A note from the translator: “This is a never before translated piece by Lopez Arango, one of the main theorists of the pre-1930 FORA, that goes against Malatesta’s ideas on the unions. The prose is filled with flourish and it not straight forward at all. I tried to take liberties to make it more readable in English… It has some really interesting elements in it: focus on the method of struggle, rejection of unions in post-rev society, rejection of anarcho-syndicalism as a concept, clarity of the dynamic of struggle between pre-revolutionary periods and ruptures, etc. The FORA was way ahead of their time.”

There comes a point where you either fight back or you make peace with being a slave. I can’t make peace with being a slave, so I have to fight back. I am sick of smirking tea party republicans, I am sick of bosses who treat free working people like servants; I am sick of being forced to pay more while people who are filthy rich pay little or nothing. I’m sick of war for profit and homeless shelters full of veterans. I’m sick of men and women working 40 hours a week and still having to endure the embarrassment of applying for food benefits to feed their families. I’m sick of a prison system that is used as a substitute for decent education and good jobs.

I don’t know how general strikes work, but I do know we need one. When the republican scum rammed through “Right to Freeload” in Michigan, the words were on the lips of many of the workers on the capitol lawn, as well as: “the leaders will never go for it”. But the leaders aren’t the ones who go on strike; WE are. Union, non-union, full-time, part-time, permanent, temporary, we are the working class. We are the people who do what needs to be done.

I know one person can’t “call” a general strike; but let’s strike anyway.

DEMANDS:

Nationwide Right-to Organize law with card-count recognition

Nationwide living wage law

30 hour work week with hourly rate adjustment (30 hours work for 40 hours pay)

Nationwide public works program aimed at young workers

Review of:

Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War of Independence, Alan Gilbert, 2012, University of Chicago Press

By Mike Kolhoff

The participation of African Americans in the War of Independence is widely known but only vaguely understood. Almost everyone knows that Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave and sailor, took an active part in the 1770 fight in Boston that became known as the Boston Massacre, reportedly being the first to fall to British gunfire.  In the sketchy picture of American history offered to most students in primary school the impression might be understandable that Attucks was indeed the ONLY Black man with a notable role in the war.

More interested students of history are aware of lord Dunsmore’s proclamations of 1774, which offered freedom for any slave of a rebel master who came to join the British (in Virginia only) and joined his army. But sadly, other than knowing that this occurred, most people have no knowledge of the results of this act and the dual nature of the American Revolution that it created.

While both the American colonials and the British offered freedom for blacks who joined their cause, it was only on a very limited basis that the Americans did so.  The states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania all mustered armed all-black bodies of troops. But these forces were very small in comparison to the black troops the British were able to field.

In the southern colonies the British were inundated with large numbers of insurrectionary ex-slaves who had freed themselves and come to join the Royal army. From the beginning of the war, largely due to Lord Dunsmore, the British forces in the south had no trouble assembling regiment-sized units of freedmen who were eager and highly motivated. Having run away from plantations with their entire families, the black forces were followed by large trains of women and children.

Racism and white supremacy infected the officer-class of the British no less than it did that of the Colonial forces, both north and south.  The reason for their offer of freedom was not based on any egalitarian ideals. The idea was to disrupt the plantation economy; in this it was very successful. Likewise more than a few plantation owners began to have serious misgivings about the slave-based economy they ran. Even slaves that didn’t run away began to act in their own interests, refusing to obey their masters and, in several cases, murdering brutal overseers and farming small plots for their own use. This was the most obvious and opportune time for the founding fathers to settle the matter of ending slavery. It is to their eternal discredit that they chose not to do it.

Even the author of the Declaration of Independence found himself at the mercy of his own logical incongruity. Many of Jefferson’s slaves packed up and left to join the British. In a letter written after the war he bemoaned that Cornwallis had burnt all of the crops and buildings on his plantation and “carried off also about 30 slaves…” His choice of words indicate that he could not bring himself to accept that his human property were so unhappy that they would leave on their own. In the same letter he guessed that as many as 30,000 slaves had joined the British in 1781 alone.

The strongest recommendation for this excellent work is the forgotten incidents, freedom fighters and martyrs it rescues from obscurity. From the moderately known, such as Colonel George Middleton, commander of the American Massachusetts Bucks, a black regiment led by a black officer, who also championed resistance to Yankee racism after the war; to such men as Murphy Steele who escaped slavery in North Carolina and joined the British Army as a scout, and to the very obscure, such as Captain March, Lieutenant Mingo, and Adjutant Garrick, black officers of a company of British dragoons, who fought for the freedom of their people on the side that seemed most likely to grant it.

It speaks to a need to revaluate and reframe the “American Revolution” as both a war against British colonialism and, simultaneously, a war for the emancipation of the large population of African men and women held in slavery throughout the colonies, and also as a war of the Native peoples to contain encroachment on their own lands. That the American rightwing has successfully framed the conflict as a war against “unfair taxation” indicates only the slobbering idiocy of our public discourse.

by Klas Batalo

Fighting for Ourselves: Anarcho-Syndicalism and the Class Struggle tries to move in the direction of providing a framework and questions that can help the contemporary class struggle anarchist movement move past its’ current impasses, and fight back against the austerity crisis, as well as take the initiative against state capitalism. It sets out to share strategy suggestions for our present conditions by the Solidarity Federation, SolFed for short, the UK section of the International Workers’ Association (IWA). Below will be some of my own comments on the text, with the hope of providing a comradely critique as well as general summary of what I feel is important to bring out in their arguments.

One of the first major frameworks they put forward is that unionism usually serves a mix of two particular functions, one associative, that is an association of workers to defend mutual and class interests, and another representative, that is to provide a vehicle for workers’ representation in the economic/social sphere, much like a typical political party would through parliament.

SolFed make the case that revolutionary anarchists should organize within the spirit of the first function as much as possible, and that is what separates anarcho-syndicalism from the other forms of prefixed unionism, trade unionism, craft unionism, industrial unionism, etc. Forms of unionism that they point out often have bad or other connotations within the workers’ movement. In an interesting self-contradiction they put forward that they prefer the term anarcho-syndicalism over plain “unionist” because it has nationalist connotations with the UK context, but throughout the small book they often refer to needing a revolutionary unionist approach, and that they are a revolutionary union initiative. They use this later term to denote that they are currently actively moving away from being just a political propaganda group towards being more of a revolutionary workers’ association or organization of struggle. Considering most of book makes excellent arguments against the need for the majority of what the mainstream workers’ movement as well as radical workers’ movement has known as parties or approaches to union struggle, I am left wondering why they chose such language, considering the connotations? Not to dwell too long on semantics though, I assume this is mostly because of the tradition they find themselves coming from, and it is the content more than the label that matters.

These preliminaries all said SolFed, lays out quite a compelling argument for the forms and content of a contemporary anarcho-syndicalist they and practice, as well as dispelling some of the more common myths. They make a substantial effort towards the explanation of a revolutionary alternative form of “unionism” that can be anti-capitalist and anti-state without neglecting to organize with all workers, and participate in the larger labor movement, while maintaining a political as well as economic core set of ideas and methods.

The first chapter delves into the mainstream workers’ movement and SolFed’s argument against the separation of the political and economic hindering it. The traditional workers’ movement whether through trade unions, so called revolutionary workers or labor parties, most often made a distinction between the two, advocating for and thus creating representation within the economic sphere of the workplace, and leaving politics and concerns of the social sphere to politicians. The early unions went from being small organizations that would fight around class conflicts to a service oriented strategy that recruited more workers but neglected the daily class struggle and moved in the direction of representation between the workers themselves and capital (bosses’ management, state bureaucrats, etc). They argue this makes perfect sense in the absence of a revolutionary perspective, if you can’t imagine a world without capitalism, you can only argue for a better seat at the table within it. In this critique of the old workers’ movement they make many astute observations, especially that this applies not only within the space of the labor movement but also with the lack of an explicitly anti-parliamentary perspective. History has shown us a movement that instead of defending class interests bargained away our class’ demands to have social needs met, with the promise of labor peace for the capitalists, and mere recognition for our representatives efforts.

A few astute observations SolFed makes are that often workers’ join such organizations or become members of such parties exactly for such representation. They also argue convincingly that even if we as revolutionaries find ourselves as we often do in the position to become such representatives ourselves we should be careful to avoid the many pitfalls of such an approach. Becoming stewards or small rep/delegate positions within the unions often gives us more room to organize, but we also need to have a clear anarchist strategy for workers’ self-organization, using the unions more like a host body to launch initiatives in the actual interest of the workers. They also point out that most unions today are not even that much of a “massive” movement rooted directly in workplaces. Local branch meetings often consist of a minority of workers, staff, and deal with internal union business not applicable to the shop floor. Often if there even are regular meetings they are filled with members who don’t even know each other, and are instead of being democratic are lectured to on the next activist endeavor cooked up by union officials or leftists. In this they argue that in reality most union activity contrary to popular belief exists outside of workplace related situations.

Their critique of revolutionary workers’ parties is also quite interesting and hopefully informative for anyone who has ever had to debate a Leninist on the nature of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Often later day Leninists argue that Lenin’s State and Revolution shows that Marx and Marxists argue for smashing the bourgeois state and for forming in its’ place via the workers’ councils some form of semi- or non-state. The anarchist and SolFed’s argument against this is that Lenin and Marxists just shift the plane of politics from a bourgeois parliament to trying to forge the direct expression of the workers in their workplace committees and city wide community councils to becoming sort of constituent assemblies as a workers’ government, political competition and all, instead of the direct self-management of a libertarian and free communist society. This completely strips the concept of workers’ councils from their revolutionary political-economic content, and instead proposes them as an alternative forum that mirrors bourgeois politics. The argument can be made that this is just a bunch of complaining and that regardless of our visions or road maps different parties and interest groups will vie for power anyways, but the main issue at stake is we need a stronger culture of solidarity, direct action, and culture that can counter such efforts away from workers’ self-management and the social transformation towards a freely communist society.

The second chapter delves into more radical currents in the workers’ movement, mainly anarchism, syndicalism, and council communism. In its section on anarchism it overviews two various traditions of dual organizational anarchism, the arguments for specific political organization by synthesist Malatesta against Monatte, and the similar arguments for a more united revolutionary organization by the Platformists. Instead of making much of a critique of the need for united revolutionary organizations, SolFed argues against the strategies argued for by both these camps. The main of their argument throughout the book is aimed at Malatesta’s separation of the political and the economic. In his famous debate with revolutionary syndicalist Monatte, Malatesta argued for the need not only for a revolutionary and apolitical syndicalism, but also for a specifically anarchist political organization. Their main difference is not their desire for apolitical revolutionary syndicalism regrouping most workers, but in exactly the need for separate political organization. On a contrary basis the Platformists SolFed argue, worked closer towards an anarcho-syndicalist method of trying to “anarchize” the unions instead of just leaving them to apoliticism or reformism. Instead of like many anarchists they do not condemn the Platformists as “anarcho-Bolsheviks” which they feel is unfair, but that such a strategy is inadequate for the current day situation. SolFed argue our efforts would be better spent organizing direct struggle via a dual unionist approach within the unions when we find ourselves there using anarcho-syndicalist methods of self-organization or possibly forging revolutionary breakaways, instead of reforming the existing unions for anarchism, an approach similar to “boring from within” which they reject as extremely unrealistic.

Their critique above also contributing implicitly to their critique of traditional apolitical revolutionary unionism, with a few exceptions of great tactical/strategic leaps made by the IWW’s historical forms of minority unionism, left me most interested in SolFed’s critique of council communism. They argue that it is not the advocating of the council form which makes the council communists unique among Marxists but their anti-parliamentary and at most extreme anti-party perspective. For the council communists the main question relevant to the needed development of Marxist theory is who should operate the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the revolutionary party or the united strength of the working class in their councils. SolFed give a short overview of the history of the council communist current within the communist left that would be very instructive for anyone unfamiliar with it. They point out that the KAPD the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany was a distinctly anti-parliamentary party and that it saw itself as the political arm to the AAUD, General Workers Union of Germany which it was members of. The AAUD itself was founded mainly in inspiration from the heavily Marxist influenced revolutionary syndicalism of the IWW. SolFed’s main critique of this pairing is similar to their one of Malatesta’s separation of the political and economic.

Instead SolFed have more praise for the AAUD-E (General Workers Union of Germany – Unitary [Organization]) of Otto Rühle and co. This comrade was expelled from the KAPD and separated from the main AAUD, and moved the closest in the direction of anarcho-syndicalism, rejecting the need for a separation between “party” and “union” forms. SolFed’s critique of the AAUD-E and council communism in general amounts to their rejection of everyday struggles, though within acknowledging that they were involved in a revolutionary situation where continuing reform struggles would have been counter revolutionary. It is debatable in my perspective if such organizations would have moved back to traditional Marxist formations, i.e. separation between political and economic or necessarily reject day to day struggles, most later day council communist offshoots like the KAUD, Communist Workers’ Union of Germany didn’t (and were a political-economic minority organization), or like the GIKH, Group of International Communists of Holland were too small to tell, with a variety of activity split between action and discussion groups. The rest of their critique of the council communists revolves around latent spontaneity from an overly determinist analysis of capitalist crisis/decline, and a rejection of a tendency towards workerism that I feel is warranted considering their inspiration from the IWW, though SolFed goes on to describe some of the efforts by the IWW towards an early anti-racist praxis, it is unclear if struggles outside the workplace were tackled by council communists, and Otto Rühle is quoted as saying outside the factory the proletarian is bourgeois.

The third chapter delves deep into the differences of context and organization mostly within the classical anarcho-syndicalist movement. In the introduction to this section I feel they overstate their emphasis on anarcho-syndicalism having “always rejected the division of the worker’s movement into economic and political wings, and rejected representation in favor of associations of direct action.” Their following accounts, especially in the case of the historical CNT reject this assertion, and clearly show how there were often reformist and revolutionary currents within these organizations, not that later day organizations and these contradictions did not pan out in splits, or unfortunately in some cases disaster. SolFed mainly analyzes the FORA of Argentina, the FAUD of Germany, and the historical fiasco within the CNT.

The FORA of Argentina probably came the closest to the council communists and is often contrasted with the CNT. They advocated a more ideological unionism based on regional federal organization over geographic territories uniting all workers, compared to a more traditional industrial organizational form. They took on a more specifically anarchist communist politics probably because most of their members were immigrants with no voting rights, and were thus more clear about the need for an anti-state struggle. Argentina was also late to industrialization and so many of the FORA’s members including main theorists were in favor of a more small scale agrarian and ecological free communism. It was also more concerned with political agitation for a direct struggle compared to building the new world within the shell of the old within themselves as the vehicle for struggle, instead seeing themselves more as a catalyst of struggle. In this approach I think SolFed takes liberally. They were self-styled as an “anarchist organization of workers” and did not concern themselves only with economic issues, but also ones of a pressing social or political nature. This strategy was impressively successful in securing the 6 hour work day in the 1920s. Eventually much like the CNT though there did end up being a reformist current within the organization, so it split in two with the original but smaller organization joining the IWA. Their main contribution to this day is organizing in a way to destroy capitalism and the state instead of imitating it.

The case of the FAUD of Germany was interesting mostly for its contribution towards organizing a day to day culture of solidarity, direct action, and resistance. It faced many of the same problems as their council communist cousins in Germany, and anarcho-syndicalists in Russia, in having to compete with opportunist social democrats and Bolsheviks within the councils who wanted to turn them not into bodies for self-management but for a new “worker’s state.” Unfortunately unlike their counterparts in the FORA they could have benefited from a propagandizing a more clear anti-parliamentary perspective. The major lesson drawn by SolFed is that preparation was one of their key assets making them one of the largest revolutionary organizations after the immediate revolution in Germany in 1918-1919, but that they might have been even more successful if they had a clearer critique of the pitfalls of the council form.

Most devastating is SolFed’s critique of the historical CNT. When given the opportunity to create a dual power situation, they abstained out of the fear of being substitutionist of creating an “anarchist dictatorship.” Even though in the workplaces and communities they had already been working in alliance with the UGT socialist forces, they had ruled out using a council system after watching the experience in of the Bolsheviks using it to their advantage in Russia. Instead they prepared much like the FAUD for building a culture that could replace the new world internally. In this they took on the desire to be the vehicle of struggle like many other forms of apolitical syndicalism, and thus feared that since most of the workers’ had still not yet joined the CNT, they would replicate the same problems they had seen with the Communist Party in Russia. As SolFed details they failed to be anarchist enough and smash the state when they had the chance because of these fears. In this way “building the new world in the shell of the old” was adapted more as “build the new world in the old.” If they had only came to similar conclusions as the FORA they may have seen their chance and take it. This is all the more unfortunate since rank and file groups within CNT, as seen by the FAI and the Friends of Durruti were proposing just such a dual power strategy of uniting with other forces like the UGT in the cities, as well as a revolutionary junta, and agrarian communes.

This failure to smash the state and fill the power gap was not their only problem though. SolFed goes on to suggest that it was structural in that the CNT was conflicted and both adopted an apolitical traditional syndicalist approach to recruitment simultaneously with a libertarian communist program, leaving space for a separation between the political and economic, reformist and revolutionary forces both competing for leadership of the union. Overall this critique strikes me as more damning of apolitical unionism than one of dual organizationalism of the FAI or Friends of Durruti. Structurally it was the choice to be open to all workers that befell the CNT the most it seems, whereas the FAI and Friends of Durruti might have been strategically misguided or blind in their argument to anarchize and for a dual power strategy respectively regardless of how seemingly right that may have been on the surface. It left me wondering if SolFed would propose in such situations instead to split off and form more specifically revolutionary political-economic organization. Regarding smashing of the State, SolFed argue they should have without fear having been an organization that was leap years beyond the Russian Communist Party in how it was controlled from the assemblies at its base, and not all struggle needs to be contained within one organization, revolutionary pluralism can be a good thing. In total, SolFed argue that the CNT both tried to be “neutral syndicalist” as well as “revolutionary anarchist” without being enough of an anarchist or syndicalist synthesis.

The fourth chapter of the Fighting for Ourselves mostly goes into a contemporary analysis of post-WW2 movements and the neo-liberal counter revolution. As much as its analysis is dead on, there isn’t much new here in my perspective that couldn’t be read elsewhere. It delves into current class composition, casualization, offshoring, etc. The fifth chapter is where we really get into the nitty gritty of what SolFed proposes as a way forward for the 21st century. They borrow from Marcel van der Linden’s analysis of an ideological, organizational, and shop floor (I prefer community, social, or popular) levels that are all key requirements for a balanced revolutionary organization and perspective. On the shop floor or social level we must realize that struggles even around seemingly bread and butter issues are also political issues, exploitation and oppression overlap and are integrated into each other. That anti-racism and anti-sexism, etc., often intertwine with struggles around workplace or neighborhood issues. This is a pretty core anarchist observation. At the organizational level we should be prefigurative and follow principles of voluntary association over representation. At the ideological level an opposition to integration into the state, the management of capitalism, and being working towards communism.

Organizationally from the previous chapters we see that SolFed has learned from the more historical CNT that if we are facing a situation of a plural unionism we need to find a way to organize with others without dividing along union lines. They point to the struggles of the later day CNT in the shipyards of Puerto Real, where they actively pushed for mass assemblies of all workers to be the vehicle of struggle, and carried the struggle beyond that point even when that assembly movement died down. They point out such bodies have the same weakness as worker councils, but that is a weakness of being participatory, and if the workers do not want to use revolutionary methods little will do to convince them otherwise, but hopefully through struggle participants can be convinced of such a need. Overall they propose that the “revolutionary union seeks to organize class conflicts using direct action, in such a way as to prepare workers for revolutionary social change by experiencing self-organized struggles, practical solidarity and taste of victories won by our own efforts.”

By taking this more ideological approach SolFed do not propose abstention from participating like dual organizationalists advocate in other unions or movements but that anarchists participate in them on a principled class basis. Anarchists might respect a trade unions’ picket line, even though such a union might not respect theirs, however direct appeals can be made to workers. However SolFed assert that if we leave it to reformists to take the initiative they will organize in a reformist and disempowering way, leaving us tailing them, by abstaining from taking action ourselves. Regardless as mentioned earlier such organizations are rarely “massive” and often their daily activity is taken on by a minority of officials or in the case of many community struggles the staff of NGOs. Overall the more organization we have the more organized we will be when bigger ruptures happen but also recede. Past these suggestions SolFed largely proposes an organizing program similar to that developed in the discussion paper circulating around the current day IWW, called Direct Unionism, in fact a SolFed member who is from North America helped write it, so it is no surprise. Mostly it is a strategy of direct action, self-organization, building a culture of resistance via struggle committees, and mass assemblies that are cross sector and union affiliation when possible. Taking on small fights and larger collective ones when possible, not being afraid of being a minority but aspiring to be much more. In general, Fighting for Ourselves makes a convincing case for a reapplication of anarchist and syndicalist core values, enhanced with a review of past mistakes. Hopefully class struggle militants will continue to debate this important book.

Recent changes to financial aid regulations have reduced access to post-secondary education for the poorest Americans, seeming to indicate a hardening of the lines of social class. The most significant change in the 2012-2013 aid year has been the denial of any federal aid for those without a high school diploma. This changes a policy that allowed non-high school grads to take a test called the “ability to benefit” test. If the student was able to demonstrate ability to do college level coursework, they were eligible to apply for financial aid. The new regulation means that people who, for whatever reason, were unable to complete high school are now unable to apply for all types of federal financial aid. This change disproportionately affects students from low-income backgrounds, who often face economic necessities that force them out of high school and into the low-wage workforce. As of 2012-2013, they are no longer able to get assistance to even attend community colleges to better their lives.

The “lifetime limits” for receiving Pell Grants also went into effect for the 2012-2013 school year. This restricts the amount of grant assistance a student can receive to the equivalent of six years of full-time study. After the student meets these limits they are limited to getting student loans. On the surface this seems reasonable (six years seems like a long time), but it fails to account for the situation that has faced several million workers over the last decades, where technology changes have dramatically changed the way previously low-tech jobs are done. The Department of Labor has estimated that the average American will have 3-5 career changes in their lifetime. Access to the Pell Grant, a program that specifically assists low-income students, has allowed millions to re-skill for job changes forced on them by the tumult of the capitalist job market.

The income limit for Pell eligibility was also reduced for 2012-2013. The income amount for an automatic zero EFC (full Pell eligibility) was reduced from $30,000 to $23,000 for a family of three with one in college, a 76% income reduction!

All of these changes are aimed specifically at low-income workers and their families, and all were changes made by the Department of Education under the Obama administration. They indicate an intentional, bi-partisan program to restrict social status change and harden class lines by limiting upward mobility through education, while at the same time doing nothing to address the issue of downward mobility that has accelerated since the 1980s. Social mobility in the United States will now have only one direction: down.

Two-year schools across the country are already showing a dramatic drop in enrollment, with the biggest drops being in the poorest areas: community colleges in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi reported double-digit declines among their poorest students (http://diverseeducation.com/article/50618/# and http://www.nasfaa.org/Main/fa-news/State/Pell_Grant_Changes_Limit_Access_For_Some.aspx).

The class war is fully underway and is being reflected in access to higher education for the working class.

Mike Kolhoff

Financial Aid Worker

Workers Solidarity Alliance

2013 International Women’s Day Statement

On March 8, 1908, thousands of women left their jobs in the sweatshops of New York City’s Lower East Side and took to the streets to demand their rights as women and as workers. In 1917, their sisters in Russia followed suit, and helped to bring about the revolution that overthrew the Tsarist autocracy. And in Spain in 1936, the anarchist women of Mujeres Libres helped to free their sisters from centuries of oppression.

In more recent times, women have played key roles in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960′s and early 1970′s. In the 1990′s and into the 21st century, women workers are still in the forefront of the continued struggle against sweatshop conditions in many industries and services, the world over. This vibrant movement has already won important victories, both against the institutions of power in our society as well as against the more subtle systems of oppression that pervade the personal relationships of women. Gender liberation is inseparable from class struggle.

The Workers Solidarity Alliance honors these women, as well as the countless others in every corner of the world, who, generation after generation, rise up against inequality, oppression, and domination.

We salute their struggles and the sacrifices they’ve made.

Still, the dream of freedom, equality, and peace for all people is far from reality. Every day, women continue to confront sexism in their personal relationships as well as sexual harassment and violence on the job, in the streets, at home, and in the movement. Millions of women workers are still ruthlessly exploited. The right-wing and religious fanatics threaten women’s most basic right to control our own bodies.

The roots of sexism and all oppressive relationships are intertwined deep within the systems of hierarchy, authority, and militarism that dominate society. These principles are the basis for every modern state and established socio-economic power. We know that this is not simply “the way it is.” There are other, better possibilities for a more livable world. Faced with overwhelming webs of oppression and subjugation, we must fight back and take control of our own lives. We can begin by organizing within our communities, our schools, and our workplaces.

We strive for a society in which one person or group of people do not dominate or exploit another. In such a society there would be no basis for sexual oppression, domination, or class exploitation. We must work to replace the institutions of power, the nation-state, and capitalism with a worldwide system of grassroots empowerment and self-management of all facets of social and economic life. See the dreams of these women workers fulfilled; join us in a movement with an extraordinary history and an inspiring future.

Help us build this new world based on freedom and libertarian socialism.

Workers Solidarity Alliance

wsa.corresponding.secretary[at]gmail[dot]com

Related Links:

http://workersolidarity.org/

http://ideasandaction.info

The conservative polling firm Rasmussen recently conducted a poll of American judgments of economic fairness. Promisingly, a slim majority (49%) believe the nation’s economy is unfair. Though it goes little acknowledged, this is a damning indictment of our national economic system. The popular verdict is failure.

It is interesting to note that this figure climbs to 56% when referring specifically to whether the economy is fair to “middle class Americans” – yet this figure drops to a minority (46%) view when referencing “lower income Americans.” This is an indication of where elite propaganda has succeeded. Namely, in driving a wedge between the amorphously defined “middle class” us, and whatever portrait is conjured up of the “lower income” poor.

Most everyone is invited to identify with the ‘middle class’ label, while scorning Reagan’s welfare queens. The ruse often works, not only because the mass media are exclusively owned and operated by the business elite (public broadcasting is a variation though it too generally remains ideologically safe), but also because the U.S. is today sharply segregated along numerous demographic lines, and more generally is simply atomized.

The social isolation chronicled in Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone that has emerged in the last four decades leaves individuals disconnected and unorganized. Corporate media are not only the primary source of news and analysis but are also able to transmit their preferred messaging unfiltered and unchallenged by social organizations that once characterized American life. If one is not meeting people in social contexts, only the stereotypes in media will inform understanding of the world.

The simple fact of being a member of a labor union, for instance, correlates with political views that deviate more from orthodoxy. However, union memberships are of course at a nadir.

Social atomization is a logical consequence of Eisenhower’s suburbanization of the country and is perhaps not entirely unrelated to the provincialism sometimes lamented by 19^th century observers like Marx of those living outside urban areas. In some respects the picture may be worse today. Modern life permits (and perhaps encourages) far less interpersonal interaction than could have been contemplated previously. Even social media, which facilitate a form of social connection, can also enhance feelings of isolation. The primary identities celebrated for people to inhabit in wider society are that of consumer and occasional voter.

Polls such as this one suggest that there is fertile ground for organizing resistance – witness Occupy after all – if greater social connectivity in communities can be established.

Please donate here: https://www.wepay.com/donations/979829063

When we arrived at the Civic Auditorium in Pasadena on the night of the 14th, we came expecting nothing more than to get together with a small group of activists to pass out some fliers and screen a documentary about the Zapatista struggle. The police came with a different plan in mind. By the time we had arrived downtown, the Los Angeles Police Department had already put the Pasadena Police Department’s Counter Terrorism Unit that dangerous protesters were on their way to cause trouble. The Pasadena police were primed for a confrontation. We were primed to watch a movie.

Before anyone had passed out a single flier or shouted a single chant, the police had already ejected the first handful of protesters to show up from the public sidewalk in front of the Civic Auditorium. With a last-minute permit from the Auditorium backing them up, they claimed that only ticketed guests could be on the sidewalk. What this meant in practice was that anyone could do anything they pleased on the sidewalk as long as the police didn’t think that they were part of the protesters. Anyone who the police identified as being with the protesters would be threatened with arrest if they approached to close to the auditorium, while those who looked like they belonged in the Pasadena’s wealthy and white downtown (including those who actually were protesters) went unquestioned.

Soon after Fox’s speech began the police made their first arrest. While stopping a group of protesters who were trying to walk back to the designated protest area on the opposite side of the street, the police waved through the one of them who was white and wearing a dress and shawl. Soon realizing their mistake, she was handcuffed and arrested. Sergeant Bobby Crees then began following one comrade who was trying to return to the main group after their attempt to reach the crosswalk was blocked. Supposedly with the intent to ticket him for jaywalking, the cop, along with backup, followed him straight into the small and quiet crowd of protesters, where they began hitting and punching protesters indiscriminately. Soon four more protesters were arrested, while others were bruised and bleeding, and children were crying. A sixth comrade was targeted for arrest later that night while sitting at a bus stop.

After being held in jail for two days, Alex’s bail was set for $100,000. Largely on the basis of a vandalism conviction for taking down a paper ‘no overnight camping’ sign at Occupy Long Beach the previous year, for which he had failed to return to report his community service hours for. He was also deemed to be too high of a risk to let out of jail because he has given up having a job and stable home in favor of being a committed foreclosure defence organizer, camping out day and night at the Hernandez family’s home in Van Nuys to prevent the bank and sheriffs from evicting them. His ‘history of attending protest events’ was also cited as a reason to give him such high bail.

Alex is an extremely dedicated revolutionary. He is committed to the ideals of Zapatismo and to the struggle for Chicano liberation. He has an incredibly strong will and spirit, and has greeted us with a raised fist every time we have seen him in court. But there is only so long that most people can go in prison before being beaten down. It is important for all of us – for Alex’s friends, family and comrades; for himself; and for the movement – that he be released as soon as possible. Please help us get together the $3,000 we need to put Alex back where he belongs – in the struggle, side by side with us.

Meanwhile, the other five arrestees who are outside of jail are all in the process of fighting the charges against the Foxy 6, which variously include felony resisting arrest and assault on a police officer charges, as well as inciting a riot and unlawfully being in a permitted area. We will be providing updates on this case as it progresses and we prepare a public campaign around it.

Could you just say something about your immediate reaction as you learnedly about Savita’s death?

We first heard the rumors that a woman had died a few days before the story broke. We hoped it was a hoax, but we knew that it could also be true. It was only a matter of time before a woman died as a result of our prohibition on abortion. Over the days it became more likely that the story was true and we were subdued. For me, it hit home when I saw Savita’s picture on the front page of a national newspaper. This was a woman with a husband, family and friends who loved her and were now grieving. This was a woman who was looking forward to a future, to becoming a mother. I can’t even begin to imagine the grief her husband must feel. The story made me feel deeply sad, despairing and ashamed of my country.

What are the feelings in Ireland at the moment, has there been a lot of attention around this, and how are people reacting?

People are shocked, horrified. From midnight, when the story broke, Twitter and Facebook has been full of condemnation. Comments include, ‘unbelievable’ ‘appalling’ ‘deeply saddened- otherwise speechless’, ‘sadly it was only a matter of time’ ‘outraged’ ‘never again’. Many changed their profile picture to Savita’s and started circulating information about demonstrations in different cities around Ireland. It was front page on all the papers and covered in all the radio broadcasts.

20 years have passed since the X-case, yet no law has come into effect. Did you fear something like this could happen? Can it happen again?

Yes, we did fear something like this would happen. There have been previous cases in which pregnant women with cancer have been denied abortion. One died (Shelia Hodgers in 1983) and many have to travel abroad (one took a case against the government to the European Court of Human Rights). The Irish state forces women to travel to another country for abortions—but undocumented migrants can’t leave the country. I always feared that this would result in a back-street abortion death. So yes, it was always likely that something like this would happen. And if the law isn’t changed, it could happen again.

You took part in the organization of the marches during the X-case. Can you say something how the Irish abortion debate has changed in these 20 years?

Then the majority of Irish people did not support abortion at all. Now 80% support abortion when the life of the mother is at risk (Sunday Times Poll, Sept 2012), and a poll in 2004 suggested that 51 % of 18-45 years olds supported women’s right to choose. Support for abortion has grown. Then, the debate was relatively limited— should an under-age rape victim be allowed to get an abortion in another country. Now there are much more voices calling for free, safe abortion on demand. A right to choose a position is much more mainstream.

In an article with the WSM you tell of how the abortion debate has affected you personally over the years. Could you say something what it was like to be a young girl during the first referendum in the early 1980s, and a young woman during the X-case?

I was a teenage girl at a particularly bleak time for Irish women. The pro-life amendment was passed. Shelia Hodgers died without being treated for cancer because she was pregnant. Another woman was fired from her job as a school secretary because she was pregnant and unmarried. Finally there was a very widely publicized case in which a woman was accused of murdering her children which had a very anti-woman undercurrent (this was known as the Kerry Babies case). Luckily my mother had a couple of US feminist books in the house. So while I was going to a catholic school, I was also getting another viewpoint at home. I was a student in university when the x-case happened (see below for explanation). I remember reading about it in the newspaper and feeling very, very depressed. I thought, ‘one more thing, I hate this country, how can we treat people like this, nothing is going to change’. But I was wrong, the x-case did change things. It was as if people suddenly realized that X was a person, that she was a daughter, a sister. I remember sitting beside a middle age man at work, talking about the case (which itself is remarkable, because abortion is a taboo subject in Ireland. You would never ask someone what their opinions were). This man said to me ‘I don’t like abortion, but if that was my daughter …” The X-case led to an outpouring of protest. And in the twenty years since then, more and more people support abortion. But for so long we have been banging against a brick wall. The politicians are far behind the rest of the country. They have refused to do anything.

On Saturday there will be a demo in Dublin. Do you know if more are organized around Ireland, and what do you hope the demo will achieve? Is there a sense that many will show up?

There was a demo today in Dublin, the same day that the story broke. Two to three thousand people turned up on this short notice. There were also demonstrations in other towns. I expect the march on Saturday will be huge. Tonight people were mourning. The atmosphere was one of quiet anger. I think over the next few days this anger will grow—and will continue to grow if action isn’t taken. I think many people feel we owe it to Savita and the bravery of her husband in making this story public, and to similar women in the future, to ensure this will never happen again.

An expert group was supposed to report to the government on recommendations regarding abortion during the autumn, has this happened and what has the government done in relation to this report? What should the government do?

I think the expert group is a joke. I know that an abortion law was drawn up over 15 years ago. A law was proposed in the Dail in April and rejected by all the leading parties. It is absurd to say that the politicians need more expert advice. In fact all the various political parties have done in the last twenty years has been to commission a report. This group was supposed to be issuing is report in June, then it was to be September. Then, last night, the day Savita’s story broke, it finally reported to government. This says to me that the group has little to do with expertise and a lot to do with political avoidance and cowardice. I believe the government should produce a law which allows women access to abortions. Full stop. The x-case judgment, which the expert group is supposed to be investigating, was that abortion should be allowed where there is a ‘treat to the life of the mother, including the threat of suicide’. That is not enough, not anymore, I don’t think the people will be satisfied with that. Now we demand much wider access to abortion.

x-case:
X was a 14 year old girl, who following rape, attempted to go to England with her parents for an abortion. The state put an injunction to prevent her traveling. This caused a huge outcry. Rolling and escalating protests resulted in a court judgment which allowed for abortion in Ireland where there is a threat to the life of the mother, including a threat of suicide. That judgment has never been enacted in law, leaving Irish women in a legal limbo.

A history of the struggle unto 2007