prison, for a crime that the state authorities knew that he did not commit, before being released in 1997. Geronimo died in June, an untimely death undoubtedly linked to his many years in prison.
Most of the class-war prisoners who receive PDC stipends have already spent decades in prison, and the capitalist rulers are determined not only to see them die behind bars but also to repeatedly subject them to harassment and degradation. American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier wrote us about his recent transfer to a prison in Florida far from his family and supporters, where the authorities placed him in a cell with a skinhead sporting on his back a tattoo of a KKK nightrider!
For those behind bars, the human tragedies that befall us all are made ever more acute by the enforced separation from family and friends. Jaan Laaman recently informed us of the death of his son Rick. Earlier this year, death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal lost his sister, Lydia Barashango, who was a tireless activist in Mumia’s fight for freedom. Mumia also had the bittersweet experience of seeing his son, Jamal Hart, railroaded to prison on bogus gun-possession charges in retaliation for speaking out on his father’s behalf, finally released from prison after serving every single day of his 15 and a half year sentence.
Persecution of those imprisoned for their political views and actions has not only continued unabated, but Obama and his top cop, Attorney General Eric Holder, are making reservations for many more to join those already behind bars. The Obama administration has expanded the repressive measures adopted during the Clinton/Bush years that are being wielded against those who propelled him into office—labor, blacks, immigrants and liberal youth. Obama has used the “anti-terror” laws to target leftist supporters of Latin American guerrillas and oppressed Palestinians, far surpassed the Bush regime in deporting immigrants and carried out the assassination abroad of an American citizen without even the pretense of charges or a trial.
The struggle to free the class-war prisoners is critical to educating a new generation of fighters against exploitation and oppression—a schooling centered on the role of the capitalist state, comprising the military, cops, courts and prisons. In recent weeks, the young activists of the “Occupy” protests have been on the receiving end of pepper spray, tear gas and police truncheons, with thousands arrested—a small taste not only of the daily hell of life for black people in this country but also what the bosses’ government unleashes against workers when they engage in class struggle. This was seen in the brutal cop attacks and arrests this September of over 130 leaders, members and supporters of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Longview, Washington. In its battle with the giant union-busting EGT grain exporter, the union has engaged in the kind of militant labor actions that built this country’s industrial unions. A defeat in Longview would be a body blow against the ILWU as a whole.
The 16 class-war prisoners receiving stipends from the PDC are listed below:
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther Party spokesman, a well-known supporter of the MOVE organization and an award-winning journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless.” This year the Philadelphia district attorney’s office unsuccessfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the death penalty for this class-war prisoner. The D.A. now has until mid April to convene a new sentencing hearing, the sole purpose of which would be to determine whether Mumia is to be again sentenced to death or will rot in prison for life.
This December marks the 30th anniversary of Mumia’s arrest for a killing that the cops know he did not commit. Mumia was framed up for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. Mountains of documentation proving Mumia’s innocence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner, have been submitted to the courts. But from top to bottom, the courts have repeatedly refused to hear this overwhelming evidence.
While others plead with the current U.S. president and his attorney general to “investigate” violations of Mumia’s “civil rights,” the PDC says that Mumia’s fate cannot be left in the hands of the government of the capitalists. The racist rulers hate Mumia because they see in him the spectre of black revolt. The stakes are high and the situation is grim, but any real fight for Mumia’s freedom must be based on class-struggle opposition to the capitalist rulers, who have entombed this innocent black man for more than half his life.
Leonard Peltier is an internationally renowned class-war prisoner. Peltier’s incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier’s frame-up trial, for the 1975 deaths of two marauding FBI agents in what had become a war zone on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation, shows what capitalist “justice” is all about. Although the lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct, the 67-year-old Peltier is still locked away. This year, Peltier, who suffers from multiple serious medical conditions, was thrown into solitary confinement and then transferred to Florida, far from his family. He is not scheduled to be reconsidered for parole for another 13 years.
Eight MOVE members—Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa, Eddie Africa and Phil Africa—are in their 34th year in prison. They were sentenced to 30 to 100 years after the 8 August 1978 siege of their Philadelphia home by over 600 heavily armed cops, having been falsely convicted of killing a police officer who died in the cops’ own cross fire. In 1985, eleven of their MOVE family members, including five children, were massacred by Philly cops in collaboration with the Feds. After more than three decades of unjust incarceration, most of these innocent prisoners had parole hearings this year, but none were released.
Lynne Stewart is a radical lawyer incarcerated for defending her client, a blind Egyptian cleric imprisoned for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s. Last year, she was resentenced to ten years, more than quadrupling her earlier sentence, in a loud affirmation by the Obama administration that there will be no let-up in the massive attack on democratic rights under the “war on terror.” Stewart, now over 72 years old and suffering from breast cancer, is known for her defense of Black Panthers, radical leftists and others reviled by the capitalist state.
Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning are the two remaining anti-imperialist activists known as the Ohio 7 still in prison, convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank “expropriations” and bombings of symbols of U.S. imperialism, such as military and corporate offices, in the late 1970s and ’80s. Before their arrests in 1984 and 1985, the Ohio 7 were targets of massive manhunts. Their children were kidnapped at gunpoint by the Feds.
The Ohio 7’s politics were once shared by thousands of radicals during the Vietnam antiwar movement and by New Leftists who wrote off the possibility of winning the working class to a revolutionary program and saw themselves as an auxiliary of Third World liberation movements. But, like the Weathermen before them, the Ohio 7 were spurned by the “respectable” left. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not a crime. They should not have served a day in prison.
Ed Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa are former Black Panther supporters and leaders of the Omaha, Nebraska, National Committee to Combat Fascism. They were victims of the FBI’s deadly COINTELPRO operation under which 38 Black Panther Party members were killed and hundreds more imprisoned on frame-up charges. Poindexter and Mondo were railroaded to prison and sentenced to life for a 1970 explosion that killed a cop, and they have now served more than 40 years in jail. Nebraska courts have repeatedly denied Poindexter and Mondo new trials despite the fact that a crucial piece of evidence excluded from the original trial, a 911 audio tape long suppressed by the FBI, proved that testimony of the state’s key witness was perjured.
Hugo Pinell, the last of the San Quentin 6 still in prison, has been in solitary isolation for more than four decades. He was a militant anti-racist leader of prison rights organizing along with George Jackson, his comrade and mentor, who was gunned down by prison guards in 1971. Despite numerous letters of support and no disciplinary write-ups for over 28 years, Pinell was again denied parole in 2009. Now in his 60s, Pinell continues to serve a life sentence at the notorious torture chamber, Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit in California, a focal point for two recent hunger strikes against grotesquely inhuman conditions.
Contribute now! All proceeds from the Holiday Appeals will go to the Class-War Prisoners Stipend Fund. This is not charity but an elementary act of solidarity with those imprisoned for their opposition to racist capitalism and imperialist depredations. Send your contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013; (212) 406-4252.
The Latest From The “Occupy Oakland” Website-!- Take The Offensive- - Make The “Occupy” Movement Streets Labor's Streets-Defend The Oakland Commune!
Click on the headline to link to Occupy Oakland website for the latest from the Bay Area vanguard battleground in the struggle for social justice.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend 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 Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. 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 for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough 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. Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*************
Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. This is Liberation Day One. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have a road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as demand-ladened, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
**********
Markin comment November 15, 2011:
The sisters and brothers in Oakland have it just right. If you cannot stay camped in their damn plaza then take to the streets. It is time to begin to think along the lines of the South African struggle of the 1980s-Make the Occupy Streets Labor and The Oppressed’s Streets! All Out On November 19th In Defense Of The Oakland Commune! Long Live The Oakland Commune!
****
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 Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. 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 for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough 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. Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*************
Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. This is Liberation Day One. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have a road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as demand-ladened, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
**********
Markin comment November 15, 2011:
The sisters and brothers in Oakland have it just right. If you cannot stay camped in their damn plaza then take to the streets. It is time to begin to think along the lines of the South African struggle of the 1980s-Make the Occupy Streets Labor and The Oppressed’s Streets! All Out On November 19th In Defense Of The Oakland Commune! Long Live The Oakland Commune!
From The Occupy Boston Woman’s Caucus March And Celebration-December 4, 2011
Josh Breslin comment:
“Hey, what time is the Women’s Caucus March starting?, asked, asked softly and politely, a young, maybe mixed spanishblackwhiteindian, woman dressed in what I would describe as modern young women casual elegant, student division, but what do I know of such North Face fashion trends, as I approached the tent full gravel walkway entrance that leads into the Occupy Boston encampment on the kitchen tent side. I answered softly and politely not out of instinct, or mannered effect, but from hoarsed-out chanting-“Whatever we wear, Wherever we go, Yes means Yes, No means No!” – “Consent in the sheets, Dissent in the streets!” – “We are unstoppable, another world is possible!,” words that rang in the streets that Sunday afternoon as the Women’s Caucus and their allies, including me, marched through Boston. A little change of pace from the generic national anthem-like “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” slogans of late, but necessary to show, show manly show, solidarity with the women of this encampment who have led the struggle against male chauvinism and sexual harassment in general-and, disturbingly, in the camp.
“Sorry, you just missed it, we are just finishing up,” I told her. She responded that she thought the thing started at two (another of those snafus that are intrinsic to makeshift social movements, even movements hard-drive driven by modern computer technology), it said so in the Occupy Daily Calendar and she had rushed over here to make it in time. “That is when the music and poetry was listed to start. In fact they are underway down at the main stage now. I’ll walk you down” “Oh, I hope I didn’t miss Letta Neely reading her poetry, that is really why I came. She speaks to me, speaks to me a lot.” I replied that I was not familiar with this woman’s work. “Oh she is a sistah, a black beautiful lesbian sistah, who writes about stuff I feel, feel deeply, being a mixed-race, mixed-up, bi-sexual woman.” I gulped, and smiled, smiled inside, not at what she said but at what infinite number of words would have to go into righteously describing this young woman with that new information added, and of her search for space. I gave up as we approached the main stage and listened to a woman who described herself as PuertoDom ( I hope I am spelling this right, Puerto Rican and Dominican, okay) reading her poetry. Very sharp, witty, and politically to the point poetry. Then Letta Neely came on. Check this out:
From Juba:poetry/by Letta Neely, Wildheart Press, copyright 1998
juba
for renita
u be a gospel song
some a dat
ole time religion
where the tambourine git goin
and the holy ghost sneak up
inside people's bones and
everybody dancin and shoutin
screamin and cryin
oh jesus, oh jesus
and the people start to clappin
and reachin back to african rhythms
pulled through the wombs of
the middle passage
and women's hats start flying
while the dance,
the dance they do gets hotter and holier
and just the music has brought cause for celebration
yeah, u be a gospel song, girl
like some a dat ole back in the woods, mississippi river kinda
gospel
and i feel the holy ghost when you is
inside me
and the tambourines keep goin
and folks is stampin they feet
and oh no,
it's the neighbor knocking on the door
askin is we alright
say we was screamin
oh jesus, oh jesus
and i heard us but i
didn't hear cuz
i was being washed in the gorgeous wetness of
your pussy
being baptized w/ole time religion
the oldest religion there
is
2 women inside the groove
of each other
we come here
we come
we come here
to be
saved
Or feast on this beauty:
Connections
There are connections between us
between the lines we've needed or been forced to draw with our
blood
across
time space words wounds
On these new york streets i've seen cracks in the sidewalk and
grass spurting through like revolution holding fast
to one creed only: "keep going, keep going baby, keep going."
The crabgrass makes me think about where we, you and i
are going
it's a hard day when i realize i don't know any of my enemies
personally
It's my friends i'm speaking to
somehow we keep fighting the same battles over and over again
and arguing over
who's got it worse who's on the bottom of the totem pole
and i don't mean to
proselytize
but we're killing each other
and
the totem pole is still standing
and
we're still using it
not knowing it's an ethnic slur
Me, i feel trapped in the middle of all this whirlpool
i feel like i'm on top of three mountains
shooting
at myself
I went to the march on Washington and saw a lot of white men
together
talking about we will no longer sit on the back of the bus and
somebody had the nerve to say:
"there are a million rosa parks' here"
and i thought
it's not about white guilt or even gay pride
but make sure the
truth
is being told
Cuz the rosas couldn't make it to the march and
as for the back of the bus
whoever thought it up probably
flew
first class
So, i'm not talking bout not aligning with the struggles of my Blk peoples cuz i understand the connections all too well just remember to take Emmit Till, Atlanta child murders, Smallpox blankets, Stonewall, the treatment of Chinese railroaders, and Apple pie all together
Every day in harlem i face a different kind a fear other Blk peoples screaming at me with their eyes cuz i'm in love with way a womon is
One time a man said to my friend, he stood next to her and said,
"I love you
cuz you Blk and you my sistah, but I think all faggots and dykes
should die."
One time a "friend" said to my sister in the presence of enemies,
"You're not natural"
and then wanted to know
why she felt
unsafe
I want to know does anyone fully comprehend this tapestry
does anyone know how to sew all this together without mixing
histories or
trading truth for slogans.
We are not all hanging from trees
standing in welfare lines neck deep in sand getting our heads kicked off into the sunset
(these things are being done as we speak) We are not all getting beat down at Stonewall We are not all being dragged from our homes by our hair being raped by husbands or friends or lovers
We are not all dying the same way. But we are all fighting to breathe
fighting to breathe
I, an old white man who spend his 1960s drug-drenched be-bop nights summers of love chasing women (young girls really, as I was a young boy) and running away from my old working-class Olde Saco, Maine oceanside white bread roots, am probably separated by entire gulfs of time, of age, of politics, of means streets, hell, of opposite sexual preference, and who knows, loves, hates, desires, and foods liked, but know this, my new-found young mixed and matched -up woman friend was right. Letta Neely is a sistah.
“Hey, what time is the Women’s Caucus March starting?, asked, asked softly and politely, a young, maybe mixed spanishblackwhiteindian, woman dressed in what I would describe as modern young women casual elegant, student division, but what do I know of such North Face fashion trends, as I approached the tent full gravel walkway entrance that leads into the Occupy Boston encampment on the kitchen tent side. I answered softly and politely not out of instinct, or mannered effect, but from hoarsed-out chanting-“Whatever we wear, Wherever we go, Yes means Yes, No means No!” – “Consent in the sheets, Dissent in the streets!” – “We are unstoppable, another world is possible!,” words that rang in the streets that Sunday afternoon as the Women’s Caucus and their allies, including me, marched through Boston. A little change of pace from the generic national anthem-like “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” slogans of late, but necessary to show, show manly show, solidarity with the women of this encampment who have led the struggle against male chauvinism and sexual harassment in general-and, disturbingly, in the camp.
“Sorry, you just missed it, we are just finishing up,” I told her. She responded that she thought the thing started at two (another of those snafus that are intrinsic to makeshift social movements, even movements hard-drive driven by modern computer technology), it said so in the Occupy Daily Calendar and she had rushed over here to make it in time. “That is when the music and poetry was listed to start. In fact they are underway down at the main stage now. I’ll walk you down” “Oh, I hope I didn’t miss Letta Neely reading her poetry, that is really why I came. She speaks to me, speaks to me a lot.” I replied that I was not familiar with this woman’s work. “Oh she is a sistah, a black beautiful lesbian sistah, who writes about stuff I feel, feel deeply, being a mixed-race, mixed-up, bi-sexual woman.” I gulped, and smiled, smiled inside, not at what she said but at what infinite number of words would have to go into righteously describing this young woman with that new information added, and of her search for space. I gave up as we approached the main stage and listened to a woman who described herself as PuertoDom ( I hope I am spelling this right, Puerto Rican and Dominican, okay) reading her poetry. Very sharp, witty, and politically to the point poetry. Then Letta Neely came on. Check this out:
From Juba:poetry/by Letta Neely, Wildheart Press, copyright 1998
juba
for renita
u be a gospel song
some a dat
ole time religion
where the tambourine git goin
and the holy ghost sneak up
inside people's bones and
everybody dancin and shoutin
screamin and cryin
oh jesus, oh jesus
and the people start to clappin
and reachin back to african rhythms
pulled through the wombs of
the middle passage
and women's hats start flying
while the dance,
the dance they do gets hotter and holier
and just the music has brought cause for celebration
yeah, u be a gospel song, girl
like some a dat ole back in the woods, mississippi river kinda
gospel
and i feel the holy ghost when you is
inside me
and the tambourines keep goin
and folks is stampin they feet
and oh no,
it's the neighbor knocking on the door
askin is we alright
say we was screamin
oh jesus, oh jesus
and i heard us but i
didn't hear cuz
i was being washed in the gorgeous wetness of
your pussy
being baptized w/ole time religion
the oldest religion there
is
2 women inside the groove
of each other
we come here
we come
we come here
to be
saved
Or feast on this beauty:
Connections
There are connections between us
between the lines we've needed or been forced to draw with our
blood
across
time space words wounds
On these new york streets i've seen cracks in the sidewalk and
grass spurting through like revolution holding fast
to one creed only: "keep going, keep going baby, keep going."
The crabgrass makes me think about where we, you and i
are going
it's a hard day when i realize i don't know any of my enemies
personally
It's my friends i'm speaking to
somehow we keep fighting the same battles over and over again
and arguing over
who's got it worse who's on the bottom of the totem pole
and i don't mean to
proselytize
but we're killing each other
and
the totem pole is still standing
and
we're still using it
not knowing it's an ethnic slur
Me, i feel trapped in the middle of all this whirlpool
i feel like i'm on top of three mountains
shooting
at myself
I went to the march on Washington and saw a lot of white men
together
talking about we will no longer sit on the back of the bus and
somebody had the nerve to say:
"there are a million rosa parks' here"
and i thought
it's not about white guilt or even gay pride
but make sure the
truth
is being told
Cuz the rosas couldn't make it to the march and
as for the back of the bus
whoever thought it up probably
flew
first class
So, i'm not talking bout not aligning with the struggles of my Blk peoples cuz i understand the connections all too well just remember to take Emmit Till, Atlanta child murders, Smallpox blankets, Stonewall, the treatment of Chinese railroaders, and Apple pie all together
Every day in harlem i face a different kind a fear other Blk peoples screaming at me with their eyes cuz i'm in love with way a womon is
One time a man said to my friend, he stood next to her and said,
"I love you
cuz you Blk and you my sistah, but I think all faggots and dykes
should die."
One time a "friend" said to my sister in the presence of enemies,
"You're not natural"
and then wanted to know
why she felt
unsafe
I want to know does anyone fully comprehend this tapestry
does anyone know how to sew all this together without mixing
histories or
trading truth for slogans.
We are not all hanging from trees
standing in welfare lines neck deep in sand getting our heads kicked off into the sunset
(these things are being done as we speak) We are not all getting beat down at Stonewall We are not all being dragged from our homes by our hair being raped by husbands or friends or lovers
We are not all dying the same way. But we are all fighting to breathe
fighting to breathe
I, an old white man who spend his 1960s drug-drenched be-bop nights summers of love chasing women (young girls really, as I was a young boy) and running away from my old working-class Olde Saco, Maine oceanside white bread roots, am probably separated by entire gulfs of time, of age, of politics, of means streets, hell, of opposite sexual preference, and who knows, loves, hates, desires, and foods liked, but know this, my new-found young mixed and matched -up woman friend was right. Letta Neely is a sistah.
The Latest From The "West Coast Port Shut Down" Website-This Is Class War, We Say No More!-Defend The Longshoremen’s Unions!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!-Port Workers Shut Down The Ports!-Occupiers March On The Ports!
Click on the headline to link to the West Coast Port Shutdown website.
Markin comment:
This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Defend The Oakland Commune!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Unions!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!-Port Workers Shut Down The Ports!-Occupiers March On The Ports!
Markin comment:
This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Defend The Oakland Commune!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Unions!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!-Port Workers Shut Down The Ports!-Occupiers March On The Ports!
The Latest From The “Occupy Oakland” Website-This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Defend The Oakland Commune!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Unions!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!
Click on the headline to link to Occupy Oakland website for the latest from the Bay Area vanguard battleground in the struggle for social justice.
****
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend 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 Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-mart- Defend the rights of public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough 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. Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*************
Markin comment November 20, 2011:
In light of the events of the past few weeks, our successes in things like shutting down the Port of Oakland and our “defeats” in losing many of our encampments through brutal police action, we need to keep on the offensive. The Oakland Commune’s proposal for a West Coast shutdown of the ports needs to be energetically implemented. We need to go from the tents to the places where it hurts the capitalists-their profits and pocketbooks. The time for talk is fading, fading fast. The streets are not for dreaming now. Our time is now! Seize The Time! Defend The Oakland Commune!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Union!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!
**********
Occupy Oakland Calls for TOTAL WEST COAST PORT SHUTDOWN ON 12/12
November 19, 2011
Proposal for a Coordinated West Coast Port Shutdown, Passed With Unanimous Consensus by vote of the Occupy Oakland General Assembly 11/18/2012:
In response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the nation:
Occupy Oakland calls for the blockade and disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12th. The 1% has disrupted the lives of longshoremen and port truckers and the workers who create their wealth, just as coordinated nationwide police attacks have turned our cities into battlegrounds in an effort to disrupt our Occupy movement.
We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port. Our eyes are on the continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, in particular the rupture of Longshoremen jurisdiction in Longview Washington by the EGT. Already, Occupy Los Angeles has passed a resolution to carry out a port action on the Port Of Los Angeles on December 12th, to shut down SSA terminals, which are owned by Goldman Sachs.
Occupy Oakland expands this call to the entire West Coast, and calls for continuing solidarity with the Longshoremen in Longview Washington in their ongoing struggle against the EGT. The EGT is an international grain exporter led by Bunge LTD, a company constituted of 1% bankers whose practices have ruined the lives of the working class all over the world, from Argentina to the West Coast of the US. During the November 2nd General Strike, tens of thousands shutdown the Port Of Oakland as a warning shot to EGT to stop its attacks on Longview. Since the EGT has disregarded this message, and continues to attack the Longshoremen at Longview, we will now shut down ports along the entire West Coast.
■Participating occupations are asked to ensure that during the port shutdowns the local arbitrator rules in favor of longshoremen not crossing community picket lines in order to avoid recriminations against them.
■Should there be any retaliation against any workers as a result of their honoring pickets or supporting our port actions, additional solidarity actions should be prepared.
■In the event of police repression of any of the mobilizations, shutdown actions may be extended to multiple days.
In Solidarity and Struggle,
Occupy Oakland
-In Oakland: the West Coast Port Shutdown Coordinating Committee will meet on General Assembly days at 5pm before the GA to organize the local shutdown, and to network with other occupations.
********
Workers Vanguard No. 986
16 September 2011
Longshoremen Play Hardball in Longview, Washington
ILWU Fights Deadly Threat
SEPTEMBER 13—For decades the unions in this country have been taking it in the teeth, their leadership lying down in the face of a union-busting juggernaut launched when the PATCO air traffic controllers were smashed in 1981. But on September 8, in the port town of Longview, Washington, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and their allies in other unions mobilized the kind of militant labor action that built the union movement in this country.
In the early hours of the morning, a picket of more than 500 unionists massed outside the newly built $200 million grain terminal of the giant EGT Development conglomerate, which wants to keep the ILWU out. Police who had earlier clubbed and pepper-sprayed picketers decided to take a hike. Faced with hundreds of longshoremen, the Longview police chief said, the cops had “used the better part of discretion.” The company’s security guard thugs also fled under police escort. Now EGT is complaining that grain cargo aboard a 107-car Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) train that had pulled into the terminal earlier was dumped on the tracks and that the train’s brake lines were cut. Later that day, a federal judge who had brought down a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) injunction against “aggressive picketing” in Longview complained that he felt “like a paper tiger.”
For months, ILWU Local 21, which has controlled all work loading and unloading ships in Longview for more than 70 years, has fought the EGT union-busters. In mid July, a mass picket of hundreds of ILWUers and other unionists stopped a BNSF train from delivering grain to the terminal (see “ILWU Battles Union Busters,” WV No. 984, 5 August). BNSF suspended service to the terminal. Then, on September 7, the company tried to move in a train carrying grain from Minnesota. At the port of Vancouver, Washington, just up the Columbia River from Longview, the train was blocked by 200 picketers occupying the tracks. While the unionists temporarily prevailed, later that day the train was on the way to Longview, where 300 longshoremen and their allies massed on the tracks to stop it.
Attacked by riot-equipped cops wielding clubs, tear gas and guns loaded with rubber bullets, the picketers stood down. ILWU International president Bob McEllrath was brutally manhandled by a gang of cops. Calling on the workers to disperse for now, he argued, “You can get maced and tear-gassed and clubbed” or wait for the backing of other longshoremen. ILWU members were outraged by pictures of McEllrath being roughed up and detained by the cops—an attack reminiscent of PATCO leaders being led away in shackles. The ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett were shut down as union members walked off the job early on September 8.
Hours later, there were reinforcements on the Longview picket lines. EGT, its hired thugs and the cops got a real taste of union power. Even the New York Times (9 September) acknowledged: “The longshoremen’s actions were a rare show of union militancy, reminiscent of labor actions a century ago.” Today it was reported that two pro-union protesters have been arrested, one of them on four felony charges, with the police threatening more arrests. All labor must back the ILWU and demand that all charges against the unionists and their supporters be dropped.
The stakes in this battle are high. Negotiations for a new Northwest Grainhandlers Agreement between the ILWU and the giant conglomerates that dominate the grain business begin this month. EGT—a joint venture between St. Louis-based Bunge North America, the Japanese Itochu Corp. and the South Korean shipping giant STX Pan Ocean—is Bunge’s first foray into the Pacific Northwest. If EGT gets away with keeping the ILWU out at Longview, it will be a declaration to other grain companies that it’s open season on the union. A defeat at Longview would be a body blow against this powerful union, whose core longshore division contract is up in 2014.
Behind EGT stands the power of the capitalist state. In August, the NLRB filed for an injunction seeking to stop “aggressive picketing” at the Longview terminal and challenging the ILWU’s right to the jobs at EGT. On the afternoon of the September 8 action, a federal judge made permanent the injunction requested by the NLRB, although he refused the NLRB request that all picketing be banned. Carrying fines of $25,000 per violation, the injunction was extended to cover the entire ILWU. The union now faces a “contempt of court” hearing. Nationwide, the hired pens of the capitalist media have unleashed a rabid, labor-hating barrage against the ILWU, slamming it as a pack of “thugs.”
The ILWU demonstrated the power of labor that lies in its collective organization, discipline and above all its capacity to shut down the flow of goods. Working people around the country, whose unions, jobs, wages and working conditions have been ravaged in a one-sided class war that has hit especially hard during the current economic crisis, cheered the ILWU’s action: Finally, a union is standing up and fighting back! To be sure, it is not easy to win in the face of the forces of the capitalist state. But it is better to fight on your feet than die on your knees! And when an important strike is won, it can dramatically alter the entire situation. In 1934, the San Francisco general strike that forged the ILWU and the mass strikes in Toledo and Minneapolis—all led by reds—set the stage for the 1937 Flint sitdown strike against General Motors and the rise of the CIO.
Labor Traitor Trumka Stabs ILWU in the Back
The ILWU must not stand alone! Unions must be mobilized in concrete actions of solidarity, beginning with the Teamsters-affiliated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen who drive the BNSF trains. Nothing should move in or out of the EGT facility! The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which organizes longshoremen on East Coast and Gulf ports, issued a statement of solidarity with the ILWU, condemning the police attack on McEllrath and other union members. The Washington Federation of State Employees (AFSCME Council 28) did likewise, condemning “the management actions to break the ILWU at Longview or any port along the West Coast.” It’s going to take more than words to stop the EGT union-busters.
Outrageously, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka has come out in opposition to the defense of the ILWU! Instead, Trumka is peddling the lie that what’s involved in Longview is a “jurisdictional dispute” between the ILWU and International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 701, whose members are scabbing on the ILWU. Trumka’s “jurisdictional dispute” line is the same one being pushed by EGT as a fig leaf for its union-busting. While the company went through a show of negotiating with the ILWU, it’s been clear from the beginning that EGT wants a non-union facility.
In January, EGT filed a court suit against the provision in its lease with the Port of Longview mandating that the company employ ILWU Local 21 members, arguing that “the lease did not impose any obligation whatsoever upon EGT to utilize union labor at the terminal” (our emphasis). After longshoremen shut down the BNSF grain shipment in July, EGT turned around and hired a subcontractor which employs Local 701 labor. Ever since, these scabs have been crossing the ILWU’s picket lines, while EGT cynically boasts that it is providing “local, family-wage” union jobs. Only a company dupe could buy this line.
The executive committee of the Oregon AFL-CIO passed a resolution condemning the IUOE “scab labor actions” at Longview despite the attempt by state federation president Tom Chamberlain to rule it out of order. In August, Trumka sent a letter backing Chamberlain, arguing that “the resolution should be considered void, and no action should be taken by the state federation under the resolution.” Trumka wants the ILWU to call off its fight and submit to a complicated hearing under the AFL-CIO’s provision for jurisdictional disputes. The only “jurisdictional” dispute in Longview is between capital and labor! And Trumka has taken the side of the bosses.
While the ILWU was fighting for its life in Longview on September 8, Trumka was a guest of honor at Barack Obama’s “fight for jobs” speech to Congress. The AFL-CIO president is especially concerned that militancy at Longview could ignite a class battle that would threaten Obama’s re-election. The Wall Street Journal sees the same possible outcome. In a September 9 editorial headlined “A Union Goes Too Far,” this mouthpiece for the corporations and bankers declared: “If ILWU shops begin slowdowns in sympathy with the union in Washington state…the events yesterday will become a national issue demanding the attention of a President who is desperately trying to hold his union base together. This one is worth watching.”
The price that has been paid for the bureaucrats’ subordination of the unions to the Democratic Party—which less crudely than the Republicans represents the interests of the capitalist class—can be seen in decades of broken unions and busted strikes. Such class collaboration is a central obstacle to the workers waging the kind of class battles needed to defend their interests. The AFL-CIO officialdom’s commitment to the Democratic Party is equally shared by the ILWU International leadership. But with the very existence of the union on the line, McEllrath has been propelled into an episode of the class struggle that is inevitable in a society based on the exploitation of the many for the profits of the few.
“There Are No Neutrals There”
The ILWU’s battles in Longview have starkly laid bare the irreconcilable class divide between the workers and the capitalist class enemy. But this is obscured by presenting it as a fight of the Longview “community” against a giant multinational conglomerate. The refrain of the old coal miners’ Harlan County fighting song asks: “Which Side Are You On?” This question is being increasingly posed in Longview, where shopkeepers are under pressure to remove signs supporting the ILWU from their windows. The local newspaper ran an appeal from Cowlitz County sheriff Mark Nelson to turn in union militants involved in the September 8 struggle. Defense of the “community” has fed “outside agitator” baiting by the cops, directed against ILWU members from outside Longview, including McEllrath.
Illusions that the cops are just regular community folks are suicidal. The job of the police is to “serve and protect” the interests of the corporations, as was more than amply demonstrated in their brutal assault on ILWU picketers. Every hard-fought labor struggle in the history of this country has been a pitched battle with the capitalists’ strikebreaking thugs, from cops and company goons to National Guardsmen and other scabherders. Behind them stand the courts and other state agencies. These are all part of the machinery of the capitalist state, whose purpose is to defend the property and profits of the capitalist owners through the suppression of the working class.
This machinery includes the NLRB, which was created under the Democratic Party administration of that “friend of labor” icon, Franklin Roosevelt, to head off and co-opt the class battles of the 1930s. The NLRB exists to tie the unions up in endless legal machinations in order to prevent workers from using their collective power to organize, stop work and stop the flow of profits. Today, the suit against the ILWU by the NLRB—two of whose three current members were appointed by Democrats—is a brief for EGT union-busting.
The lie peddled by the union tops that the state can be pressured to serve the workers’ interests is matched by their promotion of the interests of American capitalism against its overseas competitors. In a press statement, ILWU spokeswoman Jennifer Sargent said that the purpose of militant actions by longshoremen in Longview is “to stand up to a foreign company that’s trying to get a foothold in Washington and undermine the grain industry.” Agriculture is big business in America, and one of the few where the U.S. has a competitive advantage. But anyone who thinks that this has benefited U.S. agricultural or other workers is severely deluded. No less than their foreign counterparts, American corporations are in business for one reason only, and that is to generate profits. The workers have no interest in promoting the profitability of their “own” capitalist rulers, which is purchased through the increasingly brutal exploitation of labor. U.S. grain bosses are just as eager as EGT’s non-American components to bust the ILWU.
For longshoremen whose very jobs are dependent on foreign trade—both imports and exports—to wave the red-white-and-blue “made in the U.S.A.” banner is particularly ludicrous. Unlike the Trumka leadership of the AFL-CIO, the International Transport Workers’ Federation has issued a statement in support of the ILWU. Whether or not the ILWU wins this battle might well depend on support actions by port and maritime workers throughout Asia refusing to handle scab EGT grain shipments. The ILWU isn’t going to win such support by waving the flag of U.S. imperialism, which is soaked in the blood of countless workers and oppressed masses around the globe.
Break with the Democrats! Build a Workers Party!
With their backs against the wall, the ILWU leadership has taken some bold action. The fight has been engaged and there’s no going back. The strength of the union lies in its multiracial coastwide membership. The Pacific Maritime Association bosses have long tried to pit one port against another, playing the overwhelmingly white Pacific Northwest locals, the largely black San Francisco local and the largely Latino membership in Los Angeles/Long Beach against each other. It is crucial that the union stand as one and fight to galvanize the rest of the labor movement in struggle behind it.
Trumka’s treachery vividly illustrates the role of the labor bureaucracy as the bosses’ agents in the unions, in which they serve as a central obstacle to working-class struggle. In 1921, in the face of an “open shop” offensive that was decimating the unions, James P. Cannon, then a leader of the Communist movement and later the founder of American Trotskyism, described the political program necessary to reforge the labor movement:
“The ‘open shop’ campaign is one of the manifestations of a state of war that exists in society between two opposing classes: the producers and the parasites. This war cuts through the whole population like a great dividing sword; it creates two hostile camps and puts every man in his place in one or the other….
“Let the unions put aside their illusions; let them face the issue squarely and fight it out on the basis of the class struggle. Instead of seeking peace when there is no peace, and ‘understanding’ with those who do not want to understand, let them declare war on the whole capitalist regime. That is the way to save the unions and to make them grow in the face of adversity and become powerful war engines for the destruction of capitalism and the reorganization of society on the foundation of working class control in industry and government.”
— “Who Can Save the Unions?” (7 May 1921), reprinted in James P. Cannon and the Early Years of American Communism (Prometheus Research Library, 1992)
In 1934, Cannon and his party would provide the leadership for the series of strikes in Minneapolis that forged the Teamsters as an industrial union.
There is massive discontent at the base of American society that can be galvanized through class battles like that at Longview. But to realize this potential poses the question of leadership. The current labor misleadership must be ousted and replaced with workers’ leaders who link the fight to defend the unions to building a multiracial revolutionary workers party. The Spartacist League/U.S. uniquely puts forward the program to build such a party, the necessary instrument to lead the working class in the fight to do away with the entire system of capitalist wage slavery through socialist revolution.
****
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 Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. Thirty hours work for forty hours pay to spread the available work around. Organize the unorganized- Organize the South- Organize Wal-mart- Defend the rights of public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough 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. Labor and the oppressed must rule!
*************
Markin comment November 20, 2011:
In light of the events of the past few weeks, our successes in things like shutting down the Port of Oakland and our “defeats” in losing many of our encampments through brutal police action, we need to keep on the offensive. The Oakland Commune’s proposal for a West Coast shutdown of the ports needs to be energetically implemented. We need to go from the tents to the places where it hurts the capitalists-their profits and pocketbooks. The time for talk is fading, fading fast. The streets are not for dreaming now. Our time is now! Seize The Time! Defend The Oakland Commune!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Union!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!
**********
Occupy Oakland Calls for TOTAL WEST COAST PORT SHUTDOWN ON 12/12
November 19, 2011
Proposal for a Coordinated West Coast Port Shutdown, Passed With Unanimous Consensus by vote of the Occupy Oakland General Assembly 11/18/2012:
In response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the nation:
Occupy Oakland calls for the blockade and disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12th. The 1% has disrupted the lives of longshoremen and port truckers and the workers who create their wealth, just as coordinated nationwide police attacks have turned our cities into battlegrounds in an effort to disrupt our Occupy movement.
We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port. Our eyes are on the continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, in particular the rupture of Longshoremen jurisdiction in Longview Washington by the EGT. Already, Occupy Los Angeles has passed a resolution to carry out a port action on the Port Of Los Angeles on December 12th, to shut down SSA terminals, which are owned by Goldman Sachs.
Occupy Oakland expands this call to the entire West Coast, and calls for continuing solidarity with the Longshoremen in Longview Washington in their ongoing struggle against the EGT. The EGT is an international grain exporter led by Bunge LTD, a company constituted of 1% bankers whose practices have ruined the lives of the working class all over the world, from Argentina to the West Coast of the US. During the November 2nd General Strike, tens of thousands shutdown the Port Of Oakland as a warning shot to EGT to stop its attacks on Longview. Since the EGT has disregarded this message, and continues to attack the Longshoremen at Longview, we will now shut down ports along the entire West Coast.
■Participating occupations are asked to ensure that during the port shutdowns the local arbitrator rules in favor of longshoremen not crossing community picket lines in order to avoid recriminations against them.
■Should there be any retaliation against any workers as a result of their honoring pickets or supporting our port actions, additional solidarity actions should be prepared.
■In the event of police repression of any of the mobilizations, shutdown actions may be extended to multiple days.
In Solidarity and Struggle,
Occupy Oakland
-In Oakland: the West Coast Port Shutdown Coordinating Committee will meet on General Assembly days at 5pm before the GA to organize the local shutdown, and to network with other occupations.
********
Workers Vanguard No. 986
16 September 2011
Longshoremen Play Hardball in Longview, Washington
ILWU Fights Deadly Threat
SEPTEMBER 13—For decades the unions in this country have been taking it in the teeth, their leadership lying down in the face of a union-busting juggernaut launched when the PATCO air traffic controllers were smashed in 1981. But on September 8, in the port town of Longview, Washington, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and their allies in other unions mobilized the kind of militant labor action that built the union movement in this country.
In the early hours of the morning, a picket of more than 500 unionists massed outside the newly built $200 million grain terminal of the giant EGT Development conglomerate, which wants to keep the ILWU out. Police who had earlier clubbed and pepper-sprayed picketers decided to take a hike. Faced with hundreds of longshoremen, the Longview police chief said, the cops had “used the better part of discretion.” The company’s security guard thugs also fled under police escort. Now EGT is complaining that grain cargo aboard a 107-car Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) train that had pulled into the terminal earlier was dumped on the tracks and that the train’s brake lines were cut. Later that day, a federal judge who had brought down a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) injunction against “aggressive picketing” in Longview complained that he felt “like a paper tiger.”
For months, ILWU Local 21, which has controlled all work loading and unloading ships in Longview for more than 70 years, has fought the EGT union-busters. In mid July, a mass picket of hundreds of ILWUers and other unionists stopped a BNSF train from delivering grain to the terminal (see “ILWU Battles Union Busters,” WV No. 984, 5 August). BNSF suspended service to the terminal. Then, on September 7, the company tried to move in a train carrying grain from Minnesota. At the port of Vancouver, Washington, just up the Columbia River from Longview, the train was blocked by 200 picketers occupying the tracks. While the unionists temporarily prevailed, later that day the train was on the way to Longview, where 300 longshoremen and their allies massed on the tracks to stop it.
Attacked by riot-equipped cops wielding clubs, tear gas and guns loaded with rubber bullets, the picketers stood down. ILWU International president Bob McEllrath was brutally manhandled by a gang of cops. Calling on the workers to disperse for now, he argued, “You can get maced and tear-gassed and clubbed” or wait for the backing of other longshoremen. ILWU members were outraged by pictures of McEllrath being roughed up and detained by the cops—an attack reminiscent of PATCO leaders being led away in shackles. The ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett were shut down as union members walked off the job early on September 8.
Hours later, there were reinforcements on the Longview picket lines. EGT, its hired thugs and the cops got a real taste of union power. Even the New York Times (9 September) acknowledged: “The longshoremen’s actions were a rare show of union militancy, reminiscent of labor actions a century ago.” Today it was reported that two pro-union protesters have been arrested, one of them on four felony charges, with the police threatening more arrests. All labor must back the ILWU and demand that all charges against the unionists and their supporters be dropped.
The stakes in this battle are high. Negotiations for a new Northwest Grainhandlers Agreement between the ILWU and the giant conglomerates that dominate the grain business begin this month. EGT—a joint venture between St. Louis-based Bunge North America, the Japanese Itochu Corp. and the South Korean shipping giant STX Pan Ocean—is Bunge’s first foray into the Pacific Northwest. If EGT gets away with keeping the ILWU out at Longview, it will be a declaration to other grain companies that it’s open season on the union. A defeat at Longview would be a body blow against this powerful union, whose core longshore division contract is up in 2014.
Behind EGT stands the power of the capitalist state. In August, the NLRB filed for an injunction seeking to stop “aggressive picketing” at the Longview terminal and challenging the ILWU’s right to the jobs at EGT. On the afternoon of the September 8 action, a federal judge made permanent the injunction requested by the NLRB, although he refused the NLRB request that all picketing be banned. Carrying fines of $25,000 per violation, the injunction was extended to cover the entire ILWU. The union now faces a “contempt of court” hearing. Nationwide, the hired pens of the capitalist media have unleashed a rabid, labor-hating barrage against the ILWU, slamming it as a pack of “thugs.”
The ILWU demonstrated the power of labor that lies in its collective organization, discipline and above all its capacity to shut down the flow of goods. Working people around the country, whose unions, jobs, wages and working conditions have been ravaged in a one-sided class war that has hit especially hard during the current economic crisis, cheered the ILWU’s action: Finally, a union is standing up and fighting back! To be sure, it is not easy to win in the face of the forces of the capitalist state. But it is better to fight on your feet than die on your knees! And when an important strike is won, it can dramatically alter the entire situation. In 1934, the San Francisco general strike that forged the ILWU and the mass strikes in Toledo and Minneapolis—all led by reds—set the stage for the 1937 Flint sitdown strike against General Motors and the rise of the CIO.
Labor Traitor Trumka Stabs ILWU in the Back
The ILWU must not stand alone! Unions must be mobilized in concrete actions of solidarity, beginning with the Teamsters-affiliated Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen who drive the BNSF trains. Nothing should move in or out of the EGT facility! The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which organizes longshoremen on East Coast and Gulf ports, issued a statement of solidarity with the ILWU, condemning the police attack on McEllrath and other union members. The Washington Federation of State Employees (AFSCME Council 28) did likewise, condemning “the management actions to break the ILWU at Longview or any port along the West Coast.” It’s going to take more than words to stop the EGT union-busters.
Outrageously, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka has come out in opposition to the defense of the ILWU! Instead, Trumka is peddling the lie that what’s involved in Longview is a “jurisdictional dispute” between the ILWU and International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 701, whose members are scabbing on the ILWU. Trumka’s “jurisdictional dispute” line is the same one being pushed by EGT as a fig leaf for its union-busting. While the company went through a show of negotiating with the ILWU, it’s been clear from the beginning that EGT wants a non-union facility.
In January, EGT filed a court suit against the provision in its lease with the Port of Longview mandating that the company employ ILWU Local 21 members, arguing that “the lease did not impose any obligation whatsoever upon EGT to utilize union labor at the terminal” (our emphasis). After longshoremen shut down the BNSF grain shipment in July, EGT turned around and hired a subcontractor which employs Local 701 labor. Ever since, these scabs have been crossing the ILWU’s picket lines, while EGT cynically boasts that it is providing “local, family-wage” union jobs. Only a company dupe could buy this line.
The executive committee of the Oregon AFL-CIO passed a resolution condemning the IUOE “scab labor actions” at Longview despite the attempt by state federation president Tom Chamberlain to rule it out of order. In August, Trumka sent a letter backing Chamberlain, arguing that “the resolution should be considered void, and no action should be taken by the state federation under the resolution.” Trumka wants the ILWU to call off its fight and submit to a complicated hearing under the AFL-CIO’s provision for jurisdictional disputes. The only “jurisdictional” dispute in Longview is between capital and labor! And Trumka has taken the side of the bosses.
While the ILWU was fighting for its life in Longview on September 8, Trumka was a guest of honor at Barack Obama’s “fight for jobs” speech to Congress. The AFL-CIO president is especially concerned that militancy at Longview could ignite a class battle that would threaten Obama’s re-election. The Wall Street Journal sees the same possible outcome. In a September 9 editorial headlined “A Union Goes Too Far,” this mouthpiece for the corporations and bankers declared: “If ILWU shops begin slowdowns in sympathy with the union in Washington state…the events yesterday will become a national issue demanding the attention of a President who is desperately trying to hold his union base together. This one is worth watching.”
The price that has been paid for the bureaucrats’ subordination of the unions to the Democratic Party—which less crudely than the Republicans represents the interests of the capitalist class—can be seen in decades of broken unions and busted strikes. Such class collaboration is a central obstacle to the workers waging the kind of class battles needed to defend their interests. The AFL-CIO officialdom’s commitment to the Democratic Party is equally shared by the ILWU International leadership. But with the very existence of the union on the line, McEllrath has been propelled into an episode of the class struggle that is inevitable in a society based on the exploitation of the many for the profits of the few.
“There Are No Neutrals There”
The ILWU’s battles in Longview have starkly laid bare the irreconcilable class divide between the workers and the capitalist class enemy. But this is obscured by presenting it as a fight of the Longview “community” against a giant multinational conglomerate. The refrain of the old coal miners’ Harlan County fighting song asks: “Which Side Are You On?” This question is being increasingly posed in Longview, where shopkeepers are under pressure to remove signs supporting the ILWU from their windows. The local newspaper ran an appeal from Cowlitz County sheriff Mark Nelson to turn in union militants involved in the September 8 struggle. Defense of the “community” has fed “outside agitator” baiting by the cops, directed against ILWU members from outside Longview, including McEllrath.
Illusions that the cops are just regular community folks are suicidal. The job of the police is to “serve and protect” the interests of the corporations, as was more than amply demonstrated in their brutal assault on ILWU picketers. Every hard-fought labor struggle in the history of this country has been a pitched battle with the capitalists’ strikebreaking thugs, from cops and company goons to National Guardsmen and other scabherders. Behind them stand the courts and other state agencies. These are all part of the machinery of the capitalist state, whose purpose is to defend the property and profits of the capitalist owners through the suppression of the working class.
This machinery includes the NLRB, which was created under the Democratic Party administration of that “friend of labor” icon, Franklin Roosevelt, to head off and co-opt the class battles of the 1930s. The NLRB exists to tie the unions up in endless legal machinations in order to prevent workers from using their collective power to organize, stop work and stop the flow of profits. Today, the suit against the ILWU by the NLRB—two of whose three current members were appointed by Democrats—is a brief for EGT union-busting.
The lie peddled by the union tops that the state can be pressured to serve the workers’ interests is matched by their promotion of the interests of American capitalism against its overseas competitors. In a press statement, ILWU spokeswoman Jennifer Sargent said that the purpose of militant actions by longshoremen in Longview is “to stand up to a foreign company that’s trying to get a foothold in Washington and undermine the grain industry.” Agriculture is big business in America, and one of the few where the U.S. has a competitive advantage. But anyone who thinks that this has benefited U.S. agricultural or other workers is severely deluded. No less than their foreign counterparts, American corporations are in business for one reason only, and that is to generate profits. The workers have no interest in promoting the profitability of their “own” capitalist rulers, which is purchased through the increasingly brutal exploitation of labor. U.S. grain bosses are just as eager as EGT’s non-American components to bust the ILWU.
For longshoremen whose very jobs are dependent on foreign trade—both imports and exports—to wave the red-white-and-blue “made in the U.S.A.” banner is particularly ludicrous. Unlike the Trumka leadership of the AFL-CIO, the International Transport Workers’ Federation has issued a statement in support of the ILWU. Whether or not the ILWU wins this battle might well depend on support actions by port and maritime workers throughout Asia refusing to handle scab EGT grain shipments. The ILWU isn’t going to win such support by waving the flag of U.S. imperialism, which is soaked in the blood of countless workers and oppressed masses around the globe.
Break with the Democrats! Build a Workers Party!
With their backs against the wall, the ILWU leadership has taken some bold action. The fight has been engaged and there’s no going back. The strength of the union lies in its multiracial coastwide membership. The Pacific Maritime Association bosses have long tried to pit one port against another, playing the overwhelmingly white Pacific Northwest locals, the largely black San Francisco local and the largely Latino membership in Los Angeles/Long Beach against each other. It is crucial that the union stand as one and fight to galvanize the rest of the labor movement in struggle behind it.
Trumka’s treachery vividly illustrates the role of the labor bureaucracy as the bosses’ agents in the unions, in which they serve as a central obstacle to working-class struggle. In 1921, in the face of an “open shop” offensive that was decimating the unions, James P. Cannon, then a leader of the Communist movement and later the founder of American Trotskyism, described the political program necessary to reforge the labor movement:
“The ‘open shop’ campaign is one of the manifestations of a state of war that exists in society between two opposing classes: the producers and the parasites. This war cuts through the whole population like a great dividing sword; it creates two hostile camps and puts every man in his place in one or the other….
“Let the unions put aside their illusions; let them face the issue squarely and fight it out on the basis of the class struggle. Instead of seeking peace when there is no peace, and ‘understanding’ with those who do not want to understand, let them declare war on the whole capitalist regime. That is the way to save the unions and to make them grow in the face of adversity and become powerful war engines for the destruction of capitalism and the reorganization of society on the foundation of working class control in industry and government.”
— “Who Can Save the Unions?” (7 May 1921), reprinted in James P. Cannon and the Early Years of American Communism (Prometheus Research Library, 1992)
In 1934, Cannon and his party would provide the leadership for the series of strikes in Minneapolis that forged the Teamsters as an industrial union.
There is massive discontent at the base of American society that can be galvanized through class battles like that at Longview. But to realize this potential poses the question of leadership. The current labor misleadership must be ousted and replaced with workers’ leaders who link the fight to defend the unions to building a multiracial revolutionary workers party. The Spartacist League/U.S. uniquely puts forward the program to build such a party, the necessary instrument to lead the working class in the fight to do away with the entire system of capitalist wage slavery through socialist revolution.
From #Occupied Boston (#Tomemonos Boston)-Day 69- This Is Class War, We Say No More!- Defend The Longshoremen’s Unions!- Take The Offensive-Shut Down The West Coast Ports On December 12th!- Shut Down The Gulf, East Coast And Great Lakes Ports In Solidarity!- Port Of Boston Workers Shut Down The Port!-Occupiers March On The Port!
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend 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 Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. 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 for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough 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. Labor and the oppressed must rule!
********
Markin comment:
And as always-everybody, young or old, needs to stand by this slogan - An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers Everywhere! Hands Off Occupy Oakland !
**************
Press Release: Support Grows for West Coast Port Shut Down
http://westcoastportshutdown.org/
Submitted by admin on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 15:25
SUPPORT GROWS FOR OCCUPY MOVEMENT'S COORDINATED WEST COAST SHUT DOWN ON DECEMBER 12TH
As of November 27, 2011, the Occupy movement in every major West Coast port city: Occupy LA, Occupy San Diego, Occupy Portland, Occupy Tacoma, Occupy Seattle have joined Occupy Oakland in calling for and organizing a coordinated West Coast Port Blockade and Shutdown on December 12, 2011. Other West Coast Occupies, including Occupy Anchorage and Vancouver, Canada are planning to join the economic blockade and disruption of the 1% on that date, according to organizers.
"We're shutting down these ports because of the union busting and attacks on the working class by the 1%: the firing of Port truckers organizing at SSA terminals in LA; the attempt to rupture ILWU union jurisdiction in Longview, WA by EGT. EGT includes Bunge LTD, a company which reported 2.5 billion dollars in profit last year and has economically devastated poor people in Argentina and Brazil. SSA is responsible for inhumane working conditions and gross exploitation of port truckers and is owned by Goldman Sachs. EGT and Goldman Sachs is Wallstreet on the Waterfront" stated Barucha Peller of the West Coast Port Blockade Assembly of Occupy Oakland.
"We are also striking back against the nationally' coordinated attack on the Occupy movement. In response to the police violence and camp evictions against the Occupy movement- This is our coordinated response against the 1%. On December 12th we will show are collective power through pinpointed economic blockade of the 1%."
Each Occupy is organizing plans for a mass mobilization and community pickets to shut down their local Port. The mobilization of over 60,000 people that shut down the Port of Oakland during the general strike on November 2, 2011 is the model for the West Coast efforts. Organizers state that a police attempt to disrupt the port blockade or police violence against any city participating will extend duration of the blockade on the entire coast.
"These Ports are public. People have a right to come to the Port and protest. The ILWU has historically honored picket lines at the Port." stated Clarence Thomas, a member of ILWU Local 10.
ILWU longshore workers are involved as individuals in the planning of the Shutdown. "I am a longshoreman and I support the December 12th Blockade against EGT. EGT is a threat to the survival of the ILWU," stated Anthony Leviege, a member of Local 10. Dan Coffman, the president of Local 21 in Longview, has publicly thanked the Occupy movement and Occupy Oakland for its actions on November 2nd.
Further interviews and details can be obtained through local Port Blockade committees and the Oakland West Coast Port Blockade Assembly.
********
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 Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
A Five-Point Program As Talking Points
*Jobs For All Now!-“30 For 40”- A historic demand of the labor movement. 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 for public and private workers to unionize.
* Defend the working classes! No union dues for Democratic (or the stray Republican) candidates. Spent the dough 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. Labor and the oppressed must rule!
********
Markin comment:
And as always-everybody, young or old, needs to stand by this slogan - An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers Everywhere! Hands Off Occupy Oakland !
**************
Press Release: Support Grows for West Coast Port Shut Down
http://westcoastportshutdown.org/
Submitted by admin on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 15:25
SUPPORT GROWS FOR OCCUPY MOVEMENT'S COORDINATED WEST COAST SHUT DOWN ON DECEMBER 12TH
As of November 27, 2011, the Occupy movement in every major West Coast port city: Occupy LA, Occupy San Diego, Occupy Portland, Occupy Tacoma, Occupy Seattle have joined Occupy Oakland in calling for and organizing a coordinated West Coast Port Blockade and Shutdown on December 12, 2011. Other West Coast Occupies, including Occupy Anchorage and Vancouver, Canada are planning to join the economic blockade and disruption of the 1% on that date, according to organizers.
"We're shutting down these ports because of the union busting and attacks on the working class by the 1%: the firing of Port truckers organizing at SSA terminals in LA; the attempt to rupture ILWU union jurisdiction in Longview, WA by EGT. EGT includes Bunge LTD, a company which reported 2.5 billion dollars in profit last year and has economically devastated poor people in Argentina and Brazil. SSA is responsible for inhumane working conditions and gross exploitation of port truckers and is owned by Goldman Sachs. EGT and Goldman Sachs is Wallstreet on the Waterfront" stated Barucha Peller of the West Coast Port Blockade Assembly of Occupy Oakland.
"We are also striking back against the nationally' coordinated attack on the Occupy movement. In response to the police violence and camp evictions against the Occupy movement- This is our coordinated response against the 1%. On December 12th we will show are collective power through pinpointed economic blockade of the 1%."
Each Occupy is organizing plans for a mass mobilization and community pickets to shut down their local Port. The mobilization of over 60,000 people that shut down the Port of Oakland during the general strike on November 2, 2011 is the model for the West Coast efforts. Organizers state that a police attempt to disrupt the port blockade or police violence against any city participating will extend duration of the blockade on the entire coast.
"These Ports are public. People have a right to come to the Port and protest. The ILWU has historically honored picket lines at the Port." stated Clarence Thomas, a member of ILWU Local 10.
ILWU longshore workers are involved as individuals in the planning of the Shutdown. "I am a longshoreman and I support the December 12th Blockade against EGT. EGT is a threat to the survival of the ILWU," stated Anthony Leviege, a member of Local 10. Dan Coffman, the president of Local 21 in Longview, has publicly thanked the Occupy movement and Occupy Oakland for its actions on November 2nd.
Further interviews and details can be obtained through local Port Blockade committees and the Oakland West Coast Port Blockade Assembly.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
From Boston Indy Media-Labor Must Choose Between Occupy and the Democrats by workers action
Labor Must Choose Between Occupy and the Democrats by workers action
(No verified email address) 21 Nov 2011
The Occupy Movement couldn't have come along at a worse time, from the viewpoint of the Democrats. Election season is just getting started and Occupy has thrown a giant wrench into the political machinery. Some labor leaders too are sensing “politics as usual” shifting under their feet; the “get out the vote” for the Democrats may elicit blank stares from the rank and file.
Occupy has the potential to create earthquakes within the labor movement and labor’s relationship to the Democrats, if it approaches the subject intelligently. This seismic shift could permanently change politics in the United States, much for the better.
Many commentators have noted that the Occupy Movement can be only poison for the Democrats. Unlike the Republicans, who benefited from the corporate sponsored far-right Tea Party, the Democrats have no intention of moving — or even flirting — with an independent movement to its left. Long before the corporate Presidency of Bill Clinton, the Democrats have moved only to the right, with the leftist talk reserved strictly for election campaigns. This evolution is now to the point where President Obama stands to the right of President and arch-Conservative Richard Nixon on most economic and social issues. Times have certainly changed.
In an effort to pretend that times haven't changed, some labor leaders are obsessed with comparing the modern Democrats with the modern Republicans, the latter who have evolved into a party that openly denies evolution and disdains all things non-corporate. Comparing Democrats with Republicans in this distorted manner certainly makes Democrats look good, while also avoiding the real issues at stake.
And then came Occupy. Real issues are now being talked about. Occupy has successfully pointed out the absurd policies of both corporate owned political parties. This disruption has created open hostility from Republicans and Democrats, the latter have stood silent as local riot police-- controlled mainly by Democratic Party administrations-- have attacked peaceful Occupy protesters all over the country. Even the eternally loyal Democrat Daily Kos website has spewed anti-Democrat anger over this:
"The deafening silence from Congress, from both the Democratic and Republican parties, and President Obama on the abuse of civilians exercising the right to assemble, and the right to freedom of speech, speaks volumes as to the priorities, concerns and goals of the political class in D.C. We should be very, very concerned and angry over this silence...Silence is in fact, complicity." (November 16, 2011).
The labor movement sees a natural ally in Occupy and is openly embracing it, to varying degrees. Of course the two movements are mutually compatible: labor has been fighting off and on against corporations since unions were born. The Occupy Movement is breathing fresh air into the working people's movement, and the unions had better go "all in" with Occupy, lest they stand alone and become totally irrelevant.
The labor movement thus has a foot in both worlds; one in step with the Occupy Movement and the other with the Democrats, who are working to crush Occupy outright. Labor's split personality is obviously unsustainable; something has got to give. A stark example of these incompatible positions was put forth by Mary Kay Henry, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), when she discussed SEIU's recent endorsement of President Obama:
"We need a leader [Obama] willing to fight for the needs of the 99 percent . . . .Our economy and democracy have been taken over by the wealthiest one percent."
What?! Corporations gave Obama far more money than his previous Republican opponent, John McCain. Corporations are again giving Obama more money than his current Republican counterparts. He doesn't need the dues money of union workers; he's already flush with corporate cash.
Mary Kay Henry is just one of several top labor officials who frame the Occupy Movement as a battle against "the right wing,” i.e., Republicans. In response to this argument, Glenn Greenwald of Salon commented:
"...pretending that the ongoing [Occupy] protests are grounded in the belief that the GOP is the party of the rich while the Democrats are the party of the working class is likely to fool just about nobody other than those fooled by that already" (November 19, 2011).
If labor plans on being relevant to the Occupy Movement — and this means being relevant at all in the near future — major changes must occur. And although many Occupiers have expressed concern about Labor having ulterior motives to co-opt the Occupy Movement, the threat is greatly exaggerated.
Most labor unions are politically co-opted by the Democrats. Labor still needs a national political voice. Though the mass actions of the Occupy Movement have done more to change the political climate than the millions who voted for Obama, most of Labor's entrenched leadership remain attached to the Democrats in an illusory attempt to have a national voice.
In practice this means that labor ignores the pro-corporate policies of Democratic politicians while unions water down its demands to make them compatible with the positions of Democrats. Occupy won't stand for this, or even listen to it.
Some major examples of labor's neutered pro-Democrat Party politics are:
-National labor unions largely ignored the fact that Democratic Governors, elected with the help of the unions, recently forced major concessions on public sector unions all over the country, substantially weakening the larger labor movement.
-Labor's political subservience to the Democrats also means that, instead of demanding a real jobs program, labor is reduced to supporting Obama's truly pathetic jobs program, which would create a million or so jobs, when 20 million plus are needed.
-Worse yet is labor's virtual inaction in response to Obama's Super Committee, which intends to cut the national budget deficit on the backs of working people, especially by slashing Medicare and Medicaid, and very likely Social Security, creating a precedent for even larger cuts in the future. This amounts to perhaps the biggest single attack on working people in recent U.S. history, as it would dramatically affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people. While AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has made some strong statements against these cuts, neither he, nor any of the other top labor officials, have called for what is really needed, which is a massive, nationally coordinated mobilization of the ranks of the labor movement and labor’s allies, the 99%, to take to the streets of America to demand of the government: No Cuts! No Concessions! Tax the Rich!
If labor plans on building a strong movement with Occupy — and they had better — then these suicidal pro-Democratic Party policies must end. Labor cannot earn credibility within the Occupy Movement and then completely change course to campaign for Obama, in effect throwing all credibility in the garbage.
If labor puts forth watered down demands — like Obama's jobs bill — it will elicit no response from the vast majority of Occupiers and their supporters. The Occupy Movement recognizes the dire economic situation the country is in and is not held back by mainstream politicians.
This gives the Occupy Movement an amazing chance to lead labor down the right path. There is a wide gulf between the demands that the labor movement and the Democratic Party are putting forward and what working people desperately need. Occupy would not exist were this not the case.
Therefore, Occupy must address the nationwide social crisis in a serious way that can unite working people, and help drive the labor movement forward in the process.
For example, instead of the labor movement merely demanding End the Bush Tax Cuts, Occupy could demand Tax the 1% at 90% (as it was under Franklin Delano Roosevelt).
Instead of labor demanding that Obama's Jobs bill be passed, the Occupy Movement should demand that revenue from taxing the rich be used to create 20 million new jobs, a federal jobs program similar to the one implemented in the 1930s, but bigger.
Most importantly, Occupy could start a national campaign demanding NO CUTS to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by taxing the rich and corporations.
Taxing the rich should be a critical demand of the Occupy movement, since it naturally unites working people against cuts and produces revenue that can create jobs. Taxing the rich is also the demand that naturally emerges from the slogan "We Are the 99%,” which reveals the giant wealth disequilibrium that has happened in the country, in large part due to the shrinking tax rates of the rich.
There is plenty of room for Occupy to prove its political independence by putting forth demands that will discredit the Democrats and lead Labor towards campaigns that the majority of working people will join, making Occupy/Labor an unstoppable force. If occupy mobilizes over key demands that resonate with the majority, the unions will follow. They will have no choice, since their rank and file will already be following Occupy.
See also:
http://www.workerscompass.org
This work is in the public domain
**********
(No verified email address) 21 Nov 2011
The Occupy Movement couldn't have come along at a worse time, from the viewpoint of the Democrats. Election season is just getting started and Occupy has thrown a giant wrench into the political machinery. Some labor leaders too are sensing “politics as usual” shifting under their feet; the “get out the vote” for the Democrats may elicit blank stares from the rank and file.
Occupy has the potential to create earthquakes within the labor movement and labor’s relationship to the Democrats, if it approaches the subject intelligently. This seismic shift could permanently change politics in the United States, much for the better.
Many commentators have noted that the Occupy Movement can be only poison for the Democrats. Unlike the Republicans, who benefited from the corporate sponsored far-right Tea Party, the Democrats have no intention of moving — or even flirting — with an independent movement to its left. Long before the corporate Presidency of Bill Clinton, the Democrats have moved only to the right, with the leftist talk reserved strictly for election campaigns. This evolution is now to the point where President Obama stands to the right of President and arch-Conservative Richard Nixon on most economic and social issues. Times have certainly changed.
In an effort to pretend that times haven't changed, some labor leaders are obsessed with comparing the modern Democrats with the modern Republicans, the latter who have evolved into a party that openly denies evolution and disdains all things non-corporate. Comparing Democrats with Republicans in this distorted manner certainly makes Democrats look good, while also avoiding the real issues at stake.
And then came Occupy. Real issues are now being talked about. Occupy has successfully pointed out the absurd policies of both corporate owned political parties. This disruption has created open hostility from Republicans and Democrats, the latter have stood silent as local riot police-- controlled mainly by Democratic Party administrations-- have attacked peaceful Occupy protesters all over the country. Even the eternally loyal Democrat Daily Kos website has spewed anti-Democrat anger over this:
"The deafening silence from Congress, from both the Democratic and Republican parties, and President Obama on the abuse of civilians exercising the right to assemble, and the right to freedom of speech, speaks volumes as to the priorities, concerns and goals of the political class in D.C. We should be very, very concerned and angry over this silence...Silence is in fact, complicity." (November 16, 2011).
The labor movement sees a natural ally in Occupy and is openly embracing it, to varying degrees. Of course the two movements are mutually compatible: labor has been fighting off and on against corporations since unions were born. The Occupy Movement is breathing fresh air into the working people's movement, and the unions had better go "all in" with Occupy, lest they stand alone and become totally irrelevant.
The labor movement thus has a foot in both worlds; one in step with the Occupy Movement and the other with the Democrats, who are working to crush Occupy outright. Labor's split personality is obviously unsustainable; something has got to give. A stark example of these incompatible positions was put forth by Mary Kay Henry, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), when she discussed SEIU's recent endorsement of President Obama:
"We need a leader [Obama] willing to fight for the needs of the 99 percent . . . .Our economy and democracy have been taken over by the wealthiest one percent."
What?! Corporations gave Obama far more money than his previous Republican opponent, John McCain. Corporations are again giving Obama more money than his current Republican counterparts. He doesn't need the dues money of union workers; he's already flush with corporate cash.
Mary Kay Henry is just one of several top labor officials who frame the Occupy Movement as a battle against "the right wing,” i.e., Republicans. In response to this argument, Glenn Greenwald of Salon commented:
"...pretending that the ongoing [Occupy] protests are grounded in the belief that the GOP is the party of the rich while the Democrats are the party of the working class is likely to fool just about nobody other than those fooled by that already" (November 19, 2011).
If labor plans on being relevant to the Occupy Movement — and this means being relevant at all in the near future — major changes must occur. And although many Occupiers have expressed concern about Labor having ulterior motives to co-opt the Occupy Movement, the threat is greatly exaggerated.
Most labor unions are politically co-opted by the Democrats. Labor still needs a national political voice. Though the mass actions of the Occupy Movement have done more to change the political climate than the millions who voted for Obama, most of Labor's entrenched leadership remain attached to the Democrats in an illusory attempt to have a national voice.
In practice this means that labor ignores the pro-corporate policies of Democratic politicians while unions water down its demands to make them compatible with the positions of Democrats. Occupy won't stand for this, or even listen to it.
Some major examples of labor's neutered pro-Democrat Party politics are:
-National labor unions largely ignored the fact that Democratic Governors, elected with the help of the unions, recently forced major concessions on public sector unions all over the country, substantially weakening the larger labor movement.
-Labor's political subservience to the Democrats also means that, instead of demanding a real jobs program, labor is reduced to supporting Obama's truly pathetic jobs program, which would create a million or so jobs, when 20 million plus are needed.
-Worse yet is labor's virtual inaction in response to Obama's Super Committee, which intends to cut the national budget deficit on the backs of working people, especially by slashing Medicare and Medicaid, and very likely Social Security, creating a precedent for even larger cuts in the future. This amounts to perhaps the biggest single attack on working people in recent U.S. history, as it would dramatically affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people. While AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has made some strong statements against these cuts, neither he, nor any of the other top labor officials, have called for what is really needed, which is a massive, nationally coordinated mobilization of the ranks of the labor movement and labor’s allies, the 99%, to take to the streets of America to demand of the government: No Cuts! No Concessions! Tax the Rich!
If labor plans on building a strong movement with Occupy — and they had better — then these suicidal pro-Democratic Party policies must end. Labor cannot earn credibility within the Occupy Movement and then completely change course to campaign for Obama, in effect throwing all credibility in the garbage.
If labor puts forth watered down demands — like Obama's jobs bill — it will elicit no response from the vast majority of Occupiers and their supporters. The Occupy Movement recognizes the dire economic situation the country is in and is not held back by mainstream politicians.
This gives the Occupy Movement an amazing chance to lead labor down the right path. There is a wide gulf between the demands that the labor movement and the Democratic Party are putting forward and what working people desperately need. Occupy would not exist were this not the case.
Therefore, Occupy must address the nationwide social crisis in a serious way that can unite working people, and help drive the labor movement forward in the process.
For example, instead of the labor movement merely demanding End the Bush Tax Cuts, Occupy could demand Tax the 1% at 90% (as it was under Franklin Delano Roosevelt).
Instead of labor demanding that Obama's Jobs bill be passed, the Occupy Movement should demand that revenue from taxing the rich be used to create 20 million new jobs, a federal jobs program similar to the one implemented in the 1930s, but bigger.
Most importantly, Occupy could start a national campaign demanding NO CUTS to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by taxing the rich and corporations.
Taxing the rich should be a critical demand of the Occupy movement, since it naturally unites working people against cuts and produces revenue that can create jobs. Taxing the rich is also the demand that naturally emerges from the slogan "We Are the 99%,” which reveals the giant wealth disequilibrium that has happened in the country, in large part due to the shrinking tax rates of the rich.
There is plenty of room for Occupy to prove its political independence by putting forth demands that will discredit the Democrats and lead Labor towards campaigns that the majority of working people will join, making Occupy/Labor an unstoppable force. If occupy mobilizes over key demands that resonate with the majority, the unions will follow. They will have no choice, since their rank and file will already be following Occupy.
See also:
http://www.workerscompass.org
This work is in the public domain
**********
The Latest From The SteveLendmanBlog
Markin comment:
I am always happy to post material from the SteveLendmanBlog, although I am not always in agreement with his analysis. I am always interested in getting a left-liberal/radical perspective on some issues that I don’t generally have time to cover in full like the question of Palestine, the Middle East in general, and civil rights and economic issues here in America and elsewhere. Moreover the blog provides plenty of useful links to other sources of information about the subject under discussion.
I am always happy to post material from the SteveLendmanBlog, although I am not always in agreement with his analysis. I am always interested in getting a left-liberal/radical perspective on some issues that I don’t generally have time to cover in full like the question of Palestine, the Middle East in general, and civil rights and economic issues here in America and elsewhere. Moreover the blog provides plenty of useful links to other sources of information about the subject under discussion.
From The UJP Website-Rules of Engagement for Non-Profits and Unions Working with the #Occupy Movement
Rules of Engagement for Non-Profits and Unions Working with the #Occupy Movement
Submitted by Jason Pramas on Tue, 12/06/2011 - 5:12pm.
by Jason Pramas - OpenMedia Boston - Nov-21-11
There has been a great deal of interest by progressive unions, labor federations, community-labor coalitions, and non-profits of many kinds in the rise of the Occupy movement. A lot of this interest is positive, and represents the leadership of existing progressive organizations understanding the importance of expanding their efforts at this particular moment in history - and reaching out to the new movement in the best spirit of mutual aid and solidarity.
Some of this interest, however, is less positive. I won't speculate overmuch in this editorial about why organizations that claim to share the values of the new movement might engage in questionable behavior towards it. Suffice to say, some organizations have what could best be described as "turf issues" with the occupiers - which has unfortunately been the case here in Boston at times.
It is ever thus when representatives of an old order come face to face with a potential new order - in progressive politics as in every sphere of human activity. And a certain amount of friction between these forces, as I've written previously, is healthy. Especially if non-profit and union leadership heeds the admonition I wrote to media producers, intellectuals and professionals in an editorial at the beginning of the Occupy movement, and pledges to accompany the movement. Offering their skills and resources to the occupiers without trying to maneuver for power.
But when this friction devolves into attempts by the old order to subsume the new, and wipe it out - directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally - it's not always so healthy. Because any serious attempt to shove the new movement back into the old organizing bottles will kill it.
So I thought I'd offer a few ideas that I'm calling "Rules of Engagement" for the consideration of all the progressive organizations in United States and beyond that are trying to work with the Occupy movement. I am speaking here both as a journalist that has been covering the progressive scene in Boston since 2008, and as a longtime progressive activist in community organizations and unions at the local, national and international level. I am not directly involved in the Occupy movement, having decided it was more important to spread accurate information about the movement to the public at large as a reporter and editor than it was to join it. But in the course of my work I have spoken to a good number of Occupy activists, and closely tracked coverage of the movement in the media. Putting the observations I've made about the Occupy movement together with my knowledge of the progressive non-profit and union scene - and combining all that with my previous experience as an activist - led me to write the "rules" that follow.
In putting forward my ideas on these matters, I'm not saying that the Occupy movement is perfect, or that it can do no wrong, or any such thing. But I am saying that the only social force that has the possibility of overthrowing capitalism in favor of democracy and saving humanity from political, economic and ecological catastrophe in the foreseeable future is the Occupy movement. No existing progressive organization or group of such organizations in the old model has anything like that potential. Especially those many groups that refuse to even name capitalism as the main enemy of democracy in this age - choosing instead to focus on this crime or that crime committed by its adherents minus any explanatory systemic analysis.
The one potential the old left does have, though, is the potential to destroy the Occupy movement by the death of a thousand cuts - or more colorfully, the "circular firing squad" behavior the American left is justifiably infamous for implementing against any faction that has a chance of majoritarian success.
Which is why, in summation, I think it is far better for non-profits and unions to work with the movement in a solidaristic fashion, than to try to take it over or push it out of their way.
Read on for details.
1) Learn how the Occupy movement works before engaging with it
The Occupy movement - at two months old - has already developed a sophisticated internal process and a welcoming culture. While not perfect, it's easy to plug in, as long as your organization makes an effort to work within the Occupy movement's system of governance. That means showing up for public meetings, learning their rules for discussion and debate, and the hand signals that go with them. It also means understanding how their general assemblies work, and how their working groups function. Organizations that do this will demonstrate to occupiers that they "get it." Organizations that don't set up a "we-thou" relationship instead. Meaning a "we know it all, you know nothing" relationship. Which is a poor way to begin a friendship, yes?
2) Respect the Occupy movement's process
The fastest way to alienate occupiers is to try to find their "actual leaders" rather than working with their established process. Their only leader is that democratic process - most especially the general assemblies - which are institutions of direct democracy. Organizations looking for back room meetings with "movers and shakers" are going find their initiatives blocked in Occupy meetings once word gets out. And it will get out.
3) Develop a relationship with the Occupy movement
However much institutional experience many progressive organizations may have, the progressive movement as a whole has been on the retreat for four decades in the United States. The Occupy movement is the biggest broadest movement for democracy and social justice to rise in this country (and globally) in that time. There's a huge amount of talent and strategic acumen in every Occupy encampment - and, regardless of any faults, the new movement has done a tremendously good job of pushing the public debate on a host of issues to the left in a short period of time. All this to say, don't assume that the Occupy movement needs your organization's "experts" more than your organization needs the movement. Occupiers are happy to work with any individual or organization that approaches them in good faith, and wants to dialogue about how to proceed with a raft of campaigns and initiatives. They also very much like to support existing organizations that deal with them in an aboveboard way. So by simply participating in their process, and getting to know point people in different working groups, your organization can develop a longer-term relationship based on trust with the occupiers. Which virtually always benefits the popular movement as a whole.
4) Give back at least as much as your organization gets from the Occupy movement
It is inappropriate for your organization to deal with the Occupy movement - or any ally - in a mercenary fashion. That is, to try to use its public appeal, and the significant numbers of people it can field to help your organization's particular corner of the progressive movement without giving anything back to the occupiers. That kind of behavior has become all too common among too many progressive organizations in the last 40 years, and it needs to stop. Your one non-profit or union, no matter how large, is not a substitute for a genuine mass movement. The fate of your particular organization or any particular organization is functionally irrelevant. Sorry to be the bearer of tough love, but that's he way it is. The fate of the new movement overall, on the other hand, is critical to humanity's survival. So if, for example, your organization uses its affiliation with the Occupy movement to raise money, then it should give a significant percentage of that money back to the movement. Or if it calls an action with the Occupy movement it should make sure that that action benefits the movement as least as much as it benefits your organization. Don't be a user. Be an ally.
5) Connect your organization's members to the Occupy movement
One great way to build a relationship with the Occupy movement - and to build that movement - is to turn your members out for events at your local Occupy encampment. That will demonstrate to the occupiers that your group is serious about working with them, and that your staff people aren't trying to act as gatekeepers between members your constituency and the broader social movement. Another unfortunately common attitude among progressive non-profits and unions. Yet ironically, it is precisely because of many organizations acting to narrow their member's horizons down to the footprint of their particular community of interest or organization that the progressive movement fell upon hard times in the last 40 years. How could it be otherwise, when members of community organizations are told to focus on organizing for park benches in their neighborhood or legislative bills to get shoelaces for left-handed welfare kids ("we'll get 'em for right-handed kids next year!"), or union members are told to fight for a contract that gives a few extra pennies an hour? And all these tiny reforms are called "great victories" by non-profit and union leaders when grudgingly acceded to by the powers that be. While capitalists loot and despoil the planet. So trust that your organization's members are thinking beings - not just objects to be "organized" - encourage them to join the Occupy movement directly, and I suspect you'll be pleasantly surprised to see a huge uptick in interest in positive collective activity within your organization and in the movement as a whole.
6) Play nice - don't try to take over your local occupation or start puppet occupations
It may be tempting for some non-profits and unions with sufficient funding to send in paid staff to work 24/7 to try to push their local Occupy encampment in whatever direction they decide it should go. Or to start satellite occupations that they dominate from word one - in cities or regions that already have occupations. I would strongly recommend avoiding that temptation. Because, first, it can't work in any positive way, and therefore is nothing but a stealth attack on the new movement. And second, there's this idea out there that mere organizational longevity translates to having the tactical and strategic acumen needed to to run a giant growing movement. But that's not how it works. Movements aren't "run" by anyone single organization or faction. And they're certainly not run by people whose main skill is managing minor bureaucracies - although such people have a useful skill set for doing a great job with certain instrumental tasks performed by any social movement. Also, most non-profits and unions have been taking a "magical" or romantic approach to what they call "organizing" for many years now. Not an empirical approach. That is, they don't ask whether the tactics and strategies they use actually work in any real way. It's just assumed that they work - often in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. And then these untested (at best) or failed (at worst) tactics and strategies get telegraphed to younger activists, who are told by the legion of "trainers" that the foundation-backed non-profit set and foundation-influenced union leadership has inflicted upon the left that these are tried and proven tactics and strategies that are worthy of replication in the absence of genuine proof of their efficacy. Once the magic incantations and formulas are thus passed on, this new generation telegraphs it to the people coming up after them. Rinse and repeat until 40 plus years of failure and retreat go by. Until one day, a couple of months ago, people largely outside this "foundation-industrial complex" rise up angry and build a huge democratic movement with a speed which was considered impossible by non-profit and union leaders "in the know" - without the use of any strategic planning meetings or four-day retreats or encounter sessions. Fancy that. Meaning the people actually building the Occupy movement are their own best experts, and they are developing new tactics and strategies and repurposing the best of the old ones as the movement expands. So the smartest course for non-profits and unions to take, again, is to let the new movement develop organically - and always try to be helpful. Not overbearing.
7) Do not claim that your organization leads the Occupy movement
No one person or organization leads the new movement. Which is its great strength in many ways. At least for reaching the first major goal of any genuine social movement - spreading the ideas of the popular uprising far and wide. Any organization or individual that claims to lead the movement - or even hints at such leadership - should be looked at critically by any honest observer. This includes any of the aforementioned "experts" or "trainers" that would like to think that occupiers need to be led by the nose to the water of liberation by people trapped in the desert of the old left. Here's a last bit of free advice ... they don't.
Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston
Submitted by Jason Pramas on Tue, 12/06/2011 - 5:12pm.
by Jason Pramas - OpenMedia Boston - Nov-21-11
There has been a great deal of interest by progressive unions, labor federations, community-labor coalitions, and non-profits of many kinds in the rise of the Occupy movement. A lot of this interest is positive, and represents the leadership of existing progressive organizations understanding the importance of expanding their efforts at this particular moment in history - and reaching out to the new movement in the best spirit of mutual aid and solidarity.
Some of this interest, however, is less positive. I won't speculate overmuch in this editorial about why organizations that claim to share the values of the new movement might engage in questionable behavior towards it. Suffice to say, some organizations have what could best be described as "turf issues" with the occupiers - which has unfortunately been the case here in Boston at times.
It is ever thus when representatives of an old order come face to face with a potential new order - in progressive politics as in every sphere of human activity. And a certain amount of friction between these forces, as I've written previously, is healthy. Especially if non-profit and union leadership heeds the admonition I wrote to media producers, intellectuals and professionals in an editorial at the beginning of the Occupy movement, and pledges to accompany the movement. Offering their skills and resources to the occupiers without trying to maneuver for power.
But when this friction devolves into attempts by the old order to subsume the new, and wipe it out - directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally - it's not always so healthy. Because any serious attempt to shove the new movement back into the old organizing bottles will kill it.
So I thought I'd offer a few ideas that I'm calling "Rules of Engagement" for the consideration of all the progressive organizations in United States and beyond that are trying to work with the Occupy movement. I am speaking here both as a journalist that has been covering the progressive scene in Boston since 2008, and as a longtime progressive activist in community organizations and unions at the local, national and international level. I am not directly involved in the Occupy movement, having decided it was more important to spread accurate information about the movement to the public at large as a reporter and editor than it was to join it. But in the course of my work I have spoken to a good number of Occupy activists, and closely tracked coverage of the movement in the media. Putting the observations I've made about the Occupy movement together with my knowledge of the progressive non-profit and union scene - and combining all that with my previous experience as an activist - led me to write the "rules" that follow.
In putting forward my ideas on these matters, I'm not saying that the Occupy movement is perfect, or that it can do no wrong, or any such thing. But I am saying that the only social force that has the possibility of overthrowing capitalism in favor of democracy and saving humanity from political, economic and ecological catastrophe in the foreseeable future is the Occupy movement. No existing progressive organization or group of such organizations in the old model has anything like that potential. Especially those many groups that refuse to even name capitalism as the main enemy of democracy in this age - choosing instead to focus on this crime or that crime committed by its adherents minus any explanatory systemic analysis.
The one potential the old left does have, though, is the potential to destroy the Occupy movement by the death of a thousand cuts - or more colorfully, the "circular firing squad" behavior the American left is justifiably infamous for implementing against any faction that has a chance of majoritarian success.
Which is why, in summation, I think it is far better for non-profits and unions to work with the movement in a solidaristic fashion, than to try to take it over or push it out of their way.
Read on for details.
1) Learn how the Occupy movement works before engaging with it
The Occupy movement - at two months old - has already developed a sophisticated internal process and a welcoming culture. While not perfect, it's easy to plug in, as long as your organization makes an effort to work within the Occupy movement's system of governance. That means showing up for public meetings, learning their rules for discussion and debate, and the hand signals that go with them. It also means understanding how their general assemblies work, and how their working groups function. Organizations that do this will demonstrate to occupiers that they "get it." Organizations that don't set up a "we-thou" relationship instead. Meaning a "we know it all, you know nothing" relationship. Which is a poor way to begin a friendship, yes?
2) Respect the Occupy movement's process
The fastest way to alienate occupiers is to try to find their "actual leaders" rather than working with their established process. Their only leader is that democratic process - most especially the general assemblies - which are institutions of direct democracy. Organizations looking for back room meetings with "movers and shakers" are going find their initiatives blocked in Occupy meetings once word gets out. And it will get out.
3) Develop a relationship with the Occupy movement
However much institutional experience many progressive organizations may have, the progressive movement as a whole has been on the retreat for four decades in the United States. The Occupy movement is the biggest broadest movement for democracy and social justice to rise in this country (and globally) in that time. There's a huge amount of talent and strategic acumen in every Occupy encampment - and, regardless of any faults, the new movement has done a tremendously good job of pushing the public debate on a host of issues to the left in a short period of time. All this to say, don't assume that the Occupy movement needs your organization's "experts" more than your organization needs the movement. Occupiers are happy to work with any individual or organization that approaches them in good faith, and wants to dialogue about how to proceed with a raft of campaigns and initiatives. They also very much like to support existing organizations that deal with them in an aboveboard way. So by simply participating in their process, and getting to know point people in different working groups, your organization can develop a longer-term relationship based on trust with the occupiers. Which virtually always benefits the popular movement as a whole.
4) Give back at least as much as your organization gets from the Occupy movement
It is inappropriate for your organization to deal with the Occupy movement - or any ally - in a mercenary fashion. That is, to try to use its public appeal, and the significant numbers of people it can field to help your organization's particular corner of the progressive movement without giving anything back to the occupiers. That kind of behavior has become all too common among too many progressive organizations in the last 40 years, and it needs to stop. Your one non-profit or union, no matter how large, is not a substitute for a genuine mass movement. The fate of your particular organization or any particular organization is functionally irrelevant. Sorry to be the bearer of tough love, but that's he way it is. The fate of the new movement overall, on the other hand, is critical to humanity's survival. So if, for example, your organization uses its affiliation with the Occupy movement to raise money, then it should give a significant percentage of that money back to the movement. Or if it calls an action with the Occupy movement it should make sure that that action benefits the movement as least as much as it benefits your organization. Don't be a user. Be an ally.
5) Connect your organization's members to the Occupy movement
One great way to build a relationship with the Occupy movement - and to build that movement - is to turn your members out for events at your local Occupy encampment. That will demonstrate to the occupiers that your group is serious about working with them, and that your staff people aren't trying to act as gatekeepers between members your constituency and the broader social movement. Another unfortunately common attitude among progressive non-profits and unions. Yet ironically, it is precisely because of many organizations acting to narrow their member's horizons down to the footprint of their particular community of interest or organization that the progressive movement fell upon hard times in the last 40 years. How could it be otherwise, when members of community organizations are told to focus on organizing for park benches in their neighborhood or legislative bills to get shoelaces for left-handed welfare kids ("we'll get 'em for right-handed kids next year!"), or union members are told to fight for a contract that gives a few extra pennies an hour? And all these tiny reforms are called "great victories" by non-profit and union leaders when grudgingly acceded to by the powers that be. While capitalists loot and despoil the planet. So trust that your organization's members are thinking beings - not just objects to be "organized" - encourage them to join the Occupy movement directly, and I suspect you'll be pleasantly surprised to see a huge uptick in interest in positive collective activity within your organization and in the movement as a whole.
6) Play nice - don't try to take over your local occupation or start puppet occupations
It may be tempting for some non-profits and unions with sufficient funding to send in paid staff to work 24/7 to try to push their local Occupy encampment in whatever direction they decide it should go. Or to start satellite occupations that they dominate from word one - in cities or regions that already have occupations. I would strongly recommend avoiding that temptation. Because, first, it can't work in any positive way, and therefore is nothing but a stealth attack on the new movement. And second, there's this idea out there that mere organizational longevity translates to having the tactical and strategic acumen needed to to run a giant growing movement. But that's not how it works. Movements aren't "run" by anyone single organization or faction. And they're certainly not run by people whose main skill is managing minor bureaucracies - although such people have a useful skill set for doing a great job with certain instrumental tasks performed by any social movement. Also, most non-profits and unions have been taking a "magical" or romantic approach to what they call "organizing" for many years now. Not an empirical approach. That is, they don't ask whether the tactics and strategies they use actually work in any real way. It's just assumed that they work - often in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. And then these untested (at best) or failed (at worst) tactics and strategies get telegraphed to younger activists, who are told by the legion of "trainers" that the foundation-backed non-profit set and foundation-influenced union leadership has inflicted upon the left that these are tried and proven tactics and strategies that are worthy of replication in the absence of genuine proof of their efficacy. Once the magic incantations and formulas are thus passed on, this new generation telegraphs it to the people coming up after them. Rinse and repeat until 40 plus years of failure and retreat go by. Until one day, a couple of months ago, people largely outside this "foundation-industrial complex" rise up angry and build a huge democratic movement with a speed which was considered impossible by non-profit and union leaders "in the know" - without the use of any strategic planning meetings or four-day retreats or encounter sessions. Fancy that. Meaning the people actually building the Occupy movement are their own best experts, and they are developing new tactics and strategies and repurposing the best of the old ones as the movement expands. So the smartest course for non-profits and unions to take, again, is to let the new movement develop organically - and always try to be helpful. Not overbearing.
7) Do not claim that your organization leads the Occupy movement
No one person or organization leads the new movement. Which is its great strength in many ways. At least for reaching the first major goal of any genuine social movement - spreading the ideas of the popular uprising far and wide. Any organization or individual that claims to lead the movement - or even hints at such leadership - should be looked at critically by any honest observer. This includes any of the aforementioned "experts" or "trainers" that would like to think that occupiers need to be led by the nose to the water of liberation by people trapped in the desert of the old left. Here's a last bit of free advice ... they don't.
Jason Pramas is Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston
From "Socialist Alternative"-From "Panther-The Black Rebellion:The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense"
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
Formed in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was the largest Black revolutionary organization that has ever existed.
Famous for taking up guns in defense against police brutality, the Panthers had many other little-known sides to their work. They organized dozens of community programs such as free breakfast for children, health clinics and shoes for children.
Such was their success that they rapidly grew to a size of 5,000 full time party workers, organized in 45 chapters (branches) across America. At their peak, they sold 250,000 papers every week. Opinion polls of the day showed the Panthers to have 90% support amongst Blacks in the major cities. Their impact on Black America can be measured by the response of the state. J. Edgar Hoover, then head of the FBI described them as "the number one threat to the internal security of the United States".
In this chapter, we will be looking at the formation of the Panthers, their program and activities, but more importantly, what marked the Panthers out to be different from all other organizations, what led them to be the inspiration to generations around the world to join the struggle against oppression.
The Civil Rights Movement
The formation of the Panthers was the direct result of the development of the civil rights movement which had already been in full swing for more than a decade before they were created. The movement had largely been based in the south and around demands for desegregation of the busses, schools, waiting rooms and lunch counters. Hundreds of thousands had been mobilized to participate in the demonstrations, sit-ins and freedom rides. Both from the police, local white mobs and the Ku Klux Klan, civil rights protesters faced the constant threat of brutal attack or even death. Despite this, the guiding philosophy of the civil rights leaders - in particular Martin Luther King - remained one of civil disobedience and passive resistance.
The increasing ferocity of the violence put a great strain on the movement. Contrasting views on a strategy for Black liberation began to emerge. Stokely Carmichael was prominent among those who opposed passive resistance and represented the feelings of a new generation of Blacks who felt that the peaceful approach was played out.
Alongside the mainstream civil rights was another current: much smaller than King's movement but still with significant numbers were the Black Muslims. The Nation believed in separation instead of integration and were completely opposed to passive resistance. Their radical ideology was appealing but they refused to participate in the civil rights movement or to become involved in the activities of non-Nation members.
Malcolm X
Malcolm X saw the limitations of both the Muslims and King's strategy of non-violence. He saw the need to embrace the social and economic issues and he attempted to put forward a more coherent strategy than any Black leader up to that point. It was against this background of upheaval that the Black Panther Party was created. The Panthers took the revolutionary philosophy and militant stand of Malcolm X, they were determined that although Malcolm X had been cut down, they would make his ideas come alive.
The Black Panther Party was founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. They met in the early sixties whilst at Meritt Junior College in West Oakland. The civil rights movement had ignited Black America: Seale and Newton were no exception. Both were active in Black politics for several years before they came together to form the Panthers. Bobby Seale was part of RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement) and both Seale and Newton became involved in a college-based group called the Soul Students Advisory Committee. These experiences were critical in the formation of the ideology of the Panthers as it led to them rejecting the philosophy of what they called the cultural nationalists.
In Seize the Time, Bobby Seale explains,
"Cultural nationalists and Black Panthers are in conflict in many areas. Basically, cultural nationalism sees the white man as the oppressor and makes no distinction between racist whites and non-racist whites, as the Panthers do. The cultural nationalists say that a Black man cannot be the enemy of the Black people, while the Panthers believe that Black capitalists are exploiters and oppressors. Although the Black Panther Party believes in Black nationalism and Black culture, it does not believe that either will lead to Black liberation or the overthrow of the capitalist system, and are therefore ineffective."
Cultural nationalism was a powerful current in the Black movement and one which influenced Malcolm X in his early years as a Black Muslim. The nationalists rejected the integrationist approach and believed in separation from whites.
In forming the Panthers, Seale and Newton made a clean break with both the integrationist and the separatist approach. They argued instead that the economic and political roots of racism were in the exploitative capitalist system and that the Black struggle must be a revolutionary movement to overthrow the entire power structure in order to achieve liberation for all Black people.
Under pressure from the mass civil rights struggle, the government had made certain concessions: promoting Black officials, mayors, Congressmen etc., but no lasting improvement to the daily lives of most Black people had taken place. In fact, whilst segregation laws had been broken down, the level of poverty had actually increased. Black unemployment was higher in 1966 (after more than a decade of struggle) than in 1954.
32% of Black people were living below the poverty line in 1966.
71% of the poor living in metropolitan areas were Black.
By 1968, two-thirds of the Black population lived in ghettos.
The Panthers realized that the movement needed to progress beyond the battles for desegregation and to address the fundamental economic problems that people faced in their daily lives. They were the first independent Black organization to have a clear analysis of the type of society we live in: one in which a small class hold all the economic and political power and use it to exploit the majority.
Bobby Seale said,
"We do not fight racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We do not fight exploitative capitalism with Black capitalism. We fight capitalism with basic socialism. And we do not fight imperialism with more imperialism. We fight imperialism with proletarian internationalism."
This was the guiding philosophy of the Black Panthers. But critical to their development was the knowledge that it was not enough to have the right theories, that this must be translated into a concrete set of demands that people can relate to and a clear course of action to achieve those demands. And so the first task of Seale and Newton was to sit down and write a program for the Panthers.
October 1966 Black Panther Party-Platform and Program-What We Want
What We Believe
1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community. We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.
2. We want full employment for our people.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.
3. We wand an end to the robbery by the white man of our Black community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
We believe that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in present-day society.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people.
We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The second amendment to the constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.
8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal state, county and city prisons and jails.
We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
9. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black communities, as defined by the constitution of the United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States constitution so that black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the US constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black community.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the Black colony in which only Black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of Black people as to their national destiny.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter such principles, and organizing its powers in such a form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
As soon as the program was written, they printed 1,000 copies and went out onto the streets to distribute them. Seale, Newton and their first member, Bobby Hutton put their months paychecks together to rent an old shop front as a base for operations. They painted up a sign saying Black Panther Party for Self Defense and on January 1, 1967 the office was opened. Weekly meetings and political education classes were held to spread the word, and so the first chapter of the Panthers was formed.
The party began to grow not only because an organization of that character with a clearly worked out program was needed at that time but because they based themselves in the community, working with the people, for the people. They had an office, they had the ten point platform and program - now was time to put that program into action.
Self Defense
The Panthers decided to take up their constitutional right to carry arms and to implement Malcolm X's philosophy of self-defense, by patrolling the police. They did this at a time when severe police brutality was common - the police would beat down and kill Blacks at random. They would even recruit police from the racist south to come and work in the northern ghettos.
On one occasion, whilst on patrol, they witnessed an officer stop and search a young guy. The Panthers got out of their car and went over to the scene and stood watching their guns on full display. Angrily, the policeman began to question them and tried to intimidate them with threats of arrest. But Huey P. Newton had studied the law intimately and could quote every law and court ruling relevant to their situation.
Huey stood there with a law book in one hand and a gun in the other and told the "pigs" about his constitutional right to carry a weapon as long as it was not concealed. He told them about the law and said that every citizen had the right to observe a police officer carry out his duty as long as they stood a reasonable distance away. And he told them about the Supreme Court ruling which defined that distance.
A crowd gathered and watched this whole scene in amazement. The Panthers made it clear that they were not looking for a shoot-out and that they would only use their guns in self-defense. They took the opportunity to distribute copies of their ten point program, inform people of the Panthers ideology and invite them to their political meetings. Meanwhile, the flustered and nervous cop took the opportunity to get the hell out of there.
The gun had a huge psychological effect, both on the Black community and the police. For the police, it reversed the fear that they so enjoyed creating in others. But for the Black community, it fired their imagination, people felt empowered by seeing Black brothers and sisters protecting their interests.
There were two sides to the carrying of guns though, most people saw it as a positive move but others were put off by the militaristic image. On the other side, many brothers in particular, came to the Panther office purely for the gun, the Black uniform - the whole image. When this happened, the Panthers would simply explain that the Black struggle was about a whole lot more than just picking up the gun: it was about educating yourself and then others, about organizing the community programs, selling the newspaper and serving the people. At the same time, they would get the brother to work in the nursery for a while, looking after the children while other members went out on party business. In this way, they tried to make sure that people understood the Panther ideology and that they got a balanced view of what it was all about.
Community Programs
The programs were of key importance in the Panthers strategy. Firstly, they demonstrated that politics was relevant to peoples lives - to feed a hungry child, give out food, clothing and medical care showed that the Panthers related to people's needs. Secondly, it showed what could be achieved if you were organized. The programs achieved a great deal with very limited resources but it also raised in peoples minds how much more could be achieved if they had the resources available to the government and the business corporations. Some people have criticized the community programs saying it was not a revolutionary thing to do but Bobby Seale answers this clearly.
"A lot of people misunderstand the politics of these programs; some people have a tendency to call them reform programs. They're not reform programs; they're actually revolutionary community programs. A revolutionary program is onset forth by revolutionaries, by those who want to change the existing system for a better system. A reform program is set up by the existing exploitative system as an appeasing handout, to fool the people and to keep them quiet. Examples of these programs are poverty programs, youth work programs and things like that."
The first program the Panthers organized was the Free Breakfast for Children Program. Lesley Johnson explains how this led her to get involved in the Panthers.
"Well, one of the things that I could immediately respect and admire the party for, was its Breakfast for School Children Program. You know my parents were both workers, my father was a shipper and my mother, she worked cleaning clothes, rubbing the spots out, what was known as a spotter. And there were times when I was growing up, the week's oatmeal or whatever would run out and I went to school hungry. So that I could really appreciate what the party was doing."
The Panthers would go out and get donations of food from businessmen. Any chain of stores that refused even a small donation would be boycotted. Leaflets would be produced and distributed in the community exposing that business.
The programs usually took place in a church hall. Party members would have to work very hard, starting work at 6am every day. They would prepare breakfast, serve children, they would usually sing some songs with them and then, when the children left, they would have to clear the place up and go out to collect provisions for the next day.
The FBI
The success of the Panther's political activities and community programs and their huge growth and influence and membership soon brought them under fire from the American state. The FBI intensified the COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) against them. Nearly every office in the country was raided at some point. In Chicago, all the food provisions for the breakfast program were burnt out. During one raid in the spring of 1968, Bobby Hutton, the party's first member, came out with his hands up. The police shot him in the head and killed him. The attacks became even more vicious in 1969. On December 4, at 1am, the police burst into Fred Hampton's apartment and opened fire in the bedroom where he lay sleeping with his pregnant girlfriend. Another Panther called out that a pregnant sister was in the room and the police paused their firing. Deborah Johnson recalls:
"One of the policemen grabbed my robe and threw it down and said 'what do you know, we have a broad here.' Another man grabbed me by the head and shoved me into the kitchen. I heard a voice from another part of the apartment saying 'he's barely alive', or 'he'll barely make it'. Then I heard more shots. A sister screamed from the front. Then the shooting stopped. I heard someone say 'he's as good as dead now.'"
In 1969 alone, 25 Panther members were killed. But the FBI's operations went further. Aside from the constant arrests of Panther members which disrupted the work of the organization and drained them financially, the FBI infiltrated the party and manufactured rivalries and disputes between different members.
Today, some would explain the demise of the Panthers as due to the successful operations of the FBI. Undoubtedly, this placed an enormous strain on the organization but there are many countries in the world where political opposition faces even greater repression from the state. Without underestimating the difficulties, they cannot entirely account for the fall of the Panthers. There are a number of factors which contributed.
Women in the Panthers
The role of women within the Panthers was an area with many problems. At one point, women comprised 70% of the membership of the organization. Yet, all the leading positions were occupied by men. This is not a petty point because it illustrated the different roles that men and women took on. It seems that many women were confined to secretarial, administrative, childcare or other traditional roles whilst men were encouraged to develop the political ideas, speaking and leadership abilities. Also, some of the brothers complained that they were not taking directions from a woman! At other times it was found that accusations of being a counter-revolutionary were spread about a woman just because she did not want to sleep with someone.
These problems would have cut the Panthers off from a whole layer of Black women who were not prepared to put up with this nonsense. However, we have to see that sexist attitudes were not unique to the Panthers - it is something that occurs in all organizations because it is related to the oppressive nature of this society and the way in which it exploits women. The Panthers did take action against these attitudes but they did not fully succeed - equality in the party was never achieved. And you cannot be a true community organization, fighting the oppression of society if women are being oppressed within your organization.
The membership of the Panthers was 5,000. This seems pretty low when you consider all they achieved but the reason is that those 5,000 members were all full-time! You could not be a member of the organization unless you were unemployed or prepared to give up your job. It is a sign of the tremendous commitment that the Panthers inspired, that they had 5,000 full-time workers but they would definitely have had a much, much larger membership if they had allowed students and people who were working to join. In effect they cut themselves off from hundreds of thousands of people who would have supported them. This also set themselves apart from the rest of the community.
Revolutionary Black Workers Groups
At that point in time, there were several radical Black workers groups such as DRUM (Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement), DODGE - named after the car plant in Detroit and ELARUM (Eldron Avenue Revolutionary Union Movement). They organized large numbers of revolutionary Black workers. Although they had some Black caucuses within the trade unions, the Panthers did not sufficiently develop this aspect of the work. It was of particular importance because the Black working class are critical in the struggle for Black liberation.
The Panthers were one of the few groups who understood the whole basis of American society had to be transformed. It was this understanding that gave them a revolutionary outlook. But this alone, guarantees nothing. The clarity of ideas which enables the development of a coherent and effective strategy is essential in accomplishing the task of the overthrow of capitalism. We would argue that there were many confused ideas in the Black Panther Party. Some believed they could develop on the basis of a struggle conducted by a small armed minority and didn't have a strategy for building a mass organization which could be sustained over a longer period.
Huey Newton says in Revolutionary Suicide
"But we soon discovered that weapons and uniforms set us apart from the community. We were looked upon as an ad hoc military group, acting outside the community fabric and too radical to be a part of it. Perhaps some of our tactics at the time were extreme; perhaps we placed too much emphasis on military action."
This was particularly important as they had reached their high point at the time of the ebbing of the huge civil rights movement. Had the organization been developed with a more long term perspective then the Black Panthers would have been in a position to put themselves at the head of a mass resurgence of radicalism amongst the Black population or even in wider American society. This, above all demonstrates the need for a clear forward view of how events will unfold in society. That is why a careful and disciplined study of events is an important aspect of shaping the outlook of any revolutionary organization.
The Panthers have left us with an invaluable experience. Their dedication, will and bravery in the face of what might have appeared as insurmountable odds is an example which any serious Black activist or revolutionary should be proud to follow. They were the highpoint of the civil rights movement.
Adrian Wood & Nutan Rajguru
Formed in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was the largest Black revolutionary organization that has ever existed.
Famous for taking up guns in defense against police brutality, the Panthers had many other little-known sides to their work. They organized dozens of community programs such as free breakfast for children, health clinics and shoes for children.
Such was their success that they rapidly grew to a size of 5,000 full time party workers, organized in 45 chapters (branches) across America. At their peak, they sold 250,000 papers every week. Opinion polls of the day showed the Panthers to have 90% support amongst Blacks in the major cities. Their impact on Black America can be measured by the response of the state. J. Edgar Hoover, then head of the FBI described them as "the number one threat to the internal security of the United States".
In this chapter, we will be looking at the formation of the Panthers, their program and activities, but more importantly, what marked the Panthers out to be different from all other organizations, what led them to be the inspiration to generations around the world to join the struggle against oppression.
The Civil Rights Movement
The formation of the Panthers was the direct result of the development of the civil rights movement which had already been in full swing for more than a decade before they were created. The movement had largely been based in the south and around demands for desegregation of the busses, schools, waiting rooms and lunch counters. Hundreds of thousands had been mobilized to participate in the demonstrations, sit-ins and freedom rides. Both from the police, local white mobs and the Ku Klux Klan, civil rights protesters faced the constant threat of brutal attack or even death. Despite this, the guiding philosophy of the civil rights leaders - in particular Martin Luther King - remained one of civil disobedience and passive resistance.
The increasing ferocity of the violence put a great strain on the movement. Contrasting views on a strategy for Black liberation began to emerge. Stokely Carmichael was prominent among those who opposed passive resistance and represented the feelings of a new generation of Blacks who felt that the peaceful approach was played out.
Alongside the mainstream civil rights was another current: much smaller than King's movement but still with significant numbers were the Black Muslims. The Nation believed in separation instead of integration and were completely opposed to passive resistance. Their radical ideology was appealing but they refused to participate in the civil rights movement or to become involved in the activities of non-Nation members.
Malcolm X
Malcolm X saw the limitations of both the Muslims and King's strategy of non-violence. He saw the need to embrace the social and economic issues and he attempted to put forward a more coherent strategy than any Black leader up to that point. It was against this background of upheaval that the Black Panther Party was created. The Panthers took the revolutionary philosophy and militant stand of Malcolm X, they were determined that although Malcolm X had been cut down, they would make his ideas come alive.
The Black Panther Party was founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. They met in the early sixties whilst at Meritt Junior College in West Oakland. The civil rights movement had ignited Black America: Seale and Newton were no exception. Both were active in Black politics for several years before they came together to form the Panthers. Bobby Seale was part of RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement) and both Seale and Newton became involved in a college-based group called the Soul Students Advisory Committee. These experiences were critical in the formation of the ideology of the Panthers as it led to them rejecting the philosophy of what they called the cultural nationalists.
In Seize the Time, Bobby Seale explains,
"Cultural nationalists and Black Panthers are in conflict in many areas. Basically, cultural nationalism sees the white man as the oppressor and makes no distinction between racist whites and non-racist whites, as the Panthers do. The cultural nationalists say that a Black man cannot be the enemy of the Black people, while the Panthers believe that Black capitalists are exploiters and oppressors. Although the Black Panther Party believes in Black nationalism and Black culture, it does not believe that either will lead to Black liberation or the overthrow of the capitalist system, and are therefore ineffective."
Cultural nationalism was a powerful current in the Black movement and one which influenced Malcolm X in his early years as a Black Muslim. The nationalists rejected the integrationist approach and believed in separation from whites.
In forming the Panthers, Seale and Newton made a clean break with both the integrationist and the separatist approach. They argued instead that the economic and political roots of racism were in the exploitative capitalist system and that the Black struggle must be a revolutionary movement to overthrow the entire power structure in order to achieve liberation for all Black people.
Under pressure from the mass civil rights struggle, the government had made certain concessions: promoting Black officials, mayors, Congressmen etc., but no lasting improvement to the daily lives of most Black people had taken place. In fact, whilst segregation laws had been broken down, the level of poverty had actually increased. Black unemployment was higher in 1966 (after more than a decade of struggle) than in 1954.
32% of Black people were living below the poverty line in 1966.
71% of the poor living in metropolitan areas were Black.
By 1968, two-thirds of the Black population lived in ghettos.
The Panthers realized that the movement needed to progress beyond the battles for desegregation and to address the fundamental economic problems that people faced in their daily lives. They were the first independent Black organization to have a clear analysis of the type of society we live in: one in which a small class hold all the economic and political power and use it to exploit the majority.
Bobby Seale said,
"We do not fight racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We do not fight exploitative capitalism with Black capitalism. We fight capitalism with basic socialism. And we do not fight imperialism with more imperialism. We fight imperialism with proletarian internationalism."
This was the guiding philosophy of the Black Panthers. But critical to their development was the knowledge that it was not enough to have the right theories, that this must be translated into a concrete set of demands that people can relate to and a clear course of action to achieve those demands. And so the first task of Seale and Newton was to sit down and write a program for the Panthers.
October 1966 Black Panther Party-Platform and Program-What We Want
What We Believe
1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community. We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.
2. We want full employment for our people.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the white American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.
3. We wand an end to the robbery by the white man of our Black community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules was promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.
4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
We believe that if the white landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.
5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in present-day society.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.
6. We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.
7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people.
We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The second amendment to the constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self-defense.
8. We want freedom for all Black men held in federal state, county and city prisons and jails.
We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.
9. We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black communities, as defined by the constitution of the United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States constitution so that black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the US constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been and are being tried by all-white juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black community.
10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And as our major political objective, a United Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held throughout the Black colony in which only Black colonial subjects will be allowed to participate, for the purpose of determining the will of Black people as to their national destiny.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter such principles, and organizing its powers in such a form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
As soon as the program was written, they printed 1,000 copies and went out onto the streets to distribute them. Seale, Newton and their first member, Bobby Hutton put their months paychecks together to rent an old shop front as a base for operations. They painted up a sign saying Black Panther Party for Self Defense and on January 1, 1967 the office was opened. Weekly meetings and political education classes were held to spread the word, and so the first chapter of the Panthers was formed.
The party began to grow not only because an organization of that character with a clearly worked out program was needed at that time but because they based themselves in the community, working with the people, for the people. They had an office, they had the ten point platform and program - now was time to put that program into action.
Self Defense
The Panthers decided to take up their constitutional right to carry arms and to implement Malcolm X's philosophy of self-defense, by patrolling the police. They did this at a time when severe police brutality was common - the police would beat down and kill Blacks at random. They would even recruit police from the racist south to come and work in the northern ghettos.
On one occasion, whilst on patrol, they witnessed an officer stop and search a young guy. The Panthers got out of their car and went over to the scene and stood watching their guns on full display. Angrily, the policeman began to question them and tried to intimidate them with threats of arrest. But Huey P. Newton had studied the law intimately and could quote every law and court ruling relevant to their situation.
Huey stood there with a law book in one hand and a gun in the other and told the "pigs" about his constitutional right to carry a weapon as long as it was not concealed. He told them about the law and said that every citizen had the right to observe a police officer carry out his duty as long as they stood a reasonable distance away. And he told them about the Supreme Court ruling which defined that distance.
A crowd gathered and watched this whole scene in amazement. The Panthers made it clear that they were not looking for a shoot-out and that they would only use their guns in self-defense. They took the opportunity to distribute copies of their ten point program, inform people of the Panthers ideology and invite them to their political meetings. Meanwhile, the flustered and nervous cop took the opportunity to get the hell out of there.
The gun had a huge psychological effect, both on the Black community and the police. For the police, it reversed the fear that they so enjoyed creating in others. But for the Black community, it fired their imagination, people felt empowered by seeing Black brothers and sisters protecting their interests.
There were two sides to the carrying of guns though, most people saw it as a positive move but others were put off by the militaristic image. On the other side, many brothers in particular, came to the Panther office purely for the gun, the Black uniform - the whole image. When this happened, the Panthers would simply explain that the Black struggle was about a whole lot more than just picking up the gun: it was about educating yourself and then others, about organizing the community programs, selling the newspaper and serving the people. At the same time, they would get the brother to work in the nursery for a while, looking after the children while other members went out on party business. In this way, they tried to make sure that people understood the Panther ideology and that they got a balanced view of what it was all about.
Community Programs
The programs were of key importance in the Panthers strategy. Firstly, they demonstrated that politics was relevant to peoples lives - to feed a hungry child, give out food, clothing and medical care showed that the Panthers related to people's needs. Secondly, it showed what could be achieved if you were organized. The programs achieved a great deal with very limited resources but it also raised in peoples minds how much more could be achieved if they had the resources available to the government and the business corporations. Some people have criticized the community programs saying it was not a revolutionary thing to do but Bobby Seale answers this clearly.
"A lot of people misunderstand the politics of these programs; some people have a tendency to call them reform programs. They're not reform programs; they're actually revolutionary community programs. A revolutionary program is onset forth by revolutionaries, by those who want to change the existing system for a better system. A reform program is set up by the existing exploitative system as an appeasing handout, to fool the people and to keep them quiet. Examples of these programs are poverty programs, youth work programs and things like that."
The first program the Panthers organized was the Free Breakfast for Children Program. Lesley Johnson explains how this led her to get involved in the Panthers.
"Well, one of the things that I could immediately respect and admire the party for, was its Breakfast for School Children Program. You know my parents were both workers, my father was a shipper and my mother, she worked cleaning clothes, rubbing the spots out, what was known as a spotter. And there were times when I was growing up, the week's oatmeal or whatever would run out and I went to school hungry. So that I could really appreciate what the party was doing."
The Panthers would go out and get donations of food from businessmen. Any chain of stores that refused even a small donation would be boycotted. Leaflets would be produced and distributed in the community exposing that business.
The programs usually took place in a church hall. Party members would have to work very hard, starting work at 6am every day. They would prepare breakfast, serve children, they would usually sing some songs with them and then, when the children left, they would have to clear the place up and go out to collect provisions for the next day.
The FBI
The success of the Panther's political activities and community programs and their huge growth and influence and membership soon brought them under fire from the American state. The FBI intensified the COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) against them. Nearly every office in the country was raided at some point. In Chicago, all the food provisions for the breakfast program were burnt out. During one raid in the spring of 1968, Bobby Hutton, the party's first member, came out with his hands up. The police shot him in the head and killed him. The attacks became even more vicious in 1969. On December 4, at 1am, the police burst into Fred Hampton's apartment and opened fire in the bedroom where he lay sleeping with his pregnant girlfriend. Another Panther called out that a pregnant sister was in the room and the police paused their firing. Deborah Johnson recalls:
"One of the policemen grabbed my robe and threw it down and said 'what do you know, we have a broad here.' Another man grabbed me by the head and shoved me into the kitchen. I heard a voice from another part of the apartment saying 'he's barely alive', or 'he'll barely make it'. Then I heard more shots. A sister screamed from the front. Then the shooting stopped. I heard someone say 'he's as good as dead now.'"
In 1969 alone, 25 Panther members were killed. But the FBI's operations went further. Aside from the constant arrests of Panther members which disrupted the work of the organization and drained them financially, the FBI infiltrated the party and manufactured rivalries and disputes between different members.
Today, some would explain the demise of the Panthers as due to the successful operations of the FBI. Undoubtedly, this placed an enormous strain on the organization but there are many countries in the world where political opposition faces even greater repression from the state. Without underestimating the difficulties, they cannot entirely account for the fall of the Panthers. There are a number of factors which contributed.
Women in the Panthers
The role of women within the Panthers was an area with many problems. At one point, women comprised 70% of the membership of the organization. Yet, all the leading positions were occupied by men. This is not a petty point because it illustrated the different roles that men and women took on. It seems that many women were confined to secretarial, administrative, childcare or other traditional roles whilst men were encouraged to develop the political ideas, speaking and leadership abilities. Also, some of the brothers complained that they were not taking directions from a woman! At other times it was found that accusations of being a counter-revolutionary were spread about a woman just because she did not want to sleep with someone.
These problems would have cut the Panthers off from a whole layer of Black women who were not prepared to put up with this nonsense. However, we have to see that sexist attitudes were not unique to the Panthers - it is something that occurs in all organizations because it is related to the oppressive nature of this society and the way in which it exploits women. The Panthers did take action against these attitudes but they did not fully succeed - equality in the party was never achieved. And you cannot be a true community organization, fighting the oppression of society if women are being oppressed within your organization.
The membership of the Panthers was 5,000. This seems pretty low when you consider all they achieved but the reason is that those 5,000 members were all full-time! You could not be a member of the organization unless you were unemployed or prepared to give up your job. It is a sign of the tremendous commitment that the Panthers inspired, that they had 5,000 full-time workers but they would definitely have had a much, much larger membership if they had allowed students and people who were working to join. In effect they cut themselves off from hundreds of thousands of people who would have supported them. This also set themselves apart from the rest of the community.
Revolutionary Black Workers Groups
At that point in time, there were several radical Black workers groups such as DRUM (Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement), DODGE - named after the car plant in Detroit and ELARUM (Eldron Avenue Revolutionary Union Movement). They organized large numbers of revolutionary Black workers. Although they had some Black caucuses within the trade unions, the Panthers did not sufficiently develop this aspect of the work. It was of particular importance because the Black working class are critical in the struggle for Black liberation.
The Panthers were one of the few groups who understood the whole basis of American society had to be transformed. It was this understanding that gave them a revolutionary outlook. But this alone, guarantees nothing. The clarity of ideas which enables the development of a coherent and effective strategy is essential in accomplishing the task of the overthrow of capitalism. We would argue that there were many confused ideas in the Black Panther Party. Some believed they could develop on the basis of a struggle conducted by a small armed minority and didn't have a strategy for building a mass organization which could be sustained over a longer period.
Huey Newton says in Revolutionary Suicide
"But we soon discovered that weapons and uniforms set us apart from the community. We were looked upon as an ad hoc military group, acting outside the community fabric and too radical to be a part of it. Perhaps some of our tactics at the time were extreme; perhaps we placed too much emphasis on military action."
This was particularly important as they had reached their high point at the time of the ebbing of the huge civil rights movement. Had the organization been developed with a more long term perspective then the Black Panthers would have been in a position to put themselves at the head of a mass resurgence of radicalism amongst the Black population or even in wider American society. This, above all demonstrates the need for a clear forward view of how events will unfold in society. That is why a careful and disciplined study of events is an important aspect of shaping the outlook of any revolutionary organization.
The Panthers have left us with an invaluable experience. Their dedication, will and bravery in the face of what might have appeared as insurmountable odds is an example which any serious Black activist or revolutionary should be proud to follow. They were the highpoint of the civil rights movement.
Adrian Wood & Nutan Rajguru
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