Every now and then I see a slogan that’s credited to Ben Cohen, of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream: “If it’s not fun, why do it?” It seems like the worst part of the sixties in seven words — the mindless hedonism and self-involvement that made the counter-culture such fertile terrain for commodification. We serious […]
Archive | July, 2005
The Labor Movement: It’s More than We Bargain for
The battle over labor’s future is heading toward a showdown at the AFL-CIO Convention, beginning Monday July 25th in Chicago. But the confrontation pitting a team of insurgent unions led by the Service Employees International Union against the AFL-CIO establishment is shaping up to be organizationally bloody, but spiritually bloodless. We’re fighting for the heart […]
Ring-Tone Revolution in the Philippines
“Hello, Garci. . . . Will I win by one million votes?” is ringing on cellphones throughout the Philippines. It is the taped voice of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo talking with commissioner of elections Virgilio Garcillano, nicknamed “Garci” in May 2004 before the election results were announced. Arroyo did, in fact, win by a million […]
Puppets on a String?
Freedom of the press, like freedom of speech, is sacred to most of us, limited as it is in a capitalist society in which the press is free only if you own one. Today, Judith Miller of the New York Times is considered a martyr for freedom of the press. The emblematic defense of reporters’ […]
The Red-Green Paint Comes Off
[John Mage’s Note: A version of the following article appeared in German in the weekly Freitag on July 8, 2005. On July 21, the German president agreed to the call for new elections in the fall. The latest polls indicate that support for the new Left Party continues to rise and is now at twelve […]
Border Vigilantes and Mass Migration
Vigilantism along the U.S.-Mexico border, which dates back to the U.S. conquest of Mexico, refuses to die. The latest vigilante group, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, claims 15,000 volunteers willing to patrol the border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. During April, the group staged a border watch in southern Arizona to stop illegal […]
“Guilty until Proven Innocent”: An Interview with Dr. Walter M. Brasch
Journalism professor, columnist and author Walt Brasch began writing his essential new book, America’s Unpatriotic Acts, shortly after Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act. “By exposure of what the federal government has done to our Constitutional rights during the past four years,” he explains, “I hope the people will fully understand that the claims by […]
Fugitive Offers Reward for Rumsfeld’s Capture
Speaking from Cuba, where she was granted asylum after escaping from a US prison in 1979, Assata Shakur, the alleged “Bandit Queen” of the now defunct Black Liberation Army, announced today that she would hand over one million “HANDS OFF ASSATA” t-shirts to the person or persons who successfully apprehend US Secretary of Defense Donald […]
Indocumentado/Undocumented
Solo, Frente a luces ajenas Oye otras voces calladas, distantes: Este puente te lleva al olvido, Te cambia de nombre. Ya nada será tuyo Escucha el sonido del tren que se aleja, El viento que roza la tarde. Ya nada será tuyo Y cuando vuelvas Traerás en las uñas, en el tacto, en tu aliento, […]
Let’s Put the Nature of Work on Labor’s Agenda: Part Two
In Part One, I argued that capitalism produces very few jobs that utilize fully our human capacities to conceptualize and perform work. Instead, most jobs are degraded and demand little of us. I noted that of the ten jobs projected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to show the greatest job growth between […]
U.S. Labor in Crisis: The Current Internal Debate and the Role of Democracy in Its Revitalization
[The following is a speech delivered by Jerry Tucker on March 12, 2005 at the conference on “Work and Social Movements in the United States” at University of Paris – Sorbonne (March 10-12, 2005). Tucker will report daily on the AFL-CIO 2005 convention in Chicago on July 25-28. — Ed.] There is today a rare […]
Taking Games Seriously
Why should self-identified progressives and activists care about videogames? After all, don’t we have more important things to do — like stopping the Terror War, organizing unions, and constructing Left parties? Aren’t videogames just a frivolous luxury of First World consumers? Not so. Adorno noted long ago that the line between progress and regress becomes […]
Be Utopian: Demand the Realistic
One of the bracing slogans to have emerged out of the May 1968 uprising in France was “Be Realistic: Demand the Impossible.” Thirty-six years later, I propose that we revive the slogan, but now in its mirror-image, i.e.: “Be Utopian: Demand the Realistic.” What’s my point? The fundamental principles animating the political left have always […]
Farewell to Booster Dreams: A Victory in New York
Across the US, urban industries provide key funds that local politicians use to get elected. In return, mayors typically organize their city governments to tax, to provide subsidies, to allocate city services, and to dispose of city-owned land for “economic development projects.” The chief beneficiaries of these projects are usually the leading local firms and […]
A Campaign to End AIDS Once and for All
Thursday May 5, 2005 — AIDS activists from around the country arrived in Washington to place 8,500 pairs of shoes before the White House. The shoes were meant to symbolize the 8,500 who die daily of AIDS worldwide. “We want the president to look out the window and see his inaction,” explained ACT UP veteran […]
Village of Euclid v. Amber Realty (1926)
Village of Euclid v. Amber Realty (1926). Case decided: November 22, 1926 by the United States Supreme Court 6-3 in favor of the palintiff The desire to cryogenically keep the community as it is at a point in time The popular panacea for preceived problems: Pass a law And so communities across the […]
Free Labor from the Empire: Breaking the NED-Solidarity Center Connection
In the increasing “heat” of labor reform issues — which is not always the same as “light” — it has been discouraging to see how little attention has been paid to labor’s foreign policy issues. This is, in my opinion, the 500-pound gorilla that no one wants to touch. Yet, I argue it is absolutely […]
“Pas de vacances pour les bourgeois!”
“Pas de vacances pour les bourgeois!” (no vacation for the bourgeois) was a favorite slogan at the Sorbonne during the May 1968 nationwide revolt in France. Not supported by any established political parties (including the CPF), the movement which originally started among students who took over the universities came to include workers who occupied factories […]
On the Uses of State Terrorism
State terrorism is the use of state violence against innocent civilians to create fear in pursuit of a political objective — an ugly side of imperialism. There are two varieties of state terrorism: overt and covert. The most obvious examples of overt state terrorism are the 1937 bombing of Guernica and the 1945 atomic […]
“Unity within Our Movement Has Never Been More Important”: Statement by AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff at the Illinois State AFL-CIO Central Labor Council Conference in Findlay, Ill. June 14, 2005
[Michael D. Yates’ Note: As readers of the June issue of Monthly Review magazine know, a fierce battle is raging inside organized labor in the United States. Several unions within the AFL-CIO (the national federation of unions) are threatening to secede from the Federation, their leaders arguing that Federation leaders and many member unions are […]
