The Novocain has got to wear off for black Americans and progressives. When it does, they will see that President Obama is not their savior.
Back in 1964, Malcolm X wrote that blacks were getting beat up but were suffering in silence, like a patient in the dentist’s jar, even with “blood running all down your jaw.” They didn’t know what was happening to them because of the Novocain the dentist had given them, he said.
Racial solidarity is the Novocain of the moment, a numbing agent for people who are being beaten up by the economy.
And if it weren’t for the Novocain, blacks and progressives would be insisting on much more from Obama: like a government jobs program, like a moratorium on home foreclosures, like an end to the war in Afghanistan, like a crackdown on police brutality, like a defense of our civil liberties.
Here’s just on example of how egregious the Obama administration has been.
In May, Obama’s Justice Department went before the Supreme Court to argue against a 23-year-old precedent that was established in the Michigan v. Jackson case to shore up our Sixth Amendment right to legal representation. The issue before the Court this year was whether a defendant who has already been appointed counsel may be interrogated by police without that counsel present. The Justice Department actually agreed with Justice Antonin Scalia that the Michigan restriction “serves no purpose,” and the Court ruled by a 5-4 decision that such interrogation was not a violation of a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
Or take the economy.
By any economic measure, the black community is in a severe depression. Nearly 25 percent of blacks live in poverty in the United States, compared with 8.6 percent of whites. Yet Obama proposed no targeted youth or adult jobs program as part of the $787 billion stimulus package.
Black politics used to be about more than just one person, whether that be the man on the street or the man in the White House. Blacks should treat Obama as they would any other person in power. It doesn’t help them, or him, to stand down, back up or hush up.
They have to give him some backbone.
But I keep hearing, “He’s doing the best he can under the circumstances” or, “Give the brother a break.” For some, it’s enough that he’s not “just not embarrassing black folk.”
At a conference in Atlanta of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network this summer, John Silvanus Wilson, the executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, urged people to have patience. And he told them, shockingly, to “crush the haters” who would challenge the pace of the administration in addressing black concerns.
But this very silence has allowed Obama to get away with not saying or doing anything that would appear to address black concerns. It also allows him to do things against their interest, like bailing out Wall Street fat cats or making speeches condemning blacks for their “irresponsible” behavior — something that no white politician could get away with it.
Obama has become a poor substitute for real structural progress.
We can’t back down on what we are trying to accomplish — a more civilized, humane and sustainable society. Malcolm X once said if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. And right now, Obama is the latter. When the Novocain wears off, more blacks and progressives will realize this — and demand better.
November 20-22, 2009, Fort Benning, Georgia:
Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the Americas
* The SOA graduate-led military coup in Honduras and the increasing U.S. military involvement in Colombia put a renewed focus on the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) and the policies it represents.
* Thousands from across the Americas will converge on November 20-22 at Fort Benning, GA for a vigil and civil disobedience actions to speak out against the SOA/ WHINSEC and to demand a change in U.S. foreign policy.
* The vigil will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1989 SOA graduate-led Jesuit massacre in San Salvador, and the many other thousands of victims of SOA/ WHINSEC violence.
The military coup led by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) has on Latin America. Torture survivors and human rights activists from across the Americas, including Bertha Oliva, the founder of the Committee of the Family Members of the Disappeared (COFADEH) from Honduras and human rights defenders from Colombia will travel to Fort Benning, Georgia to participate in the mobilization.
The campaign to close the SOA/ WHINSEC is in a crucial phase right now. Despite promising comments from President Obama during his 2008 election campaign, the SOA/ WHINSEC is still in operation, the U.S. is poring millions into failing “military solutions” to combat the drug problems in Mexico and the Pentagon is moving forward with plans to use seven Colombian military bases in Colombia for offensive U.S. military operations.
“It is up to us to hold those responsible accountable and to push for to closing of the School of the Americas and a change in US foreign policy” said Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch. “Too many have died and continue to suffer at the hands of graduates of this notorious institute.”
In the fall of 2009, opponents of the SOA/ WHINSEC achieved a victory when a joint House and Senate conference committee agreed to include language in the FY 2010 Defense Authorization bill that requires the Pentagon to release names of the graduates of the SOA/ WHINSEC to the public. The Pentagon had classified the names after the continued involvement of SOA/ WHINSEC attendees in human rights abuses became public.
For more information about the November vigil to close the SOA/ WHINSEC, lead-up actions and a complete schedule of events, visit www.SOAW.org
Florida Mass March on Weapons Makers
“End the War Economy” Healthcare, Not Warfare
12pm, Saturday, October 17th a rally will be held at the South East corner of Alafaya Blvd. (SR 434) and University Blvd , the main entrance to the University of Central Florida in Orlando . Following the rally participants will march 1/4 mile south along Alafaya Blvd. to the Central Florida Research Park entrance to demand an end to the war economy.
ORLANDO – In mid-October peace activists will hold two days of protest against corporate war profiteers based at the Central Florida Research Park in Orlando .
On Wednesday, October 14, 2009, a 12pm rally will be held at the free assembly area in front of the Student Union Building on the University of Central Florida campus. This will be a prelude to Saturday’s demonstration.
Starting at 12pm, Saturday, October 17th a rally will be held at the South East corner of Alafaya Blvd. (SR 434) and University Blvd , the main entrance to the University of Central Florida in Orlando . http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Orlando&state=fl&address=Sr+434+And+University+Blvd Following the rally participants will march 1/4 mile south along Alafaya Blvd. to the Central Florida Research Park entrance to demand an end to the war economy.
Parking is available in strip mall lots on the west side of Alafaya Blvd. on both sides of University Blvd. (Beware of lots with parking restrictions and tow warnings.)
The October 17th march is being held in solidarity with anti-war groups around the nation who are participating in a day of protest and action on October 17. During the summer a call for a nationwide day of action was issued by the National Assembly Against the Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan .
The events are being organized by the Florida Peace Congress (FPC), a group which seeks to empower and unite peace/anti-war groups throughout the state of Florida . To date the Orlando action has been endorsed by more than 20 groups representing Miami , Tampa , St. Augustine , and Jacksonville . (List of endorsers below.)
HEALTHCARE, NOT WARFARE
While more than 18,000 Americans die annually for lack of healthcare services[1] (USA Today, 5/22/02) the United States allots more than $600 billion dollars for military spending each year. In June 2009 the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that the U.S. accounted for 42-percent of the global arms spending in 2008. The U.S. military budget is more than 7 times that of China .
Orlando’s Research Park is home to four of the top 10 recipients of tax payer dollars via the United States ’ bloated military budget. These corporations and their respective rank and earnings among defense contractors are:
#2 Boeing – $32 billion (2007)
#4 Northrup Grumman – $24 billion (2007)
#5 General Dynamics – $21 billion (2007)
#6 Raytheon – $19 billion (2007)
In total, these four corporations received $96 billion dollars in tax payer dollars in 2007 via the military budget.
Protest participants will call on Florida elected representatives, weapons makers’ employees, and the Florida general public to denounce the U.S. wars in Iraq , Afghanistan , and Pakistan , and militarism in general.
In his April 4, 1967 speech, “Beyond Vietnam,” Rev. Martin Luther King said: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Organizers contend that the U.S. has a moral obligation to prioritize the funding of human needs over war profiteering.
Organizers also call on President Barack Obama to take note of Rev. King’s realization that “the potential destructiveness of modern weapons of war totally rules out the possibilities of war ever serving again as a negative good.”
For more information contact Jay D. Jurie at 407-323-5247, fogsmokefl@aol.com or Jeff Nall at 321-368-5093, sabletide@yahoo.com
September 28th,2009
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Leaders of 20 of the most powerful governments in the world, representing 19 countries and the European Union, are descending upon Pittsburgh in late September. We, concerned residents participating in the local outreach working group of the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project, are asking for individuals and organizations that are seeking a better world to come and show their opposition to these undemocratic, closed meetings. Our future belongs to us, not to our governments!
We are calling for a diversity of actions throughout the week, and we hope that you can join us, as you are able. Below this update on resources is a detailed day-by-day list of events that we’ve organized. Additionally, there are a number of trainings, workshops and presentations happening over the next two weeks: http://resistg20.org/calendar.
Check out the new convergence space at 4374 Murray Ave. in Greenfield! Open hours this week are Thursday (Sept. 17) noon-8pm, Friday (Sept. 18) noon-8pm, Saturday (Sept. 19) 2pm-10pm, and Sunday (Sept. 20) 10am-8pm. We hope to be open even longer hours during the week of the G-20. Check the website for updates on hours of operation. We are currently in the process of hammering out space guidelines dealing with respectful conduct, law enforcement, media, consent and sexual assault. These will be posted on our site in the next day or two.
Our website also features vivid posters, flyers, promotional videos (including “The Anarchist Simpsons: Stephen Hawking Leads Riots against the G-20”), educational resources, a ride board, info on medics and their call to action, info on the students working group, and even the map of the announced security perimeter around the summit. So take a second to go there (http://resistg20.org) if you haven’t already!
As far as other resources go, the PGRP is happy to provide childcare for visiting dissidents. Local childcare specialists are committed to providing a safe and caring space for children during the convergence. The hours for childcare are 9:00am-9:00pm, on Thursday, September 24 and Friday, September 25. Ages for children are infant-12. More on childcare: http://resistg20.org/childcare
The housing working group has reported that the space we have available for housing during the actions is extremely limited. We have only a very small amount of space left in individual housing. If you are a local and still have some space, please fill out the form on http://resistg20.org/housing. If you are from out of town, note that the last day to apply for individual/ match-maker housing is Sept. 18. After that, we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to find space for everyone who requests it. If you’ve got friends or neighbors in Pittsburgh, now is the time to contact them!
We’ve got comms. Tin Can Comms Collective is a collection of communication rebels seeking to provide useful free tools for activists fighting the State and Capitalism. They are an anarchist group that has come together to help with the communication infrastructure for the Anti-G-20 protests because: People and Information want to be Free! Anyone who wants to be part of providing up-to-date and relevant information to people on the streets can get involved. It’s very easy. All you need is a cell-phone (they strongly suggest a pre-paid that can get text/sms messages) and opposable thumbs. Tin Can will collect information from websites, media, scouts and participants on the street. These communications will be filtered and then sent to those who are subscribed to one of their lists. You will receive texts. Go here for information on how to plug in: http://tincancomms.wordpress.com/
Lastly, the legal update. If you are arrested, witness an arrest, or to report surveillance, harassment, brutality or any other incidents please dial: 412-444-3553. To report a civil liberties violation, please contact the ACLU at 412-562-5015. With any other inquires please e-mail legal@resistg20.org. The PGRP legal team has committed to: running a legal hotline, answering calls from jail and arrest reports, tracking folks through jail and doing their best to communicate with support people on the outside. The team will be in communication with a group of attorneys about any legal emergencies during the summit and will do their best to help arrestees and victims of state repression get in touch with appropriate attorneys for criminal defense and possible civil litigation. The legal team has NOT committed to collecting individual legal information, so please fill out a legal support form and leave it with a friend or somebody in your affinity group! (available at www.g20legal.org) This will be incredibly helpful as they try to track you through the system. They are NOT committing to bailing people out of jail. If you are planning on risking arrest please make plans also to bail yourselves out. And they are NOT committing to securing pro-bono legal defense for all arrestees. They’ll do their best to match you up with appropriate legal help but if you are arrested, do plan on the possibility of relying either on a public defender or paying for legal representation.
THE ACTIONS AND EVENTS
Tuesday, September 22
On Tuesday, September 22, neighborhoods in Pittsburgh will be having community picnics, where long-time residents, short-time residents, and the early-bird protesters can share a meal and talk about the better world that they want to live in. The G-20 tries to present itself as leaders getting together, but whenever they meet it seems to cost millions and involve police hitting people over the head with batons. Let’s show them how a real civil gathering works: good people, good food, good times. Locals in the East End have already confirmed an Anti-G-20 Community Gathering in Friendship Park from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm Besides food, music and conversation, Rustbelt Radio, a project of Pittsburgh Indymedia, will be on hand collecting stories for its G-Infinity Media Project. The live, streaming audio project is a non-corporate, participatory media forum for the voices of the people who will not be in the room during the summit, who are affected by the G-20 economic policies but whose stories go largely untold. http://resistg20.org/tuesday
Wednesday, September 23
Wednesday night, September 23, at 7:00 pm, there will be a spokescouncil meeting for information sharing and coordination at our convergence space, located at 4374 Murray Ave. The spokescouncil is a place for affinity groups to share decisions that they have made and identify things that they need to do and decisions that they need to make.If you are planning on attending, PLEASE READ this page: http://resistg20.org/wednesday on the spokescouncil format.
Thursday, September 24
Thursday, September 24, will feature a People’s Uprising, a mass march to disrupt the G-20 summit. We’ll be starting at Arsenal Park at 2:30 pm in Lawrenceville, a vibrant working class community in the city, and marching to the G-20 summit downtown. Our theme is “Power from Below, Not Impositions from Above.” Our only permit is our feet and voices. The G-20 is in the house, throwing a party. Let’s crash it. Read the whole call to action here: http://resistg20.org/thursday
Friday, September 25
Friday, September 25, we’ll be working to undermine the G-20 summit by attacking their power, making connections to the local manifestations of their neoliberal agenda. The folks that gather in the convention center represent large governments that draw their power from collusion with powerful corporations, governments that draw their wealth from resource extraction and destruction to our world, and governments that maintain their forces through the direct violence of police forces and militaries. Without these structural supports, their power will disintegrate. The G-20 is in a house of cards: let’s shake the table. The action working group of the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project has drawn up a list of 100 potential targets, and many groups will be claiming a destination somewhere in the city. We call for these coordinated actions to end at 11:30 am in which we will demonstrate: we do not need to be together physically to be together in struggle. http://resistg20.org/friday
We encourage people to form affinity groups with those that they know and trust, to have familiar faces to stick with in the streets and people to organize and take action with. An affinity group is when you get together with folks who are on the same page as you about what kind of action you want to do. Maybe they’re your friends from work or school, maybe they’re your marching band mates. What each group’s action will be on Friday is up to that person or affinity group. We ask that each affinity group send one member of that group to our spokescouncil on Wednesday night to share information, coordinate and to pick a focus for Friday, if one is not already chosen.
After the actions end at 11:30 am, there will be an anti-authoritarian contingent in the Thomas Merton Center Anti-War Committee’s state-sanctioned People’s March to the summit site. This contingent will adhere to the Pittsburgh Principles (http://resistg20.org/principles), respecting the tone and tactics of the march organizers.
We are working hard with many groups and individuals in order to ensure there is a solid foundation for all of these actions to be a success. We ask those who are able to contribute more than their bodies – those who are interested in helping to provide legal support, scouting, staffing the convergence center, medical support, food, housing, etc. — to do what they can to help the resistance. If you see a need that you can fill, fill it. If you’re not exactly sure how to do that but want to try, get in touch.
See you in the streets,
Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project
www.resistg20.org
September 23rd,2009
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WASHINGTON – August 21 – 93 scholars and Latin America experts from institutions such as Yale, Harvard, and New York University sent an open letter to Human Rights Watch today urging the organization to highlight various human rights violations in Honduras under the coup regime, and to conduct its own investigation. The signers, who include well-known experts on Latin America such as Eric Hershberg, John Womack, Jr., and Greg Grandin, Honduras experts such as Dana Frank and Adrienne Pine, and well-known authors including Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, and Naomi Klein, note that Human Rights Watch could help force the Obama administration to denounce the abuses and put greater pressure on the regime. Highlighting “politically-motivated killings, hundreds of arbitrary detentions, the violent repression of unarmed demonstrators, mass arrests of political opposition, and other violations of basic human rights,” the letter notes that Human Rights Watch has not issued a statement or release on the situation in Honduras since July 8, a little over a week following the June 28 coup d’etat.
The signers write, “…the coup could easily be overturned, if the Obama administration sought to do so, by taking more decisive measures, such as canceling all U.S. visas and freezing U.S. bank accounts of leaders of the coup regime.”
The letter comes just a day after Amnesty International issued a new report on the coup regime’s violations of human rights in cracking down on protests, and as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (part of the Organization of American States) wraps up a fact-finding delegation to Honduras. The author of the Amnesty International report, Esther Major, has stated that the report was released to call on the international community to take action to “prevent a human rights crisis occurring in Honduras.”
The full text of the letter follows:
August 21, 2009
Kenneth Roth Executive Director Human Rights Watch
Dear Mr. Roth,
We are deeply concerned by the absence of statements and reports from your organization over the serious and systematic human rights abuses that have been committed under the Honduran coup regime over the past six weeks. It is disappointing to see that in the weeks since July 8, when Human Rights Watch issued its most recent press release on Honduras [1], that it has not raised the alarm over the extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detentions, physical assaults, and attacks on the press – many of which have been thoroughly documented – that have occurred in Honduras, in most cases by the coup regime against the supporters of the democratic and constitutional government of Manuel Zelaya. We call on your organization to fulfill your important role as a guardian of universal human rights and condemn, strongly and forcefully, the ongoing abuses being committed by the illegal regime in Honduras. We also ask that you conduct your own investigation of these crimes.
While Human Rights Watch [2] was quick to condemn the illegal coup d’etat of June 28 and the human rights violations that occurred over the following week, which helped shine the spotlight of international media on these abuses, the absence of statements from your organization since the week following the coup has contributed to the failure of international media to report on subsequent abuses.
The coup regime’s violent repression in Honduras has not stopped. Well-respected human rights organizations in Honduras, such as the Committee for the Relatives of the Disappeared Detainees (COFADEH), and international human rights monitors have documented a series of politically-motivated killings, hundreds of arbitrary detentions, the violent repression of unarmed demonstrators, mass arrests of political opposition, and other violations of basic human rights under the coup regime. The killing of anti-coup activists has beendocumented in pressreports, bringing to a total of ten people known or suspected to have been killed in connection to their political activities. Press freedom watchdogs such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have issued releases decrying the regime’s attacks and threats against various journalists and the temporary closure and military occupation of news outlets. Various NGO’s have issued alerts regarding the politically motivated threats to individuals, and concern for people detained by the regime, but no such statements have come from Human Rights Watch.
This situation is all the more tragic in that the coup could easily be overturned, if the Obama administration sought to do so, by taking more decisive measures, such as canceling all U.S. visas and freezing U.S. bank accounts of leaders of the coup regime. Yet not only does the administration continue to prop up the regime with aid money through the Millennium Challenge Account and other sources, but the U.S. continues to train Honduran military students at the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) – the notorious institution formerly known as the School of the Americas. If the coup were overturned, and the democratically elected government restored, it is clear that the many rampant human rights abuses would immediately cease. If Human Rights Watch would raise its voice, it would be much more difficult for the Obama administration to ignore Honduras’ human rights situation and maintain financial and other support for its illegal regime.
We know that there are, sadly, innumerable urgent human rights crises around the world, all of which require your attention. Addressing the deteriorating situation in Honduras, however, is of paramount importance given its potential to serve as a precedent for other coups and the rise of other dictatorships, not just in Honduras, but throughout the region. History has shown that such coups leave deep scars on societies, and that far too often they have led to the rise of some of history’s most notorious rights abusers, such as in Pinochet’s Chile, Videla’s Argentina, and Cedras’ Haiti, to name but a few. As human rights defenders with extensive experience in dealing with the appalling human consequences of these regimes, Human Rights Watch is clearly well placed to understand the urgency of condemning the Honduran regime’s abuses and to helping ensure the coup is overturned, that democracy is restored, and that political repression and other human rights abuses are stopped. Your colleagues in the Honduran human rights community are counting on you, as are the Honduran people. We hope you will raise your voice on Honduras.
Sincerely,
Leisy Abrego University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow UC Irvine
Paul Almeida Associate Professor, Department of Sociology Texas A&M University
Alejandro Alvarez Béjar Professor, Economic Faculty UNAM-Mexico
Tim Anderson Senior Lecturer in Political Economy University of Sydney Australia
Anthony Arnove Author and Editor Brooklyn, NY
Marc Becker Truman State University Kirksville, MO
Marjorie Becker Associate professor, Department of History University of Southern California
John Beverley Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies University of Pittsburgh
Larry Birns Director, Council on Hemispheric Affairs Washington, DC Jefferson Boyer Professor of Anthropology (ethnography of Honduras) Appalachian State University Jules Boykoff Associate Professor of Political Science Pacific University
Edward T. Brett Professor of History La Roche College, Pittsburgh, PA
Renate Bridenthal Professor of History, Emerita Brooklyn College, CUNY
Bob Buzzanco Professor of History University of Houston
Aviva Chomsky Professor of History and Coordinator, Latin American Studies Salem State College
Noam Chomsky Professor of Linguistics Massachusetts Institute of Technology
James D. Cockcroft SUNY Honorary Editor, Latin American Perspectives
Daniel Aldana Cohen Graduate Student New York University
Mike Davis Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing University of California-Riverside
Pablo Delano Professor of Fine Arts Trinity College , Hartford CT
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Professor Emeritus California State University
Luis Duno-Gottberg Rice University Les W. Field Professor of Anthropology The University of New Mexico
Dana Frank Professor of History University of California, Santa Cruz
Todd Gordon Department of Political Science York University, Toronto Manu Goswami Department of History New York University Jeff Gould Rudy Professor of History Indiana University
Greg Grandin Department of History New York University
Richard Grossman Department of History Northeastern Illinois University
Peter Hallward Professor of Modern European Philosophy Middlesex University, UK.
Nora Hamilton Professor, Political Science University of Southern California
Jim Handy Professor of History University of Saskatchewan
Tom Hayden Writer
Doug Henwood Editor and Publisher Left Business Observer
Eric Hershberg Simon Fraser University Vancouver, Canada
Kathryn Hicks Assistant Professor of Anthropology The University of Memphis Irene B. Hodgson Professor of Spanish, Director of the Latin American Studies Minor Interim Director of the Academic Service Learning Semesters Xavier University
Forrest Hylton Assistant Professor of Political Science/Int’l. Relations Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
Susanne Jonas Latin America and Latino Studies University of California, Santa Cruz
Rosemary A. Joyce Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences, Professor and Chair of Anthropology University of California , Berkeley
Karen Kampwirth Knox College
Naomi Klein Journalist, syndicated columnist and author
Andrew H. Lee Librarian for History, European Studies, Iberian Studies, & Politics Bobst Library New York University
Catherine LeGrand Associate Professor Dept. of History, McGill University.
Deborah Levenson Associate Professor of History Boston College
Frederick B. Mills Professor of Philosophy Bowie State University
Cynthia E. Milton Chaire de recherche du Canada en histoire de l’Amérique latine Canada Research Chair in Latin American History, Professeure agregée/Associate Professor, Département d’histoire Université de Montréal
Lena Mortensen Assistant Professor, Anthropology University of Toronto Scarborough
Carole Nagengast Professor Department of Anthropology University of New Mexico
Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy
Marysa Navarro Charles Collis Professor of History Dartmouth College
Sharon Erickson Nepstad Professor of Sociology University of New Mexico
Mary Nolan Professor, Department of History New York University
Elizabeth Oglesby Assistant Professor School of Geography and Development Center for Latin American Studies University of Arizona
Jocelyn Olcott Department of History Duke University
Christian Parenti Contributing Editor, The Nation Visiting Scholar CUNY Graduate Center Ivette Perfecto Professor University of Michigan Héctor Perla Jr. Assistant Professor Latin American and Latino Studies University of California, Santa Cruz
John Pilger Journalist and documentary filmmaker
Adrienne Pine Assistant Professor of Anthropology American University
Deborah Poole Professor, Anthropology Johns Hopkins University
Suyapa Portillo Pomona College History Dept.
Vijay Prashad George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies Trinity College
Margaret Randall Feminist poet, writer, photographer and social activist
Marcus Rediker Professor and Chair in the Department of History University of Pittsburgh
Gerardo Renique Associate Professor, Department of History City College of the City University of New York
Ken Roberts Professor, Department of Government Cornell University
Nancy Romer Professor of Psychology Brooklyn College City University of New York Seth Sandronsky U.S. journalist
Aaron Schneider Assistant Professor Political Science Tulane University
Rebecca Schreiber Associate Professor, American Studies Department University of New Mexico
Ernesto Seman Journalist Richard Stahler-Sholk Professor, Department of Political Science Eastern Michigan University
Julie Stewart Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology Assistant Investigator, Institute of Public and International Affairs University of Utah
Sylvia N. Tesh Lecturer, Latin American Studies University of Arizona.
Miguel Tinker Salas Professor of History Pomona College
Mayo C. Toruño Professor of Economics California State University, San Bernardino
Sheila R. Tully San Francisco State University
John Vandermeer Asa Gray Distinguished University Professor Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Michigan
Jocelyn S. Viterna Assistant Professor Departments of Sociology and Social Studies Harvard University
Steven S. Volk Professor, Department of History Director, Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence (CTIE) Oberlin College
Maurice L. Wade Professor of Philosophy, International Studies, and Graduate Public Policy Studies Trinity College
Shannon Drysdale Walsh Fulbright-Hays Fellow Doctoral Candidate Department of Political Science University of Notre Dame
Jeffery R. Webber Assistant Professor, Political Science University of Regina, Canada
Barbara Weinstein Professor, Department of History New York University
Mark Weisbrot Co-Director Center for Economic and Policy Research
Gregory Wilpert Adjunct Professor of Political Science Brooklyn College
Sonja Wolf Institute of Social Research National Autonomous University of Mexico
John Womack, Jr. Professor of History, Emeritus Harvard University
Elisabeth Wood Professor of Political Science Yale University
Richard L. Wood Associate Professor Department of Sociology University of New Mexico
Marilyn B. Young Professor of History New York University
Marc Zimmerman Modern and Classical Languages University of Houston
First: The teabaggers must not win this one. Back in elementary school, most of us learned that when a bully learns that intimidation and threats work, he’ll will keep doing more of it. In fact, the longer he goes without comeuppance, the bolder and badder he becomes, and the harder it is to make him stop. Every success teaches him something new about how to use terror for maximum effect and tempts him to push the envelope and see what else he can get away with. Do nothing, and he’ll soon take over the whole playground.
And it happens like this for bullies in groups, too. Living in a fascist regime is just living in a town dominated by the Mob, a street gang, the KKK, or a corrupt sheriff.
It only takes a small handful of thugs to terrorize people into giving up their civil rights, abandoning democracy and doing what they’re told, just so they can keep their jobs, windows and families intact.
The main imperative in life becomes staying off the goons’ radar. All the enforcers need to do is make an horrific example out of one or two troublemakers every now and then — and the resulting fear will keep everybody else quietly in line.
Conservatives have tried to subdue other Americans this way for centuries, so there’s nothing new going on here. And this is the way they’ve always done it: they used race (and yes, the birthers and anti-health care rioters are, at root, all about race) and economic calamity to whip up a posse of terrified, well-armed vigilantes, and then turned them loose on society to “enforce order.”
Given their colossal investment in organizing and indoctinating the teabaggers, we’d be stupid to believe that this is all going to go away when Congress returns to Washington in September. Having had a taste of power and publicity, these newly empowered mobs are very likely to stick around town and see what else they can do to keep the muck stirred up.
Our choice now is stark: knock them back while they’re still new, small and not yet entrenched; or deal with them later, when they’ve got some real power to fight back with, and the cost to all of us will be so much higher.
Second: Think nationally, fight locally. The conservatives are running this effort as a national campaign — but that’s not where the real fight is. The terror that fuels fascism is always intensely, intimately local in scale.
Fascist goon squads always recruit from the neighborhood — they’re built on people you know. Since that’s where they start, that’s where they have to be stopped.
This is why all the best tactics involve community-level action. The high-level fight in Congress and the media is already under way, and the Democratic leadership is fighting it with unusual elan. But anybody who sits this one out because they assume that the folks in D.C. have it all handled for them shouldn’t be surprised when they start getting “special treatment” from longtime neighbors, or discover that they can’t park their car downtown any more without having it vandalized.
That’s just the next baby step up from where we are now; and in some places, it’s already started to happen. Winning this means getting out there and defending our community’s standards and boundaries now, while they’re still there to be defended.
Third: Brush up on our nonviolent resistance — but leave the heavy lifting and rough enforcement to the cops. It’s true that the only way to stop a bully is to stand up to them. But there are ways to stand up to them that don’t involve getting down to the eye-for-an-eye level.
Back home, we had a saying: “Never mudwrestle a pig. You will lose, and the pig enjoys it.”
If we meet thuggery with thuggery, we will lose, because they’re just plain better at it. And make no mistake: they will enjoy it. Right now, the right wing is looking — hard — to make the case that they’re the innocent victim and the left instigated this whole thing. This quote from religious right organizer Gary Bauer is typical of the genre:
My fear, given the stakes and emotions on both sides, is that union thugs, ACORN activists and left-wing anarchists (who ransacked the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul during last year’s Republican National Convention) will turn violent, and innocent people will get hurt. If that happens, the radical left will bear the responsibility for demonizing free speech.
The Nazis used this kind of victim-blaming to tremendous effect as they built up their party.
We must not — must not — give our proto-brownshirts any basis to make the same kind of argument. (Of course, the absence of evidence will only drive them to make up fake victims; but then we get to call them out as whining liars with a big fat persecution complex, which is always a fun way to spend a news cycle or two.)
It’s about the moral high ground, people. Any choices we make must be consistent with our own values, or we betray both ourselves and the country.
Standing up for health care reform is important; but before that, the country needs to see us standing up for civil discourse and the right to democratic free speech. Since we’re defending the rule of law, our best tactic is to use that law.
You have a right to attend a public meeting and speak your mind in a civil, respectful manner. You do not have a right to be disruptive or deprive other people of their right to be heard. And most jurisdictions have laws about disturbing the peace and creating a public nuisance — laws, let’s not forget, that the Bush regime didn’t hesitate to stretch until the elastic gave out against people who merely showed up at meetings with the wrong bumper stickers or T-shirts.
Since we’re not Bush goons, we can’t go around arresting people who haven’t yet broken any laws. But when people — from either side — cross that line, it’s time for the cops and prosecutors to make the point for us: bullying people in a public meeting (or anywhere else) is illegal and will not be tolerated in this county.
Fourth: We need to make absolutely sure that the media get the story right. The teabaggers would run out of power with the flick of a switch if the media would just turn off their cameras. But the cold reality is that this kind of drama is a real ratings-booster.
It would be like telling lions to lay off that elephant carcass. Left alone, the media (local news in particular) will turn these people into cultural heroes. They couldn’t turn their backs on this if the republic depended on it.
Since we can’t beat ‘em, we’ll have to join ‘em. The best cure for bad speech is always more speech. This means bringing cameras and documenting everything, getting it up on YouTube, and blogging it.
It also means coordinating rapid-response letterwriting to the local paper and keeping down-home reporters well-fed every single day with some new theme that reinforces the idea of concerned nonpartisan citizens trying to keep control over their democratic discourse in the face of organized thugs. Since the media are watching, let’s make sure they see it all.
Fifth: Support legislators who don’t show fear. The Democratic Party seems to be playing this just right (so far). The leadership has made it known that these noisy, scary people don’t represent the 73 percent of Americans who support health care reform. The GOP is running the risk of being marginalized as not only the Party of No, but the Party of Moonbat Crazy.
If you’ve never attended a public meeting in your life, August 2009 is the month you need to start. Your congressperson’s Web site probably lists a schedule, or at least a number you can call to inquire.
But that’s just a first step. Do more. Write. Call. Find out where your local congressional office is, and just drop by when you’re in the neighborhood. Tell the staff how you feel — about health care reform, about the teabaggers, about your legislator’s brave stance in the face of this.
If they’re showing stress, encourage them to stand firm. A constituent in the office counts for thousands writing e-mails, so an in-person visit is 15 minutes incredibly well spent.
One visit or call is good. More is better. Put it in your schedule to contact your representatives at least once a week for the duration, and make sure they’re not buckling under the pressure.
Sixth: Shut down the hate talkers. In most parts of the country, the teabaggers are coming straight out of right-wing talk-radio audiences. For hours every day, they’re mainlining raw emotion and toxic misinformation.
They’re going put your kids before “death panels!” They’re going to kill your granny! You’re going to have to call the White House to get a bone set! You’ll be a Real American Hero if you get out there and join the “resistance!”
Cutting off this endless torrent of lies, fearmongering and validation will go a long way toward powering down the whole movement. (Conversely, what happens when these kinds of radio instigators are left to spin it all the way out to the end can be summed up in two words: Radio Rwanda.)
The basic recipe: Record their shows. Take notes of anything they say that is intimidating, threatening, or aimed at inciting violence against a named target. And while you’re at it, note every single advertiser they have.
Then write a polite letter the CEOs of the sponsoring companies. Throw them some choice quotes from these shows and ask them if this is the kind of thing they want their product associated with. (Point out that if their own employees said things like this at work, they’d be fired on the spot.)
Often, the CEO has no clue that any of this is happening and will pull the ads as soon as she finds out what’s being done in her name. This has worked extremely well — and quickly — at both the local and national level.
Finally: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Even if we succeed this time, let’s not kid ourselves that this is over. The conservatives are investing a lot of money and effort to build a mass movement that is explicitly aimed at destroying a Democratic government — and if we learned anything from the Clinton years, it’s that they’re not going to let up for a second as long as the Democrats are in control.
This is our new reality — and it comes straight out of Hitler’s playbook (check out Chapter 6 of Mein Kampf). Their intention is to keep the outrage junkies high by giving them a never-ending supply of new, made-up reasons to act out.
When the birth certificate fracas cools, they’re standing by with “death panels.” When that one’s run its course, there will be something else — over and over, every few weeks, for as long as the Dems rule.
Which means that even if we win this round, we can’t stand down. We’re going to be pushing back against these bullies, over and over, for the next three to seven years.
There are only two outcomes here. Either we get very good at spotting and stopping these attempts at a brownshirt takeover the minute they crop up; or they’re going to get very good at public intimidation and keep ratcheting it up further toward outright violence and goon rule.
That’s how it’s going to be for the rest of this administration. The sooner we resign ourselves to the zero-sum nature of this fight, the sooner we can get on with getting good at it.
Why is there so little protest in response to these hard economic times?
One of the rare examples of civil disobedience occurred in late July, when more than 100 people, mobilized by the community organizing group ACORN, gathered outside a foreclosed home in Oakland and attempted to take it back on behalf of its owner. The owner, Tosha Alberty, said she is the victim of a predatory loan. She claims she had tried to work with her lender to modify the loan, but the lender refused. Alberty was at work on July 20 when sheriff’s deputies showed up and evicted her family from the house, she said. A few days later, the ACORN group sat on the steps behind the padlocked gate and refused to move. Six of them were arrested for trespassing.
The protest was part of ACORN’s nationwide Home Defenders campaign to challenge foreclosures and evictions by lenders and to push Congress to strengthen anti-foreclosure legislation so that banks will be required to renegotiate mortgages. (The Obama administration’s program is voluntary.) The Oakland protest, however, received no attention in any major media outlet. A protest without reporters and TV cameras is like the proverbial tree falling in the forest that nobody hears. When the media cover rallies and protests, it gives people a sense that they are not alone, that others share their fears and hopes. It makes them more likely to get involved in efforts to bring about change.
In recent years, right-wingers have been more willing to protest, whether their allies were in or out of power. With Obama in the White House and the Democrats in control of Congress, they’re exercising their memory muscle for creative dissent–and getting more media coverage than their liberal counterparts. In recent weeks, for example, what the New York Times calls a “loose-knit coalition of conservative voters and advocacy groups,” including Republican activists egged on by right-wing radio talk-show hosts, have mounted protests in Texas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to oppose Obama’s healthcare reform. On August 1, a few hundred conservative activists in Austin, Texas, some carrying signs that said “No Socialized Health Care,” surrounded Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett at a supermarket, where he was meeting with voters.
The right-wing groups use Twitter and Facebook to recruit protesters and quickly put videos of their actions on YouTube. However narrow the constituency for these protests, the campaign is making headlines and contributing to the reluctance of centrist Democrats to back Obama’s healthcare plan.
Public opinion polls reveal that Americans are angry about the current economic, healthcare, housing and environmental crises. Polls also document that a significant majority of Americans want the federal government to do something to fix these problems. But history shows that public opinion, on its own, isn’t enough to change public policy.
People have to believe not only that things should be different but also that they can be different. Anger has to be mixed with hope. And to be effective politically, that hope has to be mobilized through collective action–in elections, meetings with elected officials, petitions, e-mail campaigns, rallies, demonstrations and even, at times, civil disobedience.
Protest–including civil disobedience, demonstrations and large-scale marches–is not the same as mindless militance. It is not riots and rock-throwing. To be effective, protest must be strategic and disciplined, and it must capture the public’s imagination and conscience. People must view the cause as just and empathize with the protesters. As Martin Luther King Jr. explained in his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” civil disobedience makes sense only when all other means of reaching decision-makers have been exhausted and people’s frustrations have boiled over.
Since Obama took office, there have been very few public expressions of discontent. We’ve heard very little about everyday Americans–workers facing layoffs and the loss of health insurance, jobless Americans exhausting their unemployment insurance, renters facing eviction, homeowners facing foreclosures, farmers losing their farms, high school students facing cuts in school programs and college students facing rising tuition–mobilizing to demand immediate action to end their hardship and suffering.
During the Obama era so far, union, community, environmental and other liberal activists have carefully calibrated their efforts on behalf of legislation. They’ve engaged in lots of lobbying and meetings with members of Congress. E-mails to politicians have been fast and furious. Unions and other groups are purchasing TV and radio ads to push centrist Democrats to support healthcare reform. There are occasional rallies and public forums to show support for the president’s agenda. Through Organizing for America, the lobby group created to sustain the momentum generated by millions of campaign volunteers, Obama has encouraged liberal bloggers and supporters to rally support for White House initiatives. This week, in response to the right-wing mob attacks on Democratic legislators, Obama wrote to the 13 million people on his OFA e-mail list and asked them to commit to attend at least one event this month to show support for his healthcare plan.
These polite activities are necessary, but they don’t create a sense of urgency or crisis. With some exceptions, they don’t generate TV stories and newspaper headlines. They don’t put pressure on Congressional fence-sitters to fear a groundswell of negative publicity or a threat to their re-election chances. They are not sufficient to balance the influence of corporate campaign contributions. As a result, many of Obama’s initiatives face a stalemate.
We confront the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression, with tens of millions of Americans suffering privately and silently while Republicans and centrist Democrats thwart efforts to bring about much-needed reform.
How can progressives help put an end to this legislative gridlock? What can we learn from the experience of the Depression and the New Deal?
The popular image of President Franklin Roosevelt is that of a progressive hero whose New Deal agenda changed the way Americans think about the role of government. These include the minimum wage; Social Security; the rights of workers to unionize; bank regulation; unemployment insurance; the eight-hour day; subsidized affordable housing for working families; cash assistance for the poor; and public works programs that not only created millions of jobs but also built libraries, parks, roads, energy facilities and conservation programs.
But in his recent book Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America, Adam Cohen points out that when FDR was elected in November 1932, and even after he took office in March 1933, his ideas about what to do were very unclear.
He promised Americans a “New Deal,” but he had very few specifics. In fact, FDR was in many ways a cautious, even conservative, politician. The one clear idea he had in mind when he took office was to cut the federal budget, and the person he hired to do that job was his budget director, a conservative Congressman from Arizona named Lewis Douglas. He was also initially reluctant to use the power of government to regulate business practices, create jobs or to support union organizing or struggling farmers. He was clear from the beginning, however, that core values were at stake–articulated in his first Inaugural Address. That is what created the ground–and support–for his pragmatic experimentation.
Cohen’s book describes an ongoing battle for FDR’s heart and mind that took place both inside and outside the White House. Inside the White House, FDR’s progressive cabinet members and advisers–including Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace and top advisers Harry Hopkins and Rexford Tugwell–duked it out with moderate and conservative advisers. Outside the White House, grassroots organizations (including labor unions, community groups, veterans’ organizations and groups of small family farmers like the radical National Farmers Union) were pitted against an array of business groups (including banks, manufacturers, the real estate industry and corporate farmers).
As Cohen recounts, “Farmers who stayed on the land were responding to their bleak circumstances with extreme politics and lawlessness.” Across the Farm Belt, hundreds of farmers would show up and stop a foreclosure sale by the force of numbers. Some farmers threatened to call a national strike if Congress didn’t act. In Sioux City, Iowa, farmers put wooden planks with nails on the highways to block agricultural deliveries. Cohen writes that in Nebraska, a group of farmers “showed up at a foreclosure sale and saw to it that every item that had been seized from a farmer’s widow sold for five cents, leaving the bank with a total settlement of just $5.35.”
These protests by farmers, Cohen explains, “increased the sense of urgency in Washington.” Henry Wallace and progressive Democrats in Congress kept FDR aware of these protests, which helped them outmaneuver their more moderate colleagues. This combination of outside protest and inside maneuvering led to passage of the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act, which, Cohen says, “radically changed the economics of American farming.”
This same dynamic played out in the big cities among veterans, tenants, the unemployed, workers and the elderly.
In the spring and summer of 1932, protest erupted among veterans of World War I, many of whom were out of work and hungry. More than 20,000 of them from across the country joined a Bonus Army march on Washington. The veterans held government bonus certificates for their military service, which were due more than a dozen years in the future. They demanded that Congress pay their bonuses immediately. Most of them camped in makeshift huts on the Anacostia flats, across the Potomac River from the Capitol. President Hoover ordered the Army to evict the veterans, which led to a bloody scene with horses, tear gas and machine guns in which two veterans were killed.
After FDR took office, the veterans returned to Washington. In contrast to Hoover, FDR invited the Bonus Marchers to camp at a nearby Army fort and provided them with meals, medical care and entertainment by the Navy band. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the veterans and listened to their complaints. FDR didn’t restore their bonuses, but he did issue an executive order setting aside 25,000 places for veterans in the Civilian Conservation Corps, the first of the New Deal public works programs.
In the 1930s, the United States was a nation of renters. As the Depression worsened, there were huge waves of evictions, because tenants didn’t have the income to pay rent. Utility companies shut off electricity and heat. In many cities, when word spread that a family was being evicted, a crowd would gather–sometimes ten people, sometimes a few hundred. The police would remove the furniture from the house and put it out in the street, and the crowd would bring the furniture back. This happened so often that some police officers would refuse to evict or arrest people. These protests set the stage for the New Deal’s housing programs, the first time that the government provided subsidies to create affordable housing.
In January 1933, several hundred jobless Americans surrounded a restaurant just off Union Square in New York City, demanding that they be fed without charge. In Seattle in February 1933, about 5,000 unemployed people occupied the County-City Building demanding jobs or relief. These and similar protests around the country set the stage for the nation’s first cash assistance program for struggling families.
Through the 1930s, workers engaged in massive and illegal strikes and sit-down protests in factories and retail stores throughout the country. In 1934, 1.5 million workers–including longshoremen, teamsters, factory workers and retail clerks–went on strike. In San Francisco, 130,000 workers joined a general strike.
In Michigan–where workers had taken over a number of auto plants–the sympathetic Democratic governor, Frank Murphy, refused to allow the National Guard to eject the protesters even after they had defied an injunction to evacuate the factories. His mediating role helped end the strike on terms that provided a victory for the workers and their union.
The protests that occurred after FDR was elected, and that accelerated after he took office, were not spontaneous bursts of action by angry people. They were organized by people who were willing to take risks, acting somewhat on faith and suspecting that if they acted courageously, others would follow.
As Marshall Ganz points out in Why David Sometimes Wins, a brilliant new book that focuses on Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers movement, the instigators of social movements don’t wait for the time to be “ripe.” They find people and invent or reinvent tactics to help them make the most out of what is typically an awful situation. They make their own opportunities, hoping, almost as a matter of faith, that at some point the crack will open wider and they will be able to take advantage of it. Often they fail and are thus lost to history. But as Ganz says, sometimes they win. And small victories whet their appetite for further change. If they have the skills, persistence and imagination, initial gains can become steppingstones to bigger victories as more people get involved.
At the core of an effective social movement, Ganz explains, is a diverse group of leaders with a variety of skills, a deep commitment to their cause and a willingness to take chances without being foolhardy.
In many cases, the instigators and organizers of the Depression-era protests were radicals who believed that New Deal reforms were a steppingstone to more dramatic change. Many of these radicals had been involved in activist causes for years; others were newly radicalized by the apparent collapse of the economic system and were recruited through issue groups. A self-conscious cadre of radicals helped lead groups as varied as the National Farmers Union; the Unemployment Councils, which engaged in eviction blockings and other militant actions in big cities; the Southern Tenant Farmers Union; and caucuses in workplaces, which laid the groundwork for industrial unions. They were joined by progressives and liberals–clergy, journalists, artists, tenants, workers, farmers, Jews, African-Americans, immigrants and others–who may not have shared the leaders’ radical vision but who were willing to try something new and different to bring about change.
FDR’s election stimulated protest because it offered the missing piece–hope to go with the anger. Americans pushed aside their fear and protested for change. The organizers, in turn, helped channel people’s hopes into specific actions that had some likelihood of winning concrete victories.
In time, FDR recognized that his ability to push New Deal legislation through Congress depended on the pressure generated by these protesters. As the protests escalated, Roosevelt became more vocal, using his bully pulpit to lash out at Big Business for its greed and selfishness. He used his speeches and his fireside chats to explain his New Deal agenda and to encourage people to contact their representatives in Congress.
FDR was initially ambivalent about protest and about radicals. For example, he wasn’t happy about the pressure exerted by Upton Sinclair–the muckraking journalist, novelist and onetime Socialist–to endorse him after Sinclair shocked everyone by winning the Democratic Party nomination for governor of California in 1934 on a platform to “end poverty in California.” But FDR understood that Sinclair’s primary victory, and his impressive campaign and narrow loss in the runoff, helped change the nation’s political climate and made his own success more likely, since he could be seen as more moderate.
Likewise, FDR wasn’t enthusiastic about the mounting protests by farmers, workers, veterans, community groups and the advocates of the Townsend Plan (for old-age insurance), but he understood their utility.
FDR once met with a group of activists who sought his support for legislation. He listened to their arguments for some time and then said, “You’ve convinced me. Now go out and make me do it.”
He understood that the more effectively people created a sense of urgency and crisis, the easier it would be for him to push for progressive legislation.
Having a president who inspires people to act collectively on their own behalf can make a difference. It gives people hope and courage to defy obstacles. Two recent union victories reflect this dynamic.
Last December, more than 200 members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) illegally occupied their Chicago factory after their employer, Republic Windows and Doors, abruptly told them that it was shutting down the plant. The UE members peacefully took over the plant, where some had worked for decades, and demanded that Republic Windows and Doors and the bank that refused to extend credit to the company, find a solution.
This was not a spontaneous protest. The UE leaders and organizers had been anticipating the need to engage in this kind of direct action. They had talked about it among themselves and prepared for it. The UE has a long history as a feisty progressive union. When the opportunity for direct action presented itself, the UE organizers and leaders were ready.
Although the workers were breaking the law, no politician called for the Chicago Police Department to arrest them–a sure sign that the UE action had become a symbol of working families’ distress in the unraveling Bush economy.
Two days later, at a news conference to announce Obama’s new secretary of veterans affairs, a reporter asked the president–who had not yet taken office–what he thought about the protest.
“When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned,” Obama said, “I think they are absolutely right. What’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy.”
With that statement, Obama used his bully pulpit to endorse the protest and to put pressure on Republic’s management and the Bank of America (the company’s lender, which was about to withhold further credit, thus precipitating the factory closure) to forge a solution. Representatives of the company, Bank of America and the union began meeting at the bank’s office in Chicago. Congressman Luis Gutierrez moderated the talks. Another company agreed to purchase the factory, keep it open with current employees and honor the union contract. Obama’s stimulus program helped create a growing demand for energy-saving building products, which guaranteed the company more consumers.
Obama’s election had given the workers enough hope to try the impossible, and it worked. By quickly endorsing the workers’ protest, Obama showed the kind of bold leadership that progressives had been hoping for.
That same month, after a brutal fifteen-year organizing battle, workers at the world’s largest hog-killing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, voted to unionize. The 5,000 workers at the Smithfield Packing slaughterhouse–60 percent of whom are African-American–had rejected union membership in 1994 and 1997 after being subjected to the company’s illegal harassment and intimidation in a state known for its antiunion climate.
The workers’ vote in favor of the United Food and Commercial Workers was one of the largest private-sector union victories in many years and the biggest in the UFCW’s history.
“It feels great,” Wanda Blue, a hog cutter, told the New York Times. Blue, who is African-American, makes $11.90 an hour and has worked at Smithfield for five years. “It’s like how Obama felt when he won. We made history.”
For students of the Depression era, the dynamic was familiar. Obama’s election gave the Smithfield workers hope. Their union staff and leaders took advantage of this new mood to re-energize the rank-and-file workers. After fifteen frustrating years of unsuccessful organizing, their work finally bore fruit.
Since Obama’s election, however, we have not seen little of that kind of effective protest–the kind of bold action that would make the media take notice and perhaps help galvanize Americans to take action, even if of a less risky kind.
Like any successful politician, Obama is constantly evaluating the political climate and testing the nation’s appetite for change. Like FDR, he will be bold when he thinks the political climate is ready for bold action. The unions, community organizing groups, netroots groups, environmental and gay rights groups need to create a climate that will make it easier for Obama and Congress to be bold. As FDR said, their job is to “go out and make me do it.”
Anarchy Summer Camp
July 17-19
Woods of Northern Virginia
As we prepare for the upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the Spring World
Bank and IMF meetings, the ebbs and flows of our respective local
campaigns, and anything else under the sun, we’ll be congregating in the
woods of Northern Virginia for an action-packed Anarchy Summer Camp.
Anarchy Summer Camp (ASC) is tailored to fit every anarchists’ needs: from
the veteran to the newbie, all are welcome. ASC is not an accredited
Summer Camp. We do, however, have the following skills and knowledge to
share with all campers: building and using shields and reinforced banners,
navigating through the woods, sharpening your knives, permaculture,
terrain analysis, health and safety in the streets, and more! Campers will
start their day with a morning run to get the blood flowing and a group
stretch. We will explore area ponds, lakes, and dumpsters. Group
activities abound at Anarchy Summer Camp including, but not limited to:
Capture the Flag, evasion games, wind sprints, and tactical aquatics….
for the whole Announcement please visit: http://selfdescribed.org/?p=263
“Some Orlando folks have been working hard at getting BRUSHFIRE! off the ground. It’s a Florida anarchist/radical networking and news zine! They put out several issues last year, and have a growing list of people to receive and distribute, but what they really lack are article submissions and communities to publish BRUSHFIRE! The goal is for this project to be a Florida-wide project, not an Orlando project.
The way BRUSHFIRE! works is that each month a different radical community in Florida will put together and publish that month’s issue. This is in keeping with anarchist beliefs in the rotation of responsibilities, collectivity and mutual aid. All submissions will be sent to brushfiresubmissions@gmail.com. The list of people to receive copies will also be transferred each month, along with whatever other information is necessary. People who receive copies in the mail will be responsible for scamming/getting copies locally at copy shops, and then distributing them to their local community each month.
They hope that this project will help communities in Florida become better acquainted with each other and the state of this State’s movement against the State. It will require people to work together and organize across different communities to transfer publishing responsibility each month. Hopefully this zine will help us unite in our struggle for a free and just society!”
Their new zine should be coming out in July, and submissions are due by June 26th (sorry for the late notice). I’ll be making copies and handing them out around town as soon as I receive the latest copy. I also plan on sending something in to be published, so let me know if you want in.
The global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world’s hungry to a record 1 billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, U.N. food officials said Friday.
Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices and poverty, hunger now affects one in six people, by the United Nations’ estimate.
The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the head of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization called a “devastating combination for the world’s most vulnerable.”
Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the agency said.
“No part of the world is immune,” FAO’s Director-General Jacques Diouf said. “All world regions have been affected by the rise of food insecurity.”
The crisis is a humanitarian one, but also a political issue.
Officials presenting the new estimates in Rome sought to stress the link between hunger and instability, noting that soaring prices for staples, such as rice, triggered riots in the developing world last year.
Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program, another U.N. food agency based in Rome, said hungry people rioted in at least 30 countries last year. Most notably, soaring food prices led to deadly riots in Haiti and the overthrow of the prime minister.
“A hungry world is a dangerous world,” Sheeran said. “Without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate or they die. None of these are acceptable options.”
Even though prices have retreated from their mid-2008 highs, they are still “stubbornly high” in some domestic markets, according to FAO. On average, food prices were 24 percent higher in real terms at the end of 2008 compared to 2006, it said.
“Malnutrition kills through the fact that it weakens the immune system of a child,” said Andrei Engstrand-Neacsu, a Nairobi, Kenya-based spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in East Africa. Some 22 million of the 1 billion hungry people counted by the United Nations are in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa, he said.
Engstrand-Neacsu said he had just returned from a corner of southern Ethiopia on the Kenyan border where the food situation is dire, and had been speaking to a family who lost a child to malaria in February. The parents said they were told he couldn’t be saved because he was malnourished.
Engstrand-Neacsu called on donors to act before “skeletal African children are shown on the television screen at dinnertime” in the West.
The number of hungry people is estimated to have reached 1.02 billion — up 11 percent from last year’s 915 million, FAO said. The agency said it based its estimate on analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
FAO said that the hunger rate is rising, too — that is, the number of hungry people is growing more quickly than the world population. Officials did not provide a rate but said the trend began two years ago.
Almost all the world’s undernourished live in developing countries. But all regions of the world have registered two-digit increases in hunger from last year.
The world’s most populous region, Asia and the Pacific, has the largest number of hungry people — 642 million, up 10.5 percent from last year. Sub-Saharan Africa registers 265 million undernourished, an 11.8 percent increase. Even in the developed world, undernourishment is a growing concern, with 15 million in all and a 15.4 percent increase, the sharpest rise around the world, FAO said.
The dire figures make it highly unlikely that a goal set by the wealthiest nations to cut hunger in the world in half by 2015 will be met, though officials vow to press world leaders at the Group of Eight summit gathering in Italy next month.
FAO said the calorie-limit it employs to declare a person hungry is on average 1,800, though it changes slightly from country to country.
Alice Lichtenstein, a professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University, said FAO’s hunger definition was reasonable, if a little conservative. She said the 1,800-calorie threshold represented the number of calories most adults need to maintain their body weight, but that the figure would vary depending on a person’s size and level of physical activity.
The number of calories for children varies even more. They need fewer calories because they are smaller, but also need increasing amounts as they get older to ensure they are growing.
World cereal production in 2009 was strong, but the global economic downturn resulted in lower incomes and higher unemployment rates — and therefore reduced access to food.
The crisis also affects the quality of nutrition, as families tend to buy cheaper, calorie-rich but nutrient-poor foods such as grains, at the expense of meat, dairy products and other expensive and high-protein foods.