How The Past Trembles in the Hands of Historians

Union Traction Company service map, Indianapolis to Muncie, c. 1910. (Clickage will make the image larger)

He was my mother's father, her natural father. She knew that he had died in Indianapolis when she was very young, died "in a streetcar accident," but didn't know the details until much later. She found out some of it from her mother, but she would find out most of the story from a half-brother she learned about when she was an adult -- but whom didn't meet until I was about 7 or 8 years old and she was well into middle age.

She found her half-brother when we were living in Los Angeles. He was living not very far away in San Dimas and came to visit. I remember one visit quite clearly and he may have come by several other times that I don't remember as well. His name was Frank King; his father's name -- my mother's father, too -- was Frank Olive. He said he'd taken a different name partly because of what had happened in Indianapolis. It wasn't his step-father's name, it was a name he had chosen himself. How my mother had found him, I don't recall in any detail, but it had something to do with military records and I remember she had been calling anyone with the same name she found in those records for years.

Frank Olive was a streetcar conductor for the Indianapolis interurban transit company, and he was also a union organizer who had had an increasingly important role in all the strikes that had hit the system since the early 19-teens. He was well-known to the company as an agitator and a troublemaker. He died on the job, yes, but it wasn't an accident (and he didn't die in one of the riots). After one of the strikes was settled, I believe it was around 1915 though the date was always a bit hazy in my mind, so it may have been earlier or a bit later, he was told that there was something hanging off the front of his car, and to go get it before he began his run. When he got to the front of the car, another conductor or motorman started the car moving forward and it struck the car ahead, crushing Frank between them, killing him. Everyone knew what had happened. He had been murdered in a way that made it look like a careless accident. As were a number of strikers and strike leaders who went back on the job that year.

His funeral was huge, apparently, and at that funeral, Frank's widow, my mother's mother, found out about his other widow, Frank King's mother. Oh. Yes, Frank had two wives who lived at opposite ends of the interurban line, in this case, one household in Indianapolis and one in Marion. Apparently the discovery was quite the scandal at the time. One of Frank's close friends at the transit company took it upon himself to marry my mother's mother quite soon after Frank's demise, and thus make her an honest woman again. He had been fired from the transit company due to the most recent strike, and figured it was the perfect time to move out to California and start over, which they did. He ran Flying A filling stations and sold Dodge cars on the Central Coast, then retired around 1940 and bought a motor court up in Willits where my mother's mother died not long after, and he passed within a few months of her death (or maybe the sequence was the other way around... I wasn't there, and my mother was always pretty anguished about it).

Frank King's mother also remarried fairly soon after her Frank Olive's death, but they stayed in Marion. Frank King moved out to California on his own after WWII. My mother didn't know about them at all until she was well into her twenties, and she said she was shocked when she found out her natural father was a bigamist who had another household and family. When she learned about her father's union activities and the strikes and the violence that went with them, and how her father had actually died, she was horrified. She had no idea it was like that, she said. But she developed a greater (albeit grudging) respect for him. She said she got a much greater understanding of why she herself felt the need to stand up for the downtrodden, to fight for her own rights, and to try to change bad situations she or others found themselves in -- though that didn't always include her own relations.

I didn't realize until much later myself how pivotal the Indianapolis transit strikes had been -- I hadn't even heard of them at all before my mother's half-brother told the stories to us at our house in Los Angeles in the 1950s. Much of labor history in this country has been suppressed or forgotten, just as civil rights history has been. We may have romantic notions of what happened and believe in stories and myths of "heroic struggles," but have no idea at all of what really happened. The Indianapolis and other transit strikes were essentially disappeared from history, just as so much of civil rights history was disappeared.

An example was just last night on PBS. We were watching the "1964" program -- it was a pretty big year for both of Ms Ché and me, after all. That was the year Ms saw the Beatles at the Cow Palace, and one doesn't forget things like that, and I was mesmerized by the Civil Rights marches and Free Speech Movement in Berkeley -- and for the most part, it seemed the program was pretty good. It tried to show how events were linked together and not just discreet incidents, the way so much "history" is presented. The premise was essentially: "Everything changed on November 22, 1963, and the '60s as we remember them really began in 1964." True enough. I've been saying pretty much that for years and scholars have been making the same point though somewhat less stridently than people like me. But it was odd how much was missing -- and who was missing -- from this program. One huge absence really stuck out to me (for reasons I may get into another time). Stokely Carmichael was never mentioned. Huh? Whut the...?  He appeared in a picture or two of civil rights events, and SNCC was mentioned briefly, but his name was never breathed.  I could not believe it. You cannot have a history of the Civil Rights Movement, even in 1964, without Stokely Carmichael -- but apparently he's been disappeared, as if he were a Soviet dissident.

Todd Gitlin was all over the place last night being interviewed about this and that, his title changing depending on the topic, but what he was doing in 1964 and where he was was never mentioned; it was implied he was at Berkeley in 1964 and had some role in the the Free Speech Movement, but so far as I know he wasn't there. He was at Harvard (or maybe Columbia, he moved around a lot back east) -- and he was running the SDS (which also was never mentioned.)  There was some well-coifed and manicured woman  (wish I could remember her name [looked it up, it was Stephanie Coontz, listed as a "Berkeley student," which I guess she was in 1964]) describing FSM events accurately enough but with little seeming interest, though she claimed she was part of the struggle, and "stood up and walked out of" [Sproul Hall] (though the iconic name of the administration building at UC Berkeley was never used) rather than being dragged down the stairs as so many were, and I thought it would have been more interesting if they'd had Alice Waters yakking "spiritually" about it instead. She may not have complete memories, but they're both more fun and more personal.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that what we think we know about historical movements and events is definitely not the whole story, and in many cases, it's not even close to what was really going on. It's often a highly romanticized and cleansed version that leaves out many important aspects and people, and which declares "X" result, when the result was actually "Y". Or the result might have been something else altogether.

The Indianapolis and other transit strikes in the early 19-teens were pivotal in part because though they were declared to be settled in favor of the workers, they were failures, despite the huge number of people participating and supporting them. They literally brought the city and a good deal of transport in the region and the country to a halt, and though the official violence which was brought to bear against the strikers -- and the many murders that occurred as a result -- were widely condemned, the strikers did not win much of anything despite their enormous sacrifices. This was the pattern of the labor movement of the time. While discreet incidents may be recalled, and minor victories celebrated, the pattern of failures leading to tiny advances often isn't. I've read transcripts of the investigation into the conditions that led to the Indianapolis transit strikes, and it was horrible. It didn't get much better, despite the struggles, not until after World War I, and even then, victories were reversible. My grandfather lost his life in the struggle, but for what? A noble sacrifice? Maybe. But he was a flawed human being, and so, like the largely failed strikes themselves, largely forgotten.

1964 was a pivotal year for the American consciousness, but even as close as we are to it now, only fifty years on, it appears that key people and important events are being disappeared and whitewashed for some purpose, perhaps to enhance an official mythology, to simplify the record, to glorify certain aspects, diminish others -- on behalf of...? Well, that's the question, isn't it? Always the question. What are we being led to believe? On whose behalf? Or on behalf of what objective?

From the AntiFa Trenches, c. 1938 (contd)

Anti-Fascist Spanish Civil War Poster, c. 1938

What really strikes me about this book ("The Peril of Fascism -- The Crisis of American Democracy" by A. B. Magil and Henry Stevens, International Publishers, 1938) is how contemporary it seems. What was going on when this book was written closely resembles what's going on now, particularly the overbearing of the state and the violent suppression of dissent. Magil and Stevens see this as the hallmark of fascism, just as many observers do today, but in 1938, fascism was still something relatively new and revolutionary. Now it's something old and reactionary.

Liberals and progressives today may be primarily concerned with preserving what they can of the status quo against the tide of cruelty and barbarism being led by the modern day neo-fascist vanguard. It's a losing strategy, as it was in 1938. But in 1938, there was an ideological answer, and the world would soon enough be engulfed in flames to test it. Now, there seems to be an absence of ideology to counter the march of neo-fascism. The rebellions and revolutions around the world are for the most part not ideologically based, and so they seem to have little real substance (and as we have been seeing in North Africa, they don't produce the intended results.)

Some additional excerpts from "The Peril of Fascism" to help set the scene of what was going on in the 1930's. The parallels to today are obvious, and yet the differences are, too:

It was during this period that the Supreme Court emerged as perhaps the principal institutional bulwark of reaction. In previous periods, when the Presidency had been under the firm control of big business, the court played a role secondary to the executive branch of the government as an impediment to progress. Now, however, with the Presidency in the hands of Roosevelt, the conservative corporation lawyers who dominated the Supreme Court came to the rescue of the economic royalists. When the reactionary drive against Roosevelt was at its height in the spring of 1935, the Supreme Court went into action and nullified one New Deal law after another. Among the first to go was the N. R. A., which from the viewpoint of big business had outlived its usefulness. After that came the A.A.A. decision which attacked the principle of government taxation for farm relief. Other decisions nullified the railroad retirement act, which made railroad pensions compulsory; voided the Fraizer-Lemke act, providing partial relief to mortgage-ridden farmers; and set aside other progressive legislation, all in defense of the privileges and prerogatives of big business.

Never before had the Supreme Court attempted to exercise on such a vast scale its usurped powers to nullify Congressional legislation. From 1803, when the court first claimed its powers to void the law of the country, until the Civil War, the court wielded this power only once -- in the notorious Dred Scott case, which played an important part in precipitating the war between the states. It was not until after the Civil War, when monopoly capitalism developed the power of the judiciary as a means of strengthening its own rule, that the courts began to exercise their usurped powers on a considerable scale. From 1860 to 1932, the court refused to recognize the right of Congress to enact laws in 60 cases. At no stage, however, did it wield its autocratic powers with the vigor it did in 1935-36 when it rendered 12 decisions against Congress.

This development was of the most far-reaching importance for the future of American democracy. It meant that five reactionary lawyers, constituting themselves as a majority of the Supreme Court, arrogated the right to pass on all reform laws and to nullify the will of the people. At the present stage of American political development this autocratic exercise of power can be correctly described as fascist in tendency. By means of its usurped power, a majority of the court can, by judicial fiat, frustrate the proceses of even capitalist democracy. Here is one of the specifically indigenous forms in which the growing fascist tendencies of American big business was manifested.

But an even more obvious expression of the increasingly fascist temper of American reaction was the wholesale use of violence against workers and farmers. In the three years from 1933 to 1935 inclusive, state troops were sent against strikers and demonstrating workers and farmers at least 60 times. In 1934, 49 workers and farmers were killed by soldiers, police or armed mobs of vigilantes. In 1935, 39 were killed. Countless thousands were wounded with bullets, clubbed, beaten, tear-gassed, maimed. Thousands of others were arrested and jailed on trumped up charges for exercising their elementary democratic rights to free speech and assembly. In 1935 alone, the International Labor Defense estimates, there were nearly 18,000 recorded cases of arrests of workers and farmers who participated in strikes and unemployment and other demonstrations.

A crop of criminal syndicalism and sedition cases, unparalleled in recent years -- wrote the American Civil Liberties Union -- marked the drive of the reactionaries against demonstrations of the unemployed and organization of the workers in the left wing unions. Criminal anarchy, criminal syndicalism and sedition laws were invoked in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Oregon, and in Georgia an insurrection statute was used in the same way.

Besides this "legal" use of violence was the extra-legal terror exercised by vigilantes and other gangs of fascist terrorists. In 1934, 1935, and 1936, armed terrorist groups cropped up in various parts of the country, organized and financed by employers and operating with the tacit, and in some cases, with the open consent of the police and other officials. These gangs -- composed, on the one hand, of underworld criminals, and on the other, of the "best people" in their communities -- were the shock troops of American fascism. They constitute the counterpart, even if in embryonic form, of Hitler's stormtroopers in Germany. They raided workers headquarters, kidnapped and beat labor organizers, intimidated recalcitrant officials -- all for the greater profit and glory of big capital.

Anti-working-class violence reached its highest pitch during and immediately after the San Francisco general strike in the summer of 1934. The strike, which was the most effective action of its kind in American history, struck fear among the capitalist bourbons throughout the country. The more panicky "princes of privilege" had visions of immanent revolution. The more realistic saw that the victory of the San Francisco marine workers would lead to a resurgence of the labor movement and encourage trade union organization in every industry. Both were determined to crush labor by every possible means.

The reign of terror inaugurated in California after the San Francisco strike approximated fascist rule. "Law and order," civil liberties and democratic rights were violently brushed aside by the police and fascist mobsters -- all in the name of law and order.

Literally thousands -- said one writer in the Nation, describing the situation in California in the summer of 1934 -- including many noncombatants have been gassed, had their skulls cracked, been trampled upon and shot. Countless homes have been entered. Private property has been ruthlessly destroyed.

The class-conscious workers of California are living in terror today. Except in Los Angeles their movement has been driven underground. They are listed, photographed, studied, harassed, and constantly attacked by their enemies. They have no protectors, no newspapers in which to appeal to public opinion. When they attempt to win better working conditions, they are met with special clubs four feet long, gas bombs, iron pipes, billies and bullets.

In Imperial Valley during the strikes this year, police, private armies and vigilantes committed every crime in the calendar upon their victims, who comprised the migratory workers and their allies, labor organizers, lawyers of the Civil Liberties Union, and the International Labor Defense. Hundreds were arrested; gas, water, and fire were used to terrorize the unfortunates, some of whom were working for 35 cents a day... Stockades held prisoners of war; chain gangs were improvised to punish them; all roads were blockaded against either food or moral aid for the victims...

In Northern California the red hunt was hardly a hunt. It was a war... Encouraged by statements of Governor Merriam, Mayor Rossi and Police Chief Quinn, the minor mayors of the Bay cities, vigilantes under many names -- "safety committees," Minute Men, White Guards, Silver Shirts, Ku Klux Klanners -- roamed the highways at will, acting in much the same manner as their German prototypes, the Brown Shirts.

The fascist reign of terror in California had its counterpart in many other communities throughout the country where workers and farmers struck or demonstrated for better conditions and for their democratic rights.

Sixteen workers were shot to death in the national textile strike in September, 1934. Seven were massacred by deputies at Honea Path, South Carolina; three in Trion, Georgia; others were killed in Greenville, South Carolina, Saylesville and Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Six were bayoneted by state troops in High Point, North Carolina. In Georgia, Governor Talmadge, an outspoken admirer of Hitler and a supporter of the American Liberty League, established concentration camps modeled after those of Nazi Germany.

In scattered areas throughout the country -- particularly in the South, in California, in coal and iron towns -- local regimes which were fascist in character, if not in name, were set up to prevent trade union organization. In these regions, the right of free speech, press and assemblage, the right to organize, strike and picket were completely abolished. Citizens enjoyed only such right as the employers and their private armies and mobsters were willing to permit -- and these were few indeed.

Such fascist fever spots had long existed in many company towns and sections of the South, but now the disease spread to many additional communities and assumed more virulent forms.

This was especially true in the southern plantation areas, where the vestiges of chattel slavery and the tradition of the violent suppression the Negroes created favorable conditions for the growth of the fascist germ.

Describing the suppression of the sharecroppers' strike in Arkansas in the autumn of 1935, an organizer for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union wrote in the New York Post:

At night deputy sheriffs and masked men ride the roads, on the lookout for secret meetings of the union... Beatings are frequent and killings are not uncommon. Planters even organized a fascist band, wearing green shirts and carrying the swastika as its symbol. .. Hundreds of our members have been beaten and scores of families have been driven from their homes by terror... At least ten of our members have been killed.

And so it went, on and on throughout the country, and this was during the heady day of the New Deal presided over by the saintly "leftist" FDR. Most people today are completely unaware of these aspects of the New Deal, and many people believe that things were somehow better then than they are now. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

While there are many parallels between then and now, for those who refused to stay in their "place," things were not only worse then, they could be and often were deadly.

The peril of fascism was all too real.

Meanwhile on the Left Coast

They've finally dug up Mario Savio at UC Berkeley in a somewhat belated recognition that the same site he used for his iconic speech calling on us to throw our bodies on the wheels of the machine is the focus for the current tumult at Cal.

http://www.dailycal.org/2011/11/15/mario-savio-and-the-free-speech-movement-47-years-later/

http://www.dailycal.org/2011/11/10/what-would-mario-savio-say-about-the-occupy-movement/

“There comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the people who own it, that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

I find it appropriate.

There are "teach outs" going on on Sproul Plaza right now; how the strike is going, though, I have no idea. Reports are sketchy to say the least.

We'll see.

With all this chatter about non-violence, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, it is always appropriate to bring up Mario Savio on the steps of Sproul Hall.

And such iconic images as this:



Does anybody remember SDS? Well, go here:

http://studentantiwar.blogs.brynmawr.edu/

Jeebus, an anthropological study no less. Or is it archaeological?

Heh.



I like this, though (from New York):

Next Up: Berkeley

The cowards who pass for Regents of the University were supposed to hold their meeting in San Francisco tomorrow. They got a report from the UC Police that there might be some unpleasantness having to do with the recent tumult at the UC Berkeley campus -- and other things -- so they advised the Regents to postpone their meeting.

This they promptly voted to do. Can't have any unpleasantness. Ick.

This is the story in the Daily Californian.

This is the Press Release announcing their cowadice:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, Nov. 14, 2011
UC Office of the President
(510) 987-9200

Announcement from UC Board of Regents leadership

The following announcement was released today (Monday, Nov. 14, 2011) by Sherry Lansing, chair of the University of California Board of Regents, Vice Chair Bruce Varner and President Mark G. Yudof:

Late last week University of California law enforcement officials came to us with concerns about credible intelligence they had collected in advance of the Board of Regents meeting, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday (Nov. 16 and 17) at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus.

From various sources they had received information indicating that rogue elements intent on violence and confrontation with UC public safety officers were planning to attach themselves to peaceful demonstrations expected to occur at the meeting.

They believe that, as a result, there is a real danger of significant violence and vandalism. They have advised us further that this violence could place at risk members of the public, students lawfully gathered to voice concerns over tuition levels and any other issues, the UCSF community, including patients, and public safety officers, UC staff and neighbors of UCSF Mission Bay.

They recommended to us, in the strongest of terms, that we cancel or postpone the meeting as scheduled.

After further consultation with these law enforcement officers, we have decided that, in fact, the most prudent course for us would be to postpone this meeting and reschedule it for another time and, possibly, an alternate venue. Failure to do so might constitute a reckless disregard of credible law enforcement intelligence. Ensuring public safety must be a top priority.

By rescheduling, it is our intent to allow the business of the University of California to go forward, but in a manner that will allow the public, including students, to express their views on issues related to the university without putting their personal safety in peril.

We will be announcing a new schedule for this meeting as soon as possible. We will not elaborate further on the law enforcement intelligence that prompted us to postpone, and we have asked our police officials to do the same.

Finally, we want to point out that the agenda for this meeting included updates from UC staff members on several initiatives that have been launched in an effort to offset state disinvestment in the university, providing alternate revenue streams beyond tuition and taxpayer support. This work will continue to go forward. Contrary to some public misperceptions, a tuition increase was never a part of the agenda for this meeting.

The arrogance -- and cowardice -- of the UC Board of Regents was legendary back in the Olden Days, but this announcement makes me believe it is even worse now than it was then.

Student Regents had a different take:

An Open Letter to Students, Administrators, Faculty, and the Regents:

The leadership of the Board of Regents has chosen to cancel this week’s Regents meeting. This letter addresses that decision, the recent protests on UC campuses, the continued defunding of public higher education by the State of California, and recent police brutality at UC Berkeley.
The State of California’s unprecedented and short-sighted divestment from public higher education is a disastrous moral and economic choice. In the short term, it hurts students. In the long term, it will hurt all Californians.

The University of California is a nationwide leader in educating students who are the first in their families to go to college, students who come from underserved communities, and first-generation students who are the children of immigrants. Collectively and through sacrifice, the State of California has built an institution that excels at providing a world-class education to students who have faced the greatest challenges to access it.

And yet the State is choosing to tear that institution down. The State of California cut the UC by $650 million in the past year, with a $100 million trigger cut likely on the way. These latest cuts come on the heels of decades of declining funding. The cost is felt first and foremost by students, who face nothing but bad choices: work multiple jobs to make ends meet, take out enormous loans that will be paid back in a terrible job market, or drop out and pursue an education somewhere cheaper or not at all. Generations of Californians attended an excellent UC at low or no cost; today, those same Californians are forcing the next generation of students to attend a university under threat, and at a high and rising cost. It is privatization of our greatest public good, and a morally bankrupt choice on the part of our citizens and our state government.

It is also a short-sighted economic choice. For decades, the University of California has fueled this state’s economic success, by driving innovation and entrepreneurship and graduating thousands of highly skilled workers into the California economy. Defunding this institution may ease our budget problems today, but doing so will bear bitter fruit for decades to come, as we become a less attractive destination for businesses and entrepreneurs. Cutting the UC hurts every Californian’s opportunity to get a well-paying job, decreases our future tax revenues, and delays or prevents entirely the research breakthroughs that advance our society and our economy.

The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate support the actions of students who call attention to the privatization of public education through courageous and peaceful protest. The police violence at UC Berkeley on November 9 was reprehensible and ought to be condemned, not defended, by campus and systemwide administration. We have additional concerns about freedom of speech – on the day of the protests, a Berkeley Law student was stopped by police officers while far from the events at Sproul Plaza simply for carrying a megaphone. When she was unable to produce a student ID, she was handcuffed, placed in a squad car, and cited for a misdemeanor. Free speech and providing equitable access to education have been hallmarks of the UC and particularly UC Berkeley — by suppressing speech that advocates for education access, we do violence to two of our most cherished principles.

The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate oppose the decision to cancel this week’s Regents meeting. We understand that local law enforcement authorities recommended the meeting be postponed in the interest of public safety. However, students have a right to protest peacefully and make their voices heard forcefully; this action eliminates their opportunity to do that. We would support finding a way for student attendees to exercise their constitutional and moral right to protest while excluding non-student elements that raise the specter of violence and vandalism. We urge students who had made plans to travel to San Francisco for the Regents meeting to travel to Sacramento instead, and make student frustrations known to the state’s ultimate decision-makers.

To fund the University of California, the State needs revenues. The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate support ending Proposition 13’s treatment of corporate property taxes and ending the two-thirds supermajority requirement for raising new revenues in the state legislature. The Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate also support increasing taxes on the wealthiest Californians. Those at the top of California society have benefited the most from the fact that California is a vibrant, innovative, and diverse place; in times of struggle, they should give back to make sure that other Californians have the same opportunities to succeed that they did.

We hope that our fellow Regents and the administration of the UC will be forceful advocates for new revenues for state government. To not do so leaves us with only a single, cynical choice every year: submit a funding request to the State and lobby for it despite knowing Sacramento is unlikely to meet it; search internally for savings after yet another budget cut that we knew was coming; and fill the balance of our budget deficit on the backs of students, pushing those in the middle class further to the margins.

We have a responsibility to fight for an alternative. Students are leading the way. We hope that the University of California and its leadership can join students in the fight to preserve truly public higher education for all our citizens. As the Student Regent and Student Regent-Designate, we have a responsibility to be the students who partner with the Regents and the University’s top decisions-makers. We will continue to advocate from within the system for the principles and beliefs driving student energy and passion.

Alfredo Mireles
Student Regent

Jonathan Stein
Student Regent-Designate

Meanwhile, his Excellency the Chancellor of the University, has had something of a change of heart -- after students and others filed lawsuits and denounced him and the UC Police for their appalling brutality against students:

Calling videos of the demonstrations “disturbing,” Birgeneau stated that all students arrested during the protest for blocking police officers will be granted amnesty and will not face charges under the student code of conduct.

“The events of last Wednesday are unworthy of us as a university community,” Birgeneau said in the message. “Sadly, they point to the dilemma that we face in trying to prevent encampments and thereby mitigate long-term risks to the health and safety of our entire community.”

Sure. Whatever.

Tomorrow is a Day of Action throughout the UC system; there are supposed to be strikes everywhere. What will actually transpire is anyone's guess. There are plenty of students in the UC system (and the related public university systems) who are delighted to see police brutality on campus or off. The tuition hikes don't phase them a bit.

We'll see...
-------------------------

As an addendum:

As of 8:00pm PST, over 1800 people had signed the Open Letter to Chancellor Birgeneau, the UC Berkeley administration, and the UC Regents, regarding the unpleasantness of November 9, 2011, when the UC Police went on a rampage.

The Open Letter reads as follows:

We, the undersigned faculty, lecturers, and graduate student assistants—all of whom teach at Berkeley and are invested in the educational mission of this university—are outraged by the unnecessary and excessive use of violence by the police and sheriff’s deputies against peaceful protesters at UC Berkeley beginning on Wednesday, November 9, 2011.

We will not tolerate this assault on the historic legacy of free speech on this campus.

The protests on Sproul Plaza on November 9 were organized by a coalition of undergraduates, graduates, faculty, union members, and staff to clearly articulate links between the privatization of the university, the global financial crisis, the burdens of student debt, and the composition and power of the UC Regents, whose actions demonstrate a lack of concern with sustaining the public character of the UC system. The principles of these protests reach well beyond the Berkeley campus.

After a large demonstration at Sproul and a march into the city of Berkeley, the protesters formed a General Assembly that called for a non-violent encampment under the name Occupy Cal. As the encampment was being established, protesters were immediately met with physical violence by the police, including the jabbing and striking of students and others with batons. This assault by UCPD and Alameda County riot police against those peacefully assembled led to the forcible arrests of 39 protesters and one faculty member. Associate Professor Celeste Langan offered her wrist to the police in surrender, saying “arrest me, arrest me,” but was nevertheless aggressively pulled by her hair to the ground and cuffed. This began a series of tense confrontations—punctuated by further police violence—that lasted throughout the night and has persisted on our campus. The spectacle of police brutalizing members of our community does inestimable damage to our integrity, our reputation, and our standing as a public university.

We are appalled by the Chancellor’s account, in his November 10 “Message to the Campus Community,” that the police were “forced to use their batons.” We strenuously object to the charge that protesters—by linking arms and refusing to disperse—engaged in a form of “violence” directed at law enforcement. The protests did not justify the overwhelming use of force and severe bodily assault by heavily armed officers and deputies. Widely-circulated documentation from videos, photographs, and TV news outlets make plainly evident the squad tactics and individual actions of members of the UCPD and Alameda County Sheriff’s Department. This sends a message to the world that UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and student protesters are regarded on their own campus with suspicion and hostility rather than treated as participants in civil society.

We call on the Berkeley administration to immediately put an end to these grotesquely out-scale police responses to peaceful protest. We insist that the administration abandon the premise that the rigid, armed enforcement of a campus regulation, in circumstances lacking any immediate threat to safety, justifies the precipitous use of force.

We call upon the Chancellor to comply fully and in a timely manner with the Public Record Act request made in writing by the ACLU on November 10. We also call upon the Chancellor to initiate an independent investigation, separate from that to be undertaken by the campus Police Review Board, to ensure a fair review of events and procedures to prevent such attacks on free speech from happening in the future.

We also express our concern with the repressive policing that has occurred around the wider Occupy Wall Street movement—including Occupy Oakland, where undue force has led to numerous injuries such as those sustained by Iraq veteran Scott Olsen. In solidarity with Occupy Cal and the Occupy movements around the country, we condemn these police acts unequivocally.

We call for greater attention to the substantive issues raised at the protests on November 9 regarding the privatization of education. With massive cuts in state funding and rising tuition costs across the community college system, the Cal State network, K-12, and the University of California, public education is undergoing a severe divestment. Student debt has reached unprecedented levels as bank profits swell. We decry the growing privatization and tuition increases that are currently heavily promoted by the corporate UC Board of Regents.

We express NO CONFIDENCE in the Regents, who have failed in their responsibility to fight for state funding for public education, and have placed the burden of the budget crisis on the backs of students.

We express NO CONFIDENCE in the willingness of the Chancellor, and other leaders of the UC Berkeley administration, to respond appropriately to student protests, to secure student welfare, and to respect freedom of speech and assembly on the Berkeley campus.


Signed,
Julia Bryan-Wilson, Associate Professor, History of Art
Peter Glazer, Associate Professor, Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies
Gregory Levine, Associate Professor, History of Art

[And here I thought I was verbose!]

Most of those who have signed, by the way, are current active UC faculty, grad students, and workers. And as many have pointed out, this is really an astonishing response given the real risks to their academic careers -- and even their department fortunes -- many of these people are taking. It was an astonishing response when there were only 600 signatories. Now, with over 3 times that many, it's stunning.

So Many People

Liberty Plaza is overflowing with people at the moment. Jammed. A huge sign appears behind the speakers' rostrum: "Occupy Everything" but there are so many people, so many union representatives, so many media, so much energy, so much noise, it's hard to make out just what has happened there.



My heart soars.

There are so many people that the speakers' words have to be repeated first by the crowd nearby, then by the crowd further out so that everyone can hear. What had been a quirk and an iconic action has become a necessity. And still they say they can't hear!

It's become so... anarchic(?) that some are suggesting just go ahead and use megaphones. (Actually, there is a non-amplified one in use.) As the BART protesters liked to say: "You can't kill us all."



They are trying to organize a march to Wall Street (a couple of blocks away); it's not easy. There are so many people and communications are inadequate for this size gathering, yet they're figuring out a way.



The Livestream, of course, is acting up. But check it out.

We are witness to history.

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

Стачка! (Strike!)

Eisenstein's 1925 classic Стачка (Strike), is an early Soviet film, telling the story of a failed worker's strike in some other era -- not long before the Revolution, obviously -- and how, at least in this case, the owners and mangers won. "помни пролетарии!" ("Remember, Proletarians!") is the final title card of the picture. Not, of course, "remember your ineffectiveness." Remember why you fight and why you must win.

The style is pure Meyerhold physical theater -- some would say overly physical, overly broad -- but for the time and for the intent of the movie, it works surprisingly well. Compare and contrast with "Salt of the Earth" (1954), which tells essentially the same story, only transferred to the American Southwest and stylistically restrained and grounded in realism. [And with a somewhat different ending.]



While I like both movies very much, "Strike" seems quite a bit fresher than its more recent cousin partly due to the fact that the kind of physical acting that Meyerhold proposed and Eisenstein utilized brilliantly (along with superb design elements that follow from Meyerhold's artistic composition notions) are almost new again, they are so rarely seen any more in serious film or stage work.

Of course, "Strike" is proletarian propaganda, and yet for all its seeming excess, it feels very true; this is what workers were up against then, it's how the courageous responded, and it's what often happened to them for their trouble. The shooting down of striking workers was as common in the United States as it was in Russia, if not more so; the use of provocateurs to cause destruction and distraction that the strikers can then be blamed for was taken for granted, much as the presence of provocateurs within nearly all "leftist" protest demonstrations is assumed these days.

Shooting down striking workers -- when workers strike at all in this country -- is not so common these days as it once was, thanks be. Nowadays, The Powers That Be realize that all they really have to do is bully the strikers on the one hand, ignore their demands on the other, and bring in scabs. Management and capital assume that labor has no power any more and can be dealt with contemptuously at best. Labor, for its part, plays along -- as in the recently ended Verizon strike. While not a complete capitulation, the fact is that the strikers won nothing except to not be fired immediately. Which, these days, is a Victory! by definition.

The message of "Strike" and of "Salt of the Earth" is persistence, no matter what "they" do. Persistence is the necessary missing element from so much of the American resistance to the imposition of Neo-Liberal/Neo-Conservative policies for the last 20 years, but the necessity of persistence -- and demand -- has become more widely recognized than ever as we witness the persistent protests around the world.

Trouble is that now that some of these resistance/revolt/revolutionary actions have succeeded, there is no coherent replacement for the Ancien Régimes being overthrown. There is a governing vacuum, which ironically is filled at least temporarily even harsher Neo-Liberal extractive regimes.

It's a wonder anyone carries on at all.

In light of that missing element, any coherent way forward if revolt and revolution is successful, I'm posting a link to A People's Constitution wiki page in hopes that some (more) of my readers may have some thoughts and insights to add over there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Change of pace:
Big Sur, CA, 1969: Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Sebastian, and Joni Mitchell. "Get Together" (It was cold and windy day -- though I don't actually remember being there... so there is no mistake, the video is not mine.)

Infuriating

And illuminating.



It's an hour and fourteen minutes of stomach churning and fury.

Link: http://youtu.be/qKpxPo-lInk

The Greeks are currently engaged in a national General Strike, a necessary step in throwing off the shackles of the International Banksters.

"Peripheral Europe" must all follow suit.

The German and French People are being lied to. They must wake up.

And one day, maybe Americans will put aside their constant obliviousness and wake up too.

NeoLiberalism is Slavery.

NeoConservatism is Death.

Tumbrils and guillotines, people, tumbrils and guillotines.

On What Works

The Ruling Class and their tireless agents in the Republican Party have it made it very clear that they do not retreat, they do not surrender; neither do they negotiate in good faith, nor do they compromise. They are the Ruling Class, after all. They declare, they command, they order, they rule.

Everyone else has the choice to submit. That is their only rational choice. Should they choose to do otherwise, they will pay a heavy price for their insolence.

This behavior of the rentiers and their tireless agents has been going on for so long now that it seems to be the normal state of affairs. Orders and commands are issued and by and bye they are obeyed.

Of course, it means that ordinary people are sacrificing practically everything they have on the command of the Ruling Class and their tireless agents. If they can manage to keep a job at all, ordinary people are working harder than ever and they are earning less, sometimes 75% less, than they did just two or three years ago.

They are paying more and ever more for necessities.

Their retirement security is being stolen from them piece by piece: first their pensions, then the value of their retirement accounts, then the value of their homes and property, then their Social Security and Medicare benefits.

More and more overseas wars of aggression are started in their names, others are continued into the indefinite future.

We see in the protests in Europe that the Ruling Class is not just unmoved by popular unrest, they in fact have doubled down on their demands for austerity, imposing even harsher conditions on the hapless populations than previously thought.

The nominally Socialist governments yield, without any fight at all. They believe they have no other rational choice than to yield and by yielding, they seal their own political fates, but maybe that doesn't matter. Perhaps they are rewarded by their Owners and Sponsors for "doing the right thing," ie: putting the entire burden of the financial and economic collapse on the masses, putting none of the burden on the financiers and rentiers.

That is, after all, the point of "austerity," no matter where it is imposed, and no matter the precipitating cause. The masses, the People, must and will be made to pay for the recklessness of their financial Overlords.

Street protest, which has roiled Greece and the other countries being squeezed dry by the Financial Interests, has had no positive effect at all. Governments ignore the Street in "Peripheral Europe" just as they once did in the Arab World. Oh, but that changed, didn't it?

In the Euro-Core -- ie: France and Germany -- which is ostensibly being "protected" by the austerity measures being imposed on Peripheral Europe, the public is being propagandized to believe that they are being "forced" to work harder and longer to bail out Greece and the other Peripheral countries, and they are steaming mad about it.

But they're being lied to. "Greece" as a nation, and the People of Greece are not being bailed out. National sovereignty is being extinguished, and the People of Greece are being forced to pay off the gambling debts of the financial class, in full. With interest. The People of Germany and France are being forced to pay off those same debts, not Greece's debts, the gambling debts of the Euro-Banksters, just like here in the United States, where the Banksters have been paid off for the same losses over and over and over again. Once the cycle starts it is almost impossible to stop.

Governments are so completely in thrall to their financiers and Banksters, they cannot imagine saying "No!" to the extortion demands they face, and when Iceland, alone, said "No!", the propaganda went into full cry insisting that's not what the People and their government said at all. It's astonishing to witness.

But as usual, peoples are being set against one another in these trying times.

Iceland said "No!" Years ago Argentina said "No!" All over Latin America, governments came to the conclusion that the austerity measures that were being demanded of them for more loans simply weren't in the national or popular interest, and more and more they said "No!"

Surprisingly, the world did not end.

Nor did these nations collapse. Saying "No!" was what these governments needed to do then, and it is what the governments of Peripheral Europe need to do now, but they are paralyzed with fear of the consequences to them, personally, of saying "No!"

They cannot do it. Not yet.

The plug has to be pulled on the financial class once and for all.

The way that's done is the way it's always been done: by effectively nationalizing the banks, strictly regulating currency and financial transactions, prohibiting and punishing speculation, and seizing assets of the hyper wealthy. The financial class may try to fight back, by freezing credit, but they can only go so far in that direction before they are face to face with their own intrinsic vulnerability. As we have seen whenever the demands of the financier class are refused and rejected, the financiers rather quickly back off and seek out other marks for predation.

The class is highly vulnerable because they don't deal in either a product or a service, they deal in fantasy. Most of the bubble wealth and the extortion they thrive on is simply phantom wealth; but it's all they know.

Convincing governments to do what's necessary to free the People from the predation of the financiers is no simple task, though. We see that the pleading of the People -- such as has been taking place in Spain and Portugal -- doesn't work. Anarchist riots (as in Greece) don't work. Replacing governments (as in Ireland) doesn't work.

What does work are sustained General Strikes. Surrounding and shaming the wealthy can be very effective. Making their lives miserable, and making it impossible for their companies to function are the key ways of bringing about necessary liberation from their thrall, but it is necessary to shut down the operations of the complicit governments as well, and all of this involves greater or lesser physical and financial risks in the short term that, for the most part, ordinary people are not particularly willing to endure -- unless they are relatively certain of success.

Ian Welsh posted an outline of strategies for resistance and change that's worth considering. There is more, much more, to effective resistance. The key is to shut down the operations of the Overclass -- which is probably easier in this technological age than many of us realize -- and hamstring their governmental servants. Make it impossible for them to function. Suddenly, their tune changes, and what was once implacable is suddenly yielding.

Right now, of course, they are yielding nothing because they don't think they have to. In fact, they are redoubling their demands. Governments are yielding en masse.

But that can change in a twinkling.

Fake Revolutions?

[Headed back to California today and tomorrow...]



Things may not be what they seem department.

Word has it, from no less authority than Prof Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research and the redoubtable DEBKA File (by which I mean, 'continue to doubt it') that things may not be what they seem to be in Libya, and if they aren't there, where are they? (links via "American Everyman", a resource for skeptics everywhere on just about any topic of interest you care to name, but not much Show Business.)

This is always the problem with an abundance of skepticism. Because nothing can be taken at face value, nothing is "true" -- but then, nothing is really "false" if everything is false. It's all a muddle, and you're just lucky to remember to breathe day to day.

Of course the plethora of Revolutions popping up everywhere should be taken with a grain of salt, if not an entire barrel of it. Our Rulers have been manufacturing dissent for almost as long as they have been manufacturing consent. It's all a matter of Rulership, which they have no intention of giving up voluntarily any time soon if ever.

As Chris Hedges says, "Power yields nothing without a demand," and I'd go further to suggest that Our Rulers yield nothing to a demand from the "wrong people," in fact Our Rulers will merely ratchet down even further and harsher in response to demands from DFHs. Even if they don't demand. The ratchet is always being tightened.

The struggle must be relentless.

Rude -- I like it

This is true:

From the Punk Patriot

Persistence is the Key

And it is part of what we didn't have during the Anti-Iraq-War demonstrations and uprisings until Herself, the now widely reviled and despised Cindy Sheehan, came along. (Cindy goes back almost to the beginning of the org I was then a part of, Dean for America, in California's Central Valley and Bay Area -- Cindy was concentrating on the Valley, though, and would come up all the time to meet and give talks long before her national presence emerged...)

As for persistence in the current imbroglio, right this minute I'm watching live the continuing protests in the Wisconsin in the Capitol Rotunda in Madison. The numbers may have diminished somewhat from their heights when time was, but there are still plenty of folks there, plenty of energy, and plenty of noise being made against Scott Walker and his Evility. That's what it takes.

This afternoon, I was at the MoveOn Solidary Rally at the California State Capitol, rush-organized at the last minute, and I half-thought that Oh, My, there would be fewer people in attendance than at the rally than on Tuesday this week. But no. In the end, there were somewhat more, perhaps 4,000-5,000 as opposed to the 2,500-3,000 who attended on Tuesday. It will be reported, though -- assuming it is reported -- as approximately the same number turning out, because the physical organization at the Capitol was somewhat different, and the crowd-size looked pretty much the same.

The difference, clearly apparent, was in the number of TeaBaggers attending in their Special Space over across the street, protected by horse police and patrol cars and what not from the taunts and mockery of the Union supporters. As opposed to Tuesday's "counter-protest", when there were a couple of tens of 'Baggers across the street, today there were as many as a hundred or so, and my, my did they ever mock and disparage. Hm. It was a wonder to behold. Such a wonder that the Union supporters could barely contain their laughter and eyerolling. The police seemed to expect some kind of altercation, too. Very odd.

Well, there wasn't one. I took some pictures and movies of the main rally and the 'Baggers. I've had some trouble uploading (especially videos), so I don't know how this is going to work. We'll give it a shot!

It was good to see some of the same people, but many new ones too... Whatever else happens, we must persist if we are to win, and we must win. On Wisconsin!

The rally in Madison as I was typing:



Notice comment that crowd is thinning. This will be a continuing issue.

Some of my own pics from today:




The USUncut people -- who were rallying down the street -- came to the Union rally at the Capitol. Yay.















There were a couple of Guy Fawkes Masked Avengers in the crowd. Heh.








---------------------------

Note on estimating crowd sizes: My estimates of the number of participants in the Solidarity Rallies at the California State Capitol this week are somewhat higher than others. Most of the other estimates I've seen are saying "a couple of thousand" turned out on Saturday and about the same number on Tuesday. I say 4,000-5,000 on Saturday, 2,500-3,000 on Tuesday. How come?

As you might suspect, I've been involved in numerous protest actions and rallies at the Capitol over the years, more than I can count! It's actually fairly easy to estimate crowd sizes because the West Front of the Capitol and the park that surrounds it is subdivided into sections, and over time, you learn how many people can be accommodated in each section. By observing how full each section is, it's pretty simple to estimate crowds.

The two rallies last week took place on the West Front, or West Steps, of the Capitol, but they utilized different sections of the front steps area. There is a broad terrace directly in front of the steps that holds about five thousand people when it's packed pretty tight. Just below that is another smaller terrace that will hold about 3,000-3,500, again packed tight. Below that is a lawn area bordered by sidewalks that extends almost to 10th Street. Packed tight, it will hold about 10,000.

So. The rally on Tuesday did not use the upper terrace at all. The rally took place on the lower terrace and the lawn. The lower terrace was pretty well packed, but not tight, and the lawn was not tightly packed at all. The crowd thinned to nearly nothing about half-way down the lawn. Ergo, my estimate was that there were about 1,500 on the terrace, and another 1,500 on the lawn. Simple.

The rally on Saturday was focused on the upper terrace, but only about half of it was used to accommodate the crowd. It was pretty well packed. Ergo, my estimate was about 2,500 on the upper terrace. The lower terrace was less packed, but there were quite a few people there, too. Another 1,500 or so. There weren't many on the lawn, but I would say there were at least 500 at the peak of the rally, plus another couple of hundred on the 10th Street sidewalk observing the 'Baggers and rolling their eyes at them. Ergo, total attendance in the 4,000-5,000 range.

I have seen and participated in rallies at the Capitol that attracted 25,000 (but were reported only as "thousands.") And there was one some time back that filled the whole Mall from the Capitol to the Tower Bridge -- 10 blocks -- that was estimated at 100,000, though I think it was probably half again as many.

Crowd estimation isn't exactly a science, but it's not really that hard to do.

Never thought I'd live to see the day

Really.

It's impossible not to be moved -- for me anyway -- by this "labor unrest" phase of American History. The People are getting some of their spirit back, some of their strength, some of their soul. It's an amazing and thrilling sight, it's wonderful to be part of it if only on the fringe and periphery.

Yes, something like this has happened before. Many times. But not recently. Not recently enough. Sustained and determined protest is what wins the day against the murderous plutocrats and oligarchs who rule us. And that, the sustained and determined protest, hasn't happened for a long time.













What it boils down to: Dignity.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/23/948858/-Dr-King-Died-Fighting-For-The-Right-To-Collectively-Bargain

Solidarity Rally at California State Capitol

Despite the fact that I'm not altogether sure that the Wisconsin public employee union leaders actually understand the danger Scott Walker's assault on reason represents, the Solidarity Movement is gaining steam.

Last evening, the Ché household (current and retired public employee union members all) attended a Solidarity Rally organized by SEIU at the California State Capitol. Ultimately, there were perhaps 2,500 to 3,000 attendees -- a relatively light turn out compared to some of the events staged there (I've seen 25,000 or even on one occasion 100,000 at the Capitol) but a significant turnout just the same. This was the core of union support in Sacramento and Northern California, and that means a lot over the long haul.

Some pictures and a video:







The 'Bagger "counter protest". Actually, their numbers almost doubled by the time the event was over.

Cairo Comes to Madison.... Maybe

About 10,000 people are reported to be gathering at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison to protest the newly elected TeaBagger Governor's demand that public employees be denied collective bargaining rights over matters of working conditions, pensions and so on. The TeaBagger governor, some clown named Scott Walker, is trying to jam the measure through the 'Bagger dominated legislature, and all hell is breaking loose.

Even the Packers have come to the defense of the public sector workers.

Obviously, this is serious as a heart attack. Walker, for his part, appears to be vying to out-dick Ohio's Dickhead Governor Kasich, who is trying for the same sort of unilateral overhaul of public employee rights.

All I can say about these pissant moves is that California's Own Orange Waxy Man, Ahnut, tried to blame the budget deficit here on public employees, specifically unionized nurses and teachers, and he was, to put it gently, taken to school. He was dogged everywhere, up and down the state, by nurses and other public employees who shamed the living shit out of him.

And that's what's going to happen to these yahoos.

Whether it will trigger an American Uprising, who can say.

But the fuse is being lit.

Another New Mexico Story

"Salt of the Earth" (1954)

It's still one of the most inspirational Labor movies of any era, and it really puts to shame the languid indifference and/or passive argumentation that passes for "opposition" today.

That it is set in New Mexico, based on a real strike at a real mine in 1951, is a bonus. The movie deals with racial, ethnic and gender discrimination quite openly and productively; labor exploitation of course is central. But what moves people still is the fact that the strikers take charge of their own fate, they are prepared to suffer, be gassed, jailed, starved out, run over by rogue cops, etc. in order to achieve their objectives -- which they do -- and they are supported by hundreds of thousands of workers all over the country and the world.

Of course the picture was made by blacklisted Hollywood types who ran afoul of the Red-baiting of the post WWII era. But their work stands tall, today as yesterday, and it should be seen now as a reminder -- as a forceful reminder -- of just what "struggle" means.



Also available in a somewhat better version at Internet Archive.



"The People, united, will never be divided..."

You say you want a Revolution...

Image by Beth Rooney for the New York Times

The story of the worker's sit down strike at the Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago is getting a little bit of play these days. Certainly not the first strike in our history, nor is it by any means a very large action, but it may turn into a catalyst for further worker- and peoples-direct action in the face of mounting financial pressure from the oligarchs and the banks.

The workers have received a surprising amount of support from the political establishment, from Cook County and the State of Illinois to the Incoming President.

Bank of America looks very bad. They're the ones who precipitated the plant's abrupt closing, a closing in which the workers weren't paid wages or benefits. Cutting off the credit lines of businesses has an effect.

And the banks that are doing this (BofA isn't the only one) are doing it in order to have cash on hand with which to scarf up other banks in trouble. Acquisition fever. As if we haven't been down this path before.

Blame Paulson, then, for not requiring banks to act in the public interest if they are receiving public funds (BofA has received tens of billions).

And blame Bush, and blame Republicans for the whole mess. All well and good, but also recognize that the economic situation we face is the result of an ideology of greed and personal interest that has overwhelmed common sense and has resulted in what could well turn into the worst economic catastrophe in history, with all the implications that suggests and all the global struggle that implies.

It isn't just Republicans to blame, it's an entire political and economic system.

One that is under increasing strain; one that may not survive much longer.

Revolution?

Look at history...