[Marxism] AGITPROP NEWS: 12.9.8

[Mike Alewitz]

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LaBOR aRT & MuRAL PRoJECT
AGITPROP NEWS: 12.9.8




In this issue: 

1. New Deal, New New Deal, Raw Deal, No Deal
2. UE Remembers UAW History
3. Solidarity & 'Bail Out the Rest of Us!'
4. Moments of a Great Social Revolution
5. Chinese Socialism
6. Thinning the Herd






_______________________________





1. New Deal, New New Deal, Raw Deal, No Deal




(The following is an edited version of a speech given to the December 7,
2008, 
New England Anti-War Rally, Hartford, CT, by Mike Alewitz, Labor Art & Mural
Project)


- - - - -


Today marks the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December
7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  One day later, on December 8,
1941, the US declared war against Japan and officially entered World War II.
 
One day later, on December 9, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt sent US
army troops against striking autoworkers in Inglewood, CA.  Three thousand
soldiers, with fixed bayonets, cleared a 1-mile radius around the factory of
North American Aviation Co., a subsidiary of General Motors.

The first official use of the army in World War II was directed against US
autoworkers.
 
Roosevelt was the worst strikebreaking president in US history. Throughout
the 1930s, hundreds of striking workers were killed, thousands wounded and
tens of thousands thrown into jail.   In 1934, Roosevelt¹s first full year
in office, 52 strikers were murdered ­ one every week.
 
Despite the hoopla about New Deal public works programs, the number of
jobless Americans never fell below 8 million. The Civil Works Administration
lasted three months. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration lasted less
than a year providing starvation wages to 2 million people. Even within
these programs, workers were subject to draconian measures. In the spring of
1939, when conditions got so bad in the WPA that workers went on strike,
Roosevelt immediately fired all 1.5 million of them!

Roosevelt supported the most brutal dictators in the world, including
Batista in Cuba and Anastasia Somoza in Nicaragua. During World War II he
ordered the internment of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans into concentration
camps. His policies, including the refusal to allow Jewish refugees to enter
the United States, lent tacit support to the persecution of European Jews.
He refused to act against the widespread lynching of African-Americans
throughout the South. He helped lay the foundation for the carnage of World
War II that placed 100 million workers under arms and slaughtered over 70
million innocent human beings.
 
Why am raising all this? Because today, as we stand on the verge a new
depression, a lot of well-meaning people are waiting for Barak Obama to take
office and are hoping for a new, New Deal. Unfortunately, their wish may
very well come true.
 
No fundamental change is going to come from Washington DC. Now, as then, the
bloody wheels of the war machine grind on, regardless of who is in the white
house or what their happy slogans and jingles might be.  Take a look at the
new faces - same as the old faces.
 
Where are the voices of outrage about the billions of dollars being given to
the auto executives, as a reward for laying off thousands of workers and
cutting the retiree benefits of those who spent a lifetime of back-breaking
work on assembly lines?  Where are the voices demanding, bring the troops
home now, so that we can provide health care and education for those who
need it?
 
Where? Only here. Take a look around you ­ no one else is going to end the
war but us. 
 
The creation of industrial unions during the 1930s and 40s came about
because millions of workers self-organized militant sit-down strikes and
actions against the employers and against the government.
 
When you step onto the street today, you are joining those millions. You
cease to be someone passively consuming the lies and you become someone that
is making history.  Each and every one of you is an important part of that
process. It doesn¹t matter whether you are here representing a big
organization or participating in your first demonstration - in the streets
we all become something much more powerful than individuals alone.
 
You may wonder why those of my, or older generations continue to vote for
McGovern, for McCarthy, for Johnson, for Clinton and every other Democrat
who has continued to destroy their hopes for peace. You may wonder how they
can do this time after time. It is because, to do anything else is to
challenge much of what they have spent their whole life believing and
defending. To reject that policy, to say and understand that it is all a
lie, is to risk everything. It is to admit that we need to make
revolutionary change in this country.
 
And we do ­ because if we don¹t, we will not survive. But revolution and
fundamental change comes from those who have little to lose and everything
to gain. It comes from immigrant workers; it comes from the young and those
who reject the idea that change is going to come by strolling into a ballot
box or writing a check.
 
We don¹t need a new New Deal, an old deal, a square deal or any deal.  We
need to quit making deals. We need to quit swallowing concession contracts ­
concession contracts have never saved one single job.  We need to follow the
example of the 200 workers who, at this moment, are occupying the Republic
Window and Door Company of Chicago after being fired from their jobs. That¹s
our real history and tradition!
 
That¹s the tradition of the active-duty GIs who organized and fought to
bring an end to the war in Vietnam. It is the tradition of millions who went
into the streets and defeated legal segregation during the civil rights
movement. The eight hour day, the right to have a union, the right to vote,
the right to stand on a street like this to speak out, the right of women to
control their own bodies, the right of people to express their own
sexuality, all of these have advanced when we take action in the streets.
 
We need to take power out of the hands of a ruling class so blinded by greed
that they will destroy the planet. We need to place power into the hands of
working people and put human needs before profits.

Right now, we need to stay in the streets demanding that they take every
boat and every plane and go to Iraq and Afghanistan and bring the troops
home just as fast as they put them there. We need to keep marching until we
win. And that¹s what we are going to do.
 
 
-MA




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2. UE Remembers UAW History




Workers win a big round in Chicago factory sit-in

CHICAGO ­ The creditor of a Chicago plant where laid-off employees are
conducting a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend
limited loans to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, but the
workers declared their protest unfinished.

The Republic Windows and Doors factory closed last week after Bank of
America canceled its financing. About 200 laid-off workers responded by
staging a sit-in at the plant, vowing to stay until getting assurances they
would receive severance and accrued vacation pay.

Their action garnered national attention, seen by some as a symbol of
defiance for workers laid off nationwide.

A resolution appeared closer when the bank announced that it had sent a
letter to Republic offering to "provide a limited amount of additional
loans" to resolve the employee claims.

The bank appeared to side at least in part with disgruntled workers,
expressing concern in a statement Tuesday "about Republic's failure to pay
their employees the Employee Claims to which they are legally entitled."

Bank of America has been criticized for cutting off the plant's credit after
taking federal bailout money itself.

Leah Fried, a spokeswoman for the union representing the workers, said
Tuesday that it was too soon to know whether the sit-in will be called off.
She said that workers would have to vote to end the action but that
negotiations among the bank, the company and union representative continued.

Workers, who received just three days' notice before the plant shut down on
Friday, argue that the company violated federal law because employees were
not given 60 days' notice that they were losing their jobs.

The company did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday.

 - Associated Press


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3. Solidarity & 'Bail Out the Rest of Us!'




Solidarity & 'Bail Out the Rest of Us!'
 - United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)

Around the country, demonstrations are rapidly being organized to show
solidarity with the UE members sitting in at Republic Windows and Doors.
People also want to express outrage at Bank of America¹s role in forcing the
plant to close and demand that the U.S. government stop aiding the rich
bankers who caused this economic crisis and instead, start protecting jobs
and bailing out the rest of us.

Here are the actions we have been able to confirm. We believe there are
other actions going on as well, and urge you to let us know about them.

Chicago ­ Wednesday, Dec. 10, 12:00 noon ­ Bank of America Headquarters, 231
S. La Salle St.

New York ­ Wednesday, Dec. 10, 12:00 noon ­ Bank of America, 261 Broadway
Sponsored by: Bail Out the People Movement & the May 1st Coalition for
Worker and Immigrant Rights

Detroit ­ Wednesday, Dec, 10, 12:00 noon ­ Protest Rally at Bank of America,
Guardian Building, Congress at Griswold, downtown Detroit

Raleigh, NC ­ International Human Rights Day March from the Legislative
Building on Jones Street to Bank of America. Gather at 11:30 a.m.

Buffalo, NY ­ Wednesday, Dec, 10, 4:30 p.m. ­ Bank of America branch,
downtown
Sponsored by: WNY Peace Center, International Action Center, and the
Coalition for Economic Justice

New York ‹ 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. ­ Bank of America at SW corner of Union Square
(University Place just south of 14th St).
Sponsored by: Young Democratic Socialists and Jobs With Justice

Boston ­ Friday, December 12, 12:00 noon at  Bank of America regional
headquarters
Sponsored by UE Northeastern Region and Jobs with Justice, 100 Federal St.,
Boston. More info
Earlier:

San Francisco ­ Protest at Bank of America, Tuesday, December 9
Sponsored by A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO)
and Labor Council for Latin American Advancement

Charlotte, NC ­ Bank of America Headquarters, December 7
UE Local 150

Wilson, NC ­ Solidarity gathering for UE members at Republic Windows,
December 6



For more information, please go to ueunion.org


_______________________________




4. Moments of a Great Social Revolution




Havoc in cities across Greece as protesters talk of 'social revolution'


THOUSANDS of protesters rampaged through the heart of Athens yesterday,
burning and looting shops on a third day of riots sparked by the killing of
a teenager by police.

Tear gas filled Syntagma Square outside Greece's parliament as police
clashed with left-wing demonstrators, beating some with batons and detaining
others.

Anger over the 15-year-old boy's killing has turned to resentment over
economic hardships and could topple the unpopular conservative government.

"We are experiencing moments of a great social revolution," said Panagiotis
Sotiris, 38, an activist among those occupying a university building.

"The protests will last as long as necessary."

Protests were reported in more than ten cities across the nation of 11
million people, including the northern city of Thessaloniki, and on the
tourist islands of Crete and Corfu.

Youths appeared to be in control of central Athens, plundering and setting
fire to shops, destroying banks and attacking ministries. The city's huge
Christmas tree went up in flames.

"We are not counting any more. The incidents cannot be counted," a fire
brigade officer said last night.

Firefighters extinguished a fire at one department store but the
headquarters of Olympic Airways were still burning and all the city's fire
engines were on the streets, he said.

More than 130 shops have been destroyed in the capital, crushing retailers'
hopes that Christmas would compensate for Greece's darkening economic
outlook. Police have detained more than 35 people and more than 50 are
injured. 

With a 24-hour general strike due tomorrow, in protest against economic
reforms, analysts said Greece's worst riots in decades looked set to
continue and could threaten the government, which has a one-seat
parliamentary majority.


Published Date: 09 December 2008
By Daniel Flynn and Dina Kyriakidou



_______________________________



5. Chinese Socialism



1949: Only socialism can save China
1979: Only capitalism can save China
1989: Only China can save socialism
2009: Only China can save capitalism

-China Newsletter
No. 299 15 October 2008


_______________________________




6. Thinning the Herd




Selected 2008 Darwin Award Nominees:


A Screw Loose 

(14 April 2008, Texas) A contract worker was hired to install reinforcement
bars on a communications tower near Camp Bullis. He was wielding power tools
high above the ground, when two other workers saw him lean back and fall 225
feet to his death. Turns out, the man had loosened the bolts on the bar to
which he was attached.
Police are calling it a tragic accident.

- - - - - - - - -

Into the Abyss 

An enterprising lumberman had felled a large tree, and needed to haul it up
a steep embankment. So he jacked up the rear end of his pickup and swapped
one of the rear tires for a bare rim. He attached one end of a rope to the
rim, and the other end of the rope to the felled tree. He put the pickup
into gear, expecting the rim to act as a makeshift rope crank that would
pull the tree up the embankment, saving him lots of sweat.
A great idea? Not if you're reading it here! You see, the tree vastly
outweighed the truck. The man was standing with one foot on the ground and
the other foot on the accelerator. When he gunned the engine, the tree acted
like an anchor, and the truck yanked itself backwards. The open door rammed
into him, and he was swept over the embankment along with the pickup.

When the dust settled, our lumberman had entered the great beyond.

- - - - - - - -

Run! No, Run Away! 

(July 16, 2008, Italy) Ivece Plattner, 68, was queued at a traffic light in
his Porsche Cayenne sportscar. Before one reaches the light, there is a
railroad crossing. As you might imagine, given Murphy's law, a train was
coming.
The man did not let the queue progress forward far enough before he crossed
the railroad. The safety bars came down, leaving the Porsche trapped on the
rails. It took the driver awhile to realize he was stuck, according to
witnesses. Finally, he jumped from the car and started to run -- toward the
oncoming train, waving his arms in an attempt to save his car!

The attempt was successful. The car received less damage than its owner. He
was pushed hard enough to land 30 meters away, and attempts to revive him
were unsuccessful.

- - - - - - - -

Chemistry Went To Her Head

(2 February 2008, Bulgaria) It was a cold but sunny February afternoon.
Lidia, a biology teacher from Sofia, was driving two friends home from a
memorial service. Suddenly the vehicle stopped. Bystanders saw all three
occupants dash from the car to a nearby manhole, and start pouring down
liquids and powders from various bottles and jars.
Apparently, the biology teacher had been performing chemistry experiments in
her free time, and had some leftover noxious chemicals. It is still not
entirely clear what the chemicals were, but two of the bottles were labeled
diethyl ether and methanol, both highly flammable substances. The former is
also used as a sedative, so one explanation for their actions is that they
felt dizzy from the ether vapors and thought it was a good idea to pour them
in the sewer.

As it turns out, a good idea it definitely was not. The cocktail of
flammable substances in the enclosed space of the sewer caused an explosion
so powerful that it launched the manhole cover into the air, decapitating
the (briefly) surprised Lidia. Left without a head on her shoulders, she
decided it was time to kick the bucket.

- - - - - - - - -

End


_______________________________



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