University Professor's Speech on How Real Progress is Made.

Richard Mellor

Free speech is not yet dead in the United States. There are many, many, people that will be inspired by these comments from Derek R. Peterson, Professor of History and African Studies and outgoing Chair of the Faculty Senate, at the University of Michigan commencement of 2 May 2026.

 

We will see more and more of this as the US government, as well as western governments in the UK, and Germany in particular, attempt to silence any reference to Israel’s genocide in Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population there. The relentless attempts to conflate Judaism with Zionism in order to undermine opposition to Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the region, are being rejected by young people in particular.

 

The vast majority of the people in the US are opposed to US imperialism’s forever wars and in particular the most recent unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran by Israel and the US as well as Israel’s ongoing devastating war on Lebanon. Opposing the assault on Iran does not indicate support for the Iranian regime.

 

We in the US are also being kept in the dark about the actual deaths and destruction of US bases in the Middle East as the strongly censored and corporate controlled US mass media covers for the massive failures and wasted lives and resources, costs that are borne by the US taxpayer. Some $30 billion has been spent in the Iran venture and the Trump Administration is asking Congress for another $1.5 trillion for the misnamed defense budget. 

 

Thank you Professor Peterson.

Happy Birthday Martin Luther King

Steps of State Capital Montgomery Ala March 25 1965

 "You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry… Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong…with capitalism… There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a Democratic Socialism." Martin Luther King 

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Exerpt of speech below

The ruling class in the Unites States is forced by the movements from below to recognize individual fighters for working class, racial and sexual freedom. Just the same way they pay lip service to unions, but they were forced to accept them. Unions were built through heroic sacrifice of working class people in the US. We were shot, deported, savaged, beaten but we won them. Everything we have the ruling class resists with violence.

Martin Luther king was murdered by the US state or government as some call it because of his politics, and I see both the King and Kennedy families are calling for further investigation in to their deaths. I am not equating Kennedy with King because Kennedy was a capitalist politician and firmly rooted in that class. King was not and he led a mass movement. Kennedy pressured King to break from some of those people that supported and helped him, white liberals and Radicals but he had nasty enemies among his own class, this does not justify his murder by the US government either.

I was about to attend a Martin Luther King celebration one time but I saw it was totally non-political yet King was in essence a political man, a radical. He was a threat because he explained what racism was and why it arose the way it did in the US and he did it publicly.  We are taught in one way or another it is inherent in people, it is a part of white people’s genes for example. It’s human nature we are told or greed, and for the religious, Satan perhaps.  King tore that nonsense down. Malcom X also was abandoning the nationalist view and arguing along similar lines. King opposed the Vietnam War and the ranks of the US military were beginning to crack. To hide this, they build a carnival like atmosphere around working class heroes to avoid any discussion of their ideas and what they actually stood for. Their media portrays the unions we built as being built by the Mafia and gangsters. Capitalist history is in essence white capitalist history. We must own our heroes and our own history.

Below, is part of a speech he gave on the steps of the Montgomery State Capital March 25^th 1965. Read, show, sing it to young people if you like. The mass media no matter which source, is in essence “fake” news in the sense that it has a class bias. Here is a great, brief and true history lesson. He attacks a ruling class not the white workers, the white poor. It’s politics at its best. You can also listen to a rare speech on this same issue here. If it doesn't work try here. It's good stuff.

********

Montgomery Alabama March 25 1965

On our part we must pay our profound respects to the white Americans who cherish their democratic traditions over the ugly customs and privileges of generations and come forth boldly to join hands with us. (Yes, sir) From Montgomery to Birmingham, (Yes, sir) from Birmingham to Selma, (Yes, sir) from Selma back to Montgomery, (Yes) a trail wound in a circle long and often bloody, yet it has become a highway up from darkness. (Yes, sir) Alabama has tried to nurture and defend evil, but evil is choking to death in the dusty roads and streets of this state. (Yes, sir. Speak, sir) So I stand before you this afternoon (Speak, sir. Well) with the conviction that segregation is on its deathbed in Alabama, and the only thing uncertain about it is how costly the segregationists and Wallace will make the funeral. (Go ahead. Yes, sir) [Applause]

Our whole campaign in Alabama has been centered around the right to vote. In focusing the attention of the nation and the world today on the flagrant denial of the right to vote, we are exposing the very origin, the root cause, of racial segregation in the Southland. Racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the races immediately after the Civil War. There were no laws segregating the races then. And as the noted historian, C. Vann Woodward, in his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, clearly points out, the segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land. You see, it was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low.

Toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. (Listen to him) That is what was known as the Populist Movement. (Speak, sir) The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses (Yes, sir) and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses (Yeah) into a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South.

To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. (Right) I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, (Yes) thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. (Yes, sir) And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.

If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. (Yes, sir) He gave him Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, (Yes, sir) he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. (Right sir) And he ate Jim Crow. (Uh huh) And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. (Yes, sir) And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, (Speak) their last outpost of psychological oblivion. (Yes, sir)

Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike (Uh huh) resulted in the establishment of a segregated society. They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they segregated southern mores from the rich whites; (Yes, sir) they segregated southern churches from Christianity (Yes, sir); they segregated southern minds from honest thinking; (Yes, sir) and they segregated the Negro from everything. (Yes, sir) That’s what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great society: a society of justice where none would pray upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty where greed and poverty would be done away; a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the dignity and worth of human personality. (Yes, sir)

Source, Stanford University

Book Review: Jane McAlevey's A Collective Bargain

Memorial Day Massacre. Little Steel Strike 1937 4 Dead 100's Injured

Jane McAlevey’s A Collective Bargain
Is an Argument for More Bureaucracy in US Unions

by Marian Swerdlow *

In her introduction, “Twelve Years of Freedom (Almost),” to her most recent book, A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing and the Fight for Democracy (HarperCollins, New York:2020), Jane McAlevey says that “this [book] is about how unions can get us out of the mess we’re in today.” [McAlevey:2] It would be more accurate to say, “this book claims unions could get us out of the mess we are in today, but only if they become more staff-driven and bureaucratized.” 
   

Throughout the book, McAlevely suggests unions, and strategies for union organizing, can reverse the savage inequalities in the contemporary United States, through both the workplace and on the terrain of electoral politics.
   

In Chapter 1, “Workers Can Still Win Big,” McAlevey asks, “What is a union?” and answers, “A union basically functions like a government.” However, to McAlevey, “two unique tools make unions different from government: collective bargaining and strikes  . . . Further, it is helpful to think of a union as a mechanism, nothing makes it inherently good or bad.” [op. cit.:16]  As for when unions are bad, McAlevey, with a Ph.D. and a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Law School, offers only a simplistic and reductionist explanation, “People are flawed, and unions are made up of people, so unions, too, can be flawed.” [ibid]
   

But the limit of her explanation is political, not intellectual: she needs to avoid any critique of the labor bureaucracy whose patronage she seeks.
   

The rest of this chapter is made up of case studies of collective bargaining.  In the one about the hospitality industry, we begin to see McAlevely’s real agenda in writing this book: to promote the idea that a layer of professional organizers - distinct from the rank and file - is necessary to build the labor movement.  This layer must be separate from the day-to-day work of the rank and file, because its specialized skills of organizing require years of training and experience that preclude wasting time doing the routine, repetitive jobs by which the rank and file earn their livelihood.
   

This case study [op. cit.:36] centers on Irma Perez, “because she was such a natural leader among her peers, her union UNITE HERE, leveraged a provision in their [contract that ] generally takes substantial union power to win in a contract, known as a union leave.”
   

That it meant to sound impressive.  However, union leave, in one form or another, is common in union contracts.  Even the American Federation of Government Employees, with very limited power, had it until the Trump administration took it away.  Very few members know it is bargained, basically, as part of the wage package: union members pay for union leave time in lower wages and benefits.
   

McAlevey’s vision of this professional layer includes people like Perez, originally workers, but chosen by the labor leadership - not elected by the rank and file - to become full-time or part-time union staff.  In cases like Perez’s, where there is union leave, the union member generally keeps union benefits like pensions, as well as “double dipping” pay, and gaining union staff benefits such as expense accounts.  They often work extremely hard, but also may become corrupt.
   

McAlevey concludes the chapter by putting collective bargaining front and center.  All the victories in these case studies, she says, were possible because the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 institutionalized collective bargaining. “Part of what makes unions and collective bargaining so effective,” McAlevey effuses, “is that workers themselves pull up to the negotiating table, to decide how to distribute the profits they make for others.” [op. cit.:40]
   

They do?

They certainly don’t in the union campaigns McAlevey describes later in the book.  And they don’t in most unions.
   

McAlevey must reconcile her agenda of establishing a professional cadre of full-time organizers chosen by union leadership, with her appeal to the value of “democracy,” a word that she showcases in the subtitle of her book.  Thus she concocts this fantasy of who sits at the negotiating table that implies that the professionals - most of whom have never done the job of the members they are bargaining for - are one and the same as those “workers themselves.”     

In McAlevey’s second chapter, “Who Killed the Unions?” she continues to pursue her case for the need for full-time, professional organizers with specialized knowledge set apart from the rank and file, by arguing that the “employer class” has a parallel cadre of union-busters and that they are the cause of the decline of unions: “The primary reason for the decline of unions and the standard of living of most Americans rests with the extensive union busting industry that is almost entirely unregulated, absolutely vicious, and unique to the United States.” [op. cit.:44] Therefore, argues McAlevey, the labor movement needs a counterpart to the sophisticated, specialized, stand-alone union-busting industry: a sophisticated, specialized and stand-alone union organizing industry, staffed by people like her.  “The beginning of modern union-busting as a stand-alone industry took hold in the 1950s.” [op. cit.: 61]   
   

To give this impact, McAlevey has to show the heights the labor movement had achieved before, she claims, the union-busting industry brought it to its present ruinous condition.  Therefore, McAlevey describes the rise of the U.S. labor movement in the 1930s, and is right when she observes that “even though the [National Labor Relations Act of 1935] was passed, to actually make the law come to life meant  . . . bringing production to a standstill again.” [op. cit.:50]  

 

However, she distorts this history in order to make it consistent with her argument that organizers must be a group apart from the workers they organize.  For example, she claims that the CIO “organizers for the most part took jobs inside the factories so they could help workers overcome management’s tactical warfare.” [Ibid] The men who organized the sit-downs in the factories at Akron and Flint did not “take jobs  . . . to help workers.”  They took jobs to earn a livelihood, to support their families.  They were workers.  Even many of their leaders, such as Victor and Walter Reuther, and James Matles, who did not work in the factories, had working class backgrounds.  And many had worked in factories themselves before becoming organizers.  In the 1930s, “native workers” self-organized.  The leaders were the most politically advanced, not the “most experienced in the craft of organizing” as McAlevey claims organizers must be.  “They were driven by an ideological passion for justice.” [Ibid] For many of them, the passion was for the overthrow of capitalism.

Of the CIO organizers, McAlevey says, “they were highly effective teachers and coaches, helping workers themselves learn which organizing approaches were most successful.”[op. cit.:51]   This is her version of the relationship between organizers and rank and file.  It isn’t what happened in industries in the 1930s: the organizers were seen, or best understood, as the most politically advanced layers of workers.  They learned methods from Europeans and from workers of many other lands, and they employed their own creativity and ingenuity to collectively strategize and develop tactics [See, for example, Sidney Fine, Sit Down (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor:1970) especially Chapters I and X; and Philip Bonosky, Brother Bill McKie (International Publishers, New York:1953) especially Chapters 19 - 24]. 
   

When McAlevey gives an example of CIO organizing, she does not use a case of the organization of previously unorganized industrial workers, such as the rubber workers of Akron, or the autoworkers at Flint, or any sit down at all.  Her example [op. cit.:51] is the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, which was founded in 1900 as an AFL union of mainly skilled workers. 
   

 McAlevey celebrates the CIO’s “entrance into politics in a big way” and attributes the victory at Flint thus: “the unions had worked hard to help elect a governor they could better control.”[op. cit.:53].  She cites Domhoff and Webber, Class and Power in the New Deal (Stanford University Press, California:2011), but gives no specific pages, leaving the reader to comb through that book’s more than 240 pages, to find only this:
Labor leaders also wanted to elect sympathetic governors in local officials in key industrial states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan [Domhoff and Webber:197]
   

 With New Deal Democrats in key positions of power, the newly hired organizers employed by the CIO targeted an automobile industry assembly plant in Flint Michigan in early January 1937 for a sit down strike which would serve as an ideal starting point and a signal of what was to come.[op. cit:199]
   

What Domhoff and Webber say about the Flint strike is:
The [Flint] automobile factory was chosen because it belonged to GM and was a critical link in the company’s network of factories  . . . Led in good part by Communist and Socialist factions in the fledgling United Autoworkers, the sit-downers held the factory for six weeks despite attacks by police, legal threats from local authorities and demands by the owners that the liberal governor put an end to this illegal takeover of private property (Fine:1969 for a detailed account).  However, neither the governor nor Roosevelt would accede to the corporation’s demands, forcing its leaders to negotiate with the union and thereby provide a major triumph for the CIO. [op. cit.:199-200]

Since McAlevey never cites specific pages, and this is the book’s only mention of the Flint strike, it must be concluded that McAlevey’s citation does not support her assertion that the victory was because “the unions had worked hard to elect a governor they could control,” and provides no evidence that unions “entered politics in a big way.”  Sidney Fine’s account (op. cit.)  more strongly indicates that the UAW took advantage of the popularity of the Democratic Party which arose from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. It mentions merely that the Detroit Labor Council supported the candidacy of the Democrat, Murphy, for governor. Furthermore, Democrats in office was hardly a guarantee that strikers would be not be attacked or abused.  The Memorial Day massacre, less than six months after Flint, took place in Chicago, Illinois with Democrats occupying the mayor’s and governor’s offices, not to mention the Roosevelt presidency. 
   

Fine makes it clear that Governor Murphy and President Roosevelt wanted the sit-down settled without violence.  However, so did GM’s Executive Vice President William Knudsen:

GM shared [Murphy’s] views and feared that the loss of life in the strike might adversely affect the well-being of the corporation and the sale of its cars for years to come.  Knudsen publicly stated that GM wanted the strike settled by negotiation rather than by violence and GM officials told Murphy privately they did not want the strikers ‘evicted by force.  [op. cit.:236]

 

What McAlevey underplays in ascribing the success of the Flint strike to an unsubstantiated “big entrance” by the CIO into politics, is the courage and combativity of the strikers and their supporters themselves, as well as the brilliance of their rank and file leaders.  While Stein states “the favorable political climate in Washington, D.C. and Lansing was an indispensable element of the union’s success,” [op. cit: 30] he says also
    . . . a small group of UAW leaders at the national, local and plant level . . . had outmaneuvered GM from the beginning of the strike to its end.  The leadership by men like Travis and Roy Reuther was . . . brilliant  . . . the daring strategy  . . . in the seizing of Chevrolet No. 4, the sound car, the mobilization of women  . . .   The utilization of outsiders as a strategic reserve, and the staging of demonstrations at crucial moments . . .  a core of unionists . . . able to organize themselves into a community inside Fischer Body Nos. 1 and 2, and later Chevrolet No. 4, and been willing to remain at their posts . . .  despite a police attack and interrupted utilities, [water, heat, light -M.S.] and a civil injunction. [op. cit.:310]
   

Flint was a victory of rank and file autoworkers, rank and file leaders, and local leaders of working class origins.  Roy Reuther was the son of German immigrants who had worked as a tool and die maker in Detroit.  Travis, a Flint native, had been an autoworker and local president of a Chevrolet plant in Toledo, Ohio.  Not a professionally trained “expert” organizer like McAlevey in sight. 

In the chapter, “Everything You Thought You Knew About Unions is Mostly Wrong,” McAlevey explains:  
Liberal acquaintances of mine say that union members are spoiled, that unions protect incompetent workers, charge too much in dues and preclude business innovation. Liberals also see some unions through the dusty historical lens: they appear to be corrupt, racist and sexist. [emphases added -M.S.] [op. cit.:83] 

   

Let’s leave aside well-justified questions about McAlevey’s dismissal of these criticisms as “dusty” or “historical,” for the moment.  Clearly, McAlevely wants to convince “liberals” that unions are good and important.  Why?  Because the “liberals” she describes are actually influential and well-resourced professionals, a milieu she aspires to belong to.  To get them to accept her, and her kind - professional organizers - as equals, and - more important - to fund their existence, they must be convinced of the value of unions.  This is one of the many times McAlevey, alongside explaining the real need for unions, whitewashes unions’ faults.
   

Her next chapter, “How Will Workers Get a Union?” seems aimed at union leaders, to sell them on the idea they should initiate organizing, and hire specialists, like McAlevey, to do it. McAlevey continues to make a case for why union organizing needs to be a profession.  In her view, this profession is (a) pragmatic: based on methods that she claims are effective;  and (b) ideologically neutral beyond the goals of increasing the size and power of the labor movement.   She states “The methods are leadership identification and structure tests [McAlevey has discussed both in her earlier No Shortcuts (Oxford University Press, New York:2016)]  and the principles are democracy and participation.” [McAlevey, 2020:156]   However, the method of “leadership identification” is profoundly undemocratic and limits participation.  And viewing tactics as “structure tests,” rather than as collective actions that build union consciousness, instrumentalizes organizing.  It makes the union an end in itself, rather than the “school for workers forming themselves into a class for itself” that Marxists envision.
   

“Leadership identification” is the professional organizer from outside designating whom they believe should lead workers.  The workers do not democratically choose their leaders.  Nor is there any concept of developing any other rank and filers as leaders.  In this outsider’s view of workers, some of them have the right stuff, the others are just followers, sheep who cannot make decisions - either individually or collectively through debate and discussion - and incapable of developing into anything more.
   

McAlevey’s idea of workers’ participation is their voting on actions designed by the professional organizers, and only actions that have a “supermajority” proceed, an extremely limited concept of participation. 

Democracy, says McAlevey, “means breaking down barriers, directly confronting racism and sexism that divides workers and weakens them.” [op. cit.:158]  This is essential.  However, union democracy is much more: it means the membership drives the union, puts forward proposals, acts on its own initiatives locally, forms its alternatives, and discusses and chooses them: not simply “yes” or “no” to the leadership’s proposals.

McAlevey claims that “most ‘hot shop’ efforts [in which the workers in a shop decide themselves that they want a union] in our current climate . . . fail, despite the agitation for a union.  Workers don’t carefully research which union they should reach out to for assistance.” [op. cit.:159] This implies workers are too naive to be trusted with the decision to take the initiative to form a union.  So, professional organizers, employed by international unions should decide which workplaces to organize.  “It’s more likely union organizers will apply [McAlevey’s methods] in strategic sectoral or geographic organizing. A strategic campaign begins with strategy and research.” These “strategic organizing campaigns tend to be fought by experienced organizers . . . ” [ibid] Like the UAW in southern auto plants? Those were top-down campaigns that ended in ignominious defeats. “The union has a vision for the workers’ future [and] the resources and staff capacity to back that vision.” [ibid] This is the most repulsive patronizing paternalism.
   

Then, McAlevey narrates a lengthy example of another organizing campaign that, in a bizarre twist, completely goes against everything she has just asserted.  It arises in a “hot shop.”  The workers succeed, on their own, in choosing an effective international union to join.  The campaign does not rely on people like McAlevey’s category of organizers.  It does not employ a series of “structure tests,” or what would be better conceptualized as solidarity building actions.  As a result of the latter, it is left in the lurch when the representation election is won by a thin margin and management’s union busting company stalls certification to allow union support to erode. Instead of admitting the failure, McAlevey uses this crisis as a selling point for her “profession”:

“These moments [are] when union staff that have experience in many rounds of employer warfare teach the workers.  We know  . . . We quickly called together a meeting and had to do what real organizers do [emphases in original][op. cit.:181].  So McAlevey amplifies the role of the professional staffers brought in to organize the shop, “highly skilled,” “the union was hiring and deploying more New England Nurses’ Association staff.” [op. cit.:188]
    

McAlevey describes how she personally carried out negotiations with company executives. She adds that this was done “in close collaboration with key nurse leaders . . .” but offers no information about this collaboration.   At the meeting with the rank and file, she relates, “I explained the deal,” (emphasis added) not any rank and filer, not even anyone even elected by the rank and file.  She rides off into the sunset “after teaching the Einstein [the name of the hospital; she isn’t being sarcastic -M.S.] workers how to build their worksite organization.” [op. cit.:189]
   

Another staffer, she asserts, “told me the only step she could think of in a very tough meeting [with the nurses in an anti-union unit] was to ask [them] to return and meet with me, the chief contract negotiator” [emphasis added - M.S.] [op. cit.:191]   The irreplaceable, unparalleled Jane McAlevey.

McAlevey states:
Union organizing, and - for that matter - most organizing is a craft and the knowledge that wins a campaign is founded on experience.  Workers who have never been through that experience - and most haven’t - need an experienced, skilled organizer. [emphases added - M.S.] [op. cit.:156]
   

This says it all.   This is the main thesis of A Collective Bargain: there has to be a professional class of union organizers because it is the only force that can get the job - rebuild the unions and “get us out of the mess we are in today” - done.

* Marian Swerdlow is a retired teacher. She was a rank and file activist in the unions for 30 year as a member of TWO Local 100 and the UFT

 

Reasons Why the Green Party Will NOT Lead the Political Revolution

Jason O'Neal

Green Party Activist and former NTEU Steward

Will the Greens become another "bourgeoisie" party?

Anyone following the rising tide of organized mass protest movements in the United States will attest that the issues can at times become blurred and confusing.  For many Americans, life is a daily struggle to survive. 
Overwhelmed by a multitude of outlets for entertainment few Americans follow the daily news.  Corporate media companies run 24-hours a day with “breaking news” about Russia’s involvement in our elections or the latest Twitter rant by the degenerate occupying the White House.  And we must not forget the weekly shake-ups in the circus cabinet of the President.  With such a spectacle is it any wonder why so many Americans do not understand the importance of the many marches for better wages, women’s rights, healthcare, science, the environment, and police brutality on people of color? 

That said, however, the plight of millions of Americans is excluded from the conversation or even participation in the discussions provided by those channels covering these events.  Almost always depicted as a war between Democrats and Republicans, interpretations of the increased protest actions are biased to force voters to choose between one or the other.  A third option, like the Green Party, is always absent from the discussion.  Because of this, millions of Americans have practically given up on politics and who could blame them?  Elections have given them nothing more than a diminishing standard of living over the last fifty years.  As their children grew up, they watched both parents go to work.  When the factories were shut down and their jobs shipped overseas or replaced by automation, their savings accounts or retirement pensions were raided and their credit card bills piled up.  Living hand to mouth every month, it is not uncommon for some families to have adult children who still live at home while working part-time to pay off their student loans.  And to think that those are the lucky ones.

Aside from the fact that the Trump presidency has ushered in a new fervor to march in the streets, many movements remain splintered or under direct control of the liberal wing of the current national government.  This includes many labor union leaders and could possibly explain why there has been very little mentioned other than statements which are anti-Trump or against his GOP allies.  Unless, of course, one considers the union leaders from the building trades who gleefully rubbed shoulders with the former reality television character now sitting in the Oval Office.  But, hasn’t this always been the case in the United States?  In absence of a Labor Party, which the Green Party is far from being, workers are cornered into supporting the lesser evil liberals who help broker deals with big business and conservatives.

This is the story of American democracy which has existed for more than one hundred and fifty years under the control of the two political cartels of economic power.   At the same moment in time when the most productive generation limps into retirement and social security, millions of Americans are underemployed or without work.  Wall Street, however, is busier than ever as the Dow Jones Industrial Average shattered past 22,000 this week.  An unprecedented level even for the past twenty-five years of globalization.  With no jobs to go to and failing neighborhood schools, crime and poverty cripple urban centers across America.  And, what was once depicted as a problem solely in the inner-city ghettos, gang violence and drug addiction now exist in rural communities throughout the Midwest and the South.  Wait until those problems hit the suburbs. 

Meanwhile, politics and the media have Americans divided along lines of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and religious zealotry.  These problems did not just arrive out of nowhere, but it takes a politically conscious person to understand their complexity.  This is where class becomes a crucial lens for interpretation and this is exactly why the Green Party will fail in its endeavor to become the newest political party of the people. 

With so many voters enamored by Bernie Sanders’ campaign rhetoric they had nowhere to turn when he endorsed Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party nominee.  Some capitulated and returned to the herd in fear of Trump in the White House while others happily cast a vote for “the Donald.”  Those who “#DemExit”-ed were dispersed to write-in campaigns or voting for third party candidates who collected approximately 4.5 percent of the total 137 million votes cast.  That is less than 6 million votes.  The Green Party’s nominee, Jill Stein, received only 1.5 million.  Hardly a dent in the 65.8 million votes for Clinton or the 62.9 million given to Trump, and a poor showing even for a reform party.  To move forward, the Green Party must address this failure and purge the progressives and liberal elements from its leadership if it ever hopes to become a legitimate revolutionary party of the working class.

Before the keyboards are set ablaze with the flurry of fury from the reactionaries within the Green Party, I would like to elaborate on my position.  For the record, I am a registered Green Party member in the state of California.  I have been an active member of the Green Party since 2013 and before that I volunteered and worked within the Democratic Party of San Diego for about six years.  After moving to the Bay Area, I attended meetings with the Alameda County Green Party, as well as the Oakland Greens, and I was also a founding member of the UC Berkeley Green Party student organization.  It’s because of my experience within the party, and my interpretation of political theory and social movements, that I say the Green Party will not be leading a revolution anytime soon, if ever. 

To begin, this position must be situated within our current social crisis, both political and economic.  In the United States and other industrialized nations around the world economics is determined by those groups who control the political apparatus of the government.  This means Democrats and Republicans argue over the best way to grow the economy and spend money, usually in favor of the same people.  Wall Street banks, technology companies, pharmaceutical giants, industrial food producers, and big insurance companies spend money on candidates from both major parties.  Globalization, which has been pushed by leaders in both parties, is the latest endeavor for a corporate dominated means of production whose existence relies on establishing new markets for exporting surplus goods in exchange for cheap labor, raw materials, and resources.  Today, the unfettered capital of big business, which fueled the rapid economic expansion of the United States during the two decades following World War II, is no longer bound to remain at home.  Unlike the early years of the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union competed for access to markets in developing nations, corporate investment in national infrastructure and social services through taxation is practically nonexistent. 

This is the reality in which we live.  Any attempts to reverse course on this path of development have been met with sharp rebuke from legislatures and courts across this nation.  It is also important to understand that the quality of life enjoyed by middle class workers who lived during the 1950s and 1960s will more than likely never return to the shores of this country so long as the status quo is maintained.  To believe a presidential candidate can restore “greatness” to a nation where millions of Americans are in a downward economic slide could be fatal for a so-called democratic society obsessed with continuous growth and consumption. 

The policies which created today’s conditions were put in place decades ago by presidents along with men and women in Congress from both political parties.  To make matters worse, justices sitting on the Supreme Court have sided with them and their high dollar campaign contributors by cementing in place the influence of corporate money and power within our society.  As the mass media follows script keeping reporters and commentators focused on the identity group differences between the two parties, the rusty gears of the economy continue to grind out profits for a few at the expense of the many.  These days the only choices Americans have are centered around what brand names to buy and where one chooses to spend their money.  Bridled by ignorance, and perhaps even apathy, those Americans fortunate enough to have a job now work harder and longer for less money while all of us get a minimal return from services and benefits paid for by our tax dollars.

To expand on this downward spiral of economic and financial insecurity for the American working class one needs only to remember the past and the lives of our parents.  For Americans born during the two decades after World War II, today may appear to be a bad dream.  A retiree today remembers a time when a high school graduate could get a job at a factory which paid enough money to buy a home and put food on the table for their family.  They had a car, took vacations, invested in retirement and savings, and some paid for their children to go to college if it wasn’t already completely free.  As war raged on in the developing nations of the world and U.S. troops were deployed to protect political allies in foreign markets, tax cuts for wealthy corporations began to trickle down at home. 

By the 1970s both parents were in the workforce to maintain the same standard of living provided by a single earner just ten years earlier.  Shocks to oil markets and currency manipulation brought unemployment and interest rates higher.  In response, America began deindustrializing as factory jobs relocated overseas.  Usually, to countries were American bombs were dropped just a few years before.  Those producers who remained began to implement automation in their manufacturing plants and on assembly lines.  Blaming the loss of their economic livelihood on the advancement of rights for women and people of color, many working-class Americans saw an opportunity to move against “socialist” programs of big government.  Unfortunately for them, their jobs did not return. 

The 1980s saw more tax cuts for the wealthy.  Households where both parents were working could no longer afford to invest in retirement or savings as Cold War military spending ballooned the federal budget.  Arming religious fundamentalists and right-wing dictators with modern weaponry to fight communism was the idea at the time.  However successful or flawed that strategy may have been, it clearly had negative effects on the domestic economy and has made an impact on American credibility worldwide ever since. 

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the 1990s ushered in NAFTA and the dot.com speculation bubble to drive the economy as Americans were buying goods and services on credit debt.  After more tax cuts, and a restructuring of welfare, the new millennium witnessed an increase in global commerce and military campaigns in the oil producing regions of the world.  More deregulation of banks allowed financiers to craft multiple schemes to push consumers into home ownership and the bad loans issued nearly collapsed the global economy in 2008.  Households across America were barely getting by with both parents working as billionaire bankers received a taxpayer-funded bailout of several trillion dollars.  Usually renting a home and financing a car, there was no money left over for savings or retirement.  Company pensions were replaced by stock shares, IRAs, and a 401k and many college educated children lived at home to help pay bills.  Not much has changed for the better.  After a dismal economic recovery, and facing the next global financial meltdown, many families will have nowhere to go except to join the millions of Americans already living in the streets.  Ultimately, that is where a revolution will begin—millions of organized protesters marching in the streets.   

The primary reason that the Green Party will most likely fail in its endeavor to become the opposition party to lead this revolution is because it has no class identity.  When the Green Party started during the early 1990s, it was viewed as a left-wing party preoccupied with the environment.  Over the years it became a home for many disenfranchised voters, former democrats, environmentalists, sectarian left groups, anarchists, hippies, and conspiracy theorists.  Aside from having some members who claim to be actively involved in their local unions, the Green Party has no real connections to the everyday struggle of working class Americans.  It has yet to grow into a political option for the rank and file organized and unorganized worker. 

Politically, the Green Party has been a non-factor on the national scene.  While winning a few hundred elections at the local and county level, however, none of the fifty state legislatures throughout the U.S. have Green Party representation.  With no true political base to produce leaders organically the Green Party is tied to a strategy of depending on presidential campaigns every four years to increase membership.  This opens the door for opportunists to promote their cults of personality while ignoring the essential step of organizing workers and communities around real problems with concrete demands.  Could this be by design and orchestrated by those who benefit financially from non-profits tied to the Green Party?

During the 2000 Presidential Election won by George W. Bush, the Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader, was called a “spoiler” for taking votes away from Democrat Al Gore.  Never mind those Democrats who voted for Bush, or any of the other candidates who were on the ballot, particularly in Florida.  Perhaps this played a factor in the 2004 Presidential Election when nominee David Cobb and the Green Party chose not to campaign in swing states where voters might choose other than Democrat or Republican.  A lackluster election in 2008 with former Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and back-to-back runs for Jill Stein in 2012 and 2016 have failed to generate the necessary momentum to surpass the popularity of Nader from nearly two decades ago.  An opposition party must continue to grow in popularity or it will become a meaningless voice in the boneyard of failed social movements which have fizzled out over past election cycles.  In some ways, the Green Party may be akin to the Democratic Party in this regard as it becomes a hospice for social movements on life support.    

During the last election in 2016, Stein received between 1.06-1.09 percent of the total votes cast.  It is important to remember that this election was a contest between the two least popular candidates in recent history representing the two major parties of big business and nearly half of eligible voters in America stayed home.  The Green Party finished fourth behind the Libertarians who ran a candidate, Gary Johnson, who had no clue where Aleppo, Syria was even located.  He received nearly three times as many votes as Jill Stein, but to listen to the likes of Cobb and others within the national leadership of the Green Party you wouldn’t know it.  They have been too busy touting that one percent of the vote as a victory which is a ridiculous position to take.  The Green Party must discuss why the election went so poorly and it can’t rely on the outdated excuses of a “media blackout.”  Party leaders appear to be content with using the same playbook from the Nader years and this will not help build a revolutionary party.      

The second reason it is unlikely to have a Green Revolution is the party leadership is controlled by a predominantly white, upper middle-class membership.  Sectarian left organizations have infiltrated the party in hopes of recruiting members to “build the vanguard” and they are countered by environmentally conscious business owners, landlords, and professionals.  Too often Green Parties, especially in California, remain detached from the rank and file labor unions and community organizations fighting for qualitative change on the ground and in the workplace.  The Green Party remains irrelevant in the lives of the very people who could build a strong and vibrant social movement.  Until the Green Party recognizes this disconnect and breaks away from the opportunists from the dysfunctional socialist elements, the academics who fail to acknowledge the role of workers, and the petit bourgeoisie (both white and non-white) who control the party purse strings, it will remain a minor blip on the political radar of American politics.  

Lastly, two additional failures of the Greens are its inability to generate revenue outside of donations during presidential campaigns and the consensus voting method.  If the party is to remain free of corporate influence, which also includes the corrupt ideology of the labor leadership, it must develop a sustainable way to collect dues from members.  This is for two reasons.  First, without a viable campaign war chest only candidates with access to money will be able to run for office in costly elections.  And, secondly, these candidates can remain unaccountable to party members and run on their own platform and agenda.  This was the case in 2016 when Jill Stein made few attempts to identify the Green Party as an “eco”-socialist party, a platform plank adopted at the nominating convention in Houston.  Perhaps, too busy appealing to former Bernie Sanders supporters, Stein missed an opportunity to stand as the lone voice against the environmental ravages of the planet promoted by the free-market economic policies of the other three candidates. 

This lack of accountability to membership leads to the structure of the internal life of the party.  Consensus may be the most ideal way to make decisions for groups, however, a political party cannot function in this way and remain democratic.  Too many times, a minority position holds up motions and elections on party issues because they are not completely satisfied.  A democratic organization should listen to all positions, including the least popular, and a majority vote should govern the decisions of the group.  If any member feels aggrieved or slighted they may continue to voice their opposition and build a coalition to support them.  Allowing a minority group to determine the agenda of the party is not democratic and can lead to a seizure of power which resembles the despotic rule of tyrants.  Steering committee members and delegates for the past fifteen years will know what I am referring to here. 

There have been countless arguments through social media and articles posted by Counterpunch and The Black Agenda Report highlighting the inner turmoil as the Green Party struggles to establish its class identity.  Green Party delegates are accusing one another of racism, sexism, and even assault as various factions jockey for power.  To Jill Stein’s credit, she has continued appearances at townhalls and media studios.  However, her campaign’s decisions to not release funds to the party and the subsequent challenge of the election results have the Green Party divided.  All of this was done while accepting money from organizations tied to the Democratic Party.  Understanding that the integrity of elections is essential to democracy, and in response to mass voter registration purges, I agreed with the challenge.  But, myself and other members of Facts For Working People demanded that new elections be held to right the wrongs of election fraud by the two major parties.

By not separating ourselves from the parties of big capital the Green Party will fall into the liberal economic trap of progressivism.  The Green New Deal is a great place to start, but it means nothing without identifying capitalism, not just predatory or crony capitalism, as the root cause of our pending climate catastrophe.  Restructuring the economy to make a nicer form of capitalism will fall short of changing society and holding the reins tighter on growth, or “de-growing,” is not possible.  Capitalism will consume everything on earth to produce commodities for markets because that is its nature.  When the leadership of the Green Party fails to take such a stance it is a good indication that they want another bourgeoisie party.  Trying to move right and appeal to Berniecrats just proves it. 

Also, attending a “democracy convention” at the University of Minnesota this weekend with “progressive” Democrat Keith Ellison in attendance doesn’t sound too revolutionary.  And neither does proudly claiming to be an international party while many Green Parties in other countries are corrupted by their own political systems.  Perhaps, the Democratic Socialists of America convention in Chicago would have been a better place to start looking for a revolution.  At least the DSA is in the process of breaking away from the Democratic Party and have voted for BDS (Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions) against Israel.  They also voted to break with the Socialist International and pursue a course for reparations.  All three are revolutionary positions in today’s political arena.

Again, I am basing these statements on my observations and interactions with members of the Green Party in California.  There are great people in the Green Party who are conscious of the need for a new political party.  I believe we all want the same things in relation to the environment and social justice, but we must also address the economic system for our party platform.  We must have the courage to speak truth to power and hold our leadership accountable to the main.  The Green Party must not remain under the influence of those with money or access to financial resources.  There are many great revolutionaries fighting within the party in Colorado, Texas, Illinois, New York, Maryland, and New Jersey to do just that.  This is by no means an attempt to discredit their work.  It is, however, the beginnings of a discussion we must have to identify the best strategy needed to raise the collective consciousness of the working class and revitalize the militant forces of labor unions and community activists.  This is an opportunity to network and build coalitions within and between communities to fight back against the onslaught from big money and the two political parties it controls.  Some may say that my position is one where it is easier to criticize than to create, or that I prefer to tear down than to build.  However, myself and many others would like to know—who approved the blueprints for this path forward?  Just exactly what are we building?  And, to whose benefit?         

It may be difficult to imagine, but less than one hundred years ago workers in the United States didn’t even have the luxury of the social safety nets we temporarily enjoy today.  With union membership near record lows, and new legislation preventing workers from organizing, we may lose these rights paid for by the blood of those workers who organized and fought before us.  Millions of workers, including women and children, had to go on strike or walk off the job to force the bosses and the government controlled by big business to concede to better wages and working conditions for less hours while earning benefits like social security and healthcare.  It wasn’t a political party that saved them, it was an organized collective of determined workers and their families who fought and changed society.  Will the Green Party become the political arm of the new movement for social change?  With its current leadership I think not, but only time will tell and the clock is ticking.

Round 3: Chicago: Stop the Property Tax Increase and Budget Cuts!

Stephen Perkins

Resident: Albany Park, Chicago
Green Party

On Wednesday evening, I attended the third in a series of meetings held in the Albany Park community in Chicago on Mayor Emanuel's proposed $550 million tax increase and budget cuts. He has suggested that up to 5,000 teachers will be laid off, 1 in 5 cops let go and 1 out of 10 fire stations closed if the measure is not passed by city council members who will vote later this month.

This meeting was sponsored by Communities United, an organization which advocates and lobbies on behalf of community residents. Albany Park is a predominantly a working class community in Chicago with the most ethnically diverse population in the U.S. Over 35 different languages are spoken at the local high school.

Nearly 100 people turned up for the meeting. Most audience members were working people from various Latin American countries.

The meeting began with different people describing the potential impact of the cuts and tax increase on themselves, their families and the community. One man discussed how when he moved to Albany Park 30 years ago, he paid about $600 per month in rent. Now he has to pay nearly $1200 for a similar apartment, despite household income having stagnated.

Residents talked about the ongoing gentrification of the neighborhood. Over 30,000 Latinos have been displaced due to condo conversion over the last 15-20 years. Because incomes have either stagnated or in some cases declined for members of the community, many people are not able to purchase their own home. Others who have been able to purchase their own residence have seen their property values decline, including this author. The property tax increase certainly won't help either them or people who will see their rents increase as a result of landlords scrambling to cover the increase in expenses. In essence for them/us, the America Dream has turned into the American Nightmare. It was also pointed out that while working people as a whole will feel the impact of the cuts, those who are people of color will be affected the most.

This concretely shows that it is not just Trump and the Republicans who are perpetuating the attacks on working class immigrants, but Democrats like Emanuel as well. Several local politicians all of whom are members of the Democratic Party were invited to attend the meeting. Four of them are alderman, while the other two, State Senator Jaime Andrade (State Representative, 40th District) and Ira Silverstein (Majority Whip, State Senator, 8th District) are members of the Illinois State Legislature.

None of the four alderman including Deb Mell bothered to show up, despite pledging to be in attendance. No doubt the reception that she received at the first Town Hall style debate that she held last week, affected her decision. Only one of them, Carlos Rosa, had an acceptable excuse, as he had a prior commitment to attend a community meeting on affordable housing. As a result, audience members were strongly encouraged to call their offices on the spot. Chants of "Si se puede, si se puede," erupted and the no-shows were roundly booed.

Andrade, who was generally well received, attempted to distance himself from Mell, whose father orchestrated a deal to get him elected to replace his daughter as state representative when she opted to take over her the seat her father held before he retired. Like Silverstein, he proceeded to blame the situation on Il. Gov. Bruce Rauner. When challenged from the floor, why the state of Illinois, which has the fifth largest population, is dead last in education funding, Andrade explained that while the Democrats occupy 71 out of 100 seats, that a relatively small percentage of those individuals do not possess 'Democratic values' and vote to keep their jobs.

This being the case it is time for working people in Albany Park, the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois and beyond to break with the Democratic (and Republican) Parties and truly support independent political activity. Given the failure of the union leadership and the labor movement to build its own political party to represent working people, the more conscious elements need to recognize that at this point in time the Green Party represents that best opportunity to build a political alternative. This does not mean that the Green Party is without its problems. It will need to be transformed into a political party of working people, which supports a democratic socialist platform. At present its class character remains undefined, at least in the U.S., with various ideas competing for attention. Going forward it is our task, to transform it into a vehicle capable of improving the standard of living and quality of life for working people.

 Meanwhile, we need to also organize campaigns around not paying the increase and possibly recalling Emanuel. Merely pressuring Machine politicians will not bring about the desired results and could lead to the dissolution of any movement from being built.