Break With The Two Parties Of Wall Street- A Cautionary Tale In The Age Of Bernie Sanders -Super Tuesday Postscript -RIP

Break With The Two Parties Of Wall Street- A Cautionary Tale In The Age Of Bernie Sanders-Super Tuesday Postscript-RIP    

Super Tuesday Postscript-Frank Jackman

You already know, or you will know from the story below or from  those previous postscripts from Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina and here after Super Tuesday that Sam Lowell has gone overboard about the supporting the Bernie Sanders Democratic Party Presidential nomination after years, many years, of calling for a break with that party (the Republicans don’t count in this universe, no reason since about 1864 to support them so no reason to call for a break with that organization except for symmetry) and the creation of a labor party to address the pressing issues of the working-class and other oppressed peoples.

You would also know from the above that immediately after the Iowa caucuses on February 1^st Sam had called up his old high school friend Bart Webber whom he is still in contact with and tried to talk him into going up to Manchester, New Hampshire the next day in order to go all out for Bernie (and to beat Hillary since an increasing part of his agitation was pure Clinton fatigue after over a quarter of a century of hearing that name and ten million lame excuses for whatever evil things they did personally, but more importantly, politically, especially that Hillary 2002 Senate vote for war in Iraq).

Bart after Iowa had told Sam he was starting to think about Bernie a bit with all the hubbub but that he couldn’t take the time off to go when he was not sure that he still didn’t prefer the slogan-break from the Democrats this presidential season when it might do some good. The pressure from Sam and others, almost everybody he knew from peacenik veterans to left-liberals to hard-core socialists well to the left of anything Bernie was saying had been contacting him to finally get on board before “the train left the station.” He was wavering by the day and would have to make a decision soon in light of the upcoming Massachusetts primary on Super-Tuesday March 1^st since if he was going in he was not going to just vote but volunteer as Sam and Laura had done.  

In a minute I will get to the big news on Bart in light of the last minute Bernie surge in the Nevada caucus voting although he lost to Hillary and her labor union/Democratic party organization/Afro-American community coalition. The first group’s support is inexplicable since nobody I know knows of any reason for labor unions to support Hillary other than she was the presumed shoo-in candidate and they were desperate to keep a Democrat in the White House to at least insure vetoes when horrid anti-labor legislation gets to the Oval Office. Nobody otherwise had seen her at any pro-labor gatherings and certainly not supporting what few strike actions have occurred over the past several years. The second part was expected since after all Bernie has been an independent, an independent socialist no less to hear him and a lot of people who know better tell the woe-some tale and only grabbed the Democratic label to run for President in a more upscale milieu so party stalwarts depending on Clinton largesse fell in line. The third is troubling as we approach the South Carolina vote where Hillary should swamp Bernie since he has had no real rapport with the black community and Hillary through Bill mostly who was the first, and some say only black President, has that group sewed up.

The big news is that Bart Webber as we approach the Massachusetts primary on Super-Tuesday March 1^st has decided to join Sam and Laura in supporting Bernie. He is, as we speak, working the phone banks over in Charlestown cajoling people to get out and vote for Bernie to stop the expected Hillary barrage in many states that day (and the results from South Carolina). Here is Bart’s reasoning though. It is not like he all of a sudden saw Bernie as the “second coming” or anything like that but he sensed after Bernie NOT winning in Nevada to upset things that this Democratic Party nomination is now pretty much in the bag for Hillary. So like a lot of causes in Bart’s life (Sam’s too, Laura less so) he is again tilting after windmills. Nothing new there.          

After the Super Tuesday results both Sam and Bart are realizing that the Democratic nomination is a done deal and that Bernie and his people must have had a 1960s flashback dope minute to think otherwise. They are also rethinking their positions to return to a call for Bernie to run as an Independent and the hell with that capitalist Democratic Party.  

As for Bradley Fox, who has come to this Bernie thing as a flash in the pan when the real deal goes down, he has not wavered from the “break from the Democrats” slogan that he had learned at the feet of that same Sam Lowell in sunnier days. How the mighty have fallen.         

Nevada Postscript-Frank Jackman

You already know, or you will know from the story below or from  those previous postscripts from Iowa and New Hampshire here that Sam Lowell has gone overboard about the supporting the Bernie Sanders Democratic Party Presidential nomination after years, many years, of calling for a break with that party (the Republicans don’t count in this universe, no reason since about 1864 to support them so no reason to call for a break with that organization except for symmetry) and the creation of a labor party to address the pressing issues of the working-class and other oppressed peoples.

You would also know from the above that immediately after the Iowa caucuses on February 1^st Sam had called up his old high school friend Bart Webber whom he is still in contact with and tried to talk him into going up to Manchester, New Hampshire the next day in order to go all out for Bernie (and to beat Hillary since an increasing part of his agitation was pure Clinton fatigue after over a quarter of a century of hearing that name and ten million lame excuses for whatever evil things they did personally, but more importantly, politically, especially that Hillary 2002 Senate vote for war in Iraq).

In the case he, they did so canvassing the Manchester neighborhoods that he had not been too since his days with the Eugene McCarthy campaign in blessed 1968 seeing these days the dwindling   Irish remnant which had because of their poor circumstances unable to leave the city as the new waves of immigrants came pouring in. Seeing too the dwindling French-Canadians who had come down generations ago from benighted Quebec to work in the now long gone mills along the Merrimack River. And added to the mix the Africans from all over that continent and the Caribs from all over that sea (all except the Syrians who desperately need to get out and would be a welcome addition to the town Sam thought). He, they had worked the telephones calling until late in the night those who might head Bernie’s way. They had been surprised how many numbers were cellphone numbers after the callees asked how they had gotten their numbers since there is no cellphone directory. Somebody in the campaign had the thing “wired” alright. They also on primary night were in the ballroom as they returns came in and Bernie had “kicked ass.” A good night although after a week in a Best Western motel both agreed that heading home that night was better than staying another day.       

Bart after Iowa had told Sam he was starting to think about Bernie a bit with all the hubbub but that he couldn’t take the time off to go when he was not sure that he still didn’t prefer the slogan-break from the Democrats this presidential season when it might do some good. The pressure from Sam and others, almost everybody he knew from peacenik veterans to left-liberals to hard-core socialists well to the left of anything Bernie was saying had been contacting him to finally get on board before “the train left the station.” He was wavering by the day and would have to make a decision soon in light of the upcoming Massachusetts primary on Super-Tuesday March 1^st since if he was going in he was not going to just vote but volunteer as Sam and Laura had done.  

In a minute I will get to the big news on Bart in light of the last minute Bernie surge in the Nevada caucus voting although he lost to Hillary and her labor union/Democratic party organization/Afro-American community coalition. The first group’s support is inexplicable since nobody I know knows of any reason for labor unions to support Hillary other than she was the presumed shoo-in candidate and they were desperate to keep a Democrat in the White House to at least insure vetoes when horrid anti-labor legislation gets to the Oval Office. Nobody otherwise had seen her at any pro-labor gatherings and certainly not supporting what few strike actions have occurred over the past several years. The second part was expected since after all Bernie has been an independent, an independent socialist no less to hear him and a lot of people who know better tell the woe-some tale and only grabbed the Democratic label to run for President in a more upscale milieu so party stalwarts depending on Clinton largesse fell in line. The third is troubling as we approach the South Carolina vote where Hillary should swamp Bernie since he has had no real rapport with the black community and Hillary through Bill mostly who was the first, and some say only black President, has that group sewed up.

The big news is that Bart Webber as we approach the Massachusetts primary on Super-Tuesday March 1^st has decided to join Sam and Laura in supporting Bernie. He is, as we speak, working the phone banks over in Charlestown cajoling people to get out and vote for Bernie to stop the expected Hillary barrage in many states that day (and the results from South Carolina). Here is Bart’s reasoning though. It is not like he all of a sudden saw Bernie as the “second coming” or anything like that but he sensed after Bernie NOT winning in Nevada to upset things that this Democratic Party nomination is now pretty much in the bag for Hillary. So like a lot of causes in Bart’s life (Sam’s too, Laura less so) he is again tilting after windmills. Nothing new there.          

As for Bradley Fox, who has come to this Bernie thing as a flash in the pan when the real deal goes down, he has not wavered from the “break from the Democrats” slogan that he had learned at the feet of that same Sam Lowell in sunnier days. How the mighty have fallen.         

 

As for Bradley Fox, who has come to this Bernie thing as a flash in the pan when the real deal goes down, he has not wavered from the “break from the Democrats” slogan that he had learned at the feet of that same Sam Lowell in sunnier days. How the mighty have fallen.         

New Hampshire Postscript-Frank Jackman

You already know from the story above the Post-Iowa Postscript that Sam Lowell had gone overboard about the supporting the Bernie Sanders Democratic Party Presidential nomination after years, many years, of calling for a break with that party (the Republicans don’t count in this universe, no reason since about 1864 to support them so no reason to call for a break with that organization except for symmetry) and the creation of a labor party to address the pressing issues of the working-class and other oppressed.

You also know that immediately after the Iowa caucuses on February 1^st he had called up his old high school friend Bart Webber whom he is still in contact with and tried to talk him into going up to Manchester, New Hampshire the next day in order to go all out for Bernie (and to beat Hillary since a n increasing part of his agitation was pure Clinton fatigue after over a quarter of a century of hearing that name and ten million lame excuses for whatever evil things they did personally, but more importantly, politically, especially that Hillary 2002 Senate vote for war in Iraq).

In the case he, they did so canvassing the Manchester neighborhoods that he had not been too since his days with the Eugene McCarthy campaign in blessed 1968 seeing these days the dwindling   Irish remnant which had because of their poor circumstances unable to leave the city as the new waves of immigrants came pouring in. Seeing too the dwindling French-Canadians who had come down generations ago from benighted Quebec to work in the now long gone mills along the Merrimack River. And added to the mix the Africans from all over that continent and the Caribs from all over that sea (all except the Syrians who desperately need to get out and would be a welcome addition to the town Sam thought). He, they had worked the telephones calling until late in the night those who might head Bernie’s way. They had been surprised how many numbers were cellphone numbers after the callees asked how they had gotten their numbers since there is no cellphone directory. Somebody in the campaign had the thing “wired” alright. They also on primary night were in the ballroom as they returns came in and Bernie had “kicked ass.” A good night although after a week in a Best Western motel both agreed that heading home that night was better than staying another day.       

Bart after Iowa had told Sam he was starting to think about Bernie a bit with all the hubbub but that he couldn’t take the time off to go when he was not sure that he still didn’t prefer the slogan-break from the Democrats this presidential season when it might do some good. The pressure from Sam and others, almost everybody he knew from peacenik veterans to left-liberals to hard-core socialists well to the left of anything Bernie was saying had been contacting him to finally get on board before “the train left the station.” He was wavering by the day and would have to make a decision soon in light of the upcoming Massachusetts primary on Super-Tuesday March 1^st  since if he was going in he was not going to just vote but volunteer as Sam and Laura ha done.  As for Bradley Fox, who has come to this Bernie thing as a flash in the pan when the real deal goes down, he has not wavered from the “break from the Democrats” slogan that he had learned at the feet of that same Sam Lowell in sunnier days. How the mighty have fallen.         
 

Iowa Postscript-Frank Jackman

You already know from the above that Sam Lowell had gone overboard about the supporting the Bernie Sanders Democratic Party Presidential nomination after years, many years, of calling for a break with that party (the Republicans don’t count in this universe, no reason since about 1864 to support them so no reason to call for a break with that organization except for symmetry) and the creation of a labor party to address the pressing issues of the working-class and other oppressed. Immediately after the Iowa caucuses on February 1^st he called up his old high school friend Bart Webber whom he is still in contact with and tried to talk him into going up to Manchester, New Hampshire the next day with him and his longtime companion Laura Perkins to canvass for Bernie in that city in front of the upcoming February 9^th presidential primary. He told Bart that with the groundswell for Bernie in Iowa that he planned to go all out and stay in Manchester until the primary was over. Bart told him he was starting to think about Bernie a bit with all the hubbub but that he couldn’t take the time off to go when he was not sure that he still didn’t prefer the slogan-break from the Democrats this presidential season when it might do some good. As for Bradley Fox he had not wavered from the “break from the Democrats” slogan that he had learned at the feet of that same Sam Lowell in sunnier days. How the mighty have fallen.         

 
Break With The Two Parties Of Wall Street- A Cautionary Tale In The Age Of Bernie Sanders

By Frank Jackman

 Socialist Alternative Fall 2012

Bradley Fox had to laugh when he heard the news about Sam Lowell. Sam had told Bradley a few years ago, sometime in the early fall of 2012 amid the hurly-burly of that presidential election year, when they had first met at an anti-war rally on Boston Common after the very first rumblings of going to yet another war, this time in Syria, was uppermost on the Democrat Obama Administration’s mind that he continued to hold the Democratic Party responsible along with the Republicans for their continuing bi-partisan support for every war that comes along, every war opportunity as well it had seemed of late. Sam had said that while the Democrats “talk the talk” about avoiding war, or stopping the onslaught of the military budget as a drag on the possibilities of taking care of some serious domestic social questions when the deal goes down they en masse vote for the war budgets. The big general one, you know the six or seven hundred billion dollar one, AND the supplemental ones for operations like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or wherever else they want to throw some mud. In short, they don’t as a party, as a capitalist party the way Sam had put it to Bradley that day “walk the walk.”

That pro-imperial policy by the Democrats meant that under no conditions could Sam support any Democratic Party candidate- at the federal level anyway. Had said to Bradley during the course of their conversation that had been his position at least since the early 1970s when he had gone through hell in the Army in his opposition to the Vietnam War and saw the Democrats as complicit as the Republicans when they did not make motions to cut off the Vietnam War budget requests. Consistent anyway on both side, Sam calling for “no” votes to the war budgets and the Democrats (with few exceptions) giving up the ghost with all arms and feet.  

That was then but this was now, now being 2016 and according to Bradley’s sense of things, and what he had supposed was Sam’s, yet another bummer of presidential campaign between Democrats and Republicans in America has begun to unfold. And guess who has since the first of the year been in the thick of the campaigning supporting Bernie Sanders as he makes a bid to be the Democratic Party candidate. Not as an Independent which would have given Sanders a nod for support but as a tried and true candidate right in the heart of the beast. Yes, one Samuel Lowell. So all that business about being anti-war, forcing whoever wanted his vote, or support, having to take the pledge to vote against the war budgets as a minimum step in the right direction was so much hot air when the deal went down.

Sam’s reasoning and the pressures of politics require a little explaining though in order that others who might be thinking of breaking their opposition to the Democrats (the myriad Republicans running helter-skelter are beyond the pale) might take a little pause before leaping into the abyss. That is the idea Bradley had in mind after he had heard the news from Bart Webber when he thought about how a stand-up anti-war guy like Sam could fall down like that. They, remember, had of all things met at an anti-war rally. Bradley, considerably younger than Sam, had only in 2012 begun to feel queasy about where this country was going, queasy too about the endless wars even under an administration of a guy who won the Nobel Peace Prize and when the war cries to get knee-deep into the Syrian Civil War began to be heard he had decided that he needed express public opposition to those efforts. He had heard through the Internet grapevine that a bunch of peace organizations like Peace Action, United for Justice and Peace, the Quakers and others were planning a rally for a Saturday in later September on the Common to express their opposition.    

Bradley, not used to public demonstrations of his political views (then), was a little leery as he emerged from the depth of the Park Street subway station where there were about fifty people milling around, carrying signs mostly anti-war signs against the continuing wars in various spots in the Middle East. He had not expected a huge crowd, hadn’t since about 2002 when the war drums for Iraq had started and millions, not including him then, had marched in the streets of the world in a desperate attempt to stop a bloody senseless war there but he had been intimidated by the smallness of the rally a bit. Also by the flotsam and jetsam that pass through that historic protest area on their ways to other business or as with the homeless just hanging out. Then a guy wearing a Veterans For Peace shirt, carrying a VFP dove-emblemed flag swirling in the wind, a Socialist Alternative button on his jacket and a small stack of leaflets came up to him and asked if he was there for the demonstration. He had said “yes.”              

That was Bradley’s introduction to one Sam Lowell, although that would not be their last meeting, not by a longshot. That day though Sam had presented some important ideas to Bradley about the nature of American society, about how almost all the establishment power structure went along with the endless wars and that it was the wars among other things inherent in the inequities of the capitalist system that led to the bloodshed and led to not getting lots of more positive things done. Bradley listened with some interest because some of what Sam had to say were things that had been upsetting him of late. The fact that Sam was an actual veteran didn’t hurt either, the voice from those who served carried weight with him (although when he found out the details of Sam’s story later he had more admiration for anti-war veterans who didn’t fold). Then Sam passed Bradley a leaflet (see about) which took him aback for a moment.

The headline-“Break with the two parties of Wall Street” confused him. See Bradley had for the four pervious election cycles since he had come of voting age had voted for the Democratic candidate for President, saw that as his only option and something he had been proud of in 2008 when he cast a vote for the first black President. He had asked Sam what that meant, asked him who he would be voting for. That day Sam gave him a short explanation since he had other responsibilities day around organizing the rally about why he had broken with the two parties. Had mentioned as well why as a small gesture in the right direction he knew he would be voting for the Green Party candidate-Jill Stein. He also told Sam that the organization he supported (although he said he was not yet a member) Socialist Alternative was doing the same thing.

Sam also suggested that if Bradley wanted to know more about why he (and SA) were not voting for the Democrats (for Obama) he would be happy to meet with him and discuss that matter. Bradley gave Sam his e-mail address and Sam a few days later followed up with an e-mail inviting him to meet at his convenience. As for the rally he had been glad that he had gone, glad that he had made that small public anti-war gesture and seriously thought about meeting up with Sam.                  

A couple of weeks later Sam and Bradley met at the Blackbird Café where Sam went through his paces after Bradley had asked about Sam’s political history and about why he refused to vote for the Democrats against the beastly Republicans and why his vote for the Green Party was not wasted energy. Sam had said that he had grown up in a working-class family with very strong ties to the Democrats going back to the FDR era and that he himself had after college expected to pursue a career in politics through the Democratic Party. Had as late as 1968 been a crazed Bobby Kennedy supporter campaigning for him all over the country and after he was assassinated went to work on the Humphrey campaign (also all over the country). Reason: a classic one, a “lesser evil” one if you wanted to know the truth-one Richard M Nixon who was the number one bad ass politician that everybody rightly feared would be elected and continue the Vietnam War forever. Of course Hubert Humphrey been neck-deep in the machinations of the Lyndon Johnson escalations of the war but Sam had not seen things that way-then.   

In 1969 Sam had been drafted into the Army and that event had changed everything. He had allowed himself to be inducted which he found out after a very few days of basic training was a mistake. All the signs were that he was being trained for nothing else but to kill “commies” in Vietnam. No go. He had no quarrel with Vietnamese peasants among other reasons. Without going into all the details Sam when he had gotten orders for Vietnam after completion of Advanced Infantry Training (and that training signified only one thing because Uncle Sam only needed, desperately needed, grunts, foot soldiers, cannon-fodder in one place that year-Vietnam) decided to refuse to go. He wound up spending the better part of the next two years in the stockade, or waiting to go into the stockade, although he finally got out with an honorable discharge ordered by the federal district court in New Jersey where he was being held in detention at Fort Dix. That critical experience, and the reflection that after all the Democrats, his previously beloved Democrats had been neck-deep in the escalations as well as Nixon, was the initial crack. Further reading, thinking, association with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, associations with various independent socialist types and later in the 1980s Veterans for Peace flushed out the other reasons for breaking with the Democrats (the Republican wing of the two parties of Wall Street was so much hot air since he would then, and now, never consider supporting that group of heartless bastards).          

Sam and Bradley went back and forth that day for a couple of hours and Sam suggested that if Bradley was looking for more information that Socialist Alternative had study groups which he could join and learn more about their perspective. Bradley had attended several classes before he decided that while he would continue to be a public anti-war activist (and other issues too like the death penalty, the fight for a higher minimum wage, stopping immigrant deportations and the like) that he preferred not to belong to any organization since with three growing kids he would not have the time necessary to devote whole-heartedly to the cause. He did later run into Sam (and others as well since it is a very small cadre of those who are interested in fighting injustices in the public square these days) at many events and went out of his way to attend VFP-sponsored events.      

Bradley also took to heart what Sam had said about the two parties of Wall Street although he never really got used to that way of putting it and did not vote for President in the 2012 election cycle (he could not see the gesture of voting for the Green Party as anything but a futile gesture). He had not planned and continues to plan not to vote for President in the 2016 election cycle, although he sorely wished that Bernie Sanders had decided on an independent candidacy so he could work for him.    

As for Sam, Bradley after he had heard that Sam was working for Sanders in New Hampshire canvassing voters in that state (as was Socialist Alternative which was also neck-deep in that campaign), decided to go to Park Street Station where a weekly anti-war rally is held every Saturday (and has been since something like 1998) and where he expected to find Sam standing with his VFP flag. And he was there. When Bradley asked him what in the world had changed about the Democratic Party of Wall Street since the last election cycle he said “that is where the kids are, that is who we who are older have to get to, hell, Bernie is the only game in town, the only one who will stand up to the beasts.”  Yeah, Bradley thought “that was then but this is now” as he remembered that final paragraph from that leaflet that he still had in his home office desk drawer.  (See above and read and weep.)     

 

 

 

In Cambridge-TUESDAY MARCH 8 4 PM-RALLY for JUSTICE for DR. AAFIA SIDDIQUI

TUESDAY MARCH 8 4 PM
RALLY for JUSTICE for DR. AAFIA SIDDIQUI

MIT 77Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge

FRIDAY MARCH 4 6:30 PM Organizers Meeting

Action Center in Brewery Complex - 284 Amory St JP (near Stonybrook on Orange Line)

download leaflet pdf HERE

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A View From The Left-After “SUPER TUESDAY”. . . On Presidents and Lesser Evils

After “SUPER TUESDAY”. . . On Presidents and Lesser Evils

With Bernie Sanders’ loss in many states on Tuesday – and especially Massachusetts (CNN has an interesting statistical breakdown) – his path to a possible Democratic nomination has narrowed considerably.  Sanders and his campaign need to decide whether their priority is building a genuine populist/Left movement or preparing to support Hillary Clinton. 

 

Ambivalence on these aims has been at the root of Sanders unwillingness to attack Clinton more directly, as well as his failure to articulate a radically alternative foreign and military policy. Usually Republican Neocons are now tellingly moving to support Clinton, in fear of an unreliably militarist Trump – or for his allegedly tepid support for Israel. Some may leave the Republican Party to join a Democratic establishment that is more reliably pro-war.

 

And the failure to effectively bring his message of economic opportunity to communities of color – ironically the people who have suffered the most under neo-liberal austerity -- has been at the core of Sanders’ primary electoral failures.  Whether any of this can change during the remaining campaign season and especially whether there will be any enduring organized populist movement surviving this election season remain in question.

 

KILLING SOMEONE ELSE'S BELOVED:

Promoting the US Way of War in Campaign 2016

Meanwhile Donald Trump and most of the other Republican candidates have been competing over who can most successfully obliterate combatants as well as civilians…   But it's not just the Republicans. Every single major candidate from both parties has plans to maintain some version of Washington's increasingly far-flung drone campaigns. In other words, a program that originated under President George W. Bush as a crucial part of his “global war on terror,” and that was further institutionalized and ramped up under President Obama, will soon be bequeathed to a new president-elect.  When you think about it that way, election 2016 isn’t so much a vote to select the leader of the planet’s last superpower as it is a tournament to decide who will next step into the Oval Office and have the chance to play god.   More

 

Building a Sanders ‘Rainbow’ Campaign

In the final analysis, the influence of the Sanders campaign on the future of American politics will be determined by what comes after the campaign. This is the question Sanders activists have to answer as the primary season winds down. Will the independent local Sanders groups, Labor for Bernie, People for Bernie, Democratic Socialists of America, the Working Families Party and the progressive unions that have endorsed Sanders (including the Communication Workers of America and the National Nurses Union) create a post-electoral coalition that fights for Sanders’ platform (and “Sanders Democrats” and independents) at the federal, state and local level? Will local Bernie groups embed themselves in social movement and electoral politics and engage in a dialogue with activists of color as to how predominantly white progressive groups can become firm allies in struggles against racism. Too often, even the most progressive of electoral activity subsides when the charismatic candidate leaves the electoral scene… Ultimately, Sanders’ “political revolution” won’t be built by Bernie, but by us. And that us must be as diverse as those who constitute the 99 percent.   More

 

The Anti-War Position Bernie Sanders Can Represent

There's a huge opening to critique the economic foundations of America's wars — one that fits perfectly with the populist anger fueling the rise of Bernie Sanders… A comprehensive anti-war position looks at Daesh as the logical conclusion of the worst failures of global capitalism — namely the global lack of opportunity in the marketplace that imprisons and marginalizes people, especially young Muslim men. Enshrouded with gluttonous wealth — and often supporting friendly neoliberal dictatorships that quash domestic opposition — Western countries become the symbol to destroy in order to reclaim agency against American and Western modernity. When Thomas Piketty blamed Daesh on burgeoning inequality in the Arab world, he was right.   More

 

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a DNC member and combat veteran, endorses Sanders

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, whose campaign has attracted little support from fellow members of Congress, picked up a high-profile endorsement Sunday from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).  Gabbard announced that she is is stepping down as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee to support the White House bid of the senator from Vermont over that of Hillary Clinton… Gabbard, who made the announcement on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” has cut a video for the Sanders campaign in which she explains her reasoning, citing her status as one of the first female combat veterans in Congress.  “As a veteran of two Middle East deployments, I know firsthand the cost of war,” Gabbard says. “I know how important it is that our commander in chief has the sound judgment required … to know when to use America's military power and when not  to use that power. As vice chairman of the DNC, I am required to stay neutral in Democratic primaries, but I cannot remain neutral any longer. The stakes are too high. That’s why today … I’m endorsing Senator Bernie Sanders to be the next president and commander in chief of the United States.”   More

 

New Report Shows Hillary Clinton Drove US Into Libya Disaster

A new in-depth report from The New York Times paints a damning portrait of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US government’s involvement in the war in Libya. While there had been previous reports citing Clinton as leading the charge for the US to enter the war and overthrow former Libyan Leader Omar Gaddafi, the Times published a play-by-play story with on-the-record comments numerous current and former Obama Administration officials.  The most prominent of those on-the-record comments came from former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who claimed that the decision to go to war in Libya was heavily influence by Clinton. In fact, Gates says she made the difference in a “51-49” decision that ultimately destroyed the country of Libya and allowed ISIS to grab new territory in the Middle East.  The breakdown of the events thoroughly supports the view that Hillary Clinton learned nothing from the Iraq War debacle. And, according to the Times, “The lessons of the Libya experience have not tempered her more aggressive approach to international crises.”    More

 

ANDREW BACEVICH: Donald Trump and the Remaking of America

Whether or not Donald Trump ultimately succeeds in winning the White House, historians are likely to rank him as the most consequential presidential candidate of at least the past half-century. He has already transformed the tone and temper of American political life. If he becomes the Republican nominee, he will demolish its structural underpinnings as well… That a considerable number of Americans appear to welcome this prospect may seem inexplicable. Yet reason enough exists for their disenchantment. American democracy has been decaying for decades. The people know that they are no longer truly sovereign. They know that the apparatus of power, both public and private, does not promote the common good, itself a concept that has become obsolete. They have had their fill of irresponsibility, lack of accountability, incompetence, and the bad times that increasingly seem to go with them.    More

 

Donald Trump Is the Price We Pay for the ''War on Terror''

Terrorism in the United States is statistically a negligible cause of mortality: One is about as likely to die from being crushed by a flat-screen TV, and more likely to die falling in the bathtub than from terrorism. Imagine if we had spent $4 trillion to cure cancer or heart disease. Nevertheless, nearly every word US government officials have uttered about the matter during the last 15 years has been designed to instill dread of terrorism in the population. And it has worked. Voters in the Republican primary in South Carolina declared terrorism to be their foremost concern, eclipsing a stagnant, low-wage economy; deteriorating living standards leading to an actual increase in the death rate of GOP voters' core demographic; …The operatives of the national security state must have been rubbing their hands with glee: Through relentless conditioning, their agenda is now the creed of a numerically significant and highly motivated segment of the electorate.   More

 

CHRIS HEDGES: The Revenge of the Lower Classes and the Rise of American Fascism

The Democrats are playing a very dangerous game by anointing Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate. She epitomizes the double-dealing of the college-educated elites, those who speak the feel-your-pain language of ordinary men and women, who hold up the bible of political correctness, while selling out the poor and the working class to corporate power.  The Republicans, energized by America’s reality-star version of Il Duce, Donald Trump, have been pulling in voters, especially new voters, while the Democrats are well below the voter turnouts for 2008. In the voting Tuesday, 5.6 million votes were cast for the Democrats while 8.3 million went to the Republicans. Those numbers were virtually reversed in 2008—8.2 million for the Democrats and about 5 million for the Republicans… There is only one way left to blunt the yearning for fascism coalescing around Trump. It is to build, as fast as possible, movements or parties that declare war on corporate power.   More

 

Donald Trump’s Appeal to White Nationalism

Trump received an endorsement from the nation’s most popular neo-Nazi website, the Daily Stormer (the site often refers to Trump as “Glorious Leader” and features his face on the top of its homepage). In an August article for the New Yorker, Jared Taylor, the former editor of the defunct white nationalist magazine American Renaissance, said, “I’m sure he would repudiate any association with people like me, but his support comes from people who are more like me than he might like to admit.” … For his part, Trump has also reflected white supremacist talking points online. In November, he tweeted a bogus statistic, popular among hate groups and peddled by the Council of Conservative Citizens, the modern extension of the White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and ’60s, claiming that 81 percent of white homicide victims were killed by African-Americans.   More

 

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In Honor Of The 97th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International-Take Four-For Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht

In Honor Of The 97^th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International-Take Four-For Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht          

 

 

 

The cops, the hated Federals, and their allies the Freikorps, were hunting down every Red, hell every leftist or trade union militant that would not bow his head they could find in all of stinking Bavaria after they crushed the Commune. It was awful, savage, something out of what Otto Schmidt thought it must have been like when Thiers and his hatchet-men led by the notorious General Gallifit who wound up in a later government right next to the bastard socialist traitor Alexander Millerand pulled the hammer down on the Paris Commune. He had read plenty, plenty as a schoolboy, as a proud member of the Socialist Youth, about those heroic events back in 1871 even though most of them were anarchists or just independent radicals living off their reputations from the past or ones which they had picked up on the dusty barricades so he knew that if they, they the working people did not win, then the blood would flow in the streets. And it had come to that after some bloody street fighting.

Worse those Whites (every counter-revolutionary force in the world since the Bolshevik Revolution and the damn civil war there was now called White in his and every militant socialist’s book, and rightly so since they were all kindred of the Russian Whites) they had grabbed their leader, Eugene Levine, and who knows what had happened to him (executed as it turned out later-an outcome he maybe portended with his desperate and fatalistic “communists are dead men on leave” saying which while true as long as the struggle had to continue was unnerving to hear and to think through). Hell, Otto had just barely gotten out of Munich himself and had been hiding in a small apartment of a sympathizer in the outer suburbs of Munich and only now had a chance to think about the events of the past several months since the damn Kaiser had abdicated, the war had come to a crashing halt, and working people like him, honest socialists trying to figure out a way to change this rotten old world, had unbowed their heads for once and taken some action.

Otto knew, although he was not theoretician, not even really a leader, not a big leader anyway, although he was respected among the youth for his militancy and his willingness to stick his neck out, that they, the revolutionaries, the real revolutionaries had made mistakes, made bad mistakes about what to do, and with whom. Sure they were young, mostly, hot-headed, mad as hell had never before, unlike the Russians they were trying to emulate, ever had a part in a revolution. Their leaders, their Social-Democratic leaders mostly, had told them to organize, organize, organize and vote, vote, vote, and when they had done enough of both then they would just ease into the socialist republic of their dreams, his dreams. Conveniently forgetting that as Marx himself and all the big leaders after him had said that no ruling class in history has ever thrown in the towel as long as they had one gun left to shoot workers and peasants with. They had to be swept out- a bitter lesson to learn just then.  

Then when the chance actually came those leaders, those august bootblack black-hearted leaders, just filled the governmental seats and left everybody else standing high and dry. Worse those bastards had done the bosses’ work for them; they had suppressed everything, every armed attempt to get some worker justice. Those damn leaders were just as bad as Thiers and his French companions in suppressing the Commune. Otto burned with an inner rage when he thought about what they, Ebert, that fat pig, and Noske, that goddam hangman, had done, done with glee from what he had heard, to Rosa, Rosa Luxemburg, the rose of the revolution, and courageous Karl Liebknecht, bright shining Karl who had in the flames of war stood up and called down every kind of damnation on the German war aims (and the other side too but he aimed at his own fellow Germans first). And had paid the price. Poor Levine, poor beautiful Levine with the soul of a poet probably was slated for that same fate, a martyr’s fate.

Yes, Otto could see where the big mistakes lie, trusting those parlor socialists gotten fat and lazy off of hard-earned workingmen’s dues once they took over the bourgeois government. Somebody, he forgot who it was and some of the details but a comrade who had been to Russia or had talked to a Russian Bolshevik while he was in Germany, one night in Munich when it looked like they would win, had said when the revolution was at its hottest then the struggle against the reform socialists (in Russia the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries and here the Social-Democrats) has to most merciless. They had forgotten that, forgotten that to their regret.  He had heard that same night that in Moscow earlier in the spring the Bolsheviks and their international allies had formed a new International, a Communist International to fight against the Social –Democrats tooth and nail for the allegiance of the working masses. He had had not had time to investigate that statement more since all hell had broken out a week or so after that, to sign up or anything but he knew this, knew it deep in his young bones, that he wished the effort well. He also wished that they, and he, could find some way, some righteous way to avenge those deaths of Luxemburg and Liebknecht.  And now probably Levine too.

From The Partisan Defense Committee-30th Annual Holiday Appeal-Solidarity with Class-War Prisoners-A Report

Workers Vanguard No. 1083	12 February 2016

30th Annual Holiday Appeal-Solidarity with Class-War Prisoners

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

 

The Partisan Defense Committee held its 30th annual Holiday Appeal in January and raised thousands of dollars for its program of sending monthly stipends to class-war prisoners. For three decades, the PDC has sent money to those imprisoned for standing up to racist capitalist repression and has also given holiday gifts to them and their families. Support for class-war prisoners is not an act of charity but an act of solidarity from those fighting on the outside to those behind prison walls. The fundraisers took place in New York, Chicago, Oakland, Los Angeles and Toronto and were attended by PDC supporters, former political prisoners, trade unionists and others.

Launched in 1986, the PDC stipend program revived a tradition of the International Labor Defense (ILD). Under James P. Cannon, a founding leader of the Communist Party and the ILD’s first secretary (1925-28), that organization provided support to over 100 class-war prisoners. Today, we send $50 a month to each of 14 prisoners: former Black Panther and MOVE supporter Mumia Abu-Jamal; American Indian Movement spokesman Leonard Peltier; Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janine Africa, Janet Africa, Delbert Africa, Eddie Africa and Chuck Africa of the Philadelphia MOVE organization; former Black Panther members and supporters Mondo we Langa, Ed Poindexter and Albert Woodfox; and Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning of the Ohio 7. (For more information on the prisoners, see: “Free the Class-War Prisoners!” WV No. 1080, 11 December 2015.)

This expression of support helps ameliorate the harsh conditions of prison hell, both by reminding the prisoners that they are not forgotten and to help them buy things they need in prison, such as snacks, postage, writing materials and sometimes art supplies. As expressed by Ed Poindexter in his greetings to the Holiday Appeal: “Having been abandoned by my five-member team of attorneys, it’s heartening to know that your generous donations are enabling me to retain the services of a new attorney, and for that I’m profoundly thankful.”

This year’s Holiday Appeal was dedicated to the memory of two recently deceased class-war prisoners. Phil Africa died under suspicious circumstances in January 2015. Phil and eight others known as the MOVE 9 were wrongly convicted and sentenced to 30-100 years for the killing of a police officer during a 1978 raid on their home. Hugo Pinell, a courageous anti-racist activist who fought vehemently for prisoners’ rights, was brutally assassinated in New Folsom prison in August 2015, two weeks after his release into the general prison population after 40 years of solitary confinement. Pinell was the last of the San Quentin 6 still in prison. They were framed up on charges stemming from the prison upheaval sparked by the August 1971 assassination of Black Panther Party member George Jackson by guards.

Pinell’s daughter Allegra Taylor was a featured speaker at the Oakland fundraiser (see facing page). A poignant tribute to Hugo was also sent by his San Quentin 6 comrades, Willie Sundiata Tate and David Johnson, who recalled: “Those of us who knew him loved him, and those that he railed against hated him because he would not stand by and watch injustices being perpetrated by racism and white supremacy.” On Hugo’s decades in solitary, they noted, “He never broke...and never lost touch with his humanity.”

Every year, a highlight of the Holiday Appeals is the opportunity to hear from the prisoners—and former prisoners—themselves. Mumia sent recorded greetings as did Jaan Laaman (see facing page). Thomas Manning reported that he is waiting to hear about his parole eligibility. The PDC also received greetings from MOVE 9 members Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Eddie Africa, Janine Africa and Janet Africa.

Medical needs are a constant concern for many of the aging class-war prisoners. The generally dismal state of prison health care is exacerbated by the state vendettas against them. Manning’s letter queried whether the prison authorities would allow him to receive desperately needed neck and back surgery. Leonard Peltier was recently diagnosed with a life-threatening abdominal aortic aneurysm. Participants at the New York City fundraiser heard a report of a recent PDC visit to Mumia, including an update on his medical crisis (see page 7).

In New York City we also again welcomed Lynne Stewart. As a lawyer, Stewart spent decades defending Black Panthers and leftist radicals until she was arrested in 2009 and subjected to a frame-up “war on terror” show trial for defending an Islamic cleric imprisoned for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s. After nearly dying from breast cancer in prison, Stewart was finally released in December 2013 after a months-long fight for compassionate release, a demand supported by more than 40,000 petitioners worldwide, including the PDC.

Over the past 30 years, the PDC has provided stipends to over 40 prisoners internationally, including eight union militants. Many of these prisoners, largely victims of the racist rulers’ war against militant black activists, have been supported since nearly the beginning of our stipend program. Among them are victims of the notorious FBI Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of surveillance, frame-up and murder.

One COINTELPRO victim, Francisco Torres, spoke at the New York benefit. Torres, along with other former members of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army known as the San Francisco 8, was falsely charged in 2007 for the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. The charges against Torres were finally thrown out in 2011.

In his speech referencing protests against the epidemic of racist cop killings in the U.S. and student protests in Puerto Rico, Torres pointed to the importance of our stipend program, emphasizing how any dissent against the racist capitalist system could land someone in the crosshairs of the racist rulers: “You are potential political prisoners. Like when you get arrested at demonstrations, they try to criminalize you, but you are a political prisoner once you are arrested.”

Protests against the epidemic of racist cop killings and other forms of police terror were in the forefront of all presentations. Other speakers in New York included Muata Greene of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and MOVE supporter Orie Lumumba. In Toronto, Bruce Allen, vice president of the Niagara Regional Labour Council, spoke to the ongoing ordeal of Albert Woodfox.

James P. Cannon described the defense work of the ILD as a “school for class struggle,” an opportunity to learn the real nature of the capitalist state. Along those lines, comrade Vincent of the Trotskyist League/Ligue Trotskyste Montreal local described to the Toronto event his experience of brutal state repression during the 2012 student strike in Quebec. Experiencing that repression taught him some basic truths about the capitalist state. But, as he explained, it took the study of Marxism and the workers movement to understand that “without a perspective of socialist revolution centered on the working class, you end up vainly pressuring one wing or another of the bourgeoisie.”

We urge our WV readers to support the work of the Partisan Defense Committee and to write to these prisoners. Become a PDC sustainer to help drive the work forward. Send contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013. For more information on how to contribute and how to correspond with the class-war prisoners, go to www.partisandefense.org.

A View From The Left-From The Front Lines Of The Class-Struggle- Diary of an Auto Temp

Workers Vanguard No. 1083	12 February 2016

Diary of an Auto Temp

 

We print below a report, edited for publication, from a reader who was a temporary worker at a Midwest plant that supplies parts for Ford. Written late last summer as the United Auto Workers (UAW) was negotiating new contracts with the “Detroit Three” automakers Fiat Chrysler, GM and Ford, the report shines a harsh light on the increasing use of temps and the grueling working conditions facing all auto workers. It also highlights the anger among auto workers that can and must be mobilized in hard class struggle against the auto giants.

At the center of last year’s contract dispute was the demand to eliminate the hated tier system. Brought into the auto assembly plants in 2007 with the agreement of the union bureaucracy, this system meant that newer workers got paid less than workers hired before 2007 to do the same job. The new contracts agreed to by the union tops preserved the tiers and were opposed by huge numbers of UAW members. In the end, the UAW misleaders finally forced the sellout contracts down the throats of angry autoworkers late last year. At Fiat Chrysler, the workers rejected management’s initial offer by a two-to-one margin, while a clear majority of skilled GM workers and 49 percent of Ford workers rejected the rotten deal. In the course of negotiations, UAW workers repeatedly threatened to strike.

Workers’ bitterness at the tier system expresses their strong desire for equal pay for equal work and working-class unity. As part of the necessary fight for industrial unionism and the closed shop, all workers—including the growing legions of non-unionized temporary workers—should be organized into the unions at top pay with full benefits and union protections. In parts plants like the one described below, workers should be in the same local as the final assembly plant they supply. But, as we wrote in “UAW Tops Force Through Sellout Contracts” (WV No. 1080, 11 December), today’s union leaders, who are committed to maintaining the profitability of the auto giants, “push reliance on the capitalist Democratic Party and the government, in place of independent working-class action.” We continued:

“What auto workers need is a class-struggle leadership forged in battles like the ones that built the UAW and other industrial unions in the 1930s.... To hold to such a perspective against the many obstacles that the bourgeoisie will put in the way requires building a revolutionary workers party dedicated to the overthrow of the capitalist profit system for good and forever.”

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This summer I spent some time working at an auto parts plant in the Midwest. The plant was one of several located adjacent to a large Ford auto plant. It manufactured front and rear bumpers and overheads (roofs) and is one of several different locations that all produce something different. For example, one shop manufactures axles, another front and rear bumper fascias, etc. My plant employed some 280 people in three shifts, in addition to 90 temps who were brought in this summer.

Any new-hire was actually an employee of a temp agency. Temps were paid $10 an hour. If the company hired the temp permanently (after three months), the rate of pay would increase to $12 an hour, but they would still have to wait another three months on probation before getting full union protection. The pay range for UAW workers was $12 to $24 an hour, going up in intervals of $0.25 every six months.

While the building was new, it had old machinery from the Ford plant. All parts made there were transferred by semitruck to the Ford assembly plant down the street. The parts from the various parts plants in the area were all assembled together at Ford. From there, the final product was shipped off along the supply chain.

Auto Parts Plantation

The workers at the plant were black, with the exception of a few whites and Latinos. Almost all of the black workers grew up in the ghetto, though some were now living in nicer, working-class areas because they had this job. The gender makeup was divided equally on my shift. The general feel of the place was that of a plantation, and several of the union workers commented on it being such. It’s a sentiment that puts the term “wage slavery” in a whole different light.

The two team leads were white and although they were union members, they reported directly to and worked with management (although they had no ability to discipline). My lead was known for being very pro-strike and anti-racist and was respected by most of the workers for this. The shift supervisors (who were management, not union members) were black; they walked the lines shouting: “Move it, move it, move it!” to get the operators (line workers) to work faster. All the superintendents (the plantation overseers) were white with the exception of one black guy. They sat at their computers in the break area, while the workers worked their butts off. Management was trying to get the team leads out of the union and categorized as management.

The workers (temp and union) were all fairly young, with just a handful over 40 years old. The majority of the full-timers had been employed for over three years. There were skilled workers (mechanics and maintenance engineers) who were part of the UAW like everyone else. Material handlers (forklift drivers) were also in the union and got $0.50 more per hour than the assembly line workers. All union workers were in the same UAW local, though it’s a different local from the Ford assembly plant. The temps were non-union but were generally pro-union and looked forward to joining the UAW. Some saw working at this parts plant as a way to eventually get hired at Ford, where many had friends or family working.

Life on the Line

Parts came to the factory in several pieces and had to be assembled through a network of “lines.” Some of the parts were made in Mexico, others in stamping plants in the U.S. Once the parts arrived at the plant, they were put on huge shelves in the back of the factory. A “cherry picker” was assigned to each line and was solely responsible for getting the parts down and putting them out for the line workers to use. The cherry picker operator, who was definitely overworked and underpaid, had to pick parts based on a stream of barcodes that came directly from Ford.

The primary line that I worked on made front bumpers. The parts needed to be scanned in and carried between a series of stations where various stages of the assembly were done. At the second station, for example, there was a timer and the workers had 40 seconds to complete that stage of building the bumper or else the overall shift quota would be hurt. The quota was between 500 and 600 for complete front bumpers per night. On top of that, workers had to maintain an additional “bank” of roughly 200 fully assembled bumpers.

The working conditions were extremely onerous for union and temp workers alike. This line at one time comprised 30 workers, but over time the number of workers dropped to two! So I and another woman constructed each of these bumpers and did all the hauling from start to finish. She and I were very frustrated because there was obviously a need for more people on the line.

I worked the third shift, meaning 12-hour day shifts Friday and Saturday and then 12-hour night shifts Sunday and Monday. First shift worked 12-hour days Monday through Thursday and second shift worked nights. While workers expected to work 12-hour shifts as part of “mandatory overtime until further notice,” management often avoided confirming the overtime as a way to cheat workers out of their final break.

The forklift drivers worked a different schedule from the line workers. They worked 13 consecutive days with the same break schedule and overtime requirements. This posed serious safety concerns, although no one on my shift was injured in a forklift accident. Each shift had its own set of material handlers.

During the course of the summer, management’s treatment of the workers with regard to breaks became more and more abusive as negotiations for the parts plant contract went on. The treatment of the temps regarding breaks was much worse than for union workers. On the hottest days, some of my co-workers passed out from the heat. Management provided water, but only on breaks. Workers could bring bottled water back to their stations. While there were a lot of powerful ceiling fans, there was no air conditioning or windows, so the fans just blew hot air. When it was 100 degrees outside, it would be well over 100 inside.

Generally, workers got three ten-minute breaks during their shift. For each break, there were two bells. The first bell normally meant it was time for us to finish what we were doing and then head to the break area. The second indicated that the break had started and the 10 minutes had begun ticking. When the workers had to return from break, there were two bells again: the first one meaning clean up your area, finish your smoke or whatever, and the second one meaning it was time to head back to the line. There were two minutes between each bell, which was how long it took the workers to get from their stations to the break area.

By the end of the summer, the first bell meant nothing, and we had to keep working at the line until we heard the second bell. From that point, we were to quickly take a break and be back on the line by the time the first bell rang again. This was a major source of tension between workers (including the team leads) and management. If a temp was caught coming back from break “late,” they were escorted out of the building by management (i.e., fired!). Union workers were given three days’ suspension for being “late.” The union rep on the shift said to the workers: “Please, I’m begging you; please just do what they say. Don’t give them any lip. Management is sick of hearing it and we’re sick of hearing it.” Needless to say, he wasn’t a popular guy among the ranks, especially during this speedup.

To give a sense of how precarious it was to be a temp, one of the temps that I regularly drove to work with was fired because his three-year-old daughter got sick. He needed to take the day off work to take care of her because he couldn’t find a babysitter. A union member’s child got sick once too, but the union member was able to take the day off work (with pay) to take care of her son. It should have been like that for everyone!

Social Attitudes

The “N” word was used promiscuously at my location by young black workers. I never heard whites or Latinos use it. There was a white guy who wore a Confederate flag belt buckle to work every day. He was very pro-union and apparently not actually a racist, since he hung out with black guys at work and also outside of work. He seemed like an example of the mixed consciousness of some white workers in Middle America, where the Confederate flag is sometimes looked at as a sign of “rebellion” and not as the flag of slavery and race terror.

There were a few openly gay men and women in the plant. They were treated as equals among the ranks of workers. Nonetheless, when it came to a discussion that took place on the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, there seemed to be a mixed reaction due to religious beliefs. One temp commented along the lines of, “I think it’s a sin, but who am I to judge? I’m also a sinner.” But this response was not necessarily representative of everyone. Another temp, whose best friend was gay, was very excited about the ruling.

There was also a very strong hatred for the cops. On lunch and breaks, my co-workers would check out Facebook and other social media for news headlines. Not surprisingly, a lot of trending articles were about cop killings of blacks. This would always set off an angry verbal reaction by the workers.

Contract Battle

This summer, the local contract at this plant expired, and it was a major source of contention between management and the workers—both temp and union. In short, the union had voted to strike if a contract agreement was not reached, but this strike didn’t happen. In July, the union voted down the contract: 97 percent voted no and 3 percent yes. The main topic of debate was the issue of raises. Workers wanted a raise. Bottom line. But because the proposed contract offered only about a $1 raise over the lifetime of the contract, it’s not shocking that no one liked it, considering that auto workers hadn’t had a reasonable raise since 2008.

During this same period, as a show of unity, the union members all wore red, which looked really cool. I asked my “old-timer” co-worker if I could wear red too, she said “Sure!” So I wore a shirt with red in it, as a show of solidarity. The union told the membership at the contract vote meeting to shout out “no contract, no peace” on the day shift, so that HR would hear them down the hall. Lots of people on the rear bumper line shouted it, and on overheads too, but the guys who work on the front bumpers mostly stayed quiet. The overhead guys got some crap from the union reps on shift because when they did chant, they started getting creative with contract demands, making up awesome chants like: “No talking! No substrate!” (Substrate is the material that the overheads are made out of.) Basically they were saying, “Stop the negotiating, we’re going on strike.” The union reps really didn’t like this.

After the local contract was voted down, the company had 30 days to reach agreement with the union; otherwise there would have been another meeting to vote on another strike authorization. I spoke with one of my former co-workers recently, who informed me that this August meeting never took place and that people were getting fired or quitting, but that they still didn’t have a contract.