Live From Death Row, Mumia Abu-Jamal's Goddard College Commencement Address
Ona move!
Free Mumia!
More environementalism:
Indigenous Canadians Are Blockading a Mine to Protest Pollution
Woops. I missed Solidarity Day IV (V? VI?):
Drop the anti-union frame up charges against Steve Kirschbaum! Reinstate the School Bus 4!
For tankie-led unions everywhere!
Vive le Galt!
They were all pretty sick of Bomber Bernie, too.
Btw, I've never been a member of the Internationalist Group, but dollars to donuts says they spent the whole day handing that leaflet out to Climate March participants.
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Brief Intermission: The Philosophy of the Science of Poker
Woops. I missed Solidarity Day IV (V? VI?):
Drop the anti-union frame up charges against Steve Kirschbaum! Reinstate the School Bus 4!
For tankie-led unions everywhere!
Vive le Galt!
I approve, though I'm wondering if 'tankie' means the same thing on the other side of the Atlantic. Probably.
Yes. Well, I think so, anyway.
The comrades over at Workers World left the Trotskyist movement in 1956 when they decided to back the, um, Soviet intervention into Hungary.
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Brief Intermission: The Philosophy of the Science of Poker
Poor Karl. It worked when they were playing Monopoly.
Hi Comrade Anklebiter!
Long time reader, first time poster here. Just curious about your feelings about anarchists? Can we come to play as well or is it all just social reconstructionists?
Why, hello!
My personal feelings towards anarchists vary depending on the situation, but, regardless, all are welcome in my Fun-Timey Revolutionary Socialism Thread! (except scabs and UPS supervisors)
Anyway, we mobilized for the Climate March up here in Commie Club NH....and dutifully promoted the round table between Bomber Bernie, Comrade Kshama, Naomi "Still Gets Doodlebug Hawt and Bothered" Klein, Chris Hedges, etc.
I should probably do that again.
Also, I haven't used this avatar nearly enough. [Ahem]
Kshama Sawant’s Speech as Delivered at The Climate Crisis: Which Way Out?
It is an honor and privilege to be here for this incredible weekend. Please accept my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to the thousands who have worked so hard to organize this event.
Sisters and Brothers,
History is calling on us.
To answer that call, we must make sure tomorrow’s protest marks a turning point.
A decisive turn towards collective action demanding the fundamental structural changes that are necessary to address climate change.
Tomorrow’s protest will bring together tens of thousands of environmental activists, students, workers and their unions. We are building on thousands who have been heroically fighting the Keystone XL pipeline. In Seattle, other activists and I have been involved in civil disobedience against oil and coal trains – this growing threat of climate disaster on wheels.
But whether on rail or through pipelines, Big Oil is hell bent on trafficking its profits. They have the leadership of both political parties in their back pockets. It will be no small matter to stop them.
Our message on Sunday needs to be clear: If you are not yet organized, there is an urgent need to get involved and stay engaged:
join an environmental group, join a labor union, join the socialists, become a part of this struggle.
Our demands to the so-called “world leaders” also need to be clear.
Capitalism & Socialism
We need massive public projects to put an end to fossil fuel as part of a rapid transformation to clean energy along with a dramatic expansion of mass transit, all of which would create millions of living-wage, unionized jobs.
The people controlling these climate summits are utterly beholden to the fossil fuel industry and the financial aristocracy that dominates the world economy. The richest five corporations in the world are all fossil fuel companies.
These corporations have all the resources, all the technology, necessary to end the fossil fuel economy and power our global society on clean energy.
So why haven’t they done it?
The truth is, no amount of scientific evidence, no voice of reason, will talk them out of drilling every last barrel of oil out of the ground.
Take Exxon Mobil, for example, which spends millions promoting its green credentials – yet in a recent letter they assured their shareholders they will sell all of the oil and gas they have found – and all that they will find in the foreseeable future.
This is the reality of international capitalism. This is the product of the gigantic casino of speculation created by the highway robbers on Wall Street and the rapacious oil vultures. In this system the market is God, and everything is sacrificed on the altar of profit.
We must face up to the fact that the so called free market will not be able to end its addiction to fossil fuels, certainly not at the speed that is required. Nor is it capable of the kind of coordinated, democratic international planning that will be necessary.
A lot of people are prepared to change their personal lifestyles, and that’s important. However, I’m focusing here on the big corporations. Why?
It is estimated that almost two thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions since the dawning of the industrial age came from 90 corporations. Only 90 companies! Exxon, Shell, BP, Chevron – you know their names.
To address the climate crisis we must be able to democratically and rationally decide how these resources – which are currently concentrated in the hands of a small cabal of oligarchs and speculators – can be directed.
So that society as a whole can use these resources in the interests of people and the planet.
But how else can this be done except by bringing the giant energy companies into public ownership?
It’s straightforward. You cannot control what you do not own.
Strategy to Win
In the course of our struggle we will of course need to deploy many different strategies and tactics depending on the concrete circumstances. But one thing should be crystal clear – we cannot be bound by what is acceptable to establishment politicians and the big corporations they serve.
Our movement must instead be guided by the needs of working people and the environment.
There are experiences from other social movements. Recently in Seattle, my organization, Socialist Alternative, helped put forward a demand for a $15/hour minimum wage for all workers. Some at first dismissed this as unrealistic, but it was a demand that corresponded to the real needs of working people. We worked with others to mobilize a strong grassroots movement to win it. Corporations were always against it, but they had to concede in the face of growing mass support.
It is true we did not win everything, and the political servants of big business – by the way all Democrats in Seattle – carved out loopholes.
But we won the highest minimum wage in the country by demanding it – far more than we would have won if we had started out only asking for what we were told was acceptable to big business!
In fighting climate change, we need the same approach,
boldly demanding a massive program of public investment in renewable energy and mass transit. Let’s link this with a fundamental challenge to the broken system of capitalism.
This is the way to win the most, starting here and now, while at the same time offering a lasting solution. A vision of a just and sustainable society – a socialist world that can deliver a sustainable and high standard of living to all.
Democratic Party
I think there is broad agreement in this room on the need for collective struggle, the need to get organized independently of big business. In my opinion, however, this will not be achievable unless we also confront the reality that is corporate politics.
Nobody here would disagree that we cannot rely on the right wing, climate change denying Republicans. But neither can we rely on the big business Democrats.
Under Obama there has been a massive expansion, not of clean energy, but of fossil fuels, of oil drilling in the arctic, of fracking – it is an expansion that hasn’t been seen in more than a generation. And it’s not just about Obama, the Democratic Party establishment is awash with oil money.
If we tone down our demands to appease the Democratic Party elite, they will simply use our generosity to further appease their corporate donors.
Only an independent force of the 99%, a new party based on workers, young people, environmentalists, and labor, will be able to fight Wall Street and big business. A party that will struggle and will boldly advocate for alternatives to this crisis-ridden system.
Bernie Sanders
It was great to hear Bernie Sanders tonight. There has been some talk about Bernie running for President in 2016, to provide an alternative to Hillary Clinton.
I don’t always agree with Bernie, especially his recent positions on US foreign policy. But just for a moment, let us imagine the impact of a well-known and credible independent left challenger to the two parties of big business in the 2016 presidential elections.
A campaign that refused any corporate cash and called for taxing corporations and the super-wealthy to fund a massive green jobs program, an end to corporate welfare, a $15 minimum wage, single payer healthcare, and a cancellation of student debt.
I would appeal to Bernie to run as an independent candidate for president in 2016, not tied to the Democrats and their big business agenda.
The ecological clock is ticking too fast for us to let the 2016 political arena be dominated by climate change denying Republicans and pro-fracking Democrats. We need a voice for environmental sanity, an alternative to this dysfunctional two party system.
An independent left campaign would appeal to the millions of Americans who are disgusted with the shameless pandering to Wall Street that is carried out in the name of “political realism.” In fact, a recent poll showed that sixty percent of Americans want a third party.
It can act as lightening rod for hundreds of thousands of workers and young people who want to fight back, laying the basis for a movement that can win real gains, regardless of who happens to occupy the White House in 2017.
Conclusion
The great working class fighter, Rosa Luxemburg, said a century ago, that the future will either be one of socialism or barbarism. It’s up to us to ensure that our future is not one of the disasters of climate change and capitalism, but instead one of cooperation, humanity, beauty, and sustainability.
Solidarity!
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Hi Comrade Anklebiter!
Long time reader, first time poster here. Just curious about your feelings about anarchists? Can we come to play as well or is it all just social reconstructionists?
How many anarchists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Trick question; they don't want to take part in traditional ways of lighting, they want to smash it.
How many Teamsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Twelve; you gotta problem with that?
As long as they remember to wait up for me, it's fine.
A heartbreaking act of staggering cowardice
Philadelphia unilaterally rips up teachers' contract.
Wal-Mart Cuts Health Benefits for Most Part-Time Workers
‘Grannies with Kalashnikovs’ last line of Kurdish defence for besieged Kobane town
Alabama abortion law allows judges to appoint lawyer for foetus
As long as they remember to wait up for me, it's fine.
I flipped through that Existential Comics and I found you, Sam, Dungeon Mastering for Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and a couple of mathematicians. Hee hee!
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My wife has been a Socialist for a good many years. I just met some more of her Socialist Alternative friends at a party a bit ago, when it moved to a restaurant they bought me food and all the drinks I could handle. It's kinda a blur now but whatever they were talking about was the greatest political ideology I've ever heard!
Huzzah! Vive le Galt!
Welcome, Comrade's Spouse Yuugasa!
Although, it's getting a little worrisome to find comrades (or, in this case, comrades' spouses) on the boards.
The other day I returned from an anti-war stand-out in Manchester, NH and discovered on Mr. Comrade's Facebook page a comment from one of the comrades reading that I should have replaced my "Strike Poverty Not Syria" (I still don't care for that slogan much--Defeat U.S. Imperialism Through Workers Revolution!) with one reading "Vive le Galt!"
I mean, this is where I come to break discipline!
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I was actually surprised to learn I had come into contact with some of SA's material long ago, like the Manifesto of the fast food worker, I remember reading that, it sounded good to me.
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Good news, Vlad, if you're out there:
Russian parliament to consider 4-day workweek
Although 36 hours a week sounds pretty high to me.
30 for 40 with No Loss in Pay!
$54.40 and a Union or Fight!
Make the Bosses Take the Losses!
For the Right to Be Lazy!
Vive le Galt!!!
Math fail. 8 x 4 = 32.
Whattaya want? I'm a goblin.
More from the comrades at Workers World
This shows the oppression of the proletariat by the capitalist class and the necessity for united class struggle that refuses to play the bosses' rules. Also, our victory is inevitable.
Rev-o-lu-tion!
More Boston (well, People's Republic of Cambridge):
"Reed came out of Harvard in 1910. He was the son of a Roosevelt liberal in Portland, Oregon, United States Marshal Charles J. Reed, who had made himself locally unpopular by prosecuting the lumber trust. At Harvard, Reed was on the staffs of both the Monthly and the Lampoon; he was captain of the water polo team and song-leader at the football games; he managed the musical clubs and the dramatic club; he was president of the Cosmopolitan Club; he wrote the lyrics for the Hasty Pudding show. Yet he did not wholly please the kind of men who control the undergraduate life of Harvard, and who, as they grow older, rule the university from their offices in State Street and Wall Street. The energetic, ambitious, uninhibited Westerner did not--I quote from a letter from a classmate who is now a Wall Street lawyer--'know the difference between cricket and not-cricket.' The penalty for thus flaunting the rules was imposed; though he dominated a dozen activities in which merit is given a competitive chance, he was never admitted to even the lowest of the successively more select layers of the Harvard club system."
--Granville Hicks, "Introduction" to Ten Days That Shook the World
Back when I was a wee goblin militant, every fall we would do this thing called "Subscription Drive" where we roam campuses throughout the United States and try to sneak into dorm halls to knock on doors. I wonder if you can even do that anymore, security was getting pretty tight in the late nineties, although Comrade Meatrace recently reported seeing them in Madison. Anyway, I don't recall the name of the hall, but there is a Harvard hall, not in the Yard, over by the K School, in which is hung a portrait of Comrade Reed (who, btw, was nowhere near as sexy as Warren "What's New, Pussycat?" Beatty). The comrades would all vie for who got that hall, because, inevitably, the Harvard cops would catch us and kick us out and we were all great big fans of irony.
Mrs. Comrade sent me a link that I haven't read yet, but am bookmarking for after work.
The Rifle on the Wall:
A Left Argument for Gun Rights
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -- George Orwell
Well, it starts off good, anyway...
Oh yeah, before I go, The Black Goblin tearfully told me that Stalin has already quit.
:(
Apparently, he got a ride in with a three other guys and the guy who owned the car quit, so...all four quit.
As I hee hee!d to The Black Goblin, "Well, there goes four of the ninety thousand..."
Yo mamma is so classless...
- she is a Marxist utopia.
You're like a white guy Marxist writing about intersectionality, because you're all class!
Mrs. Comrade sent me a link that I haven't read yet, but am bookmarking for after work.
The Rifle on the Wall:
A Left Argument for Gun Rights"That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -- George Orwell
Well, it starts off good, anyway...
'S alright, I guess. Some good points. Didn't quote Marx or Lenin, though.
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Math fail. 8 x 4 = 32.
Whattaya want? I'm a goblin.
Checks Beastiary - Goblins - 10 Int score. Sorry, can't blame that one on race. You Goblins ain't so bad. Now us Mites, we bad at math with our 8 Int. But damn, you goblins got 6 charisma! That makes a kolbold look klassy!
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There was this little boy, who after watching TV one night asked his father, "What is politics?" And the father said, "Well, let me explain it this way. I go to work every day and bring home the money - so I am what you call a Capitalist. Now your mother takes the money, pays the bills and makes sure everything runs well - so she is called the Government. And because we take care of you, you would be the People. Now your nanny is the Working Class and your little baby brother would be what we all consider the Future." The little boy said, "Okay," and went out to play. Later that night, he was awakened by the baby crying. He got up and went into the baby's room and, WOW, did it stink ....very bad diaper. So he went into his parent's room, but his mom was sleeping and his dad was missing. So he went looking for his dad and he heard sounds from his nanny's room. He tried the door, it was locked then he looked through the keyhole and saw his dad and the nanny going at it together in the bed. So the little boy decided to go back to sleep. The next morning when he saw his dad he said, "Dad, I know what politics really means now!" His dad very proudly said, "Well, great. Tell me in your own words." "Well," said the little boy, "Politics is when the Capitalists screw the Working Class, while the Government sleeps, the People are ignored and the Future is in deep shit...."
How many liberals does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Well, while they are in principle for the idea of lightbulbs, they think screwing it in may be rushing things, so you'll have to make do with a gas lamp in the meantime.
Dude I helped recruit publishes in Jacobin but don't let that make you think that either I or the Commonwealth Party of Galt (M-L) agree with anything in it. Personally, I always thought Capra was a reactionary stooge.
I much preferred At Market Basket, the Benevolent Boss Is Back. Should We Cheer?
Part 5: Unrest at Big Brown
Part 6: Changing shape or shaping change?
And, not part of the series, but recent news about the killings in Alabama:
Victory: Food Service Workers at Emerson College Win Union!
Airport Workers Paid $9 an Hour and At Risk of Ebola Go on Strike
Boeing agrees to $23 million labor charge settlement
Members' Power and Democratic Reform at SEIU 6 which, apparently, has locked its membership out of the union hall
Repel Islamic State and imperialism! For democratic workers’ defence and Kurdish self-determination!
Vive le Galt!!!
...I should have replaced my "Strike Poverty Not Syria" (I still don't care for that slogan much--Defeat U.S. Imperialism Through Workers Revolution!) with one reading "Vive le Galt!"
While the idea of using military strikes for the purpose of having less poor people must be appealing to some, it strikes me as a very non-socialist thing. Also, as demonstrated too many times, it doesn't actually help.
If you just like to compare apples and oranges, compare US alcohol-related death rates to US casualties from war and terrorism and come up with the slogan "Terrorism is better than beer". (Though a capitalist might look at the costs and conclude that alcohol is a 100 times more cost-effective way of killing the masses).
While the idea of using military strikes for the purpose of having less poor people must be appealing to some, it strikes me as a very non-socialist thing....I should have replaced my "Strike Poverty Not Syria" (I still don't care for that slogan much--Defeat U.S. Imperialism Through Workers Revolution!) with one reading "Vive le Galt!"
In addition, I fear that it's kind of wishy-washy on the nature of rapacious American imperialism ("Oh," Bomber Bernie exclaimed at UNH, "Think of what we could do with just one-third of the war budget!" [Comrade Anklebiter paraphrase]).
But I didn't make the sign; my signs always look like crap. :(
Despite the pretty narrow focus of the title and accompanying article, Comrade Russell delivers a pretty good version of the Commonwealth Party of Galt (M-L) "Voting is for ninnies!" position.
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Repel Islamic State and imperialism! For democratic workers’ defence and Kurdish self-determination!
** spoiler omitted **
Vive le Galt!!!
I agree, but they got one thing wrong - the Yazidis aren't Christian...
Have the Socialist Party split, then, or is that a new group? Or a new name for the old one?