On Business Unions, The IWW and Organizing for the Aftermath of the collapse.
The IWW is about One Big Union, but in reality this has never really been tried. The AFL-CIO, as well as the Federal/State/Public employee’s Unions have been co-opted and eviscerated by the oldest trick in the book – divide and conquer. So called “ideological differences” are, in my opinion, semantic ‘niceties’ or outright lies that serve to divide natural allies along lines of bias, prejudice, fear, and racism. As a result, we end up fighting defensive, ‘rear-guard’ actions with each other.
The ‘ideological battle’ we face today isn’t worthy of the name. What we have is chaotic name calling and ad hominem attacks, with no coherent ‘ideology’ to support them, and both ‘sides’ are on the same side of the big issue.
When I hear a Teamster bitching about ‘all them Mexican truckers’ (because they may not be subject DOT safety standards like he is), I want to punch something really hard (but not a Teamster). If that Teamster hadn’t been side-tracked by his own racism, he might realize that his union could seek to recruit truckers all over the world to a common cause. Safe, reliable, over-the-road transportation controlled by the men and women who maintain and operate the equipment, roads, tunnels and bridges they travel on is that cause.
Similarly, there are medical technicians, nurses, doctors, dentists, mental health professionals, women and men in the healing professions who would join local health cooperatives if they weren’t afraid of losing their ‘in-network’, ‘preferred provider’ status.
And when they realize that the for-profit, employer based practice of ‘defensive medicine’ and ‘treating the symptoms’ with pharmacotherapy, is an unsustainable model, we need to be ready with a cooperative infrastructure they can join. At least they have useful skills.
We should also be concerned for people who were the foot soldiers of the corporate overlords. The mortgage brokers and bankers and investment managers are human beings too. They have spouses, families and kids needing education. They may have aging parents to care for. We can’t bail out on them, even though some seem willing to fight tooth and nail for the corrupt system that will surely use them up and tossed them aside when the collapse comes.
In organizing for the aftermath now, I don’t know if an ‘evangelical’ approach is useful. That part of the battle seems over. The ‘evangelizeable’ have all downed the poisoned propaganda potion. It’s a lose-lose proposition. Perhaps some will respond to rehab, when they are ready. When they decide they are powerful enough to combat the daily deluge of corporate crap that fills their eyeballs and ear-holes, we then have a chance to bring them into the fold. For now, they are our estranged, but nonetheless, natural allies.
From the beginning, I was cautioned by some, and in turn, cautioned my left leaning friends about the whole ‘Hopey-Changey’ thing. There is no weaker position than ‘Hope’. ‘Hope’, has already conceded the game. ‘Hope’, imagines that there is nothing more to lose. Well guess what? There’s always something more they can take from you, if you don’t fight back.
Present circumstances are pushing us toward revolution. Like the conditions leading to a tornado or hurricane, revolution is more akin to a force of nature. It isn’t ‘planned’. It isn’t ‘organized’ or ‘instigated’ as the corporate media chattering class would have us believe. It is more like a tsunami. Just try to plan, instigate or organize a hurricane or tornado. Good luck with that.
You can, however, prepare and organize for the aftermath. This is where I think the IWW has is on ‘good-ground’. The IWW has won and lost many battles. Learning something each time, it has never been defeated.
We nearly made it, back in the ‘30’s, ‘40’s and ‘50’s, when the American people rose up against corporate tyranny, and FDR’s ‘New Deal’ provided conditions under which a true industrial democracy might have emerged.
But now we’re nearly back to square one. Actually, we’ve been pushed off the board altogether. In the pre-Reagan days, – when 30 to 40 percent of the working class were union members – every union victory was a victory for every working American. Now we’re down around 6 to 7 percent in the private sector. its a percentage well below the critical mass needed for anything but, “how long can this or that union hold off and on which concessions?”
WWII derailed the New Deal (and academics and theorists and Monday-morning-quarterbacks can argue that wars do seem to come around just when working people look like they’re getting organized), and as Ike noted in his exit speech, WWII created the fertile ground for the corporate plutocracy which rules the planet today. Eisenhower mentioned the ‘military-industrial complex’, but now there is no industry or sector of the economy which does not benefit from the Cerberus of ‘Corporate Person-hood’, ‘Money is Speech’ and ‘War, Inc.’. Now the ‘Three Headed monster’ is fed by lobbyists who write the legislation that helps them grow even more powerful and rapacious. This renders electoral politics both impotent and irrelevant. But even so, the momentum of the New Deal carried us through WWII and the post-war period, into the greatest prosperity for the greatest number that the world had ever seen.
But, we took it all for granted (never really noticing that it was primarily white Americans). We assumed that it was ever thus, and ever shall be. We turned a blind eye to the war-mongering and profiteering at the root of this wealth, and became both complicit and complacent.
The Great American Complacency has devolved into a kind of media-fueled zombification. We have been hypnotized, propagandized, proselytized and in some cases, lobotomized. There is no ‘ideological divide’. There are simply millions upon millions of uninformed, mis-informed, dis-informed and frightened individuals who have been taught to hate what they fear, and taught to fear, and whom to hate.
This isn’t even ideology. It’s propaganda and mind-control on an unprecedented scale. The ‘Propaganda Model’ works. Goebbels and Goring would be in awe of such an efficient apparatus. People don’t know who to believe, much less what to believe. What passes for ‘politics’ these days is a spectator sport. Its “My team versus your team, and I don’t know what either one stands for (if anything). All I know is that if you win, I lose.” Actually, no one wins. At least no one who works for a living.
The liberals/conservatives/neo-liberals/neo-conservatives/whatever, the labels distract us from recognizing what the ‘they’ are. ‘They’ are the manifestation of corporate greed and institutionalized sociopathy. They continually have the upper hand because their only mantras are “the ends justify the means” and “profits, more than anything else”
I agree with the call of some to define our goals. However, most of the former-and-would-be workers of the world are not moved by examples they can’t see or touch directly. We need to teach by example, create those cooperatives from the bottom up (as it seems we must, every hundred years or so). Governments won’t do it until it is to their advantage to do so. In a corporate oligarchy, it will never be to their advantage to do so.
The best we can do, in my opinion, is to provide on-the-job-training in building cooperatives, developing psychological resilience through a sense of shared purpose (One Big Union), and a means to re-organize before, during, and after the shit comes down. Where solidarity exists, support it and grow it. Where there is none, create it. Create smaller units of cooperation and merge them as they grow. If workers are united, government can shrink to its functional size – managing, protecting, and maintaining ‘The Commons’. Only qualified people need apply, and the pay won’t be any better than that of any other useful work. Public service is not supposed to make you rich (and I usually end that sentence with “you stupid, greedy fuckers”).
While we must think and learn globally, the only meaningful action is direct and local. People learn best by doing, and by example. I don’t object to theoretical work per se. I appreciate the effort it takes to get educated about things that matter in this world of ‘information overload’, but the shit’s already hitting the fan, so its OK to rely on the Wiki version if you have to.
Ultimately, the ties between an individual and a group are a function of shifting, mutual self-interest(s). Frankly, I care less about what people say or think than what they DO. People rarely agree about what they believe – in fact, few people actually know what they believe. (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). People will say they believe almost anything depending on who is doing the asking and under what conditions. I’d rather join a small band of highly effective organizers and independent thinkers than a giant flock of sheeple whose only distinguishing feature is that they have few distinguishing features. That sounds harsh, but if you’ve experienced both types (and some in between), you know the former is far more satisfying and productive.
As for competing interests/ideas/goals/methods within the group, Wobs seem to be pretty much like any group of humans. We can argue about all kinds of things. But we’re pretty consistent about one thing:
One. Big. Union.
- Pinko the Bear & Tuna –
The ‘ideological battle’ we face today isn’t worthy of the name. What we have is chaotic name calling and ad hominem attacks, with no coherent ‘ideology’ to support them, and both ‘sides’ are on the same side of the big issue.
When I hear a Teamster bitching about ‘all them Mexican truckers’ (because they may not be subject DOT safety standards like he is), I want to punch something really hard (but not a Teamster). If that Teamster hadn’t been side-tracked by his own racism, he might realize that his union could seek to recruit truckers all over the world to a common cause. Safe, reliable, over-the-road transportation controlled by the men and women who maintain and operate the equipment, roads, tunnels and bridges they travel on is that cause.
Similarly, there are medical technicians, nurses, doctors, dentists, mental health professionals, women and men in the healing professions who would join local health cooperatives if they weren’t afraid of losing their ‘in-network’, ‘preferred provider’ status.
And when they realize that the for-profit, employer based practice of ‘defensive medicine’ and ‘treating the symptoms’ with pharmacotherapy, is an unsustainable model, we need to be ready with a cooperative infrastructure they can join. At least they have useful skills.
We should also be concerned for people who were the foot soldiers of the corporate overlords. The mortgage brokers and bankers and investment managers are human beings too. They have spouses, families and kids needing education. They may have aging parents to care for. We can’t bail out on them, even though some seem willing to fight tooth and nail for the corrupt system that will surely use them up and tossed them aside when the collapse comes.
In organizing for the aftermath now, I don’t know if an ‘evangelical’ approach is useful. That part of the battle seems over. The ‘evangelizeable’ have all downed the poisoned propaganda potion. It’s a lose-lose proposition. Perhaps some will respond to rehab, when they are ready. When they decide they are powerful enough to combat the daily deluge of corporate crap that fills their eyeballs and ear-holes, we then have a chance to bring them into the fold. For now, they are our estranged, but nonetheless, natural allies.
From the beginning, I was cautioned by some, and in turn, cautioned my left leaning friends about the whole ‘Hopey-Changey’ thing. There is no weaker position than ‘Hope’. ‘Hope’, has already conceded the game. ‘Hope’, imagines that there is nothing more to lose. Well guess what? There’s always something more they can take from you, if you don’t fight back.
Present circumstances are pushing us toward revolution. Like the conditions leading to a tornado or hurricane, revolution is more akin to a force of nature. It isn’t ‘planned’. It isn’t ‘organized’ or ‘instigated’ as the corporate media chattering class would have us believe. It is more like a tsunami. Just try to plan, instigate or organize a hurricane or tornado. Good luck with that.
You can, however, prepare and organize for the aftermath. This is where I think the IWW has is on ‘good-ground’. The IWW has won and lost many battles. Learning something each time, it has never been defeated.
We nearly made it, back in the ‘30’s, ‘40’s and ‘50’s, when the American people rose up against corporate tyranny, and FDR’s ‘New Deal’ provided conditions under which a true industrial democracy might have emerged.
But now we’re nearly back to square one. Actually, we’ve been pushed off the board altogether. In the pre-Reagan days, – when 30 to 40 percent of the working class were union members – every union victory was a victory for every working American. Now we’re down around 6 to 7 percent in the private sector. its a percentage well below the critical mass needed for anything but, “how long can this or that union hold off and on which concessions?”
WWII derailed the New Deal (and academics and theorists and Monday-morning-quarterbacks can argue that wars do seem to come around just when working people look like they’re getting organized), and as Ike noted in his exit speech, WWII created the fertile ground for the corporate plutocracy which rules the planet today. Eisenhower mentioned the ‘military-industrial complex’, but now there is no industry or sector of the economy which does not benefit from the Cerberus of ‘Corporate Person-hood’, ‘Money is Speech’ and ‘War, Inc.’. Now the ‘Three Headed monster’ is fed by lobbyists who write the legislation that helps them grow even more powerful and rapacious. This renders electoral politics both impotent and irrelevant. But even so, the momentum of the New Deal carried us through WWII and the post-war period, into the greatest prosperity for the greatest number that the world had ever seen.
But, we took it all for granted (never really noticing that it was primarily white Americans). We assumed that it was ever thus, and ever shall be. We turned a blind eye to the war-mongering and profiteering at the root of this wealth, and became both complicit and complacent.
The Great American Complacency has devolved into a kind of media-fueled zombification. We have been hypnotized, propagandized, proselytized and in some cases, lobotomized. There is no ‘ideological divide’. There are simply millions upon millions of uninformed, mis-informed, dis-informed and frightened individuals who have been taught to hate what they fear, and taught to fear, and whom to hate.
This isn’t even ideology. It’s propaganda and mind-control on an unprecedented scale. The ‘Propaganda Model’ works. Goebbels and Goring would be in awe of such an efficient apparatus. People don’t know who to believe, much less what to believe. What passes for ‘politics’ these days is a spectator sport. Its “My team versus your team, and I don’t know what either one stands for (if anything). All I know is that if you win, I lose.” Actually, no one wins. At least no one who works for a living.
The liberals/conservatives/neo-liberals/neo-conservatives/whatever, the labels distract us from recognizing what the ‘they’ are. ‘They’ are the manifestation of corporate greed and institutionalized sociopathy. They continually have the upper hand because their only mantras are “the ends justify the means” and “profits, more than anything else”
I agree with the call of some to define our goals. However, most of the former-and-would-be workers of the world are not moved by examples they can’t see or touch directly. We need to teach by example, create those cooperatives from the bottom up (as it seems we must, every hundred years or so). Governments won’t do it until it is to their advantage to do so. In a corporate oligarchy, it will never be to their advantage to do so.
The best we can do, in my opinion, is to provide on-the-job-training in building cooperatives, developing psychological resilience through a sense of shared purpose (One Big Union), and a means to re-organize before, during, and after the shit comes down. Where solidarity exists, support it and grow it. Where there is none, create it. Create smaller units of cooperation and merge them as they grow. If workers are united, government can shrink to its functional size – managing, protecting, and maintaining ‘The Commons’. Only qualified people need apply, and the pay won’t be any better than that of any other useful work. Public service is not supposed to make you rich (and I usually end that sentence with “you stupid, greedy fuckers”).
While we must think and learn globally, the only meaningful action is direct and local. People learn best by doing, and by example. I don’t object to theoretical work per se. I appreciate the effort it takes to get educated about things that matter in this world of ‘information overload’, but the shit’s already hitting the fan, so its OK to rely on the Wiki version if you have to.
Ultimately, the ties between an individual and a group are a function of shifting, mutual self-interest(s). Frankly, I care less about what people say or think than what they DO. People rarely agree about what they believe – in fact, few people actually know what they believe. (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). People will say they believe almost anything depending on who is doing the asking and under what conditions. I’d rather join a small band of highly effective organizers and independent thinkers than a giant flock of sheeple whose only distinguishing feature is that they have few distinguishing features. That sounds harsh, but if you’ve experienced both types (and some in between), you know the former is far more satisfying and productive.
As for competing interests/ideas/goals/methods within the group, Wobs seem to be pretty much like any group of humans. We can argue about all kinds of things. But we’re pretty consistent about one thing:
One. Big. Union.
- Pinko the Bear & Tuna –
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