New Jersey Union Alleges Anti-Labor Activities at Marijuana Dispensary
Organize the unorganized!
[bubble bubble bubble]!
'tis good to have comrades.
True dat.
Finally satisfied with our preparations for tomorrow's rally and then I learn we're expecting between 8 inches and a foot of snow.
[Curses in goblin]
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Been a long, long while since I've been over to the website of Comrade Longears's American co-thinkers:
After 26 years, government to end direct oversight of Teamsters
F~*%in' snow.
Lost the vote, alas. Demo postponed for two weeks. I was supposed to go back down to Brooklyn in two weeks!
[Curses more]
The boys over at Weather Control let you down again!
Buncha stooges!
Been a long, long while since I've been over to the website of Comrade Longears's American co-thinkers:
After 26 years, government to end direct oversight of Teamsters
When I try to click on the link, it tells me the website is not available. Odd.
Hmm, I just checked it and it worked for me. Perhaps the NSA is blocking Britishiznoid elves? Stooges!
As it turns out, the notice I saw on Facebook from the Lowell Sun postponing the demo was either conscious disinformation (my favorite theory) or a mistake of one of the organizers (more likely, but we don't know who). Found out at the last minute that the demo was on, got there forty minutes late and still got to rally and march for an hour or so.
Had to stop myself from crying when the black kids took up the chant "You/Can't/Stop the Revolution!" and was proud to debut my "Teamsters Local 25 Member: Labor Must Champion Black Freedom!" sign.
Vive le Galt!
Text of the CPUSA article for the benefit of those that can't access it. Not that it's a terribly exciting article for non-Teamsters.
Nevertheless, their agreement, to be officially discussed at a Feb. 11 hearing in Manhattan before Loretta Preska, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Southern New York, marks an historic step for the union. Objectors, if any, could also speak at the session.
The pact also achieves a goal Teamsters President Jim Hoffa stated when he took office in 1999. The government had imposed the consent decree to end mob influence in the union. Hoffa argues the decree works and should be lifted, with control returned to the union.
The George H.W. Bush administration imposed the consent decree in 19890, it said, to ensure honest elections and to root out La Cosa Nostra influence in the Teamsters. Then-U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican, used the prosecution of the union to propel himself upwards politically.
"Now is the time to return the union's management and control to the elected leadership of the IBT and the rank-and-file members," the union's executive board declared in its resolution accepting the agreement hammered out between Teamsters General Counsel Brad Raymond and the U.S. attorney's office.
In the court papers filed with Preska, the U.S. attorney and the union jointly agree "there has been significant success in eliminating corruption from within the IBT and in conducting free, open and democratic elections for its international officers and convention delegates."
Those democratic one-unionist one-vote elections - and safeguards - will continue permanently, the new agreement says and the Teamsters board agrees.
But the union and the U.S. attorney also agree "the threat posed to the IBT by organized crime and other corrupting influences, while substantially diminished, persists." So there will be a five-year transition period, to also cover the Teamsters' next elections in 2016 and 2021, and supervisory anti-corruption structures - or variations of them - will remain in place.
And in its resolution, the Teamsters board pledges the union will "ensure the terms of the agreement are adhered to, that the members' right to vote for international union officers shall remain inviolate, and that corrupt elements will never have a place in the IBT."
The new agreement also incorporates a list of former union officials associated with organized crime, bans them from ever having any union role, and bans other Teamsters from contacting or working with them in any way, just as rulings under the consent decree did.
"By entering into this final agreement and order" the government and the Teamsters "re-commit themselves to the original objectives of the consent decree, which remain the objectives of this final order," their 27-page pact says.
"In addition to those objectives, the objectives of this final order are to reduce and ultimately eliminate the government's role in the affairs of the IBT, except as otherwise expressly provided in this order, while, at the same time, preserving the gains achieved by the consent decree."
Other objectives are "continuing to foster and promote democracy in the IBT through independent supervision of IBT elections, continuing the fight against criminal elements, organized crime, and corruption that threaten the IBT today, and preventing the re-emergence of those elements of organized crime and corruption that have been eliminated from the IBT."
And if the government believes the union is backsliding, either in open elections or in allowing returned influence of organized crime, the U.S. Attorney for Southern New York can notify the union of its concerns and then return to court to prove its case by a "preponderance of the evidence" - the lowest standard - the proposed final order warns.
The union board's resolution also agrees to the details of continued anti-corruption oversight which the final order spells out. In the first year of the transition, the independent review board and its structure stays. The IRB is a group of anti-corruption investigators and imposers of discipline the consent decree established. For the following four years, "the IRB will be replaced by two independent disciplinary officers, an independent investigations officer and an independent review officer," the Teamsters board affirms.
"The independent investigations officer will investigate allegations of wrongdoing throughout our union. The independent review officer will monitor the IBT's actions in disciplinary cases," the Teamsters board adds. That review officer must be a former federal or state judge, experienced in labor law and federal union discipline requirements or both.
And if the independent review officer finds any Teamsters body is imposing inadequate discipline on an alleged malefactor, the IRO can demand a justification within 20 days, hold a new hearing, admit more evidence and issue a final ruling in the case, with no appeals.
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Yeah, it's working fine now...
I had no idea there was a Jewish New Year especially for trees, so it's delivering already!
{Sings, as per story above} *We've got the trees and the tigers, in our hands!
We've got some very small tigers, in our hands!
We haven't potty-trained the tigers, in our hands!AGHYUKYUKEEEW*
If I'm holding a tiger in my hands, that'd be a minor worry.
Pictures taken by my hawt commie NY schoolteacher/action freelance photojournalist girlfriend, including two of my old comrades--an early Valentine's Day present?
For black liberation through socialist revolution!
Vive le Galt!!!
Shameless socialist self-promotion:
and was proud to debut my "Teamsters Local 25 Member: Labor Must Champion Black Freedom!" sign.
Vive le Galt!
A very good rundown on current UK politics, and capitalist liberal democracy in general.
EDIT: Really. Watch it. Everyone should watch it. It's frakkin brilliant.
Maybe others can cover SYRIZA's victory; I, as an incurable sectarian ultraleft, prefer the KKE.
Understanding the Greek Communists
In completely other news,
Manchester residents seeing red over KKK pamphlets
I lived on Harrison Street for a year or so.
Smash the Klan!
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The other day, La Principessa picked two fights with me. We were trying to make plans for when we were going to see each other next, and I invited her to our next Lowell rally and it ended up being a fight over the unions and the Democrats. "Baby, why are you arguing? I'm just trying to see you again, and you wanna fight about the trade union aristocracy?" She cooed and calmed down, but later, started accusing me of being not ardently communist (be careful what you wish for!) enough about something or other. I won't go into it, but she was starting to get mean. Thankfully, I was in my car and pulling into the driveway of a friend where there is little cellphone service, so we got disconnected.
It took me a bit to get her back on the phone, and, when I did, she said, "There are two things I want to tell you. First, [none of your business]. Second, I just looked at the calendar, and I think I am PMS-ing. I'm sorry I kept picking fights with you, baby."
I never thought I'd hear my socialist-feminist girlfriend chalk up political disagreements to her period!
On the Kufi: A Rambling Tale
** spoiler omitted **...
Was about to go "Friend" all the kids from the Lowell rally and then I thought twice. I looked at my Facebook photos: One, of me in a kufi; the other, in a dashiki. I looked at all the pictures of young black activists I was about to "Friend," remembered those articles about White Privilege and paused.
Hmmm. I think I see La Principessa's point now...
Fairness at FairPoint:
This is what SOLIDARITY looks like!
An injury to one is an injury to all!
For workers revolution!
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Oddly enough, La Principessa's shrink chalked up our spats to the former's menstrual cycle as well. Well, that and the normal "learning-how-to-talk-to-each-other" process.
She then opined that the biggest problem was that we didn't have the reassurance of make-up sex available to diffuse any accumulating tension.
La Principessa reportedly laughed at this and when the shrink asked why, she replied "That's what [Don Juan] said." To which the shrink replied, "Yeah, well [Don Juan] sounds like he's pretty smart."
I don't know why more people don't listen to me.
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You both have spats? Matching spats? And you write things in chalk on the spats?
Classy! Class struggle-y, in fact!
I am very impressed.
Went to a planning meeting for the next Lowell rally. Talked to our contact in the Carpenters, and he agreed to help us get the Teachers Union hall for a showing of The Black Power Mixtape. Also found out that Tef Poe will be coming to Boston on Friday the 13th, which should be fun. Best of all, we decided to move the rally from the 7th to the 21st which, I am told, is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X.
Better than that, I can now go to Brooklyn next weekend! Huzzah!
Snow day means no communism, alas. I should probably get off the internet and go read a book...
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Snow day means no communism
Well, that explains how the Soviet Union turned into such a disaster.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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So! Random questions I had:
1) How do y'all feel about the idea of the basic/citizen's income? A socialist step in the right direction toward eliminating poverty and potentially developing a "capitalism with a human face" sort of situation? Not radical enough, because it still relies on the destructive engine of global capitalism? A stepping stone to a proper revolution?
2) How do y'all feel about Slavoj Žižek?
I liked that Pervert's Guide to Ideology movie.
But I really gotta get out of here. Not snowing as much. Can probably get over to Mr. and Mrs. Comrade's house and get some communism in.
Alas, no.
[Tears self away from keyboard]
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The trouble with a citizen's income is that it will, inevitably a) be used to reduce wages still further and/or b) get set at a level lower than that of any existing benefits it replaces. Personally, I'd prefer people to get much, much more value back from their own labour (or even all of it!) than to have an insufficient sum doled out by the state to augment their crappy paycheck, but I don't doubt that a decent argument to the contrary exists. I've only read one Zizek book - In Defence of Lost Causes - which I liked, even the bits about Lacanian psychoanalysis, or whatever it's called.
In other news, here are some of Karl Marx's dreadful love poems (in English)
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I liked that Pervert's Guide to Ideology movie.
But I really gotta get out of here. Not snowing as much. Can probably get over to Mr. and Mrs. Comrade's house and get some communism in.
Run Anklebiter! There is only a little daylight left!
Plus you got that 30' speed... Lucky Gobbo!|
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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I think the main benefit of the citizen's income is that it doesn't depend on receiving value from one's labor, which benefits those who are unable to work due to disability and/or discrimination. Although I guess that's what disability benefits are for, and they would essentially be rolled into the citizen's income? Probably a better approach (if we have to pick one thing to start with) would be to start with universal housing based on a % of income. There have been some very encouraging trial runs where giving free housing to homeless people is way cheaper to the state than letting them stay homeless.
My main trouble with reading Žižek is that while I'm somewhat familiar with Lacan, I've never read Hegel or Kant. So any time he references those, I just have to guess. :P
I think the main benefit of the citizen's income is that it doesn't depend on receiving value from one's labor, which benefits those who are unable to work due to disability and/or discrimination. Although I guess that's what disability benefits are for, and they would essentially be rolled into the citizen's income?
That's one positive aspect - it would do away with the pretty nasty means-testing regime that's in place (in Britain) at present; however, the only major(ish) party who has it as policy at the moment (Greens) have set it at £72.60 a week. Unless it's topped up, that's quite a bit less than the Disability Living Allowance, in the most serious cases. A decent government would make provision for that, but a lot wouldn't, if they could save a few quid here and there
Last second addition to Comrade Anklebiter's weekend:
The Crisis of Greek Capitalism and Political Perspectives Today
"Since the 2008 Great Recession, the Greek capitalist class has mortgaged the country to the EU banks, and are forcing the workers and youth to foot the bill through massive unemployment and drastic austerity cuts. A deep economic and social crisis has led to polarization to the right and left, and the sudden emergence of SYRIZA as a powerful new force in the mass movement. What are the prospects for Greece today?—A public talk by Steve Iverson of the International Marxist Tendency. Discussion to follow."
Yeah, that's right. A talk by our former Grantite comrades in the place operated by Comrade Longears's American co-thinkers, more than likely the speaker will be introduced by my Maoist rival for La Principessa's affections...and where he will probably ask Mr. Comrade if he can play D&D with us.
And they say we Trots are useless sectarians.
Although, the more I read about SYRIZA, the more I think the KKE are right.
Down with the European Union!
For workers revolution!
Vive le Galt!!!
I'm not really sure what that citizen's income thing is. Sounds like some kind of welfare. We don't have that in the United States, so I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. Where are you at, Comrade Poet?
And, oh my, Comrade Longears. Thank you for that DM find. Should cheer La Principessa up the next time she cries. Which she did two times today and neither of them were because of me. Woo hoo!
Thank you for the editing, Alex. [Slaps him with commie paper and steals his dried fish snacks]
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[Eats pickles with herring; feels very Jewish]
Could be Scandinavian as well.
Herring...
Yes Queensland state elections.... The conservatives went from 73 Seats to Labors 9 seats... To 39 Seats for the Conservatives to 44-45 seats for Labor.
The Premier (American equivalent of Governor) lost his seat.....
This will have a run on effect in Federal politics.... We could be looking at the Australian PM being replaced by his own party because he is so unpopular.
A bit old, but I just saw it:
The conclusion of the Gender/Sex Wars thread left me a little agitated about what I felt were unfair aspersions cast upon Freddie's commitment to the cause of women's liberation. Flipped idly through The Origins looking for any mention of gender roles, talked with comrades at the Branch Meeting, didn't find much.
Guess I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and re-read it, which is okay, because La Principessa stalled on it so we can do some hawt commie reading together.
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
Caveat: While I'm not willing to admit anything about his ideas of gender roles, I fully admit that his division of humanity's stages into "savagery," "barbarism," and "civilization" is totally rooted in 19th-century. Also, of course, the book was just him preparing Marx's notebooks on Lewis Henry Morgan for publication.
Gonna go look for those articles about Eleanor Burke Leacock.
Looks like I mostly repeated myself.