With the growing calls for austerity in mind here is a two part spot The RealNews Network did on the role of hedge fund king Pete Peterson in galvanizing the ruling class to push through more cuts in social infrastructure, including the biggest victory of all: the privatization of social security.
The Capitalist Offensive and Calls for Austerity
May 28th, 2010 · Posted by mlove · Budget Cuts, Economy, Labor
on the ground in Arizona
May 16th, 2010 · Posted by jubayr · Immigration, Strategy and Tactics
*** written with Will
SB 1070, and the white supremacist attacks on ethnic studies and “teachers with accents” is potentially sparking a new round of mass struggle for immigrant rights.
In Arizona, the fight for immigrant rights has been going on for some time. The Right has been mobilizing to capture state power in Arizona through the Tea Party mobilizations in the state legislature along with attacks against brown and undocumented peoples by Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
In response, organizers across the country – some new and some veterans of the movement – are contending with questions that were left unanswered after the spike in mass activity around the immigrant rights movement in 2006
The right wing of the movement is using the same tactics to demobilize protesters and organizers, and instead supporting bracero-styled legislation, and appealing to the nativist perception of the ‘brown hordes invading America.’
The challenge facing the rest of the movement will be whether we can build our own autonomous institutions that doesn’t compromise with the right, doesn’t sacrifice some undocumented peoples for a ‘well-behaved’ few, and build united working class power among the different sectors of the struggle.
Below are two articles by Joel Olson, an organizer with the Repeal Coalition, which is calling organizers to Arizona for a Freedom Summer in order to fight against this new round of attacks on immigrants and undocumented peoples.
Major questions still face the movement in terms of what next and how to do it:
- What relationship should organizers and the movement have to institutions like the City Council of Flagstaff?
- Can undocumented immigrants be organized at the workplace to fight SB 1070?
- How do workers stop ICE raids? Do Cop Watch style groups need to be built in light of what Sheriff Joe Arpaio has done in AZ?
- What support can be given to the folks on the ground in AZ from other parts of the country?
- How will undocumented immigrants be won over to revolutionary politics in the course of this fight?
- Is Sheriff Joe Arpaio representative of proto-fascism, fascism itself, or white populism? How do we look at the Minute Men and the Tea Party Movement under these ideological rubrics?
- We should also ask what is the relationship of the economic crisis and the attacks on immigrants.
———————–
New Arizona
by Joel Olson
In the midst of the Arizona state government passing the most outrageous anti-immigrant law since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, several happenings pass unnoticed by the national media. At a packed Flagstaff City Council meeting discussing the law, waves of people declare publicly that they are undocumented, practically daring law enforcement officers to arrest them. At the same meeting, a member of a radical immigrant rights group receives thunderous applause for demanding the repeal of all anti-immigrant laws and declaring the right of all people to “live, love, and work wherever they please.” Even the most conservative city councilman admits he liked the notion. Down in Phoenix, high school students spontaneously organize a school walkout through mass texting, without direction from the established immigration reform organizations. This infuriates the organizations because it pre-empts “their” planned protests. And then these same students chuck water bottles at cops when they arrest one of their own.
Welcome to the new Arizona.
→ 2 CommentsTags: Arizona·Bring the Ruckus·Immigration·Repeal Coalition·SB 1070
BP’s oil spill on the backs of the working class and planet earth
May 9th, 2010 · Posted by jubayr · Ecology
The collapse of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico continues to tear through both working class lives, and the ability of the Gulf’s ecosystem to create and sustain life.
Eleven workers lost their lives in the accident, and now the livelihood of more working class families are threatened.
A mechanism that should have sealed the well in the event of a blowout failed, and now hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil are spilling out, threatening to create another dead zone in the Gulf.
A device, known as an acoustic switch, could have prevented this massive spill. But despite earning almost $6 billion in profits, BP resisted regulation that would have required these devices to be installed on deep sea oil rigs.
While the entire coastal region is threatened, a state of emergency has been declared in Louisiana. Wetlands and marshes along the coast, already under stress due to capitalist land use planning, are now being threatened with collapse.
In addition, hundreds of families who make a living in the fishing industry are losing work due to the contamination. BP is recruiting them for “paid volunteer work” to assist in the cleanup, but are denying them basic safety equipment and compensation for either injury or damage to their equipment.
The extant of the devastation is being described as a Hurricane Katrina redux. There is a general sense of helplessness and malaise, as some held signs demanding help from Obama along the road as he drove through Louisiana.
Capital’s global crisis, thought to be slowing down, is not hovering; it’s dropping like a hammer on both the working class and planet earth. The profit demands of the current energy infrastructure based overwhelmingly on coal and oil have proved to be an obstacle to transition towards an ecologically sustainable energy production. Obama’s expansion of offshore drilling, the maintenance of a coal-centered energy production via Copenhagen, and the expansion of nuclear energy production in the US in over 30 years are just the most recent examples.
But as the spill in the Gulf demonstrates, this energy economy is inextricably bound up with the ability of capital to attack and exploit the working class and ecological systems. Complex life requires more complex ecosystems to survive, but capital has long demanded that we forfeit the very conditions of life for it to grow. The future of free life on this planet will depend on the working class’s ability organize itself against these attacks.
Below are two articles on the catastrophe.
→ 8 CommentsTags: BP·Deepwater Horizon·Ecology·energy·Gulf of Mexico·oil spill·working class
The Debate on Strategy in the Anti-Budget Cuts Movement
April 26th, 2010 · Posted by Mamos · CLR James, Johnson-Forest Tendency, Labor, Lenin, Organization, Revolutionary Organization, Strategy and Tactics, Student, The Left, Unions, University, Workplace Groups
As an anti-budget cuts organizer in Seattle, I am excited by the important debates Advance the Struggle (AS) has raised with their piece Crisis and Contradictions: Reflections and Lessons from March 4th. I basically agree with the perspective that AS is putting forward; it confirms and advances a lot of the perspectives that my comrades in Unity and Struggle have been developing, especially with our anti-budget cuts work with Democracy Insurgent in Seattle, with ella pelea! in Austin, and our comrade’s work at Berkley. For those who don’t know, Unity and Struggle is a revolutionary organization animated by a belief in the self-emancipation of oppressed people; for more info, check out the “About US” section of the Gathering Forces blog. I would consider Unity and Struggle and a lot of the milleiu around Gathering Forces to be part of the “class struggle Left” tendency that AS outlines and calls for; like AS we are attempting to chart a third path that is independent from both the centrists (the “we need to meet people where they are at” folks) and the adventurists (the “Occupy Everything Demand Nothing” folks). We appreciate the chance to dialogue with AS and other like-minded activists around the country and we also appreciate the chance to have principled debate with comrades from the other two tendencies.
The response pieces written by Socialist Organizer (SO) and Labors Militant Voice (LMV), raise some important challenges to this third tendency and highlight some key differences between us and the centrist tendency. It is important to note that LMV’s piece raises important critiques of SO’s piece and I engage with those here - I have no intention of lumping them together. I offer my notes on these responses in the hope of furthering the debate.
What I write here is relatively unsystematic because my comrades and I are in the middle of organizing for a strike at the University of Washington on May 3rd so I don’t have a lot of time to flesh this out. I hope comrades will forgive and correct any points here that are underdeveloped , inaccurate, or unclear. I am writing this from a first person perspective rather than formally representing Democracy Insurgent or Unity and Struggle, the groups I am a part of. I imagine that most people in both groups would agree with the spirit of what I put forward here but we simply don’t have the time to collectively write and edit a formal response right now because of all of our organizing and study groups.
→ 30 CommentsTags:
SB 1070: Jim Crow in Arizona
April 25th, 2010 · Posted by jubayr · Immigration, White Supremacy
Last Friday, Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed into law the Jim Crow styled anti-immigration legislation known as SB 1070.
In the weeks after state lawmakers passed the bill, organizers called for protests and acts of civil disobedience, and demanded that Gov Brewer veto the bill.
KPHO on the student walkouts in response to Gov Brewer’s decision to sign the bill:
1,000 Students Walk Out in Immigration Protest
Here’s an overview of the bill from Socialist Worker:
Arizona bill is the real crime
by Norma Villegas
LEGISLATION IN Arizona that could become law by this weekend would make it a crime to lack proper immigration paperwork and would require police, if they suspect someone is in the country without documentation, to determine that person’s immigration status.
The misnamed “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” is being described as the harshest anti-immigrant measure in the country. Introduced by state Sen. Russell Pearce, it passed both houses of the Arizona legislature. Republican Gov. Jan Brewer has until Saturday to veto the bill, known as SB 1070–if she signs it or does nothing, it will become law.
The legislation would forbid authorities from releasing anyone found guilty until the full sentence is served. Courts are required to force those found guilty to pay court costs and an additional fine of at least $500 for the first offense, and double that for a second or subsequent conviction. Plus, any second violation of the law, no matter how minor, would be reclassified as a felony.
→ 7 CommentsTags: civil disobedience·Immigration·SB 1070·White Supremacy
March 4th Analysis from California
April 15th, 2010 · Posted by Will · Education, Student, University
Advance the Struggle has posted an important analysis of the events which took place last month. Paying attention to California is particularly important right now cuz the anti-budget cut’s student movement is highly developed in comparison to the rest of the country. This is in relation to the severe budget crisis of California and immense austerity measures that are being forced upon the students and working classes of the state. What is happening in California is a foreshadowing of what is to come in many other states across the country. Can the movement in California spread to other parts of the country and what lessons can activists learn from Cali so their respective local struggles can start on a higher basis?
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ongoing discussion on gender and sexuality
March 26th, 2010 · Posted by easy e. · Queer Liberation
Last year, Sherry Wolf published Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LGBT Liberation. While the publication has many worthwhile ideas to offer as well as for critique, I would like to focus on the first chapter here- the roots of lgbt oppression. Sherry Wolf poses the idea that sexuality as a defining aspect of one’s identity, something we take as given in our society, came about through the development and rise of capitalism as the ruling political economy of our society. This is not to say, and certainly Wolf does not argue, that people did not engage in same-sex behaviour before the rise of capitalism. Rather she poses that the way in which we specifically identify as queer or straight or gay or lesbian etc. has come about specifically because of capitalism. Therefore, the oppression that queer folk face today in our society and the particular ways in which we are oppressed has its roots in capitalism as well.
→ 7 CommentsTags:
Sylvia Rivera, transliberation, and class struggle.
March 18th, 2010 · Posted by Wen · Labor, Queer Liberation
Key readings:
“Amanda Milan and the rebirth of Street Trans Action Revolutionaries” by Benjamin Shepard in From ACT UP to WTO.
Leslie Feinberg Interviews Sylvia Rivera: “I’m glad I was in the Stonewall Riot.”
The Transfeminist Manifesto by Emi Koyama.
Street Trans Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was founded as a caucus within Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in 1971 to put forth trans demands in the gay liberation movement. The co-founder of STAR, Sylvia Rivera, was a Puerto Rican trans woman who led the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969 along with other trans of color. Yet gradually, the gay liberation movement was co-opted by white middle-class folks who are gender-conforming and became conservative. Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), a New York based gay rights group was founded by ex-members of GLF who did not appreciate its radicalism and wanted to form a single-issued organization that only focused on reformist gay rights. GAA’s conservatism and transphobia showed when they dropped the trans demands while advocating citywide anti-discrimination rights in the 70s. They saw actions put on by STAR and Sylvia Rivera as too “dangerous,” “crazy,” and “extreme.”
March 4th at UT Austin
March 16th, 2010 · Posted by jubayr · Education, Strategy and Tactics, Student, Texas, University
** written with fatima & Krisna — the 3 of us are organizers with ¡ella pelea! but this is not an official position of that organization
At the University of Texas at Austin our rally and march on M4 was considerably smaller compared to the West – approximately 200 at its height – but since this was its first anti-budget cuts rally it was no small feat. Numbers can be less important than energy and militancy, and it showed on M4.
A SXSW Flavor
The smaller size is partly due to the fact that the effects of the recession are only just beginning to be felt in the state of Texas. Texas is one of the few states in the country that is not running a deficit, and has also been able to attract more businesses to settle and develop here due to lower tax rates. But along with this comes the under-funding of social services as compared to the rest of the country, which includes public education.
This can also be explained by the historical and regional contours of Texas as both a border state and a Southern state. Right on the US-Mexico border, Texas has the second highest concentration of undocumented immigrants in the country, following California, and is one of the few states in the country whose population is majority people of color. Along with other parts of the South and Southwest, Texas is also a Right-to-Work state, which means that collective bargaining rights for unions are illegal.
In this light, the strength of the Right in Texas needs to be taken into consideration. With the primaries recently over, Governor Perry — who has executed more people than any governor in the history of Texas, and who openly associates with secessionists and other opportunists responsible for the attacks on white workers as well — has regained the Republican nomination. More recently, conservatives have succeeded white washing the textbooks and curriculum in Texas public schools removing people of color movements, and painting neoliberalism and US Empire favorably.
These things combined have meant that there is a lack of working class institutions to carry on the legacy of working class militancy in the face of right wing hegemony. The fight to take back and defend public education takes on new significance as a means to rebuild this legacy and these institutions.
→ 4 CommentsTags:
March Forth Seattle
March 11th, 2010 · Posted by Mamos · Education, Labor, Organization, Strategy and Tactics, Student, Unions, University, Workplace Groups
Reflections on the Shifting Terrain of Struggle
It is has been ten years since thousands of workers and youth shut down the WTO here in Seattle. Now the fight against budget cuts is once again laying the groundwork for a mass movement. One again young people and workers are in the streets asserting that another world is possible. In this piece I will analyze this dynamic, shifting terrain of political struggle.
This reflection comes in the wake of the March 4th National Day of Action to defend public education, which was a major leap forward here. A student strike at the University of Washington (UW) brought out around 700 students, workers, teachers, and high school students with an unexpectedly high level of militant energy, shutting down streets and almost blocking the freeway ( as you can see in this video).
As an organizer with the student-worker group Democracy Insurgent (D.I.) at the University of Washington, I wish to draw out some reflections and conclusions from our involvement in the struggle. I’ll start by tracing the struggles that lead up to the March 4th strike and made it possible. Then I will outline what March 4th shows us about the prospects and challenges for building a mass movement here in WA state and beyond.
→ 14 CommentsTags:
March 4 Student Strike Wrap Up
March 8th, 2010 · Posted by mlove · Education, Student, University
Analysis of March 4 is slowly appearing, but it will be some time before a fuller picture emerges. Until then we are collecting here a small number of writings that are relevant to the March 4 walk-out and protests. We will post more as it appears. If you find anything you think is important for discussion, please send it to us.
In the News
Hundreds of Thousands Take Part in National Day of Action to Defend Public Education, Democracy Now
Education funding demanded in ‘Day of Action’, The Oakland Tribune
Thousands rally on campuses, streets for schools, San Francisco Chronicle
UW student rally targets higher-ed funding, The Seattle Times
California Students Protest Education Cuts, The New York Times
Analysis
Open Letter to the White Student Movement by J.
Response to a Critic of the “White” Student Movement by occupy california
Raider Nation Collective Statement on the M4 Highway Takeover by Raider Nation Collective
Following String of Racist Incidents, UC San Diego Students Occupy Chancellor’s Office, Democracy Now
How Not to Capitulate to Union Bureaucracies: March 4th and the AFSCME 444 Resolution by Advance the Struggle
Don’t be Bamboozled by the Budget by Democracy Insurgent
News Items
February 23rd, 2010 · Posted by Will · Weekend Links
An Officer Shoots, a 73 year old dies, and Schisms Return
New York Officers Won’t Face Federal Charges in Sean Bell Killing
A Sight All too Familiar in Poor Neighborhoods
Israel’s New Strategy: “sabatoge” and “attack” the global justice movement
How a New Jobless Era will Transform America
→ 1 CommentTags:
Thoughts on “Politics of the Disability Rights Movement”
February 13th, 2010 · Posted by CG · Healthcare, Labor, Writings
This will hopefully be the first of a two-part discussion on disability, the next to follow in several months, and to focus on mental ill-health/”psychological disability”, race, and class. This is meant to be a broad overview of themes, ideas, and movements, through comments on Ravi Malhotra’s article, “The Politics of the Disability Rights Movement.”
The Two Dominant of Models of Understanding Disability
The 2 dominant models for thinking about disability in the US and Western European contexts are the “medical model” promoted by a capitalist medical system that sees disability as physical limitations that need to be cured, either through eugenics (the idea of eradication of people with disabilities, also used to argue for the elimination of people of color), treatment, assistive devices (such as wheelchairs, brail, or sign language) without a broader analysis of the physical and social barriers that make these devices necessary. The medical model has also had clear racist components, by pathologizing people of color as “crazy”, and therefore mentally ill and in need of hospitalization or aggressive and often violent medical treatment. The medical model fundamentally treats people with disability as if they are a second-class, homogenous group of people, while individualizing disability and preventing collective struggle against both ablism and unequal health and safety. The “social model” was developed primarily by disabled peoples movements and serves as a counter to the medical model, and makes a distinction between impairments, or physical or emotional situations, and disability, which are the social conditions created by an ablest society that manifest as barriers for people with impairments. In what follows, I argue that what’s missing from both these models is a way of simultaneously valuing the capabilities of folks who are disabled by a capitalist, patriarchal, and ablest system and value the caring work necessary for people whose state of health, mobility, or emotional difference and distress mean that they are not going to participate in work in any sense; this necessitates the recognition and encouragement by revolutionary movements of the simultaneous autonomy and interdependence of folks engaged in caring work and folks being cared for.
“The Politics of the Disability Rights Movement”
Using Ravi Malhotra’s 2001 article (link above) in New Politics I hope to make an intervention calling for a critical rethinking of disability, and struggles of disabled folks. This article makes a couple of key interventions
+A critique of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other “disability rights” legislation for being individualized legislation that was based on the idea of disabled people as consumers. The ADA serves a similar role to that of labor contracts typically negotiated by trade unions: making the world a safe place for disabled people to consume and work. The ADA relies on individual disabled folks or class action groups to sue companies or businesses that break the ADA, but does not call for a restructuring of society to make it lest ablest.
→ 6 CommentsTags:
News Items
February 7th, 2010 · Posted by Will · Weekend Links
Here are some major news events worth thinking about.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/10/sorry_obama_afghanistans_your_vietnam?page=full
http://www.thegrio.com/opinion/ending-dont-ask-dont-tell-will-be-a-teachable-moment-for-black-america.php
http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/econ-f05.shtml
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704722304575037241392821742.html
http://www.khukuritheory.net/authors/john_steele/our-relation-to-revolutionary-tradition/
Ok so that was more than what was intended, but the last two weeks have been huge…
Will
→ 2 CommentsTags:
