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Today's
Stories
July
30 / 31, 2005
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Scenes and Silver Linings from Labor's
Crack-Up
Sheldon
Rampton
War is Fun as Hell: the Video Games
Recruiters Play
Greg
Moses
How to Cool Your Heels in Texas When It's Late July Across the
World
Jordan
Green
From Woolworth to Wal-Mart: Economics and the Race Divide in
a Southern City
Patrick
Cockburn
Getting Out of Iraq: 5,000 US Troops Have Gone AWOL
Brian
Cloughley
The Bush-Cheney Fixation on Iran
Joshua
Frank
Color-Coded Justice: John Roberts's Racial Hang Up
July
29, 2005
P.
Sainath
The Class War in Gurgaon
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
How the West Was Lost: CAFTA
and the Disassembling of America
Dave
Lindorff
Marvelous Marvin Bush
J.L.
Chestnut, Jr.
America's Racist Inventory: Oppression
Breeds Violence
Pat
Williams
Giving Away the Last Best Place
Norman
Solomon
In Praise of Kevin Benderman: a Moral
Leader of the Nation Goes to Prison
Sen.
Russ Feingold
The Bad News About the Energy Bill
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Who's the Real Martyr? Judy Miller or Jim DeFede?
July
28, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
Departing Iraq
William
S. Lind
The Duke of Alba and George W. Bush
Gilad
Atzmon
Blair the Camera Man
Joshua
Frank
Passing CAFTA: Blame the Democrats
Lila
Rajiva
Vision Mumbai Submerged
Amina
Mire
Pigmentation and Empire: the Emerging
Skin-Whitening Industry
Website
of the Day
Gateway to Underground News
July
27, 2005
Roger
Morris
The Source Beyond Rove: Condoleezza
Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal
Gary
Leupp
Is Iran Being Set Up?
Paul
Craig Roberts
US Falling Behind Across the Board
Jackie
Corr
Class War on the Ruby River: the Billionaire with His Foot in
His Mouth
Mike
Whitney
The Coming End of the Housing Bubble
Dave
Zirin
Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush
Christopher
Bradley
Why I Have Trouble Reading the News
Norman
Solomon
Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist?
Website
of the Day
Stormin' Norman
July
26, 2005
Suren
Pillay
The Enemy Within: When the "Other"
is One of "Us"
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Fission and Fizzle in Chicago: SEIU and
Teamsters Quit the AFL
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq: the Unwinnable War
David
Anderson
When the Greatest Outrage is the Lack of Outrage: NYC's Subway
Searches
Joshua
Frank
Hillary Clinton: Outflanking Bush from the Right
Lenni
Brenner
Biography as Wish-Fulfillment: Jefferson, Hitchens and Atheism
David
Swanson
Nuking Native Land
July
25, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
China-Mart Takes Over
M.
Shahid Alam
Terrorism: America Defines Its Targets
Uri
Avnery
March of the Orange Shirts
Stan
Cox
Kreationism in Kansas
Norman
Solomon
"Wagging the Puppy"
Ramzy
Baroud
London Bombings: Barbaric, But Not
Unexpected
Mickey
Z.
No Gun Ri: 55 Years Later
Website
of the Day
The Birth of a Hummingbird in 15 Images
July
23 / 24, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Islamo-Anarchs or Islamo-Fascists?
Tariq
Ali
The War Comes Home
Robert
Fisk
Something Happened
Dave
Lindorff
Return of the Academic Witch Hunts
Ricardo
Alarcón
Kidnapping in Miami: the UN, the US and the Cuban 5
Col.
Dan Smith
Living in a Twilight Zone: Troop Strength,
Recruitment and the Draft
Brian
Cloughley
The Pentagon's China Hypocrisy
Kevin
Zeese
Growing Republican Opposition to Iraq War
Bill
Quigley
Harrowing Hours in Haiti
Fred
Gardner
The Reverberations of Raich
Rep.
Ron Paul
The Patriot Act is a Threat to Liberty
Joshua
Frank
Framing Abortion: Gonadal Politics and the Democrats
Shivali
Tukdeo
Project Mumbai Makeover: Casualties of Development
Gilad
Atzmon
Blair's "Evil Ideology"
James
Petras
Baghdad: Barbarism and Civilization (a Fiction)
Ben
Tripp
When Being American Was Fun
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Louise, Buknatski, Albert and Engel
Website
of the Weekend
Remember the West Memphis 3
July
22, 2005
Heather
Gray
Home Grown Axis of Evil: Corp. Agribusiness,
the Occupation of Iraq and the Dred Scott Decision
David
Domke
The American Press and Credibility
Lance
Selfa
Battle of the Insiders: No Heroes in the Plame Leak Scandal
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Is This Really an "Insurgency"
to Shake Up the Labor Movement?
July
21, 2005
Rose
Ann DeMoro
The Top 10 Problems with the "Crisis"
in the Labor Movement
William
Blum
London: Another Casualty in the War on Terror
J.L.
Chestnut, Jr.
Whites Need to Learn Something: Dixie is Everywhere
Christopher
Brauchli
Strange Affairs: Liberals and Alberto
Gonzales
Joshua
Frank
Plame Blame Game: the 5 Ws
Brian
Concannon, Jr.
Haiti's Elections: Time for a Reality Check
Patrick
Cockburn
The True, Terrible State of Iraq
and the Link to London
Website
of the Day
Who Blew Up the Murrah Building?
July
20, 2005
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Judge Roberts: Business as Usual
Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz
Red Christmas
Ray
McGovern
Did Dick Finger Valerie?: the Hand
of Cheney
Chris
Floyd
Judge Dread: John Roberts and the "Enemy
Combatants"
Uri
Avnery
"Silence is Filth"
Dave
Lindorff
Westmoreland's Body Count Goes Up
by One
Norman
Solomon
Gen. Westmoreland's Death Wish
Bill
Quigley
Travels in Haiti with a Wanted Priest
July
19, 2005
Tariq
Ali
An Isolated Regime
John
Ross
Jihad Meets G-8
Davey
D.
More
Clear Channel Censorship: "Don't F--K Around with Tha Police"
Greg
Weiher
Muzzling Saddam: the Old Bait-and-Switch
in Iraqi Jurisprudence
Brian
McKinlay
An "Arse Licker" Goes to Washington: John Howard's
Grand Tour
Norman
Solomon
Nukes for India; Threats for Iran
Dave
Lindorff
Get Back to Where We Once Belonged
Bill
Christison
Bush's Itinerary: First Stop Syria,
Next Stop Iran
Joshua
Frank
Laura's Justice?: Meet Edith Brown
Clement
July
18, 2005
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Ward Churchill
M.
Shahid Alam
A Muslim Problem: Did Thomas Friedman
Flunk History?
Jude
Wanniski
Memo to Patrick Fitzgerald
Ron
Jacobs
A Weekend to Stop the War
Mike
Whitney
The Straight Line Between Falluja and King's Cross Station
William
MacDougall
From "Bring It On" to "London Can Take It"
Seth
Sandronsky
Temporary Recovery: New Frontiers in Labor Flexibility
Richard
Lichtman
The Consolations of George Lakoff
Paul
Craig Roberts
Can Congressional Republicans End
Bush's Wars?
Website
of the Weekend
Novels of the Neo-Cons
July
15 / 17, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Don't You Dare Call It Treason
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton
Paul
Craig Roberts
Economic Treason
Harry
Browne
"What They Do to Us, They Will
Do to You": Shell Oil in Mayo, Ireland
Uri
Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron
A Warning from Israel
Andrew
Rubin
End of the Enlightenment: an Open Letter to Stephen Plaut
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Ghost Battalions
J.L.
Chestnut, Jr.
Changes in Selma: Standing Up to Racism in the South
Fred
Gardner
A Professional Bust
Christopher
Brauchli
An Olympic Feat: How to "Double" Aid with No New Money
Chris
Floyd
The Great Iraq Oil Giveaway
Ben
Tripp
The Dark Incontinent
Col.
Dan Smith
General Abizaid, I'm Glad You Asked
Jason
Leopold
What Did Rove Say and When Did He
Say It?
Jack
Random
Miller Time
Norman
Solomon
War and Venture Capitalism
George
Ochenski
Liberate Montana's Rivers: Come One, Come All!
Website
of the Weekend
Vote for CounterPuncher David Vest
July
14, 2005
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton
Subcomandante
Marcos
This is What Will Do and How We Shall Do It: the Sixth Declaration
of the Selva Lacandona
Dave
Lindorff
No More Moral Relativism: the US is a Terrorist State
Joshua
Frank
Rove Agency: Liberals and the CIA
Jude
Wanniski
Those 8 Black Pages: What's the Real Story on Karl Rove?
Dave
Zirin
Storming the Castle
Kevin
Zeese
Exit Strategy: Within Reach?
Robert
Jensen
War Myths and the Press
Reza
Fiyouzat
A Worldwide Call to Free Akbar Ganji
Carol
Norris
Governor Paranoid: Schwarzenegger Comes Unhinged
Website
of the Day
Nate Osborn: Heroic Human Rights Activist and CounterPuncher
July
13, 2005
Brian
Cloughley
Cold Blooded Murders in Iraq
George
Galloway
We Can't Separate the London Bombings
from the Political Backdrop
Carlos
Fierro
A Supreme Waste of Time
Sarah
Knopp
Hate on the Border
Norman
Solomon
"Isolated Pockets of Problems": the Fake Optimism of
Washington's Warriors
Mickey
Z.
Water on the Brain
Jim
Minick
The Right Tree in the Right Place
Pat
Williams
American Indian Education for All
Andrew
N. Rubin
Life Behind the Wall: "We are
No Longer Able to See the Sun Set"
Website
of the Day
"London's Burning": the Mikey Mix
July
12, 2005
Laith
al-Saud
Voices of Resistance: an Interview with
Dr. Mohammed al-Obaidi of Iraq's Peoples' Struggle Movement
Kara
N. Tina
"This is How We Do It": Report
from the Gleneagles Battlefield
William
A. Cook
The London Bombings: Why Has It Come to This?
Jack
Bratich
2 Live Cruise: Tom Cruise v. Big Pharma
Amina
Mire
The Problem with Speaking in the Name of Others
Dick
J. Reavis
Lessons from the Christian Jihadists:
the Virtues of Burning Crosses and Colored Smoke
Kevin
Zeese
Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Vets
Paul
Craig Roberts
No-Think Nation
Website
of the Day
Coke Gags Indian Artist
July
9 / 11, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
After the Bombings
Uri
Avnery
War of the Colors in Israel
Sheldon
Rampton
Blaming Galloway: Rhetoric vs. Reality
in London
Bill
Christison
Hiroshima's 60th Anniversary and Nukes in Iran: an Opportunity
or Just More Hand-wringing from the Peace Movement?
Robert
Fisk
Blair's Alliance with Bush Bombed
Stephen
Winspear
Collateral Damage in London?
Saul
Landau
Mission Accomplished: Iraq is Broken
Behrooz
Ghamari
Thomas Friedman's Muslim Problem
Karl
Beitel
False Promises and Real Debt Relief
Brian
Concannon, Jr.
Throwing Gasoline on Haiti's Fires
Fred
Gardner
Sentencing Season
John
Whitlow
And What Does the Market Say?
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The London Blasts: Who's Being Transformed, Them or Us?
Lila
Rajiva
Witches and Bastards
Laura
Carlsen
CAFTA: Deepening the Inequities
Jackie
Corr
Ted Turner and Jiminy Cricket
Dave
Lindorff
"My Brother Went Over There Gung Ho; Now He's Just Bitter"
N.
D. Jayaprakash
Why the CIA Tried to Kill Chou En Lai at the Bandung Conference
Seth
Sandronsky
Meet the "Truth Tour": Rightwing Radio Hosts Go to
Iraq
Norman
Madarasz
The Choking of Brazil's Worker Party
Ben
Tripp
The Inevitability of George W. Bush
Poets'
Basement
Louise, Albert, Landau, Davies and Engel
Website
of the Weekend
The Mother of All Enemies Lists
July
8, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
Blowback Hits Britain: Londoners
Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception
Tariq
Ali
The London Bombings: Why They Happened
Monica
Benderman
One Soldier's Fight to Legalize Morality
Rick
Jahnkow
Beyond Opt-Out: the Counter-Recruitment Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Dear Vet: If You Want to Eat While You Recuperate, You Gotta
Pay Extra
Kim
Peterson
Bombs in the Underground: Terror Begats Terror
Joshua
Frank
Leakers and Liars: Inching Toward Indictments?
Norman
Solomon
Messages from the Carnage
Website
of the Day
An Interview with Ray McGovern
July
7, 2005
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr
John
Walsh
More Hawkish Than Bush: Dems in Full
Battle Cry
Mike
Marqusee
Message from London
Gilad
Atzmon
London's Burning
Nicole
Colson
Showdown at the Supreme Court
Jack
Random
Judith Miller, Anti-Hero
Norman
Solomon
Judith Miller, Drum Majorette for
War
Len
Colodny
Is Bob Woodward Still Protecting Al Haig?
Cockburn
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Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr
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Behold,
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|
Weekend Edition
July 30 / 31, 2005
A Special Report
from Chicago
"Enough is Enough"
Scenes and
Silver Linings from Labor's Crack-Up
By
JOANN WYPIJEWSKI
On Thursday just after noon the convention
hall at Navy Pier was mostly deserted, delegates to the national
convention of the AFL-CIO having wheeled themselves and their
suitcases out after the formal conclusion of proceedings, down
the escalator and out to waiting shuttle busses. In the vastness
John Sweeney smiled for one last photograph, then trudged away
alone, having won the presidency unopposed the day before but
lost a unified labor institution. A few stragglers, mostly members
of the AFL's Central Labor Councils talked among themselves,
anticipating the wrangle awaiting them when they return home
to organizations that, at their best, represent what movement
there is in the union movement. These are the local bodies where
members of different unions meet each other, teach each other,
help each other, where solidarity plays out (or should) in joint
labor, community, political fights, and where the disaffiliation
of the Teamsters and especially SEIU will be felt most acutely.
At their press conference at
the beginning of the week James Hoffa and Andy Stern split off
from the national federation but said they would continue paying
dues to the state and local AFL-CIO bodies. It was a cynical
gesture, tossing the ball in the other side's court, daring Sweeney
to bar their local unions' participation in lower-tier federation
bodies (as the AFL constitution requires) while expressing the
hope that he would not go down the road of "exclusion".
Though excluding themselves and throwing up the beginnings of
a rival federation in the Change to Win Coalition, they cloaked
themselves in the robes of unity, sending a message to the ranks,
who may have supported or opposed the break-up but had no vote
in determining it, that their local relationships with other
unionists would continue undisturbed. If Sweeney invoked the
constitution, as he did on Thursday, declaring, "We will
not allow this federation to be turned into an open-shop operation"
where unions can "pick and choose the places and terms of
'partnership' and support", he could be cast as the iron
fist, rejecting solidarity.
All week long representatives
from the CLCs had been meeting, drawn together by their common
conundrum. How do some of them survive if half their budgets
now come from disaffiliated unions? How do they honor organizational
integrity and working-class solidarity at the same time? How
do they relate to friends and comrades from the disaffiliated?
From the South, unionists only too familiar with the open shop,
in which dues-paying is an individual prerogative and collective
responsibility thereby denigrated, talked about tough love for
the "dues objectors", keeping up communication "to
try to bring the brothers and sisters along" at the base
but making it clear that things could not go on as usual. Teamsters
and SEIUers could no longer hold office in a CLC, no longer have
a vote, no longer participate in coordinated political action.
From the North, there was more conciliatory talk, more open defiance
of the federation leadership's no-pay/no-play stance. From California,
where SEIU represents a majority in a number of councils, the
problem is less academic.
"People say 'we've got
to punish them'," one California labor council president
who saw 60 percent of his budget disappear with the split said,
"but do we punish them by shooting ourself in the eye; do
we punish them if by refusing their money we help them set up
parallel organizations that are bigger than ours? Or do we provide
leadership and a truer definition of solidarity?" None of
this is simple. At their best, labor councils are not just AFL
clubs; they are switching stations for class action, union and
nonunion, labor and community. In Atlanta a few years ago the
labor council was the spine of a campaign to maintain cheap prescriptions
for poor people in the county hospital. In Seattle it was a center
for mass action against the WTO. In Massachusetts' North Shore
it was a leader in the fight against the FTAA. In Cleveland it
coordinated voting rights agitation in the city for the 2004
elections. In San Francisco it has been out front in the antiwar
movement since 9/11.
All of those actions involved
broad alliances, often with the quasi-independent Jobs With Justice
(which, having no affiliation issues, should gain in importance
in the current chaos). But unions and their federations are not
community groups or sometime-coalitions or 501(c)(3)s. They depend
on members and members' dues. Theoretically anyway, they are
as much of a threat because they are self-financed as because
they are the only institutions in America whose chief function
is to challenge capital at the basic level of production. Yet
the national unions (including those who've just split) have
never fully funded the local councils and state federations.
That may be the result of politics: the local bodies' leaders
are seen, variously, as too radical, too conservative, too do-nothing,
cozying up to local pols on the golf course. Or the result of
indifference, or tight-waddery, or tactical considerations (withholding
dues when you oppose the local leadership; affiliating in time
for a council or state fed election, when you can throw the leader
out).
This convention was the first
to pay concerted attention to the local and state bodies, mandating
full affiliation, setting new benchmarks for action, passing
a dues increase to assist those hurt most by the defections.
It seems also to have been the first where representatives of
these bodies organized themselves, commiserating, exchanging
experiences, discussing strategy and planting the seeds for an
informal confederation of CLCs to keep the conversation going.
If they solve the money problem-and repeatedly it was noted that
there would be no money problem if the AFL's remaining 55 unions
paid full dues at the lower tiers-the best of those bodies, having
to re-imagine class solidarity in light of structural crack-up,
could provide a silver lining to organized labor's present dark
day.
* *
*
Discussion involving these
state and local bodies provided about the only reality check
on a convention seemingly determined to press on as if nothing
unusual had occurred. "The 10,000 pound elephant in the
room is that we do have problems", one delegate commented
to me, "but no one wants to talk about them because under
the circumstances, when so many people feel betrayed, to raise
problems seems disloyal." Thursday morning, after inviting
some unscripted talk from the CLCs and state feds, Sweeney cut
it off after about half a dozen comments. "Now we have to
get back to the business of the convention", he said, as
if labor on the cusp of tearing itself apart wasn't the convention's
business. As it happened, the business that followed was business:
a report on labor's leveraging of its stockholdings, a presentation
on high-road versus low-road capitalism, much chatter on organized
labor's role as capital's conscience, as steward of CEO performance
and accountability.
Earlier in the week Jerry Tucker,
a founder of the New Directions rank and file movement in the
UAW in the 1980s who is now retired and was in Chicago filing
dispatches for Monthly Review's website , remarked that,
stylistic differences notwithstanding, the top leadership of
the AFL and Change to Win seem locked in a fight over who will
control business unionism. Stern has been forthright about seeing
unions as a partner for business, and it's only by smoke and
mirrors that Change to Win appears to be about something else,
a labor movement. At their press conference Stern and Hoffa didn't
mention their memberships and could not have been expected to
say anything about workplace or union democracy, given their
history. At the convention I met a retired member of one of their
coalition partners, UFCW, named Brian King, who told me a funny-sad
story about how he'd once drafted a five-page proposal for a
rank and file organizing committee to UFCW Local 1001 in Seattle,
said committee to engage in unionization drives and also to plan
a summer picnic for current members. He said he was barred from
the local executive council meeting that discussed it, denied
a copy of the minutes, accused of being "a rank-and-fileist"
and treated like "a poison pill". The proposal went
nowhere.
At least Sweeney paid lip service
to the membership and to democracy throughout the convention,
something that could not be said when he first became president,
in 1995. As with the increased emphasis on diversity, which I
mentioned in my last dispatch,
he spoke of those things because he was forced to. For at least
a year these have been themes in the critique of the Stern Gang
coming from rank and filers and others. For the same reason he
couldn't talk about democracy in 1995, he had to now: pressure
from constituencies he needs.
Leftists who've entertained
visions of Change to Win as a scrappy ground-level organizing
outfit would have been discomfited by Hoffa's talk of "staffing
up" and professionalization of organizing, but now that
Change to Win has hired 55 public relations specialists and appointed
as its executive director Greg Tarpinian, a lifetime flack who's
made a career of "consulting" for some of the Teamsters'
most calcified old guard, it's hard to talk about any of this
challenging the status quo with a straight face.
Likewise on politics. Molly
Ivins had a terrifically silly column the other day saying that
the AFL was in trouble because it tied its fortunes to the Democratic
Party (stop the presses!), and declaring herself for the Change
to Win crowd because somehow it hasn't. Hoffa has attacked Sweeney
for "throwing money" at politicians (the AFL spends
a small fortune on member mobilization and get-out-the-vote efforts
but does not give money to candidates), and Stern has voiced
his frustration with the Democrats (though his union spent $20
million more than the whole federation did to try to elect Kerry,
and pressganged thousands of its members in the effort). Ivins
finds something novel in this bluster, but it's all the rage
in labor to tar the Democrats. Several delegates took to the
mikes at the convention to do just that, and on the last day
the leadership distributed a list of the 15 Democrats who'd voted
for CAFTA and against whom it vowed electoral retribution.
The problem is that, whether
it's the AFL or the Stern Gang talking, the limits of thinkable
thought on politics runs from loyalty to the Democrats to support
for Republicans who support "working family values".
What those values are is left necessarily vague, as the working
woman who may need an abortion, or the working couple that may
be deprived of civil rights because of gayness, or the working
family whose kids are targeted by police don't land at the top
of either party's priority list. For Stern, who gave $500,000
to the Republican Governors Association in the last election
cycle, it would seem that right to work legislation, the open
shop, would qualify as a working family value. It was left to
Jesse Jackson, addressing the convention, to raise the issue
of independent politics, by which he meant mass pressure politics,
"jumping on the third rail, where the juice is".
Ivins sees the Democrats' anxiety
over labor's divorce as evidence of Change to Win's fearless
independence. But of course they're anxious; the party's only
ground operations in recent years have been courtesy of unions,
most effectively mustered by labor councils. With the split this
will change. As a matter of federal election law, AFL-CIO representatives
can canvass only AFL-member homes, meaning door-knocking maps
will have to be redrawn: knock at this door, and this one, skip
that one, knock here, skip there, and so on. Likewise, legally
SEIU and the Teamsters will have to limit canvassing to their
members. The result will be a loss of efficiency, which could
translate into a loss of votes. The 527s, which draw volunteers
from all over and which Stern has spoken highly of, don't have
the same constraints, or the same effectiveness. Simply in terms
of mechanics, it is pretty amazing that while less than 13 percent
of American workers are in unions, one in four voters is a union
member. Would that there were a mission and a vision to leverage
that voting power.
*
* *
And now for some bits of good
news. Historic news. On Tuesday, July 26, the AFL-CIO convention
did something organized labor had never done before: it opposed
a war during wartime, and called for the withdrawal of American
troops. The resolution opposing the war in Iraq was not the best
or the most fluent. Cobbled from 18 resolutions that had been
offered for consideration, it read as if it were written by at
least as many hands. The remarkable thing about those resolutions?
Not one that had been submitted for the convention's consideration
supported the war. Not one was solely a simple statement supporting
the troops. All called for withdrawal, the only difference being
over timing. All came from Central Labor Councils.
The resolution that was slated
to make it to the floor called for withdrawal "as soon as
possible". This angered the driving forces within institutional
labor against the war, US Labor Against the War and Pride at
Work, who argued that it was essentially the Bush position. After
a flurry of organized interventions they got the final resolution
to be introduced calling for American troops to be withdrawn
"rapidly". It seemed a small thing, this semantic victory,
until you consider the historic magnitude. From the floor, no
one spoke against the resolution: not the building trades; not
Tom Buffenbarger of the Machinists, who after 9/11 called for
"vengeance", not justice; not the American Federation
of Teachers, which has typically held high the flame of intervention.
Speaking for the resolution, Henry Nicholas, president of AFSCME's
1199P, told the story of his son, who has been deployed to Iraq
four times already.
"My son is a nervous wreck
right now, but he's on the list to go back. We need to say that
America's sons and daughters have to come home now", he
said. And then concluded: "In my 45 years in the labor movement,
this is my proudest moment being a union member, because this
is the first time we had the courage to stand up and say, Enough
is enough."
Later that evening in question
time during a panel discussion with Iraqi trade unionists, a
sturdy anti-imperialist, Fred Hirsch, vice president of Plumbers
and Fitters Local 393 out of San Jose, California, informed the
Iraqis that there is to be a national march against the war in
Washington on September 24. Did they think, he wondered, that
it would be appropriate for organized labor to send contingents
to that march in light of the resolution just passed? Yes, they
replied. And would they as Iraqi trade unionists write a letter
to the union presidents of America urging such participation?
Yes, again, certainly. In that moment the organizing potential
of the resolution was made plain. One can almost hear the cringe
of union presidents who let it sail through. The next thing you
know someone will be asking them to defend the civil rights of
gay people, the logical outcome of another surprising resolution
that the convention passed, opposing the federal marriage amendment.
JoAnn Wypijewski writes on labor and politics for CounterPunch.
Read her previous dispatches from Chicago: Is
This Really an "Insurgency" to Shake Up the Labor Movement? and Fission and Fizzle in Chicago: SEIU and
Teamsters Quit the AFL.
She can be reached at jwyp@earthlink.net
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