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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=1999wildcat@gmail.com href="mailto:1999wildcat@gmail.com">John Reimann</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=dlj725@hughes.net href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net">David
Johnson</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, December 05, 2011 9:41 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: Fw: The Occupy Movement, Co-optation and the 2012
Elections</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>David:<BR><BR>The two editorials, taken together, are most
interesting, because the co-optation of the Occupy movement does not start
simply with the blunt drive to turn it in the direction of supporting the
Democrats. A far more subtle and therefore more serious threat comes from the
attempt to keep its program - its demands - within "acceptable" limits. This
means "acceptable" to the liberal Democrats and, therefore, acceptable to the
union hierarchy.<BR><BR>It's with this in mind that the second editorial on the
Emergency Labor Network has to be considered. The program of the ELN is made up
to insure that the "progressive" wing of the labor hierarchy cannot disagree
with it. In other words, the ELN itself is part of the very same co-optation
that the first editorial decries!<BR><BR>John<BR>P.S. I see that you sent your
communication to multiple recipients. What would you think of forwarding this
note on to them also?<BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:54 PM, David Johnson <SPAN
dir=ltr><<A href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net">dlj725@hughes.net</A>></SPAN>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex"
class=gmail_quote><U></U>
<DIV style="WORD-WRAP: break-word" bgcolor="#ffffff">
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4"><B>From:</B> <A title=lduncan@igc.org
href="mailto:lduncan@igc.org" target=_blank>Larry Duncan</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=lduncan@igc.org href="mailto:lduncan@igc.org"
target=_blank>Larry Duncan</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, December 05, 2011 7:12 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> The Occupy Movement, Co-optation and the 2012
Elections</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial" size=5 face=Arial><A
href="http://www2.socialistorganizer.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=466&Itemid=1"
target=_blank>http://www2.socialistorganizer.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=466&Itemid=1</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>The Occupy Movement, Co-optation and the 2012
Elections</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 32px; FONT: 27px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Editorial</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>(November-December 2011 Issue of<I> The
Organizer</I> newspaper)</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 32px; FONT: 27px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across
the country since September 17 in the Occupy Wall Street movement to protest
the intolerable conditions of massive unemployment, growing inequality,
rampant home foreclosures, and stepped-up cuts in the social safety net. Their
outrage has been focused against the bailout of Wall Street, while Main Street
has been left to languish, and against the influence of big-money over the
political system.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>This
explosion of anger against the unbridled greed of the banksters and
speculators in the span of just two short months has changed the terms of the
national debate. No longer is the discourse dominated by the dangers of Big
Government and Big Unions; today the media and the population at large are
talking about the role of Wall Street and the banks in destroying our economy
and subverting democratic rights. This is no small feat.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
Occupy protests - with chants of "Enough is Enough! - We Refuse to Pay For
Their Crisis! - They Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out!" -- speak for the
working-class majority in this country.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Today, as the Occupy encampments are being shut down by violent
police repression nationwide -- under directives from Homeland Security and
therefore under the political responsibility of President Obama and the
Democratic Party -- Occupy activists are discussing what to do next to advance
the movement. This is the context in which a diverse series of heavy-weight
political players -- from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
to<I> The Nation</I> magazine -- are ratcheting up their efforts to
co-opt the Occupy movement and steer it into the Democratic Party's 2012
election campaign, some with a hard sell, others with a softer
sell.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>SEIU's Hard Sell</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
SEIU has been the most brazen in its effort to co-opt the Occupy movement. In
mid-November, Mary Kay Henry, president of SEIU, gave President Obama her
union's early endorsement, with the following motivation: "We need a leader
willing to fight for the needs of the 99 percent. ... Our economy and
democracy have been taken over by the wealthiest 1 percent."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>SEIU
has put together a coalition -- which includes the AFL-CIO, MoveOn.org and
numerous liberal organizations -- with the goal of busing thousands of
protesters from across the country to "Occupy Congress" in Washington, D.C.,
on December 5-9.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>In
an interview with Greg Sargent (<I>Washington Post</I> Opinion, The Plum
Line, November 18), Henry explains the purpose of Occupy Congress. One goal of
the protests, Henry says, is to pressure Republicans to support Obama's jobs
creation proposals. This is a jobs bill which, at best, would create 1.5
million to 2 million jobs, nowhere near the 15 million jobs that the AFL-CIO
leadership had been calling for but has since dropped by the wayside. Even
worse, the jobs program would be paid in large part by cutting Social Security
taxes, thus weakening the fund and leaving it more exposed to the budget
cutters -- which is unacceptable.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Henry argues that this support for the Democratic Party is not in
contradiction with the Occupy movement, noting that Occupy Wall Street has
created a framework -- "we are the 99 percent" -- within which such activities
would fit comfortably. </FONT><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 22px">"We want to
draw a stark contrast," Henry said, "between a party that wants to scapegoat
immigrants, attack public workers, and protect the rich, versus a president
who has been saying he wants America to get back to work and that everybody
should pay their fair share."</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Glen
Greenwald, writing in Salon.com on November 19, decried this attempt by SEIU
to "integrate Occupy Wall Street into the very political institutions that it
has slammed with such anger." He stated:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>"The
notion -- advanced by SEIU -- that it's the Democratic Party and the Obama
White House working to bring about the changes and implant the values of the
99 percent is so self-evidently false as to be insulting."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>"Wall Street funded the Democrats far more than the GOP in the 2008
election; the Democrats' key money man, Charles Schumer, is one of the most
devoted Wall Street servants in the country; Obama empowered in key positions
Wall Street servants such as Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Bill Daley, Rahm
Emanuel, and an endless roster of former Goldman officials; ... the President
named the CEO of GE to head his jobs panel; ... and the Democratic President,
after vocally urging an Age of Austerity, tried very hard to usher in cuts to
Social Security and an increase in the age for Medicare
eligibility."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Greenwald's exposé of Wall Street-Democratic Party collusion is
good, but it leaves out the main indictment of the Obama administration: Obama
and the Democrats played<I> the</I> central role in selling out Main
Street when they bailed out Wall Street to the tune of more than $8 trillion
(including the funds from the Federal Reserve).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>When
union activists have objected that Occupy Congress is explicitly aimed at
supporting Obama's jobs bill and the Democratic Party, Occupy Congress
organizers have replied, echoing Mary Kay Henry, that this should not be a
problem as Occupy allows for a "diversity of tactics."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B><I>The Nation's</I> Softer Sell</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Other liberals are a bit more clever in their co-optation approach.
In an op-ed article published widely November 25 under the title, "Channel the
Anger and the Hope," Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher
of<I> The Nation</I> magazine, lavishes heavy praise on the Occupy
movement and then goes on to write the following:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>"For
me the central question now is how to channel the anger and hope of Occupy
into strategies that will forge a new politics and economy. ... This requires
a politics of conviction, but it also demands avoiding a denunciation of the
Obama administration's every misstep and failure. ...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>"While I do have my disappointments with President Obama, ... he is
now talking more forthrightly about jobs and fairness, and challenging the
ridiculous idea that asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share is akin to
class warfare. ... It is time to work with determined idealism and grounded
pragmatism to begin building the kind of society we have dreamed of but not
yet achieved."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>No
doubt Ms. Vanden Heuvel's "grounded pragmatism" will lead to a more specific
call down the road to get on board with Obama to stop "the ferocious forces of
reaction and establishment power and money," as she calls them.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Whither Occupy Wall Street?</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Occupy Wall Street is structurally vulnerable to this
co-optation.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>While every Occupy protest features signs and banners that read,
"Wall Street Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out!", very few, if any, signs can be
seen, and very few, if any, speeches can be heard, denouncing the Obama
administration and the Democrats for enabling the Wall Street banksters who
sold us out. Wall Street didn't do the job on its own; it took the politicians
in the twin parties of capitalism, led by Obama, to turn over our money - and
mortgage our future -- to these speculators and swindlers.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
main leading forces in the Occupy movement -- with their opposition to placing
demands on the State and eventually winning political power -- do not offer an
independent, working-class fightback perspective to the workers and youth who
burst onto the scene and have sought in the Occupy movement an avenue for
struggle.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>As
important as the encampments have been for establishing this movement, and
while they must be defended against the State, the emphasis on "liberating
space" reflects a utopian view that it is possible to build islands of a free
society within a sea of capitalism and, therefore, that societal change will
principally come about from individual lifestyle choices. History shows that
until working people control the wealth of society, it is impossible to build
and sustain an alternative egalitarian society.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Likewise, organizational structures based on strict consensus are
profoundly anti-democratic in that they allow a small minority to block the
will of the majority, and therefore are not suited to building a sustainable
mass movement against capitalist austerity.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>These political dynamics have led most of the Occupy movement to
refuse to take on the Obama administration. This void has been filled largely
by calls to demand "greater accountability" from Wall Street and the banks or
call on their supporters to take their funds out of the major banks and place
them in cooperative-style credit unions.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>At a
public forum in New York City on November 9 sponsored by<I> The
Nation</I> magazine, well-known authors Naomi Klein and William Greider
repeated time and again that Occupy Wall Street is essentially a modern-day
version of the Populist rebellions of the past.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Klein offered the Mondragon federation of cooperatives in the
Basque region of Spain and the expansion of local farmers' markets as the
examples of what the Occupy movement must now fight for here in the United
States.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Greider, for his part, pointed to Lawrence Goodwyn's "The Populist
Moment," as the place to look for examples of how a new "movement culture,"
"participatory democracy," and economic cooperatives could work in this
country.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Both
Klein and Greider are not wrong in this assessment of the Occupy Wall Street
movement as, essentially, a Populist movement. Notwithstanding the largely
agrarian character of the Populist movement in its heyday (in the 1890s),
there is a striking similarity in the cross-class composition and political
targets of these movements, directed as they are, against the financial
oligarchies of their time -- the 1 percent.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>But
any serious student of the Populist movements of the past has to understand
that the demise of these Populist movements -- or put another way, their
gradual liquidation -- came through their co-optation into the Democratic
Party, albeit not always directly.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>And
the reason for this liquidation into the Democratic Party is actually
explained -- though not intentionally -- in the introduction of "The Populist
Moment" when, echoing the Populists of that era, Goodwyn categorically rejects
the Marxist concept of class. Goodwyn advocates a "movement culture" of the
"people," without class distinctions, and explains that the "presumed
analytical clarity of the category of class" is nothing of the
sort.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>It
is precisely this rejection of the existence of class society -- and class
struggle -- by large sections of the Occupy Wall Street movement that make it
so vulnerable to the Democratic Party operatives and their fellow-travelers.
It's what enables SEIU,<I> The Nation</I>, and all too many progressive
intellectuals to say that support for the Democrats in 2012 is just one among
many "diverse tactics" to be deployed by the Occupy movement.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Support for the Democratic Party in 2012 by any wing of the Occupy
Wall Street movement would represent a lethal blow to the Occupy movement as a
whole. The Democratic Party is financed, run and controlled by Wall Street and
the capitalist class. It is not a vehicle, even a partial one, to advance
workers' struggles. On the contrary, it is the graveyard of all workers' and
social movements.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>* *
* * * * * * *</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 18px Arial; COLOR: rgb(0,0,240)"
color=#0000f0 size=5 face=Arial><A
href="http://www2.socialistorganizer.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=467&Itemid=1"
target=_blank>http://www2.socialistorganizer.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=467&Itemid=1</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 27px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Why Class Matters: Occupy and Workers'
Resistance</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 32px; FONT: 27px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>There is a concerted drive the world over by the ideologues of
capitalism, and relayed by the neo-Populists, to dissolve the working-class
majority into a new political category called "civil society," which includes
both workers and bosses on the grounds they have "common interests" against
the 1 percent.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>But
workers and bosses cannot "work together" in harmony because their interests
are diametrically opposed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>Wage
earners -- called the "gravediggers of capitalism" by Karl Marx for their
capacity to overturn the system that relies on them -- make up the huge
majority of the population in the United States. Workers survive by selling
their labor to the capitalists, in exchange for a wage.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
economy and all of society inevitably grind to a screeching halt without the
labor of working people. Workers -- Black, white, and immigrant; men and
women; blue-collar and white-collar - have the power to shut down any city in
a matter of minutes just by folding their arms. We run the schools, the
fields, the stores, the factories, the offices, transportation; we are the
soldiers in the military; and we produce and distribute food, gas, light, heat
-- everything.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Working-Class Upsurge</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>This
reality of class struggle can be seen played out every day both at home and
abroad with the rise of working-class resistance to the capitalists' onslaught
on our jobs, rights and conquests.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Internationally, this has been expressed in the central role of the
working class and its organizations in the revolutionary uprisings in Egypt,
Tunisia, Greece, and beyond. Similarly, general strikes have swept dozens of
European countries in recent months.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
first and perhaps most explosive re-emergence of the U.S. working class on the
national scene took place last February in Wisconsin when hundreds of
thousands of workers and youth -- at the initiative of the Teaching Assistants
trade union (TAA) and then of the South Central Wisconsin Federation of Labor
-- took to the streets with their organizations, occupied the State capitol
for three weeks, organized strikes and held regular mass demonstrations in the
freezing cold to demand that the governor withdraw his plan to attack
public-sector workers by dismantling their collective-bargaining
rights.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Workers nationwide rallied to support the struggle in Wisconsin,
sending shock waves throughout the U.S. ruling class.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>While the massive uprising in Wisconsin did not succeed in stopping
the attacks on collective bargaining (given the default of the trade union
officialdom, which offered huge concessions in wages and benefits in exchange
for an agreement to rescind the governor's bill), the uprising electrified the
country, showing that a massive struggle in the streets (including a mass
occupation of a state capitol) by workers, youth and their organizations,
could potentially turn the situation around.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
uprising in Wisconsin also gave impetus to a drive in Ohio -- organized by the
trade unions and independent of the Democratic Party -- to launch a referendum
process to overturn a similar anti-union measure in that
state. </FONT><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 22px">On November 8, the referendum
to overturn Senate Bill No. 5 passed by a large margin: 61%, and this in a
state that boasts of having the largest Tea Party base. This was a huge
victory for the trade union movement.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>This
movement has been expressed in the direct class struggle itself -- with a
two-week Verizon workers' strike (which galvanized huge union and community
support nationwide), the first-ever nationwide strike by nurses last October;
and strikes and mass walkouts against cuts in education by teachers, teaching
assistants, and students across California in October and
November.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>Sharp Longshore Confrontation</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Perhaps the sharpest class confrontation, however, has been in
Longview, Washington, where the ILWU members have been on strike six months to
oppose changes in their contract language demanded by the EGT grain
conglomerate. For weeks the workers occupied the waterfront and prevented all
cargo from moving. This was reminiscent of the factory occupations of the
1930s. But state authorities ordered state troops to storm the waterfront and
break up the dockworkers' occupation. Longshore workers and their families
were beaten, pepper sprayed, and arrested by police armed with tear gas,
rubber and live ammunitions to protect the interests of EGT.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Solidarity with the Longview workers was, in fact, one of the main
reasons for the port shutdown on November 2 in Oakland, California -- the
fifth largest port in the United States. This action was organized by ILWU
members in conjunction with more than 30,000 people in the framework of a
General Strike/Day of Action called by Occupy Oakland.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>But
a standoff remains in Longview, with the ILWU leadership and AFL-CIO President
Richard Trumka refusing to escalate the struggle coastwide to help the workers
get back their jobs and their union contract. But here, as in Wisconsin, the
last word has not been said by the workers themselves.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>Occupy movements up and down the West Coast, supported by ILWU
rank-and-filers, are now organizing a West Coast Port Shutdown on December 12,
2011 in solidarity with both the ILWU Local 21 Longview workers and the truck
drivers (mostly Latinos) in the ports of southern California who were fired in
a union-busting attack when they attempted an organizing campaign. These truck
drivers selected the date of December 12 for the action; it is the day of Our
Virgin of Guadalupe, a day revered by workers of Mexican origin in the United
States.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B>What Way Forward?</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><B></B><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>On
November 28, the Emergency Labor Network -- a network of unionists and labor
activists formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in early March 2011 -- issued a statement
that calls for building committees to promote the fightback around the demand
of "No Cuts!"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
ELN statement reads, in part:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>"The
assault on the safety net and human services programs is a bipartisan one.
This underscores the need for building a powerful independent movement that
opposes all cuts on an uncompromising basis. ...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>"A
stop has to be put to any and all attacks on our vital social programs, and
Ohio shows that when the unions put their pedal to the metal we can prevail,
we can push back their attacks, we can stop them in their tracks.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>"[W]e urge the formation of committees in our unions and in our
communities to promote public forums on these burning issues, build action
coalitions locally against the cuts, and move our unions and organizations at
the federal, state and local levels to mobilize to stop and rescind the
cuts."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>This
statement is extremely significant; it points the way forward for the labor
and Occupy movements today.<I> The Organizer</I> newspaper fully
supports this ELN text and urges its readers and supporters to join in
building fightback committees against the cuts.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>The
trade unions have the means to organize mass mobilizations and strike actions
to demand: "No Cuts! Make Wall Street Pay for the Crisis!" With the growing
momentum created by the Occupy Wall Street movement, the time is now for the
union movement, in alliance with the independent organizations and struggles
of Black and Latinos, to pull out all the stops and organize the kind of
fightback that can put a stop to the ruling-class assault and turn things
around for once and for all in the interests of the working-class
majority.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6 face=Arial>At
the same time, it will also be necessary -- and this is inextricably linked to
the previous point -- to open the widest discussion within the labor movement
and beyond about the need for the unions to break with the Democratic Party
and build their own party -- a Labor Party based on the unions and the
organizations of Blacks, Latinos, and all the oppressed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 22px; FONT: 18px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>These discussions will be promoted in the pages of<I> Unity
& Independence</I>, the monthly supplement of<I> The
Organizer</I> newspaper, in the weeks and months ahead.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px; MIN-HEIGHT: 26px; FONT: 22px Arial"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial>--<B> The Editors</B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="FONT: 22px Arial" size=6
face=Arial><B><BR></B></FONT></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><BR
clear=all><BR>-- <BR>"Poems don't belong to those who write them; they belong to
those who need them" - from movie "Il Postino"<BR>Check out: <A
href="http://worldwidesocialist.net/blog/"
target=_blank>http://worldwidesocialist.net/blog/</A>
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