People Before Profit blog

Peace Dividend

Raymond Nat Turner — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:16:00 +0000

Peace Dividend

11/9: When the "Evil Empire"

Ended, warlords swore

There would be a

"Peace Dividend," but

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Cold war with old war?

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Enemy of the month,

Threat of the week,

Operation of the day,

War around the world,

War around the clock—

War for evermore?

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Surges of war profiteers

Soliciting no-bid contracts,

Like packs of pedophile

Priests, volunteering for

Blacked-out Boys Clubs?

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Hearings to hear lies

Looped like capitalist

Politicians' promises, with

Pharmaceutical side effects—

Hearings asking questions

Answered already by bloody,

Broken, bodies of babies, their

Farmer fathers, mothers, their

Grandmothers, grandfathers and

Neighbors, all commodified as

Collateral damage?

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...

Eternal terms of Strom Thurmond and

Scoop Jackson—the Senator from Boeing—

Disguised as Di-Fi down to her New York

Stock Exchange ticker, wig concealing

Her warhead, fresh fragrance of death,

Plutonium breath, from a mouth moving

Like other GE, General Dynamics, Northrup-

Grummond-Lockheed-Martin marionettes

Over-populating capitalist hill—

Pushing up shares on the NASDAQ?...

11/9: When the "Evil Empire"

Ended, warlords swore

There would be a

"Peace Dividend," but

Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end...
Did it end... Did it end?...

Raymond Nat Turner (c) 2013 All Rights Reserved

To Martin, Ilyich, Hani, Che

Mychal Simonian — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:03:00 +0000

My love is a red red flag and a bright star

My hope is a brown black yellow white people

My life is a gray slate black room packed full of roar

My blood is high Wil swings the sledge the core drives

My muscles sing we swing the roll white as heat

My bones jar the roll falls home we tape it on

The units thunder as the slow night wears on

These men dirty with oil ink sweat are a star

There is no letup neither in cold nor heat

There is the dance, we dance for we are people

That which we know we do, the pattern drives

The floor trembling Ding cleans rollers in the roar

Perry shouts toothless words sucked into the roar

Mel and me jog Steve straps tosses the lift on

The paper skims over the folding board drives

Onto the knife the folder hammers a star

Into each. Wil whips one flat: the news people

Will read tomorrow. His hands feel its birth heat

. . . .

It is unusual, this silence, though the heat

Still rises waves the air but the machine's roar

Is gone. We sit and eat. Past the dock people

Going in to work look up say hi move on

Wil smokes. Perry laughes we laugh. Above a star

Struggles to shine. The sun soon blazes and drives

Across the bridge in silence, sleepy, Steve drives

Workers, banners, papers piled in back. Heat

Already soaks us my stomach is a star

That throbs: for blocks away we can hear the roar

We park unload hands grab the bundles and on

We march to join and are lost among people

Our flag is red we shout for we are people

We stand our ground when the cops and horses drive

The hoses slam then with their clubs they come on

Wil falls Ding shields Perry with his back. A heat

Lifts me up my voice an unexpected roar

Justice justice justice my people my star

Martin, Ilyich, Chris, Che, people: in mine's heat

Or city's cold, thirst drives us forward we roar

Past our dead we press on: justice, banner, star

Mychal Simonian

author's note: It might help to know the following jargon:

jog: (verb) to straighten printed matter out when it exits an automated folder

lift: (noun) a bundle so jogged, usually 25, 50 or 100 units

strap: (verb) to tie up a bundle of lifts using a strapping machine

GHOST DANCE

Dee Allen — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:36:00 +0000

POEM: Dee Allen, GHOST DANCE

[ SONG-LYRICS ]
______________

As long as the bright sun rises
And the gentle wind blows
As long as the old tree rises
And the green grass grows

These sacred grounds are ours always
Core of our long-held belief
But strangers come to take it all away
Return to us as we glide our feet

CHORUS 1: Ancestors
You are our only salvation
Ancestors
Shield us from devastation
Ancestors
Deliver us from their debasement
Ancestors
Shield us from forced displacement

Now we need you more than ever
Your spirits will protect us
From wasi'chu* who wish to sever
Our lifeways and disrespect us

Lakota-----sustainers of these lands-----
Shunkawakan**, lakes, earth we nurture
Our feet shall move with you in this [ round ] dance
To spare our people, save our future

[ REPEAT CHORUS 1 ]

Mother of the World

Sarah Page — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:04:00 +0000

*Mother of the world

Don't ask me to grieve
for these children only
ask me to grieve for them all.

Ask me to grieve for the 16 million
who go to bed hungry
every night
ask me to grieve for them all.

Ask me to grieve for the 1.6 million
who go to sleep without a home
every night
ask me to grieve for them all.

Ask me to grieve for the six million
around the world who die from hunger
every year
or the 176 killed by US drones in Pakistan
ask me to grieve for them all.

You don't have to ask me to mourn
for these innocents
for I mourn all the children of this world
always
and I am ashamed
and I am grieving.*

--
Sarah Page
www.outofour.com

OUT OF RESPECT (A poem)

Dylan Brody — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:57:00 +0000

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Out of respect for the children
let us not speak of gun control.
Let us grieve in silent outrage
lest one of those small figures
carrying memories of fearful
moments, cupboard cuddled,
waiting with a teacher for an
end to either deadly shootings
or themselves think this horror
might have been averted
had we all been willing, even once
to dream beyond heroic violence
to the far more challenging, more
courageous, more inspiring vision
of heroic peace.

Out of respect for the victims
let us not speak of mental health
but rather, soothe the conscience
of a country with simplistic categories,
good guys, bad guys, innocent and
guilty, lest we lose to shades of gray
our mindfulness that a culture closed
to those who most need help,
who least are able to afford much-
needed meds, who cry and stamp and
tantrum, is not to blame, but only those
who once cast out and told they can’t
be saved return in blazing rage inhabit shadow
and all the rest the pious light.

Out of respect for the soldiers
let us not speak of peace.
For if a world of diplomatic, thoughtful
problem solving is a possibility, why then
how dare we send our loved ones out
to die, to strive in terror and privation,
to sacrifice their bodies and their minds,
their limbs and senses to explosive conflict
far away, outside the rules of civil conduct
where to kill is just as much a job as filing,
cleaning rooms or sliding cans
past bar-code scanners.

Out of respect for our history,
speak not of genocides committed,
of infected blankets given out,
of trails of tears and wounded knees,
of treaties broken, promises abandoned,
reservations cordoned off and redefined
as minerals emerged and unexpected
resources came to light and seemed
more valuable than earth or sky
or human beings.

Out of respect for tradition
let us not speak of change.
Out of respect for the dead
let us all still our tongues.
Out of respect for the past
let us never speak of the future.
Out of respect for the wealthy
let us not speak of the poor.
Out of respect for the poor
let us not speak of the economy.
Out of respect for the worker
let us not speak of unions.
I am out of respect.
Let us now observe
not a single moment of silence.

Herod's Descendants

Gary Hicks — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 08:24:00 +0000

herod's descendents

oklahoma city

newtown

colorado twice over

newtown

the uncounted of the 'hoods and barrios

newtown

abu ghraib

newtown

my lai

newtown

sand creek

newtown

wounded knee

newtown

the 38 indian chiefs hung in minnesota by abe lincoln

newtown

hiroshima

newtown

nagasaki

newtown

dresden and leipzig

newtown

the tens of thousands of nicaragua and el salvador and guatemala

newtown

the millions of congolese dead to make available the chips for the laptop on which this

poem is written

newtown

the tens of thousands in "fast and furious" mexico

newtown

and on and on and on.......

newtown has proven once more that

what's going around is coming around

and these twenty-eight slain are

twenty-eight more reasons

that i am a communist

calling for the indictments

the trials

the findings of guilty

the removal from our midst

of those who knowinglly

and willfully make available

for whatever the market would bear

the weapons of mass destruction

of our children the world over

the murder of adults who would

protect the children

indict! try! remove

the gangsters and

their organized crime

called capitalism

berkeley ca 12-19-2012

gary hicks

Cora

Jorge Argueta — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 19:25:00 +0000

Jorge Argueta lives in San Francisco

CORA

Aquí en San Salvador
En el portal La Dalia
Un niño huele pega
Y su corazón tiembla

Como el rocío
Como una estrtella
Y de las cloacas
Se levanta un olor ahijillo

Y ni el volcán
el viento
o las nubes
lo ven o lo tocan

Aquí aun hay pintas de 1980
Y en algún lugar
De San Salvador
Florecen huesos de los
desaparecidos

Cantán en el Corazón de
nuestra Madre Tierra
Los inviernos y veranos
Que van y vienen en las
alas
De los azacuanes

Por las mañanas
Los mercados se levantán
Frescos
Brillantes como un rebozo

A lo lejos
El cerro San Jacinto
Sigue siendo
Hermoso como los amates y
los sueños

Aquí en las calles de San
Salvador
Las mujeres y los hombres
Los niños y las niñas
Predican coras

Coras de alegría
Coras de esperanza
Coras de dulzura
Veinticinco centavos de
abrazos

Coras
Coras de ajos
Coras
Coras de limomes

Coras
Coras
Coras se escucha
Como un lamento dulce y
tristón

Desde las gradas que
conducen
A los comedores del Mercado
Central
Los niños y las niñas
elevan pizcuhas
Coloradas y rosadas hacía
el cielo azul

Luego siguen vendiendo
coras de cebollas
Coras de tomates
Coras de bálsamo
Coras y coras y más coras

Veinticinco centavos que
apenas
Tocan sus manos
Veinticinco miserables y
alegres centavos
Que siguen volando como sus
voces

Coras de canto
Coras de flores
Coras de viento
Coras de besos

Yo pienso en los azacuanes
Que llevan y traen
Los inviernos y los veranos
En el corazón y en las alas

Aquí me quedo
En este país medio vivo
Medio muerto
Aquí me quedo

Junto al cerro San Jacinto
Cierro los ojos
Rezo como rezan los
guerreros
Los volcanes

El agua
El maíz
Las piedras y el sol cora
Corazón de un nuevo
amanecer

QUARTER

Here in San Salvador
In the market district
Of La Dalia
A young man sniff glue

His heart shivers
Like dew
Like star
And from the drainage rises

A rotten smell of the dead
Nor the volcano
The wind or the clouds
See or touch him

Here in San Salvador
There are still slogans
from the 80's
And some where
Bones of the disappeared
are blooming

Singing in the heart of our
Mother Earth
Winters and summers come
and go
In the wings
Of the Azacuanes birds

In the mornings
The markets awake fresh
Shiny
Like a shawl

Faraway
The San Jacinto hill
Continues to be
Wonderful like the amate
trees and dreams

Here in streets of San
Salvador
Man and woman
Boys and girls
Preach quarters

Quarters of happiness
Quarters of hope
Sweet quarters
A quarter of hugs

Quarters
A quarter of garlic
Quarters
A quarter of lemons

Quarters
Quarters
Is heard
As a sweet and sad lament

From the steps that lead to
the eateries
Of the main Market
Children fly purple and red
kites
Into the blue sky

Then go on selling quarters
of onions
Quarters of tomatoes
Quarters of balsam
Quarters and quarters and
more quarters

Twenty five cents that
hardly
Touch their hands
Twenty five happy and
miserable cents
That continue flying like
their voices

A quarter of songs
A quarter of flowers
A quarter of wind
A quarter of kisses

I think of the Azacuanes
birds
That take back and forth
The winter and the summer
In their hearts and wings

Here I stay
In this country half dead
Half alive
Here I'll stay by the San
Jacinto hill

Close my eyes
And pray
Like the warriors pray
The volcanos

The water
The corn
The stones and the sun
quarter
Sunshine of a new begining

In town x3

Amiri Baraka — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:45:00 +0000

Poem by Amiri Baraka

In town x3

Something in the way of things
Something that will quit and won’t start
Something you know but can’t stand
Can’t know get along with
Like death
Riding on top of the car peering through the windshield for his cue
Something entirely fictitious and true
That creeps across your path hallowing your evil ways
Like they were yourself passing yourself not smiling
The dead guy you saw me talking to is your boss
I tried to put a spell on him but his spirit is illiterate

I know things you know and nothing you don’t know
’cept I saw something in the way of things
Something grinning at me and I wanted to know, was it funny?
Was it so funny it followed me down the street
Greeting everybody like the good humor man
But an they got the taste of good humor but no ice cream
It was like dat
Me talking across people into the houses
And not seeing the beings crowding around me with ice picks
You could see them
But they looked like important Negroes on the way to your funeral
Looked like important jiggaboos on the way to your auction
And let them chant the number and use an ivory pointer to count your teeth
Remember Steppen Fetchit
Remember Steppen Fetchit how we laughed
An all your Sunday school images giving flesh and giggling
With the ice pick high off his head
Made ya laugh anyway

I can see something in the way of our selves
I can see something in the way of our selves
That’s why I say the things I do, you know it
But its something else to you
Like that job
This morning when you got there and it was quiet
And the machines were yearning soft behind you
Yearning for that nigga to come and give up his life
Standin’ there bein’ dissed and broke and troubled

My mistake is I kept sayin’ “that was proof that God didn’t exist”
And you told me, “nah, it was proof that the devil do”
But still, its like I see something I hear things
I saw words in the white boy’s lying rag
said he was gonna die poor and frustrated
That them dreams walk which you ’cross town
S’gonna die from over work
There’s garbage on the street that’s tellin’ you you ain’t shit
And you almost believe it
Broke and mistaken all the time
You know some of the words but they ain’t the right ones
Your cable back on but ain’t nothin’ you can see
But I see something in the way of things
Something to make us stumble
Something get us drunk from noise and addicted to sadness
I see something and feel something stalking us
Like and ugly thing floating at our back calling us names
You see it and hear it too
But you say it got a right to exist just like you and if God made it
But then we got to argue
And the light gon’ come down around us
Even though we remember where the (light or mic?) is
Remember the Negro squinting at us through the cage
You seen what I see too?
The smile that ain’t a smile but teeth flying against our necks
You see something too but can’t call its name

Ain’t it too bad y’all said
Ain’t it too bad, such a nice boy always kind to his motha
Always say good morning to everybody on his way to work
But that last time before he got locked up and hurt, real bad
I seen him walkin’ toward his house and he wasn’t smiling
And he didn’t even say hello
But I knew he’d seen something
Something in the way of things that it worked on him like it do in will
And he kept marching faster and faster away from us
And never even muttered a word
Then the next day he was gone
You wanna know what
You wanna know what I’m talkin’ about
Sayin’ “I seen something in the way of things”
And how the boys face looked that day just before they took him away
The is? in that face and remember now, remember all them other faces
And all the many places you’ve seen him or the sister with his child
Wandering up the street
Remember what you seen in your own mirror and didn’t for a second recognize
The face, your own face
Straining to get out from behind the glass
Open your mouth like you was gon’ say somethin’
Close your eyes and remember what you saw and what it made you feel like
Now, don’t you see something else
Something cold and ugly
Not invisible but blended with the shadow criss-crossing the old man
Squatting by the drug store at the corner
With is head resting uneasily on his folded arms
And the boy that smiled and the girl he went with

And in my eyes too
A waving craziness splitting them into the jet stream of a black bird
With his ass on fire
Or the solemn NOTness of where we go to know we gonna be happyI seen something

I SEEN something
And you seen it too
You seen it too
You just can’t call it’s name name name name name name name.

—Amiri Baraka

(This poem read at the Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival in October 2012, in Newark, NJ. Amiri Baraka opened the festival and a special event that commemorated the 45th anniversary of the Newark Uprising of 1967, in which his voice played a prominent role, with a powerful reading)

Remarks at George Edwards Memorial

Sam Webb — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:39:00 +0000

NOTE: Sam Webb spoke along with others, including Leo Gerard at a memorial in Pittsburgh for United Steelworkers founder, and longtime Communist leader, George Edwards.

Thank you.

I am honored to be here and to be able to say a few words about George ... my dear friend and comrade.

Let me begin by expressing my heartfelt love and solidarity to his partner Denice and family. You feel the loss the deepest, but be assured that all of us gathered here and many more around the country are profoundly saddened by George's passing as well as inspired by the spirit and legacy that he leaves behind.

I also want to thank President Gerard and the steelworkers union for hosting this memorial at your headquarters. There is no better place to celebrate George's life.

This union meant everything to him. Up until his health made it impossible, nothing made George happier than to volunteer his labor at this building. Here he could do his part in fighting to advance the goals of this great union.

George was proud of every union fighting the good fight against corporate greed and right wing extremism, but he was especially proud of this union and its leadership which he felt was breaking new ground in the fight for the interests of our nation's multi-racial, male and female working class.

In fact, if he were with us now, he would be singing its praises in making possible the great victory that working people and their allies scored with the reelection of President Obama for a second term.

During the nearly 35 years that I knew George he always amazed me at the many hats that he wore - gardener, wilderness enthusiast, photographer, camper, chef, sports fan, environmentalist, avid reader, mentor to young workers, and sculptor ... but the main hat that he wore so well and so long was that of a union activist against corporate power. He punched into the class struggle at an early age and only punched out when his heart stopped beating.

Some ask: where did all that get up and go come from? To me the answer is simple.

His nearly inexhaustible source of energy even as an old man came from his belief that his cause was just and righteous. It came from his belief that the 99 per cent are the real creators of wealth and would do a better job running the country than the 1 per cent. It came from his belief that a united working class had the power to bring the multi-national corporations to their knees.

And it came from a belief that there was enough wealth, natural resources, and technological know-how ready at hand to make it possible for every inhabitant on our fragile planet to live a decent and secure life, not having to worry about what tomorrow may bring.

As I mentioned, George would have been thrilled by the election outcome. At the same time he would have reminded us that our work isn't yet done.

He would be the first to say that the right wing and corporate America have been defeated, but will live to fight another day. Thus the road ahead will be bumpy and contentious, beginning with the fight over how to solve our fiscal problems, which are real, but not as real as the jobs crisis, which, George would tell us, should be the nation's top priority.

George lived a long, eventful, and fulfilling life. Most of us have some regrets as we look back over our lives, and I'm sure George had his; things that he would have done differently if he could rewind the clock.

But what stands out for me is that he tried to do the right thing; he had a big heart; he always had the back of working men and women; and he loved his family, his neighbors, his union brothers and sisters, his comrades, and his country.

He will be missed, but he will live on in our hearts as we continue to fight for a more just, equal and peaceful world.

Homecoming

Dee Allen — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 09:57:00 +0000

Dee Allen is an activist combatting homelessness and other forms of street-based opppression in San Francisco.

HOMECOMING..........Dee Allen

Back from the combatzones
Of the rest of Europe
And patriotic ticker-tape parades,
England's sons

Had no homes
To come back to
In the mid-1940s.

Military camps
Luxury flats
City hotels
Were abandoned.
Fears of air raids
By Nazi planes
Dropping bombs
Power outtages
Cities blown to the bare bricks
Sent everyone running.
Crisis followed crisis:
Housing shortage.

Under nightfall's
Thick velvety cover, like
An Army battalion onto an enemy fort,
The ex-soldiers of England
Saw vacant buildings,
Opened them up,
Took them over
And made them their own.

Huddling against a wall
In the dead cold
Wasn't an option.

Neither was languishing
For years on a public list, waiting
For the government to hand over a pre-fab cottage.

Legal paper
Fictions of "private property" & "leasing"
Never entered the equation

When the need for housing
Was greatest
Right there, right then.

Military camps
Luxury flats
City hotels
Filled in nicely
With veterans & civilians, 45,000 strong
In the post-war days.
They were better at
Re-organising society
Than Her Majesty's Kingdom,
As committees & collectives
Ran communal kitchens,
Provided first aid,
Repaired the barracks,
Ran makeshift clinics,
Opened up potential homes
For fellow dispossessed,
Defended newfound homes
From the danger
Of ejection
Back to constant wandering
And instability
Dreaded instability
On the street-----

England's sons
And Wales'
And later, Scotland's
Made good on a promise
To themselves:

Homes truly fit for heroes.
The homecoming any soldier needs.

Presente! George Edwards

Rick Nagin, Bruce Bostick — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:07:00 +0000

Sisters and Brothers --

Organized labor lost a giant when Steelworker George Edwards, 94, died last week shortly after returning home from the union's Civil Rights Conference in Cincinnati. At the conference Edwards became a celebrity and got a standing ovation when Pres. Leo Gerard spoke about his lifelong efforts for democratic, class struggle union policies, including initiating the fight at the 1948 USWA convention for an African American International Vice President, a fight he continued until that goal was finally achieved 40 years later. Gerard had also singled Edwards out for special praise at the union's 70th anniversary event earlier this year in Cleveland.

Edwards was one of the founders and early officers of USWA Local 1104 at the U.S. Steel mill in Lorain. He was also a founding member of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) and a member of its national executive board. During the 1970's he was president of the National Steelworkers Rank and File Committee.

Despite suffering abuse for his beliefs, including from his own union, during the McCarthy period, Edwards was also a proud member and leader of the Communist Party USA and served in its National Committee for the past 50 years. He understood that the socialist and trade union movements are intertwined and need each other, and that, without the labor movement, socialism becomes narrow and isolated and, without the socialist movement, labor loses focus, vision and a stable direction. Only when they are combined can both movements thrive and move forward to the time when working people and their allies will replace corporate power as the leading force in society.

In solidarity,

Rick Nagin

______________________________

The working class and people lost a great leader, activist, and fighter for justice and equality this past week when 94 year-old George Edwards died. While his accomplishments were many and will have positive influence on our lives for generations, what those who knew George will remember most was his all abiding humanity. While a lifelong champion of worker's rights, civil rights, and peace, George was as at home with a beer watching the game, gardening, hiking, camping, or visiting friends as he was at a meeting of his beloved steelworker unionists.

Born in 1918 in South Dakota, his family moved to Tennessee and homesteaded land in what is now the Great Smoky National Park. His father worked in the Indian Service until becoming frustrated with mistreatment of native peoples.

George obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Tennessee, then received his graduate degree from Oberlin Seminary, studying to enter the ministry. After completing his studies, George went to work as a machinist at the huge U. S. Steel Works in nearby Lorain, Ohio, making less than $1 an hour. His goal was to set up a "labor church."

However, he quickly joined the Steelworker's Organizing Committee, which was campaigning to organize that mill, and joined the Communist Party USA, along with many of the other organizers. He was active as a member/leader for the rest of his life.

Denise Winebrenner-Edwards, George's wife of 31 years, said, "He was absolutely convinced that the only way working people could achieve justice was for the people, not the wealthy, to control our economy. He saw that inherent in capitalism was inequality and injustice and that the system needed to be changed fundamentally to meet the people's needs."

After winning unionization in 1942, George founded the local union newspaper, the Lorain Labor Leader, founded a veteran's committee, and was part of the local's Political Action Committee. He was elected the local's vice president.

When America entered World War II, George immediately joined up, fighting to defeat the fascist menace in Europe.

After victory, he came back, but to a much different political climate. McCarthyism was rearing its ugly head. Still, George was elected to the 1948 United Steelworkers of America (USWA) convention, where he raised the first resolution calling for an African American vice president of the union. Although this wasn't won at that convention, George was a leading part of the movement that achieved that goal at the USWA convention nearly 40 years later.

For George, the 1950s were difficult times. Hounded by the FBI, spied on, and ostracized at the union he helped found, his name was even chiseled off of the founders' plaque at the union hall. He suffered isolation and tough times, even going through a divorce.

However, George used this time to become a photographer, setting up a studio in Lorain, became involved in hiking, camping, and became a serious artist, painting and producing metal sculptures. His metal chess sets are highly valued and are on display as gifts in presidential offices in Vietnam and other nations.

Even in these hard times, George still found ways to fight for justice. Seeing Puerto Rican workers brought in to work at the mill housed in railroad cars on company property, without running water, heat or sanitary facilities, he invited leaders of the Puerto Rican independence movement to Lorain to help the workers understand what rights they had and to push for decent housing. When African American steelworkers were unable to buy homes in still-segregated areas, George purchased homes which he resold to those workers. As the civil rights and peace movements developed, George jumped on board.

In the '70's, George really began to put his stamp on policy changes that would shift political ground for all of us. Seeing a lack of democracy, a slackening of the fight against the big corporations, in the USWA, George formed the National Steelworkers Rank & File Committee. It pushed for democracy, membership involvement and solidarity. He literally ran the budding rank and file movement from an old mimeograph machine in his front room, almost permanently having blue-stained fingers. Local committees were formed in Steelworker locals across the nation, mainly made up of younger workers.

The Lorain committee did not come about because George made great speeches, but grew out of what will forever be known as the "Pink Hard Hat" incident. By now, George was a machinist instructor, teaching young apprentices the trade. But the shop foreman was making life hell for the young workers, harassing them in numerous ways, including forcing them to shave beards and cut their hair short (a big deal for those guys in those days). George painted his hard hat pink, stating that it looked like "the boss's bald head."

He was suspended for his protest, but the union, especially the young workers, rallied to his side and he won his grievance and back pay.

This was during a time that the mainstream media all trumpeted the "generation gap," the idea that only young folks were progressive and that if you were older, you couldn't possibly relate to young people. Throughout his life, and especially during this period, George showed this concept up for the lie it was. He was beloved by the younger workers and he fought for them, as well as all workers.

An important principle of the rank and file movement that George often spoke of during this period was: "We have no enemies that are workers. We are fighting for all workers. We need a rank and file movement always, to involve regular workers in the union. It needs to support union leaders when they're right and push them when they aren't!"

The rank and file movement that George began expanded and won many gains during this period. The right of workers to ratify their own contracts was won, as well as the election of an African American USW vice president. The movement fought against an experimental negotiating agreement that would have ended the union's ability to strike. The well-known Consent Decree, which ended practices of keeping minority workers in the worst, most dangerous and low paid jobs, opened up all jobs to bidding and brought women and minorities into the trades, was a major victory of the movement. All these had George Edwards' fingerprints on them.

The Steelworkers union began to shift, becoming the progressive union it is today, mobilizing its members, building coalitions, standing up for solidarity with other workers and unions across the globe.

After retiring, George married Denise Winebrenner and moved to Pittsburgh. Winebrenner, a USW activist in her own right, was elected to the Wilkinsburg City Council.

Hardly ready to relax and enjoy "golden years," George spoke of these as "the best years of my life." He was a founding member of the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) and was a member of SOAR's ruling executive board. With his wife Denise, they formed a local coalition, Wilkinsburg for Change, which stopped privatization of the local elementary school and pushed for better services and more access for the community to local government.

George was especially proud of the fact that he was "the first one arrested" for sitting in, blocking trucks carrying copies of the Pittsburgh Press, when workers there were on strike. The strike was successful, especially due to the massive solidarity movement.

Even into his 90s George Edwards was active, mobilizing steel retirees to rallies for health care and retiree security. When Occupy Pittsburgh held demonstrations and news conferences this past year, George was out front, attending and bringing friends.

Finally, in his late years, George got something he'd never asked for: credit for his work! He used to say, "It's amazing what you can get accomplished if you don't care who gets credit!"

Certainly, at least for the rest of us, it was wonderful to see some credit finally go his way.

At the 70th anniversary of the United Steelworkers union in Cleveland last year, George Edwards was honored with a long, very loud, standing ovation. He was recognized for his work and as the only one present who was at the founding USW convention as well as the present one.

George had just returned from a USW Civil Rights Conference in Cincinnati when he fell into a coma. At that conference, USW President Leo Gerard had honored George, saying, "He was an activist every single day of his life." The comments were occasion for another long, standing ovation, which brought tears to many eyes, including George's.

George died peacefully. He didn't live that way!

He is survived by his wife Denise, a son, daughter, and three sisters.

Denise has asked that those wishing to send flowers instead send donations to SOAR, or Next Generation (USW organization for young workers). Both of these can go to:

USW-Attn. Sec'r./Treasurer

60 Blvd. of the Allies

Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Donations may also be made, in George's name, to People's World:

235 W. 23rd St.

New York, NY 10011

FUEL ON THE FIRE: OIL AND POLITICS IN OCCUPIED IRAQ: Book Review

Chris Butters — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:54:00 +0000

BOOK REVIEW; FUEL ON THE FIRE: OIL AND POLITICS IN OCCUPIED IRAQ BY GREG MUTTITT

NEW PRESS, 2012)

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 left a broken country and many unanswered questions. What was the war really about? Why and how did the occupation drag on for nearly nine years, while most Iraqis and Americans wanted it to end? And why did the troops have to leave?

Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq (New Press, 2012) takes us behind the scenes to answer some of these questions and reveal the real story of the oil politics that played out through the occupation of Iraq. Based on unreleased government documents and extensive interviews with U.S., British and Iraqi officials, author Greg Muttitt exposes the plans in place to shape policies in favor of the multinational oil companies.

The book also contains interviews with trade union leaders, Iraqi oil experts, and leaders of civil organizations, which paint another largely untold story: how the Iraqi working people struggled for their own say in their future, in spite of the US- imposed Provisional Authority regime, and rising levels of violence directed against them.

First of all, was the Iraq war about the “liberation” of Iraq? Muttitt points out Iraq controls 10% of the world’s proven oil reserves, and countries in the Middle East control 60% of the world’s proven world supply.

Combine this with U.S. Pentagon and big business oil addiction, and the fact that oil experts predict US oil supplies are to be depleted in 13 years while the Middle East has reserves for another 100, and you have a good idea about the material interests that drive US policy in the region.

Muttitt documents how years before the Iraq occupation a strategy similar to the one that actually unfolded was developed in secret memos from National Security Council meetings and Vice President Cheney’s Iraq Study Group.

As early as January of 2001 National Security Council staff were ordered by the Bush administration to cooperate with Vice President Cheney’s Energy Policy Task Force in a “melding” of “the review of operational policies towards rogue states “ such as Iraq with “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

But Muttitt cautions that the agenda was not about just gaining access to a few tankers of oil in the manner of the old conquistadors. Muttitt writes, “far more valuable today is an agreement in a laptop or a briefcase.” The battle, as we shall see, is to create a legal authority through which a steady flow of profits could be assured, stabilizing global energy markets.

We meet all the players we have come to know from the headlines of the period. We meet lawyer and advisor Ron Jonkers, fresh from spearheading the privatization of Kazakistan’s oil industry, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (This was apparently considered a “model” at the time by oil privateers).We meet U.S. army generals, under orders in the early days of the invasion to stand by as cultural treasures in Iraq’s national museum were looted, but to safeguard the Iraqi oil ministry.

We see the imperial arrogance of US policy makers Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bremer, as they seek to build a US -friendly Provisional Authority regime. Not only was the Ba’ath Party outlawed, but skilled oil technicians, soldiers and public workers with even the most cursory ties were blacklisted. A new legislative system based on Sunni and Shi’a affiliations is established – which Muttitt documents had no basis in Iraqi national political tradition.

Particularly important, Muttitt demonstrates, is the overriding need for passage of a legal basis for privatization of Iraq’s oil industry. In Iraq this took the form of a contract known in the industry as “ a Production Sharing Agreement” (PSA).

Billed as a way to aid the Iraqi people in the modernization of its aging oil refineries, the terms of the agreement, if adopted, would have actually replaced the Iraqi Oil Ministry as the sovereign holder of Iraqi oil, instead making it merely a competing entity with foreign corporations.

In addition to granting favorable terms for long -term superprofits, the provisions of the agreement would supersede Iraqi laws and remove the multinationals from any accountability to the Iraqi people.

The overriding drive of oil corporations to establish a legal authority for long-term investment, Muttitt points out, is understandable when we know Iraqi history. In addition to being blessed with an abundance of oil, Iraq has had a long history of militant struggle against foreign corporations and states wishing to control it.

These struggles resulted in the institution of Law Number 80 in 1961 by Iraq’s Prime Minister Qasim. Although the law stopped short of nationalizing oil, it reclaimed Iraqi rights to all remaining oil in the country, with the exception of oil already in production. In 1972, Prime Minister Hussein nationalized the oil industry. Because of this history, Iraq’s oil was enshrined in the Iraqi constitution as “ the property of the whole people, ” and was popularly seen as such.

By 2007 Iraq was reeling from the effects of US occupation and its policies. Basic public services previously enjoyed by the Iraqi people such as water, gas, electricity and security had seriously deteriorated. This was the direct result of cutbacks by the Provisional Authority , and layoffs of Iraqi public workers .

US army planners and engineers instead delegated repairs to unaccountable and often negligent U.S. contractors (e.g. Kellogg,Brown & Root; Haliburton) who failed abysmally (while reaping superprofits) in most of the contracts they took on.(U.S. public workers take note!)

Sectarian militias ruled many parts of Iraq – militias Muttitt documents the Provisional Authority sometimes inadvertently fostered and sometimes deliberately supported as a counterweight against anti-occupation Iraqi nationalism. Meanwhile, secret communications between the government and the Maliki regime (recently revealed through Wikileaks) show how the overriding concern at this time continued to be that the Maliki regime get the legislature to pass the PSA.

Fuel Against the Fire would be worth reading just for its exposure of the real story behind the U.S. claims of “liberating Iraq”. But the book does not stop there. In addition to trenchant analysis and thorough documentation, it is also a story about the fightback of the Iraqi people. It is also a story of hope.

Muttitt narrates the growth and ultimately successful organizing of the Iraqi people against the Provisional Authority’s attempt to ram through the PSA in the Iraqi parliament in 2007.

In contrast to the coalition the US occupiers sought to build, based on ethnic and sectarian identification, Muttitt describes the organizing by activists of a labor-religious coalition to oppose the US oil law.

The bedrock in the fight was the organizing of Iraq’s oil workers (trade union organizing of oil workers and also civil servants was outlawed under the Hussein regime in 1987, and continued to be outlawed under the U.S occupation.)Originally organized to fight for payment of back wages by the Provisional Authority in 2003, the union at its first public conference expanded its outlook to oppose and expose the proposed oil law. Their struggle continued, despite assassinations of its leaders, kidnappings of its members, and other obstacles trade unionists in the US have seldom had to overcome.

The Association of Muslim Scholars as well as other Islamic organizations entered the struggle. Fatwa 217 was issued, calling for opposition to the oil law based on Muslim religious law. Iraqi oil experts lent their expertise to the campaign and testified before Iraqi parliament. The Provisional Authority stepped up its attacks against the oil workers union, leading to the seizing of its assets. Trade unions in Iraq and worldwide protested the repression of the Iraqi oil workers union.

How the Iraqi oil workers organized in such difficult circumstances is an inspiring story. (I was proud to read the resolution adopted by the AFL-CIO at its 2005 national convention, which called for a rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. I was also proud to see that the AFL-CIO defended the Iraqi trade unions from attacks by the Provisional Authority and US occupation forces.

In addition to discussion of the AFL-CIO resolution, Muttitt describes the important role US Labor Against the War played in bringing the message of the Iraqi oil workers and their fight to the U.S. labor movement. USLAW, a coalition of labor unions pledged to be “the voice within the labor movement for peace and new priorities,” has grown to over 200 affiliated trade union locals since its founding in 2003. It has steadfastly opposed the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, while calling for funding human needs, not war.

At a time when there was little information in the US about developments in the Iraqi labor movement, USLAW sponsored a national tour of leaders of the three major Iraqi trade union federations in 2005, and publicized their cause within the labor movement. This tour, as well as patient organizing within AFL-CIO unions, laid the basis for the campaign and passage of the historic AFL-CIO resolution.

Us troops withdrew from Iraq in late 2011. While this was a victory for the Iraqi people, as well as for the peace movement around the world, Muttitt reports that nine years of occupation and war has left a decimated Iraq, and a seriously weakened oil industry infrastructure.

Muttitt reports that oil corporations have been granted contracts favoring their interests since that time. Iraqi trade unions continue to be under attack, despite and because of their role in defeating the worst of big oil’s power grab in 2007. Continued labor solidarity from the U.S. labor movement against attack from the Iraqi government is crucial.

But there is one crucial difference. These investments came without the legality of big oil’s much sought-after Production Sharing Agreement, meaning these contracts can be suspended at any time by vote of the Iraqi people’s representatives in their legislature.

The same forces that led to the Iraqi people taking back their oil in 1961 and 1972 --and the same forces involved in the successful fight against the PSAs more recently – can and will lead to further fightbacks by the Iraqi workers. When this happens, Muttitt eloquently argues, the next generation of Iraqi workers will surely build on the heroic legacy of the Iraqi oil workers and their struggle.

I highly recommend this book to all peace activists who have organized or will be organizing in the future against U.S. war moves in the Middle East. “No Blood for Oil!” This book will be an important resource in countering future Pentagon wars, whatever their smokescreen. Author Naomi Klein has called this book “nothing short of a secret history of the war”, and I agree.

As an AFSCME member, I also recommend it to U.S. trade unionists seeking to organize for jobs, decent union contracts, and justice in our own country. The AFL-CIO resolution was important because it made this link.

What big oil sought to do in Iraq – and for that matter seeks to do elsewhere in the Middle East – it is also seeking to do right here in the U.S. What Fuel for the Fire drives home, among much else, is how labor’s struggle against U.S. wars for corporate profit around the world is part of our own struggle against privatization, and for union rights and justice here at home. They are all part of the same ongoing fight.

Chris Butters

The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory: Book Review

Keifus — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 14:11:00 +0000

Romano, Renee C. and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. Athens, GA: The University of Georgie Press, 2006.

The Civil Rights Movement is a very important part of American history. This was a moment when a group of people, tired of the treatment that they had been faced with for hundreds of years, stood up and made it clear that they were no longer going to endure it. People like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Huey P. Newton are remembered for their contributions to the movement, whether or not those contributions are perceived as good or bad. Events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Birmingham Church Bombing, and the Black Panther's conflicts with the police are also remembered for the effects they had on the movement and society, whether good or bad. In The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory, how such people and events are remembered is the center of the discussion.

The book is divided into four sections, Institutionalizing Memory, Visualizing Memory, Diverging Memory, and Deploying Memory. The first section explores the ways in which the historical memory of the movement has been translated into public memory in sites such as museums, memorials, and courtrooms. The second section examines how the Civil Rights Movement has been represented in the mass media. The third section examines the role of gender in the Civil Rights Movement, and the fourth section examines how groups since the movement have attempted, successfully or unsuccessfully, to connect themselves to the spirit of the movement.[1]

The two essays in the first section that did the best job of showing how the Civil Rights Movement has been remembered by the public are "The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the New Ideology of Tolerance," by Glenn Eskew and "Street Names as Memorial Arenas: The Reputational Politics of Commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. in a Georgia County," by Derek H. Alderman. In his article, Eskew followed the process by which the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute came into being. He examined how it was possible for such a museum to go up in a city and state that had been known for sometimes violent reprisals against civil rights activists. The city had seen the bombing of a local church and the release of attack dogs onto peaceful protestors. Both white and black people were involved in the project to include Governor George Wallace, a once virulent enemy of the Civil Rights Movement. He now saw the economic potential of such an institution, and along with others, saw how such an institution could serve to repair both Birmingham's and Alabama's tarnished image.[2]

In his essay, Alderman told the story of attempts by local organizations in Bulloch County, Georgia to name a freeway after Martin Luther King, Jr., and he explained that this showed how the Civil Rights Movement is remembered by the public. The debate was over whether to name the freeway for Martin Luther King, Jr. or for local veterans. Alderman pointed to three issues in the debate, legitimacy, resonance, and hybridity. Who was more important to the people of Bulloch County, veterans or King? Who was more relevant to the people of Bulloch County? Who were the people of the county more likely to relate to. The veterans won the initial debate. The real conflict that came out in this debate, however, was the draw faced by African American veterans. What meant more to them, King or their veteran status?[3]

In the second section, the essay that best describes how the Civil Rights Movement has been used by the mass media is "Restaging Revolution: Black Power, Vibe Magazine, and Photographic Memory," by Leigh Raiford. In this essay, Raiford compared the narratives of the Civil Rights Movement, examined the use of photography by the Black Panthers and then how their images were used by the media, compared the Black Power Movement to other anti-colonial struggles of the 1960s, and showed how images produced by both the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power have produced consumable memory. She used the movies that involved the character Foxy Brown to show how Black Power has been both used to make money and how the movies have been used to turn the narrative of Black Power from one of liberation to one of vengeance. She also pointed to the use of Black Panther images in Vibe Magazine by musicians and others to present certain commercialized images of themselves, like that of the rapper Nas portraying himself as Huey P. Newton. She called this blaxploitation.[4]

In the third section, the essay that best examines the role of gender in the Civil Rights Movement is "Engendering Movement Memories: Remembering Race and Gender in the Mississippi Movement," by Steve Estes. In his essay, Estes examined the ways in which movement activists shaped their own accounts of the Civil Rights Movement as the dominant historical memory and historiography of the movement changed. He pointed to how white women's accounts of sexism in the SNCC were altered later, as they came to feel that such accounts might take away from the focus of the movement as a fight for racial equality. He also examined the reality that black women had more opportunity in the movement than did white women. This, however, was only because they had already been accustomed to playing such roles in Mississippi because of the nature of race relations in the state, whereas, the white women in the movement were accustomed to the lesser role afforded them in their sphere.[5]

In the fourth section of the book, two essays stand out as examples of how groups, since the Civil Rights Movement, have attempted to connect themselves to the spirit of the movement. ""Deaf Rights, Civil Rights: The Gallaudet "Deaf President Now" Strike and Historical Memory of the Civil Rights Movement,"" by R.A.R. Edwards is an example of how a group successfully related itself to the Civil Rights Movement. "Riding in the Back of the Bus: The Christian Right's Adoption of Civil Rights Movement Rhetoric," by David John Marley is an example of how a group tried but failed to relate itself to the Civil Rights Movement. In his essay, Edwards followed the story of the Gallaudet University "Deaf President Now" Strike, and pointed out that the students were successful because they were able to mold a new image of themselves as an oppressed minority rather than a set of individuals with a medical problem. He also pointed out how their success led other disabled groups to pick up similar rhetoric in their successful push to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed. Edwards also argued that, while deafness is now curable to some degree, this association with the Civil Rights Movement is more appropriate than creating an isolated 'Deaf Culture.'[6]

In his essay, Marley discussed the manner in which groups classified as the 'Christian Right' have attempted, unsuccessfully, to take up the mantle of the Civil Rights Movement. He mentioned Pat Robertson's comparison of Christians to blacks forced to sit as the back of the bus. He also showed how organizations like Operation Rescue, led by Randall Terry, used tactics derived from the Civil Rights Movement to protest issues like abortion. Protesters stood outside abortion clinics and held up signs. He also talked about the battle over prayer in school. Students across the nation walked out of school to pray at their campus' flag pole. The events were called 'Meet You at the Pole.' The failure of such movements stems from the power politics that people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, a former presidential candidate, tried to play in and failed. Furthermore, people like Jerry Falwell, who had directly opposed the Civil Rights Movement, were attempting to claim its legacy. People did not buy into this or the idea that they were an oppressed minority, an idea espoused by people like Pat Robertson.[7]

What do the essays in this book show, collectively? First, they show that the Civil Rights Movement has not been forgotten. The people that lived the event are still alive and helping to develop the image of the movement and are passing that image to the next generation. They also show that the American people have taken to a more collective view of the Civil Rights Movement, in that the movement is not viewed by people as the sole possession of a single race. Deaf people, LGBT people, Women, Chicanos, Asians, and even Christians have attempted, some successfully and some unsuccessfully, to use the ideals of the movement to further their own interests in this country. [8]

One can also draw from the book the idea that the Civil Rights Movement is something that should not be considered over. The idea garnered from the essays is that the struggle for civil rights is never ending. But this raises the question, "Does this take away from the truly monumental struggle that African Americans faced in this country?" The answer should be no, as there will always be disparities in this country that can and should be addressed as American's sensibilities evolve over time. Applying this to the present, one might consider if current movements, like Occupy Wall Street, will be able to maintain that the plight of the working class is a civil rights issue. As the protesters argue for better jobs with better pay, greater educational opportunities, and fiscal and economic responsibility on the part of the government, they could make their connection by pointing out that Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed during an event in which he was offering support for striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.[9]

[1] Romano, Renee C. and Leigh Raiford, eds., The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2006).

[2] Glenn Eskew, "The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the New Ideology of Tolerance," 37, 41.

[3] Derek H. Alderman, "Street Names as Memorial Arenas: The Reputational Politics of Commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. in a Georgia County," 85-90.

[4] Leigh Raiford, "Restaging Revolution: Black Power, Vibe Magazine, and Photographic Memory," 224, 238-241, 242-245.

[5] Steve Estes, "Engendering Movement Memories: Remembering Race and Gender in the Mississippi Movement," 299-307.

[6] R.A.R. Edwards, ""Deaf Rights, Civil Rights: The Gallaudet "Deaf President Now" Strike and Historical Memory of the Civil Rights Movement,"" 317-325, 336-340.

[7] David John Marley, "Riding in the Back of the Bus: The Christian Right's Adoption of Civil Rights Movement Rhetoric," 347-358.

[8] In "Integration as Disintegration: Remembering the Civil Rights Movement as a Struggle for Self-Determination in John Sayles's Sunshine State," Tim Libretti mentions briefly some the other movements, like the Chicano Movement that have taken inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement.

[9] If one wished to follow the Occupy Wall Street movement or to do some research on its mission, one could get started at http://www.occupywallst.org/.

Lies Across History: Book Review

Keifus — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 14:02:00 +0000

Loewen, James W. Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999.

What is history? Is history what actually happened, or is it what people say about what happened? Many people can say many different things about events that occurred and call it history. In Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong, James W. Loewen argued that history is what people say about what occurred. Despite the fact that many different people can say many different things and pass them off as history, this is what history is. What actually happened is the past; what people say about it is history, and with time and proper study, he argued, history can change. Loewen opened the book with some explanatory essays that tell why historical markers are so important. He then went into a lengthy but effective survey of historical sites across the United States, in which, he pointed out omissions, poor language, and straight lies. He further offered a list of twenty candidates for total removal, for their offensive nature or their inability to present what actually did or did not happen. Loewen concluded the book by pointing out that history does change and that by asking some educated questions, people can help to improve the way that public history is presented in this country. [1]

In the first section of the book, which consists of five short essays, a few things stood out. In "In What Ways Were We Warped?," Loewen pointed out that the public's understanding of history is skewed in a couple ways, poor presentation in public schools and inaccurate historical sites. For the historical markers he offered an example here, a site that fails to mention that Native Americans were enslaved in Utah up until 1863. Could he also have suggested oral history, as well? In "Some Functions of Public History," the two most interesting points that he made were that all historic sites serve to maintain the civic status quo; they never challenge the government and that an inaccurate site can negatively affect the future. [2]

In "The Sociology of Historic Sites," Loewen mentioned local boosterism, in which multiple locations have claimed to be the site of the first occurrence of some event or action, in order to draw tourists. The most interesting point gleaned from "Historic Sites are Always the Tales of Two Eras" is that every marker or monument never tells just one story. It not only tells the story of the person or place that is being commemorated but also speaks of the people that placed it and the times that they lived in. In "Hieratic Scale in Historical Monuments," Loewen discussed issues of power display at monuments and pointed to the statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York City's American Museum of Natural History. This statue has Roosevelt astride a horse high above a Native American and an African American. He also pointed to how this can distort the future by misrepresenting the past.[3]

In the next section of the book, Loewen began his review of the multitude of historic sites that dot the American landscape. Interestingly enough, he began his review in the West, which contradicts the modern story of American History that begins in the East. He pointed this very fact out earlier in the book and stated that this approach recognized that the Americas were, in fact, first settled by migrants from Asia, directionally from east to west, long before Europeans ever arrived. The section is divided into 'The Far West,' 'The Mountains,' 'The Great Plains,' 'The South,' 'The Atlantic States,' and 'New England.'

The most interesting story in the first section, 'The Far West,' was "California Downieville: Killing a Man Is Not News." In this essay, Loewen told of a woman, Josefa or Juanita (two different names were given), who, after a confrontation, in which her home was invaded and she killed a white man, was lynched and actually ended up putting the noose around here own neck and jumping to her death. Her 'last words' are memorialized on the marker dedicated to her, "I would do the same again, if I was so provoked." What made this essay stand out was that it was not a defense of women. The author actually argued that Josefa's marker actually made it look like a woman's life was worth more than a man's life.[4]

In the next section, 'The Mountains,' one will be most struck by "Idaho Almo: Circle the Wagons, Boys - It's Tourist Season." The first thing that one will notice is that this site makes Native Americans appear savage and evil, and Loewen pointed that out. More interesting, though, is the fact that the site commemorates an event that as evidence has shown, never took place. The townspeople were also extremely defensive when the Idaho State Historical Society attempted to remove the inaccurate monument. The most interesting story in 'The Great Plains' is "South Dakota Brookings: American Indians Only Roved for About a Hundred Years." A marker entering Brookings County states, "You Are About to Enter Brookings County - Home of roving Indians until 1862." As Loewen effectively pointed out, this sign completely ignores the fact that Native Americans only began their roving lifestyle after they were forced to find ways to adapt to new conditions that resulted from incursions into their territories by Europeans. Most all native tribes before this time were settled. Loewen offered the Mandans of North and South Dakota as an example.[5]

The most interesting story in 'The Midwest' would be that of Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, "Kentucky Hodgenville: Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace Cabin - Built Thirty Years after His Death!" The title of this story is almost entirely self explanatory; the city of Hodgenville presents a cabin that is younger than Lincoln, as the man's birthplace. What makes it more humorous is that the house that stands is actually a hodgepodge of materials from the original fake birthplace house and another such house that was supposed to be the birthplace of Jefferson Davis. There are two titles in 'The South' that compete with one another for the label of most interesting. They are "Texas Gainesville: "No Nation Rose So White and Fair; None Fell So Free of Crime"" and "Tennessee Woodbury: Forest Rested Here." The marker in Gainesville completely ignores the strong Union sentiment that was present in Cooke County at the time and justifies what was probably the largest mass lynching in US History. The marker in Woodbury honors the man that founded the first nationwide incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan, which in all rights, earned the right to be called a terrorist organization, as it participated in the persecution of thousands of people across the country, in both the North and the South.[6]

The most interesting story in 'The Atlantic States' would be "Pennsylvania Philadelphia: Remember the "Splendid Little War" - Forget the Tawdry Larger Wars." The marker on the USS Olympia, the ship that served as the flagship of Admiral Dewey's fleet in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War, honors the ship's service during that minor conflict but ignores or minimizes any further service. It ignores, entirely, America's war against the Philippines, which began almost immediately after the defeat of Spain and resulted in the conquest and subjugation of a sovereign people by the United States. It also skews the ship's role in the United States' involvement in the Russian Civil War. In 'New England' one will find "New Hampshire Concord: "Effective Political Leader"" to be extremely interesting. This story speaks of the marker dedicated to a man, President Franklin Peirce, who was involved in countless attempts to spread slavery. The most notable of his offenses were his involvement in the Ostend Manifesto and 'Bloody Kansas.' The marker conveniently forgets these events.[7]

Following these essays, and the many others that tell of inaccurate or outright false history, are two essays that serve as a conclusion. These two essays, "Snowplow Revisionism" and "Getting into a Dialogue with the Landscape," show that public history is beginning to make progress. More and more sites are beginning to alter their presentations or add on to them to tell more accurate stories. They also point out, however, that much work has yet to be done. They argue that it is the presents' responsibility to ensure that the future is made available to all persons through an accurate presentation of the past. They argue that this can only be achieved through mature public discourse. In the Appendices, A, B, and C, Loewen explained his methods for choosing sites, presented some questions that any person that visits historical sites should ask if they wish to get the most out of the site, and examined twenty different historical sites that he felt should be removed entirely.[8]

A lot can be gained from a book like this. First, and probably the most obvious, is that one can learn about places that they were previously unaware of. Second, one can gain a better understanding of the things that help to maintain the tense racial relations that exist in this country, to this very day. Third, this book may encourage a person to go visit certain sites for themselves, which would broaden their perspective on this country and the world, for that matter. Finally, one may also be encouraged to crusade for a local site that has been ignored or presented inaccurately, and one can be sure, there are plenty more sites across the country to consider.

One question still remains, however. That is, what good can be had by totally removing certain sites, namely those in the South dedicated to persons whose exploits are now less than reputable? Sites like those dedicated to Nathan Bedford Forrest and the 'Good Loyal Servants' are extremely offensive and emotionally charged, which makes questions like this difficult to ask and even more difficult to answer. Some will argue that total removal, despite sites' offensive nature, runs the risk of forgetting an important part of the nation's history. Perhaps Loewen's suggestion that such things be removed to museums for the provision of appropriate context is an acceptable compromise; though, he did also mention allowing for dual interpretations at sites. Either way, difficult parts of history cannot be shunned just because they hurt a little. They must be addressed head on, so that they can be turned into valuable lessons from which people can learn the benefits of working together in peace.

[1] James W. Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999).

[2] Ibid, 2-6, 12-14.

[3] Ibid, 21, 22, 30-31.

[4] Ibid, 6, 56-59.

[5] Ibid, 75-79, 116-118.

[6] Ibid, 152-156, 163-168, 237-240.

[7] Ibid, 352-355, 402-404.

[8] Ibid, 412-423, 424-436.

NEW YORKER

Chris Butters — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 08:29:00 +0000

Marriage equality bill passes in New York,
tonight the word spreads
from hand to hand like wildfire,
how quickly everyone knows.

Rainbow flags unfurl from windows,
car horns honk.

Thousands throng the streets
around the Stonewall,
32 years after
the rebellion.

But many straights in the City,
are also glad,
not stationed at the epicenter
of the celebration perhaps,

but a quiet satisfaction of a democratic task
accomplished, all the more momentous for that,
everyone in this city knows someone
who knows someone who knows someone,

who has walked down that long, lonely road,
and many are proud
to have played a role
in that budding coalition.

On TV they interview
a couple who have lived
together
30 years.

‘So many twists and turns
in the struggle,
so many anniversaries,
Karen and I thought we might
never get to see
this moment.

But it is finally here!
At long last gay and lesbian people
have the same legal rights
as other couples. “

Oh, America,
which has come this far,
which still has
such a long way to go.

When Obama
was elected president,
in Harlem Black people
danced.

Today
once again
I am proud
to be a New Yorker.

drones

Michael Shepler — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:07:00 +0000

Drones

Last night the Drones

Followed me home

They’d been hovering

Above the flat roof

Of the bar all evening

Chattering like the drunks inside

But they were alert enough

To trail me back

Through empty streets

Stopping when I stopped

Starting when the lights changed

So intent were we

The Drones & I

We failed to notice

On corners of the street

The tin-cup brigades

Of the redundant FBI

"Will Surveil for Food"

Their signs read

Michael Shepler 5/21/12

casserole

Gary Hicks — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:17:00 +0000

casserole

for laurie

remember that scene in malcolm x
where malcolm and the fruit of islam
descend upon the police station
and particularly that historico-cinematic
moment when malcolm's black- gloved
hand twists rightward and the fruit
does a left-face and marches away
along with all of the masses who came
to the police station?
do you remember that you asked me
if i was crying and i replied that
i had something in my eye?

well, i've always had this problem
of having eye-cinders at political moments
those specs just keep showing up!
the revolutionary peoples constitutional congress
philadelphia labor day weekend 1970
michael cetawayo tabor keynoting in
the indoor gym
the justice department may 1971 when the
d.c.'s black cops in total mutinous disobedience
to their white commanders refusing
to attack a nonviolent demonstration
the first legal martin luther king holiday
in san francisco with at least one hundred
and more likely two hundred thousand
marchers coming across the east bay bridge
from san jose on trains reserved by the unions.

it seems that i've had a goodly supply of eye-cinders
to cover my false-shame for disobeying the rule
that men don't cry and now here we are again
another film that of one half million quebecois
students and all of their allies banging pots and
pans and strumming any and all string instruments
and out numbering the total activist pool of occupy
in my country where on mayday in oakland
eye-cinders invaded again to the sight of a mere
seven thousand marchers.

so i'm resigned to having to keep in stock many many
eye-cinders because both rumor and official story
have it that i don't cry.

berkeley ca 6-2-2012

gary hicks

What Is History

Joshua Morris — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:04:00 +0000

What is History?

Few people have been challenged to answer the question of what exactly history is. While most of us probably familiarize ourselves with history in terms of academia and knowledge, we rarely stop to think or consider what is it that makes the study of history just that and not some scientific understanding of social evolution. To understand this broad conceptualization of history, one must consider at what point history could have said to have ‘started’. One might suggest the early beginnings of literature, our first attempts to express the social experience. Another might suggest the earliest attempts at codifying law, the earliest point of a written social order. Human beings are unique to other animals in that they have this history; a social explanation of the evolution of society over time. The same cannot be said of birds, or fish. Yes we know the history of fish and various members of the animal kingdom, but through the lens of science and biology. The most accurate possible description of the beginnings of our history must rest with distinguishing humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom.

How does one do this? Where does one begin? There are many points in both scientific and social evolution which could be said to define humanity’s separation-from the animal kingdom. There is however only one primary facet of humanity which distinguishes us from all other forms of life on this planet: Humanity has achieved the ability and means to physically produce conditions for its continued survival. Marx pointed this out when he stated that “[humans] begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence.” This view extends slightly from the materialist conception of history held by Greek philosopher Epicurus: The ability of mankind to reproduce, at length, a replication of tools and means of survival is the main definition of what makes us social beings living within a civilization. What then, is the material make-up of history?

History is the explanation of the social process over time; beginning and ending with a series of transformations in the means by which humanity is able to produce its means of subsistence. The periods which are most distinguishable in human history are periods of productive capability, defined primarily by the mechanisms and processes by which subsistence is manifested. We presently understand them as periods, or epochs; separated by time frame and categorized by national or ethnic origin: Ancient (Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, African), Western (Greek, Roman, Spanish, English, Germanic, French), Eastern (Slavic, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Middle Eastern), and Contemporary (American, Modern Western Civilization, Modern Eastern Civilization). Try as one may however, a historian cannot avoid the inherent shifts in productive modes occurring between these natural epochs throughout the past; Hunter/Gather, Horticulture, Slave Driven, Feudal, and Capital. As we presently understand history, production modes overlap across epochs, but still create defining characteristics for each period. Each epoch is primarily differentiated from each other by these modes because of the relationship by which they place the individuals to one another.

Consider for a moment, what is it that separates Ancient Egypt from Contemporary America in terms of history? Yes, location. Yes, time lapsed by the planet around our only Star. But most importantly, the most visually obvious social difference is the relationships by which individuals share with each other. In Contemporary America, an individual’s existence is defined mostly by his/her relationship to the totality of other Americans. In Ancient Egypt, an individual’s existence was defined mostly by his/her relationship to the Pharaoh, or Emperor. Because of these relationship differences created by more numerous social divisions, individuals in Contemporary America are capable of producing and creating material objects with each other at not only a faster pace but with more creativity. Simultaneously however, Contemporary America as it presently exists could not be without the preceding society which existed before it; thus making Ancient Egypt just as integral to the social system of Contemporary America as it is to the social systems of the rest of history.

To fully understand what history is, we must attempt to understand what separates the social experience of humanity from the biological evolution of life on the planet. As already stated Marx, among other philosophers, pointed directly to the distinction of humanity’s ability to manifest means of producing and reproducing means of sustainability which in turn allows the society to grow. The most popular phrase people know of history is that those who fail to learn their history are doomed to repeat it. To fully understand this cliché however, one must fully understand what it is that has made and what it is that has defined history.

Gerald Horne: Fighting Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii

Norman Markowitz — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Gerald Horne, Fighting Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press: 2011) 459 pp
First let me apologize to Gerry Horne, since I promised to review this massively researched , absorbing, and important history months ago.

I was unable to get to it because of my own political and trade union battles and my teaching responsibilities. When I did get to read it, I could not put it down, reading it on trains and busses and even sneaking a few pages at the Rutgers graduation when I was sitting win cap and gown.

Horne has written a history of an American state whose own history resembles that of an Afro-Asian colony struggling for liberation in the post WWII era---a sort of parallel universe to the cold war consensus abroad and the permanent consumer capitalist installment plan utopia at home proclaimed by American capitalists and their government on the mainland. As a brief introduction, let me set the stage. American planters, already a dominant force in the Hawaiian economy, launched "a revolution" at the beginning of the 1890s to protect their access to the American market-an access threatened by the McKinley tariff of 1890, with the support of the Republican Harrison administration(their political connections were with the Republican party). When McKinley gained the presidency, he gave Hawaii the territorial status that the Cleveland Democrats, connected to Southern plantation interests had refused, and the planters established complete control of the islands and their diverse population. Given the rise of the Japanese empire(Japanese agricultural laborers were of growing importance in the late Kingdom) the planters began to important Filipino and Puerto Rican laborers from the new colonies the U.S. had established in the aftermath of the Spanish American war.

Chinese and Portuguese laborers were also part of the working class along with indigenous Polynesians and the planters, with the "big five" family based companies at their pinnacle, established what was a textbook example of racism's relationship to capitalism-large wage differentials between "haole" (white) workers, and the other groups, who were separated by smaller wage differentials among themselves to keep them divided.

In this "paradise" built on the export of Sugar and Pineapples, the high "haole" families lived like feudal lords while the predominantly Asian work force worked and lived in great privation.

AJA (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) workers were among the most militant and class conscious. Although the Japanese empire was pursuing relentless anti-Communist policies in China and Korea and allying itself with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the 1930s, Japan at the end of the 19th and early 20th century had been the center in Asia for the study and dissemination of Marxist ideas and also in the struggle to establish a class conscious labor movement. Some who would become AJA activists brought these ideas with them to the islands.

AJA activists in the islands were to play a major role in the founding and development of the Communist Party in the islands and also in the rise of a left and Communist led union, the International Longshoreman's and Warehouseman's Union(ILWU) led by Harry Bridges nationally to a position of influence that no union, not even the UAW in Michigan, ever gained at the state level.

In Hawaii, there was essentially a one party non union situation until the ILWU began to mobilize both dock workers and agricultural workers on a non racist basis before WWII.

Ethno cultural divisions were very complicated, involving not only different groups of Asian-Americans among themselves and Portuguese(who in this parallel universe were not considered "haole") but also African-Americans were first came to islands after the Spanish-American war and found themselves in the years during and after WWII in a kind of surreal tropical Dixie---with segregation and brutal forms of ideological and institutional racism directed against them in a"multi-racial" context different than anything that existed on the mainland. Overcoming these contradictions was very difficult;but, the relatively simple nature of the dominant class relations made it possible not only to overcome them in building a powerful union but to make rapid and major advances for the working class.

In 1945, Henry Wallace as outgoing Vice President said that a great people's revolution was advancing in the world and the U.S. could not move to the right while the rest of the world was moving to the left, without a great collision. The cold war of course was that collision, but the territory of Hawaii was moving sharply to the left after the war while the U.S. mainland was moving to the right, producing dynamic and sometimes comic social struggles that Horne narrates clearly and effectively

First, in spite of the attacks and restrictions directed against AJA activists after Pearl Harbor, the ILWU not only grew but developed its own press and even radio broadcasts (similar in some respects to socialist and Communist movements and parties abroad).

All of the weapons used in the U.S. to destroy both the Communist party and the labor movement were trotted out---even a cartoon of Stalin in a grass skirt, portrayals of AJA activists as "Red" agents of a Japanese "yellow peril"(a variation on the "Communist control" of African American activists and groups as part of a political "racial" conspiracy). But the ILWU continued to advance. In the U.S. red baiters like Richard Nixon and a legion of others pointed absurdly to "Communist influence "in the Democratic party as a major those in winning elections in 1946 and afterwards as the cold war developed.

In Hawaii, as Horne shows, ILWU activists and Communist Party members did play a leading role in the development of what had been a paper Democratic party, holding positions in some cases in both the Communist and Democratic parties, and propelling that party to major victories that would end a half century of Republican rule. Although it was the "haoles"(whites) who really constituted a bloc vote, the mainland postwar cold war consensus campaign connecting anti-Communism, a general anti-labor outlook, with racism was very hard to sell to an electorate with a "non white" working class majority.

In Hawaii, for example, there was also Smith Act show trials of CPUSA/ILWU leaders, the longest trials, in the islands history, with some of the same "professional witnesses" expounding on the evils of defendants they never met. But here, because of the influence of left labor , the mayor of Honolulu and territorial representatives came forward as "character witnesses" for the defense.

When the predictable guilty verdicts were issued, 20,000 ILWU workers left their jobs in protest. Here, the ruling groups realized that there were great risks in carrying forward the persecutions and eventually accepted the fact that they could not destroy the ILWU, whatever their friends in both mainland parties and the mainland AFL-CI0 would do.

Eventually, the long postwar persecutions took their toll, but Hawaii's labor and social institutions took a different and far more progressive course then the postwar mainland because of the struggles of Communists and ILWU militants, many of AJA background, along with "haoles" African-Americans, Filipinos and Chinese.

There are no simple heroes and villains in Gerry Horne's rich narrative. The personal foibles, egos, and internal conflicts that existed among Communist/ILWU activists are portrayed extensively, along with searching questions about the question of statehood, responses to racism, etc.

But the relentless racism of both Hawaiian ruling groups and their U.S. supporters is shown with massive documentation . Horne for example has a field day with such figures as Mississippi's Senator James O.Eastland, leader of the "Senate Internal Security Committee" and featured speaker at White Citizens Council rallies through the South, ineffectually seeking to bring the McCarthyite road show to a Hawaii where thousands of ILWU members and others were waiting to stick it to him. The statements of legions of racists, from Strom Thurmond to those saw the "Japanese invasion" of the islands as worse than a Soviet invasion of San Francisco, is documented with skill and beyond any reasonable doubt.

While it was to become an issue more than half a century later, another important achievement of Fighting in Paradise is Gerry Horne's portrayal of Frank Marshall Davis, the African American writer, poet, and intellectual (friend of Paul Robeson and others) who left Chicago to settle in Hawaii in the late 1940s, only to face racist harassment and assault because of his continued militancy in the struggle against racism and reaction. Marshall's insights into what was happening in the islands are cogent and he himself emerges as a multi-faceted and very sympathetic personality.

Although the narrative ends long before Marshall befriended the teen-age Barack Obama, one can understand why he would be able to play such a positive role in the life of a young man like Obama, from a multi-ethnic background that made him a member of two minorities, "haole" and African, in Hawaii---since Marshall represented much of the best in an African-American tradition that Obama, up to that time, had little connection to, but would subsequently be so important to his development when he came in the 1980s to the Chicago that Marshall left in the 1940s.

Gerry Horne in conclusion has made another important contribution to the history of labor and the left and the tangled history of racism in America in Fighting in Paradise. Those who read it, whatever their background will find it enlightening and fascinating, as they would of his many other fine works, examples of what Charles Beard once called a "usable past" and what I like to call "use value history."

a sentence

Kevin Simmonds — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:57:00 +0000

a sentence

needs

at least one subject

and one verb

(though sometimes the subject

is unnamed it's understood

nevertheless

objects must be named)

...........Johannes Mehserle shot Oscar Grant III.

subject: Johannes Mehserle

verb: shot

object: Oscar Grant III

a sentence becomes sophisticated

when it includes complexity and detail

...........Johannes Mehserle shot Oscar Grant III who was...........restrained faced down

on the ground surrounded by three police officers.

subject: Johannes Mehserle

verb: shot

object: Oscar Grant III

...........A white police officer shot a black man faced down...........on the ground

and will spend less than two years in jail for his...........criminal conviction.

what is the object

of that sentence?

object? anyone?

-Kevin Simmonds

Used by permission.

Kevin Simmonds is a San Francisco-based writer, musician and filmmaker originally from New Orleans. His books include the poetry collection Mad for Meat and two edited works: the poetry anthology Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality and the late poet Carrie Allen McCray's Ota Benga under My Mother's Roof. He wrote the music for the Emmy Award-winning documentary Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica and Voices of Haiti: A Post-Quake Odyssey in Verse, both commissioned by the Pulitzer Center. His genre-defying films, including feti(sh)ameand Singing Whitman, have screened internationally.

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