Saturday, September 19, 2015

Maine veterans to protest military's impact on oceans

Maine veterans to protest military's impact on oceans

 

Group's peace walk to end in Portsmouth

 

YORK, Maine – Maine Veterans for Peace will hold a 175-mile peace walk along Route 1 from Ellsworth to Portsmouth, N.H., from Oct. 9-24.

The walk will draw attention to what the group alleges are the links between the Pentagon’s environmental impact on the oceans and climate change. According to the veterans, the Pentagon has the largest carbon footprint on Earth and was exempted from the Kyoto Protocols. Military operations, the group says, consumes massive amounts of fossil fuels and lays waste to significant environmentally sensitive places on the planet, particularly the oceans.

Navy sonar blasts wreak havoc on marine creatures, disrupting their lives, leaving animals more susceptible to disease and lowered reproductive success, and sometimes injuring and killing them, says Maine Veterans for Peace.

“If the seas die so do humans on Earth and much of the wildlife,” said Maine VFP secretary and walk coordinator Bruce Gagnon. “Now is the time to speak out for ending the massive military impacts on the world’s oceans and for conversion of our fossil fuel dependent military industrial complex to sustainable technologies.”

Walkers will be hosted each night in local churches for community suppers where they will hold public programs about the purpose of the walk. The public is invited to walk for an hour, a day or more. The walk will be led by monks and nuns from the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order that does peace walks around the world. This will be the fourth time VFP has organized a peace walk through Maine in recent years.

The walk is being sponsored by Maine Veterans for Peace, PeaceWorks, CodePink Maine, Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats, Peace Action Maine, Veterans for Peace Smedley Butler Brigade, Seacoast Peace Response of Portsmouth and Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/1QJwHL7.   


Action Center Forum on Syria-In Boston

Action Center Forum on Syria
cosponsored by Workers World and Fight Imperialism, Stand Together

Saturday, Sept 19, 4 PM

at Action Center in the Brewery

284 Amory St (near Stonybrook on the Orange Line), Jamaica Plain, Boston

(Preceded by a 2 PM Meeting of Team Solidarity reviewing the current status of the Boston School Bus Drivers Struggle)

The hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homeland of Syria are now a headline in the corporate media. But the war that is forcing them to flee is not, and when it is, it is filled with inaccuracy. The reality is that since 2011, the US and its regional allies of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Israel and NATO countries have waged a proxy war inside of Syria for the purposes of regime change. When Syrians and anti-war forces globally condemned Obama's escalation of the war in August of 2013. the imperialist alliance regrouped and turned the terrorist group ISIS into a pretext to justify airstrikes in Syria. It is this imperialist destabilization campaign that is driving Syrians and peoples throughout the region from their homelands and into the racist states of Europe.

Hear Danny Pforte, organizer for Fight Imperialism, Stand Together, and author of the following article:

Boston demonstrators demand peace for Syria

By Danny Haiphong posted on September 1, 2015
Share
syria_0910The Syrian American Forum mobilized people to gather in Copley Square in Boston to call on the Obama administration to help end the ongoing war in Syria. A group of Syrians and their supporters demonstrated on Aug. 29 outside of the Boston Public Library to demand peace for Syria.
The Syrian American Forum has been at the forefront of the struggle for peace and self-determination in Syria since the war began in 2011. Forum activists raised Syrian flags and carried signs that condemned U.S. allies such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia for their support for rebel groups in the country.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has estimated the war has caused the death of over 200,000 Syrians. The U.S., Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have provided diplomatic and material support for “rebels“ inside of Syria in their efforts to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. In the summer of 2013, the Obama administration sought congressional approval for military intervention in Syria to achieve this objective.
At the time, Russia brokered a deal that prevented a potential world war scenario. Ever since, the U.S. and its allies have continued the war under the guise of fighting ISIS. A coalition, led by the U.S. and Turkey, has conducted numerous airstrikes in Syria without the approval of the government in Damascus or even the United Nations. These strikes have killed Syrian civilians, including 52 in May of 2015.
The Syrian American Forum press release for the demonstration states: “The [U.S.] American and international battle against terrorism continues to be short of achieving its objectives. This is due to … the refusal of the U.S. and its allies to acknowledge that an alliance which includes Syria is the only path to a strong alliance to defeat ISIS, Al-Nusra, and other terrorists.”
Syrians at the demonstration made it clear they want Washington to play a role in bringing peace to the war-torn nation. When asked what people in the U.S. can do to help, a Syrian American Forum representative answered, “Stop listening to the American government.”
The war on Syria is part and parcel of the world capitalist system’s drive to expand global profits at the expense of workers and oppressed people. Self-determination is a critical principle in the fight against capitalism and for a new socialist world. It is of absolute necessity that people in the U.S. stand with Syrians in their just fight to defend the sovereignty of their nation. Long live Syria!




--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BostonUNAC" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bostonunac+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

WArs Abroad-Wars At Home

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

Indispensable public intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates has written a long and important article situating the issue of mass incarceration within the historic African American experience of “unfreedom” and the evolving forms of social control deployed to enforce it.  Read it all (at the link below) if you can.  No excerpt can remotely do it justice.

 

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2015/09/5595214723_2514d76852_o/thumb_wide_300.jpgTA-NEHISI COATES:

The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration

The United States now accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants—and about 25 percent of its incarcerated inhabitants…  

The blacks incarcerated in this country are not like the majority of Americans. They do not merely hail from poor communities—they hail from communities that have been imperiled across both the deep and immediate past, and continue to be imperiled today… For African Americans, unfreedom is the historical norm… Under Jim Crow, blacks in the South lived in a police state. Rates of incarceration were not that high—they didn’t need to be, because state social control of blacks was nearly total. Then, as African Americans migrated north, a police state grew up around them there, too. That early-20th-century rates of black imprisonment were lower in the South than in the North reveals how the carceral state functions as a system of control. Jim Crow applied the control in the South. Mass incarceration did it in the North. After the civil-rights movement triumphed in the 1960s and toppled Jim Crow laws, the South adopted the tactics of the North, and its rates of imprisonment surged far past the North’s. Mass incarceration became the national model of social control.    Much More!

 

Woman held in mental health facility because police didn't believe BMW was hers

A woman is suing New York City after she claims she was forced to spend eight days in a mental health facility and given a $13,000 (£8,500) bill because a police officer didn’t believe the BMW she was driving was hers.  Kamilah Brock, 32, who is a banker, said that police had initially pulled her over at a red light in Harlem and…  was then asked to get out of the car… Brock was then taken into custody and transported to the NYPD’s 30th precinct where she says she was held for several hours before being released without charges… She goes on to say that when she returned to claim the car, police said they didn’t believe she was the rightful owner of the vehicle… She was taken to Harlem hospital psychiatric ward, where she claims medical records obtained by her attorney, Michael Lamonsoff, show she was forced to take lithium and injected with powerful sedatives.   More

 

Ferguson "People's Report" Unveils Bold Plan To Achieve Racial Equity

A panel of activists, researchers, community members, and other volunteers on Monday unveiled a new report with 189 "calls to action" to address the scourge of racial inequity in and around St. Louis, Missouri, illuminated by a year of protests following the police shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown last August… the Ferguson Commission's venture has been particularly anticipated, due in part to its solicitation of local residents and activists, rather than outside experts, to identify the complex elements at the core of those systems—and how to break down and rebuild them within the affected communities.  The report, entitled "Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity" (pdf), candidly addresses race as an issue to be confronted and worked through… the commission outlined 189 proposals to tackle issues such as police brutality, racial profiling, criminalization of poverty, and barriers to equality in majority-black schools.   More

 

ahmedGREENWALD: Arrest of a 14-Year-Old the Fruits of Anti-Muslim Fearmongering

The U.S. government just formally renewed the “State of Emergency” it declared in the aftermath of 9/11 for the 14th time since that attack occurred, ensuring that the country remains in a state of permanent, endless war. , subjected to powers that are still classified as “extraordinary” even though they have become entirely normalized.   As a result of all of this, a minority group of close to 3 million people is routinely targeted with bigotry and legal persecution in the Home of the Free, while fear and hysteria reign supreme in the Land of the Brave.  What happened in Irving, Texas, yesterday to a 14-year-old Muslim high school freshman is far from the worst instance, but it is highly illustrative of the rotted fruit of this sustained climate of cultivated fear and demonization… You can’t have a government that has spent decades waging various forms of war against predominantly Muslim countries — bombing seven of them in the last six years alone — and then act surprised when a Muslim 14-year-old triggers vindictive fear and persecution because he makes a clock for school.   More

 

VIDEO: The Youth recounts what happened here

 

Trump Pledges to Investigate Muslim-Americans for “Terror Camps”

On Thursday, Trump in Rochester, NH, tried out a town hall format and took unfiltered oral questions from the audience.  And that his audience was full of people who are not entirely well became quickly apparent.

MAN: “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. You know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American.”

TRUMP: “We need this question. This is the first question.”

MAN: “Anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”

TRUMP: “We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things. You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We’re going to be looking at that and many other things.”   More

 

*   *   *   *

http://raiseupma.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Join-Campaign.jpgRAISEUP MASSACHUSETTS

Campaign TO Fund Our Schools and Transportation

 

The best way to help working families and build a stronger economy for us all is to make sure that we have quality public schools for our children, affordable higher education, and a transportation system that lets people get to work and customers get to businesses. Without investment in these common goals, working families fall behind and our communities suffer. New revenue is necessary to improve our public schools, rebuild crumbling roads and bridges, make college affordable, and invest in fast and reliable public transportation.  To move forward, the campaign must gather 64,750 certified signatures in 2015 and get at least 50 votes in the state Legislature in two constitutional conventions before going to the ballot in 2018. To achieve these goals, the campaign is building a broad coalition that brings together leading organizations on transportation and education with business leaders and community, labor and faith organizations.

 

What Our Constitutional Amendment Would Do

Our proposed constitutional amendment would create an additional tax of four percentage points on annual income above one million dollars. The new revenue generated by this tax could only be spent on quality public education, affordable public colleges and universities, and for repair and maintenance of roads, bridges, and public transportation. To ensure that the tax continues to apply only to the highest income residents, who have the ability to pay more, the one million dollar threshold would be adjusted each year to reflect cost-of-living
increases.

 

To find out more or to volunteer to work on the Constitutional Amendment Campaign see here.

 

Weekly Veterans For Peace E-Letter


















  
Friday, September 18, 2015

Peace Day Statement: Dignity For All


The General Assembly of the United Nations has declared the 21st of September as an International Day of Peace. This day is devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples. The theme of this year’s commemoration is “Partnerships for Peace – Dignity for All” which recognizes the importance of all segments of society to work together to strive for peace.  <Full VFP Statement>
It's not to late, TAKE ACTION on International Peace Day! 
Visit our webpage for ideas on
  • Ways You Can Take Action for International Peace Day
  • Sharing on Social Media
  • Using VFP downloadable resources for this action
  • Find a Peace Day event to attend

Back to Top

The Golden Rule Continues Her Voyage for Peace

The Golden Rule peace boat and her intrepid crew of volunteers are currently in Santa Cruz, on the central coast of California, after making port calls in San Diego, Long Beach, Marina del Rey/Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Morro Bay/San Luis Obispo, and Monterey.
In Santa Cruz, as at many other stops, the Golden Rule was welcomed enthusiastically by community members, including Veterans For Peace and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). <More>

Back to Top

Save the Dates: Nov 20-22 - SOA Watch Vigil

The SOAW annual mobilization is one of the largest anti-militarization convergences in the US.  It connects activists from across America who come together to denounce failed policies, the militarization of the hemisphere, and the daunting effects of imperialism as well as to remember the long and ongoing history of brutal US intervention in Latin America that the SOA/WHINSEC represents to perfection. BUT we also come together to listen, learn and be inspired by each other, to raise awareness about and draw connections between struggles, and to celebrate the beauty of creativity and resilience. The Vigil weekend is an opportunity to grow stronger together and to build grassroots power!
Hourly Shuttle Info from Atlanta to Columbus

Travel Opportunities for Activists


We will embark on our third VFP trip to Cuba  January 22-29 2016. Members and supporters of our message of peace are welcome to join us.  However, please be advised that we take 15-20 people, and there are only 8 spaces available. Our tours are led by VFP member and Cuban documentary film maker  Jim Ryerson, who has been to the island more than 25 times.  If you are interested, please contact Jim. Like the other 2 trips, this one will sell out.
jim@travelingman.net
323-436-5223

Here is the itinerary  
http://cubaexplorer.com/tours/jrjan/
(Click on Book Now to see prices)

Location
Sponsored by
Dates             
Contact for Additional Information
Palestine Code Pink Nov 1-8, 2015 Visit the Code Pink website
Cuba Code Pink Nov 20-29, 2015 Visit the Code Pink website
Venezuela SOAW Dec 2-10, 2015 For more information email Terri Mattson at teri.mattson@yahoo.com
Cuba Jim Ryerson Jan 22-29 2016 For more information email Jim Ryerson at jim@cubaconnections.org..
Cuba Code Pink Feb 2016 Visit the Code Pink website
Việt Nam Việt Nam's  Hoa Binh (Peace) Chapter 160 Mar 14 -Mar 30
2016
For more information, please email Nadya Williams
Cuba Code Pink May 2016 Visit the Code Pink website
Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders May 21 -Jun 1 2016 For more information email emily@IFPB.org
Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders Jul 16 - Jul 29 2016 For more information email emily@IFPB.org
Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders Oct 24 - Nov 6 2016 For more information email emily@IFPB.org

Back to Top


In This Issue:

Peace Day Statement: Dignity For All

The Golden Rule Continues Her Voyage for Peace

Save the Dates: Nov 20-22 - SOA Watch Vigil

Travel Opportunities for Activists

Upcoming VFP Election

The Warrior Connection

Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice in DC

Upcoming VFP Endorsed Actions/Events


Upcoming VFP Election

In accordance with VFP Bylaw, Article VII, Section 2 ballots will be mailed out no later than October 31, 2015.  VFP National will have proposed resolutions on the website in the next couple of weeks.  You can view the 2016 Board candidates by clicking here.
Article VII, Section 2
(a) In October, or six (06) weeks after the Annual Convention, the Secretary shall mail to all full members (as of the prior Annual Convention) a ballot with the names of all the nominees. The mailing will contain a brief biographical statement on each candidate.
(b) The ballots must be returned postmarked by a deadline published on the ballot and calculated as four weeks after the initial ballot mailing.
(c) The nominees receiving the largest number of votes shall fill the full-term vacancies which exist. The nominees who receive the largest number of votes shall fill the longest terms of office available, in declining order.
(d) The ballots will be counted according to rules determined in advance by the Board of Directors and published to the Annual convention. Counting of ballots may be done by staff of the National Office or by an outside agency. Any Full Member may be present during the counting of the ballots. Ballots will be retained for two (02) years.


The Warrior Connection


Join one of the six day October retreats in beautiful Dummerston, VT to male and female veterans.  Experienced veteran facilitators lead the discussions.  Food and housing are provided. Cost of the retreat is $150. 
Anyone interested in the retreat will be required to have a phone or in-person interview and are are not self-medicating on drugs or alcohol.
2015 Warrior Woman’s Retreats
October 1-6

2015 Warrior Retreats for Men
October 15-20

Board member Tarak Kauff has participated in these retreats and found them very inspiring.  Feel free to email Tarak If you have questions at takauff@gmail.com.

Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice in DC

Book your seat for travel to Moral Action for Climate Justice at National Mall in Washington, DC without the hassles of driving, parking, or navigating traffic. Invite friends to join you on a high-end bus with on-board restrooms and other amenities, stay up-to-the-minute on trip details with the Rally Bus app, then relax and enjoy your ride. Rally Bus makes it easy to get together and go!

Upcoming VFP Endorsed Actions/Events

Aug 28 - Oct 15 - Golden Rule Schedule of Events
Sep 21 - International Peace Day in your city
Sept 24 - 30 - Iowa Speaking Tour with Ray McGovern and Coleen Rowley
Oct 7  - Anniversary of U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan
Oct 9-24 - Maine Walk For Peace
Nov 20-22, 2015 - SOA Watch 25th Anniversary Vigil

Did you know?

In 1999, VFP became a member of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Coalition to Ban the Sale and Use of Landmines.



























Veterans For Peace, 1404 N. Broadway, St. Louis, MO 63102









 









Veterans For Peace appreciates your tax-exempt donations.


We also encourage you to join our ranks.











 

Footer

Warren Smith Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache


Friday, September 18, 2015

The Labor Party Question In The United States

The Labor Party Question In The United States- An Historical Overview-Fight For A Worker Party That Fights For A Workers Government




 

From The Pen Of Josh Breslin

Back in the early 1970s after they had worked out between themselves the rudiment of what had gone wrong with the May Day 1971 actions in Washington, D.C. Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris began some serious study of leftist literature from an earlier time, from back earlier in the century. Those May Day anti-Vietnam War actions, ill-conceived as they in the end turned out to be, centered on the proposition that if the American government would not close down the damn blood-sucking war then they, those thousands that participated in the actions, would close down the government. All Sam, Ralph and those thousands of others got for their efforts was a round-up into the bastinado. Sam had been picked off in the round-up on Pennsylvania Avenue as his group (his “affinity group” for the action) had been on their way to “capture” the White House. Ralph and his affinity group of ex-veterans and their supporters were rounded-up on Massachusetts Avenues heading toward the Pentagon (they had no plans to capture that five-sided building, at least they were unlike Sam’s group not that naïve, just surround it like had occurred in an anti-war action in 1967 which has been detailed in Norman Mailer’s prize-winning book Armies Of The Night). For a time RFK (Robert F. Kennedy) Stadium, the home of the Washington Redskins football team) had been the main holding area for those arrested and detained. The irony of being held in a stadium named after the martyred late President’s younger brother and lightening rod for almost all anti-war and “newer world” political dissent before he was assassinated in the bloody summer of 1968 and in a place where football, a sport associated in many radical minds with all that was wrong with the American system was lost on Sam and Ralph at the time and it was only later, many decades later, as they were sitting in a bar in Boston across from the JFK Federal Building on one of their periodic reunions when Ralph was in town that Sam had picked up that connection.

Sam, from Carver in Massachusetts, who had been a late convert to the anti-war movement in 1969 after his closest high school friend, Jeff Mullin, had been blown away in some jungle town in the Central Highlands was like many late converts to a cause a “true believer,” had taken part in many acts of civil disobedience at draft boards, including the one in hometown Carver, federal buildings and military bases. From an indifference, no that’s not right, from a mildly patriotic average young American citizen that you could find by the score hanging around Mom and Pop variety stores, pizza parlors, diners, and bowling alleys in the early 1960s, he had become a long-haired bearded “hippie anti-warrior.” Not too long though by the standards of “youth nation” of the day since he was running a small print shop in Carver in order to support his mother and four younger sisters after his father had passed away suddenly of a massive heart attack in 1965 which exempted him from military service. Not too short either since those “squares” were either poor bastards who got tagged by the military and had to wear their hair short an appearance which stuck out in towns like Cambridge, Ann Arbor, Berkeley and L.A. when the anti-war movement started embracing the increasingly frustrated and anti-war soldiers that  they were beginning to run across or, worse, cops before they got “hip” to the idea that guys wearing short hair, no beard, looked like they had just taken a bath, and wore plaid short-sleeved shirts and chinos might as well have a bulls-eye target on their backs surveilling the counter-cultural crowd.

Ralph, from Troy, New York, had been working in his father’s electrical shop which had major orders from General Electric the big employer in the area when he got his draft notice and had decided to enlist in order to avoid being an 11B, an infantryman, a grunt, “cannon fodder,” although he would not have known to call it that at the time, that would come later. He had expected to go into something which he knew something about in the electrical field at least that is what the recruiting sergeant in Albany had “promised” him. But in the year 1967 (and 1968 too since he had extended his tour six months to get out of the service a little early) what the military needed in Vietnam whatever else they might have needed was “cannon fodder,” guys to go out into the bushes and kill commies. Simple as that. And that was what Ralph Morris, a mildly patriotic average young American citizen, no that is not right, a very patriotic average young American citizen that you could also find by the score hanging around Mom and Pop variety stores, pizza parlors, diners, and bowling alleys in the early 1960s, did. But see he got “religion” up there in Pleiku, up there in the bush and so when he had been discharged from the Army in late 1969 he was in a rage against the machine. Sure he had gone back to the grind of his father’s electrical shop but he was out of place just then, out of sorts, needed to find an outlet for his anger at what he had done, what had happened to buddies very close to him, what buddies had done, and how the military had made them animals, nothing less. (Ralph after his father retired would take over the electric shop business on his own in 1991 and would thereafter give it to his son to take over after he retired in 2011.)

One day he had gone to Albany on a job for his father and while on State Street he had seen a group of guys in mismatched military garb marching in the streets without talking, silent which was amazing in itself from what he had previously seen of such marches and just carrying a big sign-Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) and nobody stopped them, no cops, nobody, nobody yelled “commie” either or a lot of other macho stuff that he and his hang out guys used to do in Troy when some peaceniks held peace vigils in the square. The civilian on-lookers held their tongues that day although Ralph knew that the whole area still retained a lot of residual pro-war feeling just because America was fighting somewhere for something. He parked his father’s truck and walked over to the march just to watch at first. Some guy in a tattered Marine mismatched uniform wearing Chuck Taylor sneakers in the march called out to the crowd for anybody who had served in Vietnam, served in the military to join them shouting out their military affiliation as they did so. Ralph almost automatically blurred out-“First Air Cav” and walked right into the street. There were other First Air Cav guys there that day so he was among kindred. So yeah, Ralph did a lot of actions with VVAW and with “civilian” collectives who were planning more dramatic actions. Ralph always would say later that if it hadn’t been for getting “religion” on the war issue and doing all those political actions then he would have gone crazy, would have wound up like a lot of guys he would see later at the VA, see out in the cardboard box for a home streets, and would not until this day have supported in any way he could, although lately not physically since his knee replacement, those who had the audacity to march for the “good old cause.”                          

That is the back story of a relationship has lasted until this day, an unlikely relationship in normal times and places but in that cauldron of the early 1970s when the young, even the not so very young, were trying to make heads or tails out of what was happening in a world they did not crate, and were not asked about there were plenty of such stories, although most did not outlast that search for the newer world when the high tide of the 1960s ebbed in the mid-1970s. Ralph had noticed while milling around the football field waiting for something to happen, waiting to be released, Sam had a VVAW button on his shirt and since he did not recognize Sam from any previous VVAW action had asked if he was a member of the organization and where. Sam told him the story of his friend Jeff Mullin and of his change of heart about the war, and about doing something about ending the damn thing. That got them talking, talking well into the first night of their captivity when they found they had many things in common coming from deeply entrenched working-class cultures. (You already know about Troy. Carver is something like the cranberry bog capital of the world even today although the large producers dominate the market unlike when Sam was a kid and the small Finnish growers dominated the market and town life. The town moreover has turned into something of a bedroom community for the high-tech industry that dots U.S. 495.) After a couple of days in the bastinado Sam and Ralph hunger, thirsty, needing a shower after suffering through the Washington humidity heard that people were finding ways of getting out to the streets through some side exits. They decided to surreptiously attempt an “escape” which proved successful and they immediately headed through a bunch of letter, number and state streets on the Washington city grid toward Connecticut Avenue heading toward Silver Springs trying to hitchhike out of the city. A couple of days later having obtained a ride through from Trenton, New Jersey to Providence, Rhode Island they headed to Sam’s mother’s place in Carver. Ralph stayed there a few days before heading back home to Troy. They had agreed that they would keep in contact and try to figure out what the hell went wrong in Washington that week. After making some connections through some radicals he knew in Cambridge to live in a commune Sam asked Ralph to come stay with him for the summer and try to figure out that gnarly problem. Ralph did, although his father was furious since he needed his help on a big GE contract for the Defense Department but Ralph was having none of that.    

So in the summer of 1971 Sam and Ralph began to read that old time literature, although Ralph admitted he was not much of a reader and some of the stuff was way over his head, Sam’s too. Mostly they read socialist and communist literature, a little of the old IWW (Wobblie) stuff since they both were enthrall to the exploits of the likes of Big Bill Haywood out West which seemed to dominate the politics of that earlier time. They had even for a time joined a loose study group sponsored by one of the myriad “red collectives” that had sprung up like weeds in the Cambridge area. Both thought it ironic at the time, and others who were questioning the direction the “movement” was heading in stated the same thing when they were in the study groups, that before that time in the heyday of their anti-war activity everybody dismissed the old white guys (a term not in common use then like now) like Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and their progeny as irrelevant. Now everybody was glued to the books.

It was from that time that Sam and Ralph got a better appreciation of a lot of the events, places, and personalities from the old time radicals. Events like the start of May Day in 1886 as an international working class holiday which they had been clueless about despite the   May Day actions, the Russian Revolutions, the Paris Commune, the Chinese Revolutions, August 1914 as a watershed against war, the Communist International, those aforementioned radicals Marx, Lenin, Trostky, adding in Mao, Che, Fidel, Ho whose names were on everybody’s tongue (and on posters in every bedroom) even if the reason for that was not known. Most surprising of all were the American radicals like Haywood, Browder, Cannon, Foster, and others who nobody then, or almost nobody cared to know about at all.

As they learned more information about past American movements Sam, the more interested writer of such pieces began to write appreciation of past events, places and personalities. His first effort was to write something about the commemoration of the 3 Ls (Lenin, Luxemburg, and Liebknecht) started by the Communist International back in the 1920s in January 1972, the first two names that he knew from a history class in junior college and the third not at all. After that he wrote various pieces like the one below about the labor party question in the United States (leftist have always posed their positions as questions; the women question, the black question, the party question, the Russian question and so on so Sam decided to stick with the old time usage.) Here is what he had to say then which he had recently freshly updated. Sam told Ralph after he had read and asked if he was still a “true believer” said a lot of piece he would still stand by today:      

“These notes (expanded) were originally intended to be presented as The Labor Question in the United States at a forum on the question on Saturday August 4, 1972. They were updated for a study class in 2012 recently again [2015] for this space. As a number of radicals have noted, most particularly organized socialist radicals, after the dust from the fall bourgeois election settles [2014], regardless of who wins, the working class will lose. Pressure for an independent labor expression, as we head into 2016, may likely to move from its current propaganda point as part of the revolutionary program to agitation and action so learning about the past experiences in the revolutionary and radical labor movements is timely.

I had originally expected to spend most of the speech at the forum delving into the historical experiences, particularly the work of the American Communist Party and the American Socialist Workers Party with a couple of minutes “tip of the hat” to the work of radical around the Labor Party experiences of the late 1990s. However, the scope of the early work and that of those radical in the latter work could not, I felt, be done justice in one forum. Thus these notes are centered on the early historical experiences. If I get a chance, and gather enough information to do the subject justice, I will place notes for the 1990s Labor party work in this space as well.

*********

The subject today is the Labor Party Question in the United States. For starters I want to reconfigure this concept and place it in the context of the Transitional Program first promulgated by Leon Trotsky and his fellows in the Fourth International in 1938. There the labor party concept was expressed as “a workers’ party that fights for a workers’ government.” [The actual expression for advanced capitalist countries like the U.S. was for a workers and farmers government but that is hardly applicable here now, at least in the United States. Some wag at the time, some Shachtmanite wag from what I understand, noted that there were then more dentists than farmers in the United States. Wag aside that remark is a good point since today we would call for a workers and X (oppressed communities, women, etc.) government to make our programmatic point more inclusive.]

For revolutionaries these two algebraically-expressed political ideas are organically joined together. What we mean, what we translate this as, in our propaganda is a mass revolutionary labor party (think Bolsheviks first and foremost, and us) based on the trade unions (the only serious currently organized part of the working class) fighting for soviets (workers councils, factory committees, etc.) as an expression of state power. In short, the dictatorship of the proletariat, a term we do not yet use in “polite” society these days in order not to scare off the masses. And that is the nut. Those of us who stand on those intertwined revolutionary premises are few and far between today and so we need, desperately need, to have a bridge expression, and a bridge organization, the workers party, to do the day to day work of bringing masses of working people to see the need to have an independent organized expression fighting programmatically for their class interests. And we, they, need it pronto.

That program, the program that we as revolutionaries would fight for, would, as it evolved, center on demands, yes, demands, that would go from day to day needs to the struggle for state power. Today focusing on massive job programs at union wages and benefits to get people back to work, workers control of production as a way to spread the available work around, the historic slogan of 30 for 40, nationalization of the banks and other financial institutions under workers control, a home foreclosure moratorium, and debt for homeowners and students. Obviously more demands come to mind but those listed are sufficient to show our direction.

Now there have historically been many efforts to create a mass workers party in the United States going all the way back to the 1830s with the Workingmen’s Party based in New York City. Later efforts, after the Civil War, mainly, when classic capitalism began to become the driving economic norm, included the famous Terence Powderly-led Knights of Labor, including (segregated black locals), a National Negro Union, and various European social-democratic off -shoots (including pro-Marxist formations). All those had flaws, some serious like being pro-capitalist, merely reformist, and the like (sound familiar?) and reflected the birth pangs of the organized labor movement rather than serious predecessors.

Things got serious around the turn of the century (oops, turn of the 20th century) when the “age of the robber barons” declared unequivocally that class warfare between labor and capital was the norm in American society (if not expressed that way in “polite” society). This was the period of the rise the Debsian-inspired party of the whole class, the American Socialist Party. More importantly, if contradictorily, emerging from a segment of that organization, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) was, to my mind the first serious revolutionary labor organization (party/union?) that we could look to as fighting a class struggle fight for working class interests. Everyone should read the Preamble to the IWW Constitution of 1905 (look it up on Wikipedia or the IWW website) to see what I mean. It still retains its stirring revolutionary fervor today.

The most unambiguous work of creating a mass labor party that we could recognize though really came with the fight of the American Communist Party (which had been formed by the sections, the revolutionary-inclined sections, of the American Socialist Party that split off in the great revolutionary/reformist division after the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917) in the 1920s to form one based on the trade unions (mainly in the Midwest, and mainly in Chicago with the John Fitzgerald –led AFL). That effort was stillborn, stillborn because the non-communist labor leaders who had the numbers, the locals, and, ah, the dough wanted a farmer-labor party, a two class party to cushion them against radical solutions (breaking from the bourgeois parties and electoralism). Only the timely intervention of the Communist International saved the day from a major blunder (Go to the James P. Cannon Internet Archives for more, much more on this movement, He, and his factional allies including one William Z. Foster, later the titular head of the Communist Party, were in the thick of things to his later red-faced chagrin).

Moving forward, the American Communist Party at the height of the Great Depression (the one in the 1930s, that one, not the one we are in now) created the American Labor Party (along with the American Socialist party and other pro-Democratic Party labor skates) which had a mass base in places like New York and the Midwest. The problem though was this organization was, mainly, a left-handed way to get votes for Roosevelt from class conscious socialist-minded workers who balked at a direct vote for Roosevelt. (Sound familiar, again?) And that, before the Labor Party movement of the 1990s, is pretty much, except a few odd local attempts here and there by leftist groups, some sincere, some not, was probably the last major effort to form any kind of independent labor political organization. (The American Communist Party after 1936, except 1940, and even that is up for questioning, would thereafter not dream of seriously organizing such a party. For them the Democratic Party was more than adequate, thank you. Later the Socialist Workers Party essentially took the same stance.)

So much then for the historical aspects of the workers party question. The real question, the real lessons, for revolutionaries posed by all of this is something that was pointed out by James P. Cannon in the late 1930s and early 1940s (and before him Leon Trotsky). Can revolutionaries in the United States recruit masses of working people to a revolutionary labor party (us, again) today (and again think Bolshevik)? To pose the question is to give the answer (an old lawyer’s trick, by the way).

America today, no. Russia in 1917, yes. Germany in 1921, yes. Same place 1923, yes. Spain in 1936 (really from 1934 on), yes. America in the 1930s, probably not (even with no Stalinist ALP siphoning). France 1968, yes. Greece (or Spain) today, yes. So it is all a question of concrete circumstances. That is what Cannon (and before him Trotsky) was arguing about. If you can recruit to the revolutionary labor party that is the main ticket. We, even in America, are not historically pre-determined to go the old time British Labor Party route as an exclusive way to create a mass- based political labor organization. If we are not able to recruit directly then you have to look at some way station effort. That is why in his 1940 documents (which can also be found at the Cannon Internet Archives as well) Cannon stressed that the SWP should where possible (mainly New York) work in the Stalinist-controlled (heaven forbid, cried the Shachtmanites) American Labor Party. That was where masses of organized trade union workers were.

Now I don’t know, and probably nobody else does either, if and when, the American working class is going to come out of its slumber. Some of us thought that Occupy might be a catalyst for that. That has turned out to be patently false as far as the working class goes. So we have to expect that maybe some middle level labor organizers or local union officials feeling pressure from the ranks may begin to call for a labor party. That, as the 1990s Socialist Alternative Labor Party archives indicates, is about what happened when those efforts started.

[A reference back to the American Communist Party’s work in the 1920s may be informative here. As mentioned above there was some confusion, no, a lot of confusion back then about building a labor party base on workers and farmers, a two -class party. While the demands of both groups may in some cases overlap farmers, except for farm hands, are small capitalists on the land. We need a program for such potential allies, petty bourgeois allies, but their demands are subordinate to labor’s in a workers’ party program. Fast forward to today and it is entirely possible, especially in light of the recent Occupy experiences that some vague popular frontist trans-class movement might develop like the Labor Non-Partisan League that the labor skates put forward in the 1930s as a catch basin for all kinds of political tendencies. We, of course, would work in such formations fighting for a revolutionary perspective but this is not what we advocate for now.]

Earlier this year AFL-CIO President Trumka [2012]made noises about labor “going its own way.” I guess he had had too much to drink at the Democratic National Committee meeting the night before, or something. So we should be cautious, but we should be ready. While at the moment tactics like a great regroupment of left forces, a united front with labor militants, or entry in other labor organizations for the purpose of pushing the workers party are premature we should be ready.

And that last sentence brings up my final point, another point courtesy of Jim Cannon. He made a big point in the 1940s documents about the various kinds of political activities that small revolutionary propaganda groups or individuals (us, yet again) can participate in (and actually large socialist organizations too before taking state power). He lumped propaganda, agitation, and action together. For us today we have our propaganda points “a workers’ party that fights for a workers (and X, okay) government.” In the future, if things head our way, we will “united front” the labor skates to death agitating for the need for an independent labor expression. But we will really be speaking over their heads to their memberships (and other working class formations, if any, as well). Then we will take action to create that damn party, fighting to make it a revolutionary instrument. Enough said.