Author	Message
cmiller2005	Posted: 12 Jun 2008 02:17 am    Post subject: Reviving the W.I.I.U. Well, I knew I'd get around to this one day. I guess here I will state what I foresee for a new W.I.I.U. and you guys can chime in with suggestions, criticisms, and advice. Mike has mentioned that a revived W.I.I.U. would overlap with some of the other non-statist, non-market, democratically oriented groups. That is somewhat true, I suppose, but from what I have read on these group's websites, hastily I might add, none of them with the possible exception of RUSS mentions the need for the worker's economic organization in a plan to help establish the new society. PFANS mentions it in the aftermath as part of an overall plan for running society but that's the closest I've seen anybody come. I have yet to visit the World In Common site, but I expect more of the same. First of all, do we need an organization that represents the economic part of the equation? There are political groups galore out there, each with its own angle and own philosophy which diverge completely from the De Leonist formula and others that are very close. There is only one economic organization that is very close, but without the endorsement of political action to achieve working class emancipation, they fall short (the I.W.W.). The great thing about the economic organization is that those with divergent political views can become members of the W.I.I.U. It's inherent in the philosophy of industrial unionism. It can also be one of it's major flaws. There will be those who wish to further their political agenda by trying to "bore from within" the new union. I can see those of the Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist stripe attempting this very thing. I can only say that the union will have to be vigilant while at the same time respecting the views of its members. This will be a problem that will have to be worked out in a democratic fashion while protecting the mission of industrial unionism. One of the other hurdles is the legality of the type of unionism the W.I.I.U. will advocate. I read over the NLRB website some time ago, I suppose a refresher is in order, and I didn't see anything that would prevent a genuine industrial union from being formed. Maybe some of you are familiar with the labor laws and can comment on this. There are some requirements, the union must hold elections at least every 3 years, a copy of the union's constitution has to be filed with the Department of Labor (I believe that's the right department) and their are some financial requirements once the union brings in over a certain dollar amount in dues. Mainly that the person or persons who handle the dues money have to be bonded and books have to be audited every so often. I'm reciting this from memory so I may be a little off on some of these requirements. As for the nuts and bolts of the union itself, it's main mission in the beginning will be to strive for working class unity and the building of classconsciousness. During this formative phase it will be active in all struggles for reforms or other measures which will give some relief to the working class, temporary or insufficient though they may be. This is in keeping with the part of the preamble which states: "These sad conditions must be changed, the interests of the working class upheld, and while the capitalist rule still prevails, all possible relief for the workers must be secured." These actions will serve hopefully to build numbers and strength and eventually lead to actual organization of the industrial union itself, with local industrial unions, national departments etc etc. In the mean time there will of course be local recruiting unions formed which will be made up of workers whose industries have not yet been organized. These will probably be the cells or building blocks of the organization in the beginning, similar to sections in the SLP. Their function will be to of course recruit workers to the cause of industrial unionism, be active in worker's struggles in their area, and if they so decide, to run candidates for local office on the platform of industrial unionism and whatever issues in their locality which would directly benefit the working class. All of this with an eye toward the mission of the union- unity, classconsciousness, and building the economic organization of the working class. At some point, probably determined by the membership and the status of the union, a political organization would be formed from the ranks of the entire union and under its direct control, which would express working class interests, namely socialism, and would run candidates for national office. This is kind of an overview, there are some things missing I'm sure, but this is just a rough outline.
davesearles	Posted: 12 Jun 2008 03:54 am    Post subject: An organization that represents the economic part of the equation. That could be a political organization. One nice thing about the political side is that it's built into the system that every so often there's going to be an election at which time all manner of ideas can be brought t the fore. So if anything it gives an entre to expressing the ideas. An economic organization does what? Tries to organize work places? Good luck with that. Not to dissuade you if you've got some real knack and passion for it - go for it. I guess if I knew how I'd be doing it.
mikelepore	Posted: 12 Jun 2008 02:13 pm    Post subject: I scanned a few articles from the New Unionist going back to the early 1990s -- http://www.deleonism.org/n.htm -- unless they recently changed their mind, they support industrial organization, but for some reason they recently deleted their entire web site with over a hundred articles and started to remake it from scratch. My bet is what they have online now doesn't fully express what they are thinking, and maybe they don't even realize that the unionism concept isn't coming through when someone visits the site. Similarly, PFANS, I've exchanged letters with a few of them -- I don't think they're lacking advocacy of the IU, but rather that they are writing about other topics at this time. The problem is that people forget to summarize regularly. People need to practice continuously rewriting their entire goal and strategy in hundred words or less, otherwise they forget to say what they were thinking.
cmiller2005	Posted: 13 Jun 2008 12:16 am    Post subject: Dave: Come on now, being a De Leonist, or I assume you are since you are a regular on this site, you know the importance of the economic organization. The purpose of the industrial union is to back up the socialist ballot. Of course this meaning the ballot which will settle once and for all the great social question of our age. I don't see how a significant victory could be gained or held without having the industries in the hands of the organized working class. In the meantime, the purpose of the industrial union is to do those things I mentioned: build unity among the working class, instill classconsciousness among the workers, and build the industrial organization. As far as organizing goes, that's part of it too, hopefully at some point the industries will be organized.
The Greenman	Posted: 13 Jun 2008 02:13 am    Post subject: Will the W.I.I.U conduct itself as another collective bargaining union as the I.W.W. is active doing? Will there be a different approach? I understand the backing of the socialist ballot which is essential for the peaceful transition of private property to public. I kinda envision the SIU's first stage as a training program for a structured economic take over. How do we keep those pesky Leninist from boring into it and how will the anarchist be handled since they don't want anything to do with politics? Sometimes I wonder if class consciousness is a misnomer. People know "us" and "them" and they know that they have to work to meet ends meet and the rich have little to worry over. People don't like government but tend to trust the rich believing they earned their wealth. Sharing wealth is "demonized" in our society as being Communist. I believe that no person will get the same pay or equal treatment under socialism. But I do believe there would be a better balance through out society but it will never be perfect since we are all human. John T.
davesearles	Posted: 13 Jun 2008 11:40 am    Post subject: Hi Carl: Not to dissuade you at all. If you have some passion for setting up workplace labor organizations whether by boring from within or from without, I'm for you 100%. Apart from participation in this forum there is very little that I can actually do. I live in a state where it's easy to get on the ballot for congress - so what should I do - utilize that opportunity that the state invites us to participate in, or go round any try to organize burger king workers to enforce the political mandate of labor. I think a run for congress would be more effective to spreading the idea of worker taking control of the means of production. And as far as enforcing the socialist ballot - I guess we'll have to worry about it when and if the time comes. If a socialist were to win the ballot for congress in the State of Vermont I'm pretty sure that our Secretary of State Deb Markowitz would have very little trouble certifying the election. And if the US House refused to accept the certification well we could use that in our favor politically, but at this point that would pretty much be wishful thinking. I recall that Adam Clayton Powell was thrown out of Congress back in the 60s and Harlem with great accliam elected him right back in the special election held to fill his seat. If there was something real that I could do to help in resurrecting the WIIU just let me know. I'm not inclined however to join a non-existent organization in the hopes that more join. And I would feel a lot more confident in making some progress toward workers taking over the means of production in agitating my fellow workers for a political ballot measure rather than trying to meet the resource intense requirements of trying to set up union organizations at ever dwindling workplaces such as the IWW has been unsuccessfully trying to do for the last 100
cmiller2005	Posted: 13 Jun 2008 01:04 pm    Post subject: John: The W.I.I.U. will seek to attract all workers and will not focus on any industry in particular. For instance the union would never set out with its focus on organizing Wal Mart workers etc. As far as collective bargaining it should be left up to the local union whether or not they want to go the traditional route of seeking recognition through the NLRB and then bargaining with management for a contract. In some cases management can tie up contract negotiations for years without the workers gaining a thing as far as benefits, higher wages etc. I have always been of the opinion that direct action can reap better results. I mean direct action as far as work slow downs, stoppages, irritation strikes etc. In other words workers should never walk out and leave the job to strike, they should carry out these tactics at work. If you want to read more about this philosophy I have a copy of Trautmann's Industrial Union Tactics I can e-mail to you. Since an industrial union includes all workers, those seeking to use the union for their own political views will be a problem. I have not really worked out a good and fair way to handle this. This type of union will have its own political reflex but we shouldn't force anyone to adhere to it's program. Of course, when one joins they should be in agreement with the union's program but there will always be those who say they agree but then turn to manipulating it for their own ends. I would like to try to avoid an SLP type situation where we spend the majority of our time at meetings dealing with and or expelling troublemakers. This problem requires a democratically arrived at solution which will be fair on the one hand while also protecting the union on the other. The W.I.I.U. constitution has a process for dealing with charges against members but I think it needs to be re-worked and updated.
cmiller2005	Posted: 13 Jun 2008 02:01 pm    Post subject: Hi Dave: I have no concrete plans at this time for reviving the W.I.I.U. I started this topic to kind of test the waters and see what the opinions are in this forum before I actually make any kind of effort to do this. So far, I think the general opinion is that it is not workable. Of course only a couple of people have even bothered to comment on it. I have carried this idea with me since I joined the SLP back in 1999. I never brought it up at conventions or NEC meetings because I could tell that it would have never won any support. The Party was always trying to stay afloat money wise and membership wise and it always seemed we were dealing with organizational matters such as troublemaking members. Here in Houston we came close to organizing a union at the workplace of one of our members and I felt that this would open the door to re-organizing the WIIU, even if it was a small one workplace union. There was some lukewarm support for this from the National Office so we set about trying to organize a meeting of the employees to try to pitch the idea since they were all in favor of unionizing. But, as luck would have it the member quit his job and the unionizing effort died. Doh! So, now that I am without any political affiliation I thought I would see what the opinion was here since I respect the views of the people in this forum. I may still post a website and see what happens but I haven't really convinced myself to do it yet. I need to get Mike to elaborate further on his offer of free web hosting. I created and maintained a website for our section here in Houston while I was a member of the SLP and all of our new members joined via the web so the internet is still the best recruiting tool going. I just have to convince myself to do it.
mikelepore	Posted: 13 Jun 2008 04:59 pm    Post subject: cmiller2005 wrote: I need to get Mike to elaborate further on his offer of free web hosting. The kind of hosting I use is a reseller account. That means I can treat it as though I'm a hosting company, subdivide my total number of gigabytes into many parts and host an unlimited number of domain names there. Each of those domains is a separate account, with it's own password, files, FTP upload, statistics reports, mailboxes, etc. I currently host five domains: four that I use myself and one that a local business pays me for. I wouldn't charge a collaborating DeLeonist for a small space measured in some tens of megabytes, whereas I might hesitate to give away hundreds of megabytes, and the cutoff there is yet to be negotiated. I don't have any do-it-yourself panels for people who don't know anything about HTML or FTP, although some people these days write web pages with wordprocessors anyway. The user has to tell me at the beginning whether they want Microsoft Frontpage support. The user has to tell me if they want any advanced features such as perl programming, CGI, php, MySQL. I'm not allowed to have heavy server drain applications such as streaming audio/video. I can give you an account named your-name-here.deleonism.org to start playing with, any time you want, just keep the master copy of your files on your home computer, because if you get a new domain later you will have to upload them again into a new space, and because it's your backup to have copies of the files. Ask about whatever is unclear.
mikelepore	Posted: 13 Jun 2008 05:12 pm    Post subject: cmiller2005 wrote: Of course only a couple of people have even bothered to comment on it. There isn't anyone else using this forum -- because I did nothing to advertise or promote it -- only because I procrastinate, and not because I wanted seclusion. Vince has come around a few times per year. More people registered and said hi and never came back.
The Greenman	Posted: 13 Jun 2008 08:23 pm    Post subject: I do believe the WIIU should exist as the basic organized structure of the SIU. Something has to exist rather than being solely "educational" and nothing more. Who cares if it starts out small. I believe that having a structured organization would be of benefit in the long run. It should not be a collective bargaining union since there are many out there already. It exist as an educational organization first and foremost about how SIU functions, how it relates to the political process and ballot, supports Dave's Amendment Proposal, and readies people to take over the means of production seeing that it already exist. DSA is not a political party but works with grass roots movements and the Progressive Caucus. Of course DSA has BNS (Big Name Socialist) as honorary chairs. I am all for the WIIU and I did ask why it was not revived years ago. John T.
mikelepore	Posted: 14 Jun 2008 01:26 am    Post subject: A basic question to consider carefully is can a person be part of many organizations at the same time. My humble opinion is, there are only two things that have to restrict a person from being in several organizations simultaneously, one is party registration at a polling place where people may say Republican or Democrat so they can vote in primaries, and the other is NLRB-regulated union membership, where (I believe, not sure) a person who joins one union may not be allowed also to join others that are competing with the first one for certification. Except for those, I can't think of any reason why a person shouldn't have the right to join ten political parties and ten unions.
mikelepore	Posted: 14 Jun 2008 01:55 am    Post subject: I also think separate organizations should find ways to confederate. We tried here a couple years ago to propose such an organization of independent organizations, but we couldn't persuade people to pop in here and talk about it. If group 1 believes in principles A,B,C,D and group 2 believes in principles C,D,E,F, then they should find ways to collaborate in the promotion of C,D which is their overlap space. Even where they disagree, whey should a co-author a document where they agree on the objective words to describe what they disagree about! In that, I believe there is potential for an experimental collaboration between the WIIU and the IWW. I also proposed this years ago to some folks in the World Socialist Movement (WSM) worldsocialism.org which are similar to us in a couple ways, the belief in educate-first-and-organize afterwards, opposition to the vanguard leader concept, opposition to repressive regimes masquerading as socialist, opposition to prepresenting a list of piecemeal reforms as the path to socialism. But they are, so far, closed minded about industrial unionism, and they have a pure-and-simple political program. I asked them if they would like to try an experiment: to see if we could have people who disagree about things coauthor a document that lists what we agree on and what we disagree on, with all agreeing on the wording of that listing, conceded by both sides to be an objective description of the disagreements. Such a document would advertise the debate itself, as well as advertise any principles held in common. I believe there was some mood of approval.
mikelepore	Posted: 14 Jun 2008 02:06 am    Post subject: I believe that much of the socialist habit of splintering off into factions due to disagreements is related to a false belief in historical inevitibility that goes back to Marx never really getting past being a Hegelian in many ways. If it were really true that the revolution is right around the corner, which we have been saying for 160+ years, then it would also be true that the most important hting would be to keep an organization pure theoretically, expel Mikhail Bakunin, expel Solon De Leon, because when the revolution inevitable occurs next year we will want just the right ideas to be on the agenda. But now that we know that the perpetual claim that it's just around the corner is a false kind of wishful thinking, the concept of theoretical purity must be revised. It will do no good to have an infinitesimally small membership that thinks alike about everything. It's better to have a larger movement that preserves the disagreements, six hundred of us believe this idea, two thousand of us believe that idea, here are the arguement offered by each side in that debate, and the working class will later decide who is right. Don't compromise principles, but also don't, as a result of having different principles, be enemies.
cmiller2005	Posted: 14 Jun 2008 01:53 pm    Post subject: Mike: Personally, I see no reason why the WIIU wouldn't work with the IWW. I think that the time of that adversarial relationship is long past. This would be something for the membership to decide though. I would also add that the WIIU should constantly insist on the re-adoption of the political clause in their preamble and should that occur, the WIIU could disband and join directly with the IWW. There would be no further reason for two industrial unions. This is all pie in the sky though. As far as being a member of two unions, I don't recall any hard and fast rule on this as far as the NLRB is concerned. In the original WIIU constitution the only limitation on trade unionists becoming members was that they shouldn't be an officer in a trade union. In my opinion, and again this is something that the membership would have to decide on, the WIIU would have no problem working with and fully supporting any group or individual that: A. Has a program that promotes the interests of the working class, whether it be Dave's run for congress on the amendment platform, or is for out and out revolutionary change to a system based on worker ownership and control of the industries. B. Promotes any type of reform or initiative that would give some kind of immediate relief to the working class. An example might be the living wage movement that is taking place in a lot of cities. C. Any group within the trade unions in favor of democratizing or changing the philosophy of a trade union to be more in line with industrial unionism. As I mentioned before, being a member of the WIIU would not hinder anyone's political activities, so long as they're not trying to use the union or its meetings or activities to promote that particular group or party or whatever.
mikelepore	Posted: 14 Jun 2008 05:15 pm    Post subject: To say that certain decisions are up to the membership to decide, a problem I foresee there is who and what a group is at any point in time affects who else they can attract during the next hour. A policy or principle accepted by the first ten founders defines who and what they are, which determines what kind of people, with what beliefs, will be attracted to become the next thirty people, then the first forty people determines who and what the group essentially is, affecting the composition of the next hundred people, and so on. So in a sense, as soon as you go out and start making your first announcements you could be determining right there whether it's going to be attractive in the long term, whether it's something that people can join in principle, in good conscience, with convenience, etc. It's funny this way, democracy in an organization is different from democracy in society. in society, the population exists first, then the people can vote on things that come up. In an organization, the things that come up are there before the voters are, the issue selects the voters, the result of each vote may determines who the voters will be when the next vote comes up. So I believe the very first day is the right time to draft a somewhat-detailed list of basic beliefs. Sure, each line item will be up to the membership later to keep or reject, but in this feedback loop, the vote determines the membership as much as the membership determines the vote. I wonder if this means that a few slip-ups can make it go out of control; for example, if you make one speech that overemphasizes minimal reforms, then this attracts enough reformist-minded people so that they are now 51 percent of the membership, and poof, the whole organization is transformed into its opposite.
davesearles	Posted: 14 Jun 2008 06:26 pm    Post subject: Carl: As I mentioned before, being a member of the WIIU would not hinder anyone's political activities, so long as they're not trying to use the union or its meetings or activities to promote that particular group or party or whatever. Dave: But if the union is going to back up the socialist ballot, shouldn't there be agreement on at least that?
cmiller2005	Posted: 15 Jun 2008 01:30 pm    Post subject: It was just my feeling that the organization should be able to freely and openly debate and discuss matters that affect it. I guess democracy can go too far in some cases. A basic statement of principles would be a good idea of course. The original WIIU had a manifesto of industrial unionism but I have been unable to find it in its entirety anywhere on the web. I have the manifesto that was written before the founding of the original IWW, but not the one for the WIIU. I just didn't want it to be like the SLP. The NEC and conventions could not freely and openly debate anything without the interference of the National Office. Of course the national secretary was entitled to be part of the discussion but it seemed at times he dominated the proceedings. Everyone, including myself, were almost afraid to speak openly. It seemed my entire time as an SLP member I was in fear of losing my membership. This was probably unjustified but falling out of favor with the national secretary was not a good thing. An example of the squelching of open debate and discussion is the way the NEC communicated with each other. Between NEC sessions and conventions the NEC handled the Party's business via e-mail. The funny part is we didn't communicate with each other directly, all e-mails had to be sent to the national secretary and then he sent them out to all the NEC members. So for instance, if I had an issue I was discussing with comrade X, I didn't send the e-mail to comrade X's e-mail address, I sent it to the national secretary's e-mail address and he sent it to the rest of the NEC. So if a situation arose that the n.s. was out of town or out sick all communications between the NEC were delayed until he returned. Of course there was no hard and fast rule on this, but communicating directly was seriously frowned upon. I can remember we had a new NEC member who sent out a message on some subject, I can't remember what it was, but he sent his message to the n.s. and c.c.'d everyone else, which makes perfect sense. This drew an immediate warning that all e-mails were to be sent through the national office and he would send them out to everyone else. Conventions and NEC sessions were something I began to dread. Now, I am not here to insult or denigrate Robert Bills, but the man was an absolute terror at these proceedings. Ask any SLP member who has taken part in a convention or other meeting involving Mr. Bills and you will see that I am not exaggerating. This is the kind of thing I want to avoid, like the plague.
mikelepore	Posted: 15 Jun 2008 06:42 pm    Post subject: Why do SLP national secretaries tend to keep their jobs for decades? Aren't they elected annually or something? Does anyone ever run against an incumbent, or is there usually just one person who wants the job?
mikelepore	Posted: 15 Jun 2008 07:51 pm    Post subject: cmiller2005 wrote: I have the manifesto that was written before the founding of the original IWW, but not the one for the WIIU. Ah, so the preamble you typed in THIS POST wasn't the WIIU preamble. I misunderstood that at first. But the document that you want must be in a book somewhere in a library.
cmiller2005	Posted: 15 Jun 2008 09:03 pm    Post subject: Actually what I typed in that post is the WIIU preamble, what I am looking for is the manifesto which was drafted, I believe, at the 1915 convention when they also changed the name from Detroit IWW to the WIIU. It was similar I believe to the industrial union manifesto. Dave quoted a passage from a book which has a piece of it in a post in that same thread. As far as SLP National Secretaries and their longevity I think the main reason is no one else wants the job. The national secretary has to be nominated and voted on at national conventions every two years. How people get the n.s. position is cloudy beyond that. Bills has been n.s. since 1980, he took over from Nathan Karp and Karp took over from Arnold Petersen. Karp and Bills were national office staffers, so I think there is a little passing the baton going on there. For one thing, a regular party member such as myself could never take the position because I would have to quit my job and move my family out to California where HQ is located, unless the NEC voted to move it to Texas. Then that would be a whole other pickle because I would have to find office space, storage space etc etc. at the Party's expense of course. The pay is not that great either. Above all this, if you read over the Party's constitution the n.s. is not supposed to wield nearly the power and influence that he does in real life. That is mainly a tradition carried over from Petersen's time in office it seems to me. The NEC is supposed to wield all the power and make all the decisions concerning the day to day operation of the party. But, Bills has years and years of experience and he is also pretty intimidating at times so I think a lot of people, including myself when I was a member, are browbeaten into following his wishes. From what I understand Karp was the same way, very loud and boisterous at conventions and NEC meetings and at times intimidating. No way for an organization to be run.
mikelepore	Posted: 15 Jun 2008 09:42 pm    Post subject: For your general information, the following pdf document http://debs.indstate.edu/t7778o5_1915.pdf contains, in part, the following text ... (conversion to text format introduces some typographical errors) --------------------------- One Great Union By Wm. E. Trautmann FIFTH REVISED EDITION. A complete portrait of industrial organizations ; with a map outlining the inter-relationship of the industrial enterprise the world over, compiled from statistical tabulations of bureaus of France, Germany, Denmark and the United States of America. PRICE 10 CENTS Published by the Literature Bureau of The Workers' International Industrial Union, Detroit, Mich., U. S. A. THE WORKERS' INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL PREAMBLE. ============================================ POST EDITED JUNE 18, 2008 -- TEXT MOVED TO FILE: http://www.deleonism.org/cgi-bin/text.cgi?j=wiiu-pre
mikelepore	Posted: 15 Jun 2008 10:15 pm    Post subject: A text-format copy of the 1920s-era IWW edition of Trautmann's pamphlet "One Big Union", http://www.iww.org/cic/resources/theory/obu-iww.htm , I see some paragraphs very similar to, though not identical to, what the WIIU published after Trautmann quit the IWW and joined the WIIU.
cmiller2005	Posted: 17 Jun 2008 11:10 pm    Post subject: Thanks for all the links Mike, I've got all those pamphlets and I got them from the Debs collection you mentioned. That is one heck of a resource for anyone researching the labor movement. The article on the WIIU member being jailed for speaking on the street was very interesting. I see that he was an SLP member too. I guess it took real cohones in those days to speak out like he did. it would be very hard for anyone to stand out on the street and just start talking class struggle politics these days. Probably be arrested very quickly, for violating a city ordinance or because they would think you have lost your mind.
mikelepore	Posted: 19 Jun 2008 02:37 am    Post subject: I'll delete my previous posts in which I suggested links, and move the links to a new page made for that purpose. If any addition WIIU texts or links are known, please post them here and I'll move them to that file. http://www.deleonism.org/wiiu.htm
The Greenman	Posted: 29 Jun 2008 09:03 pm    Post subject: I was wondering about something. If Carl is reviving the WIIU then should not the departments and industrial unions be the same as the IWW? http://www.iww.org/graphics/objects/wheel.jpg The WIIU is NOT a rival of the IWW union. The only difference is that the WIIU seeks political change for a new economic system. Other than that there is not much difference. The reason I ask that it mirror the IWW is because both may merge into one organization under the new social system. This is just a suggestion to avoid confusion. John T.
cmiller2005	Posted: 29 Jun 2008 09:56 pm    Post subject: For my own part, I would have no problem working with the IWW. You are right John, the organizational structures of the two unions are very similar. If you read the pamphlet Mike posted a link to - One Great Union, it tells how the WIIU is organized and goes into detail about the various departments. Of course some of the Departments are obsolete and need to be dropped and others (such as Information Technology etc.) need to be added. I have been working on the WIIU website off and on but haven't posted it yet. Not sure if I'll take Mike up on his offer for free hosting or if I'll go with Tripod (used them for years for my SLP Section Houston website and it's a very good service). Also going to try to write a basic declaration of principles, but haven't started on that yet.
The Greenman	Posted: 29 Jun 2008 11:39 pm    Post subject: I find no problem with the IWW or working with them. I send them money once in a while. Would there be a "political party" under which workers unite as stated in the preamble? Or just political candidates who would support the formation of a new social system including the constitutional amendment? I know that wheel is outdated but it is good to know that the WIIU would be similarly structured as the IWW. The only difference between the two as far as I can tell is the economic framework of a new social system. John T.
The Greenman	Posted: 30 Jun 2008 11:57 am    Post subject: By the way, the PDF file for One Great Union can be read. When trying to download the file it stops about midway. I have to exist the browser because the browser freezes. However, it does not affect the computer as a whole.
cmiller2005	Posted: 30 Jun 2008 01:58 pm    Post subject: Hi John, As far as the political party I see only two routes, one would be to endorse a political party which fits the goal we are trying to achieve or form the party from the ranks of the union which would probably be the better option in my opinion. As you know, the original WIIU was practically dominated by the SLP and when the SLP withdrew its support the WIIU collapsed. I wouldn't want to lean too heavily on any party since their support and backing could be fleeting at best. If the party is formed from the union itself at least we would know that it is working in our best interests and would be under the control of the membership. On the subject of supporting Dave's run for congress on the amendment clause I would have no problem supporting that effort. Even if he is unsuccessful at least it would gain some much needed publicity for the cause. I think that if he should be elected he could at least be an excellent advocate for the working class even if his amendment plan doesn't go through. Sorry to hear about the problem downloading One Great Union, if you will send me your e-mail address I would be happy to send it to you.
The Greenman	Posted: 30 Jun 2008 03:25 pm    Post subject: What I have received from a few socialist organizations is that the SIU concept and using legal political action constitutes Utopian thinking. Something about the bourgeoisie not allowing it and violent overthrow is the only solution. Then there are those who believe in metaphorical transition bridges which are easily torn down. Forming a new political party from the rank and file would be all right with me so long as the party does not try to run and dominate the union. I do believe that the rank and file should determine how the political party is set up to run. However, there would be people who would not be members of the WIIU but may want to be members of the political party. And for whatever reason there would be rank and file people who would be members of different socialist parties. I for one would like to avoid potential one party abuse as we have seen historically. John T.
mikelepore	Posted: 30 Jun 2008 06:03 pm    Post subject: The Greenman wrote: Something about the bourgeoisie not allowing it I always have a good chuckle when they say that. I picture a Ford plant with 400,000 workers scurrying around doing things according to their own plans, and old man Ford is in the corridor, yelling and waving his arms. "I order you to obey me! Can't you see that I'm the boss, as indicated by my gray silk suit? Now, all of you return to your proper stations at once!" Quote: and violent overthrow is the only solution. That's also a groaner. They say the bourgeoisie will "not allow" the workers to remake society peaceably, but supposedly we are expected to believe that a movement could openly call for having a shootout with the government and there will be no repercussions! Let's all divide up the chores -- I volunteer to wait outside the police station and shoot five cops as they come outside this afternoon, and you go shoot six army lieutenants in the back, okay? The "establishment" wouldn't never allow us to transform society peacefully, but they'll definitely allow us to publicize and carry out these wonderful plans without any interference! Sometimes I think the left is totally nuts. I've never seen such incapacity to reason logically as what we see among the left.
cmiller2005	Posted: 04 Jul 2008 02:06 pm    Post subject: Quote: What I have received from a few socialist organizations is that the SIU concept and using legal political action constitutes Utopian thinking. Something about the bourgeoisie not allowing it and violent overthrow is the only solution. Then there are those who believe in metaphorical transition bridges which are easily torn down. Well, as you know most "socialist organizations" fall into two basic groups- one is the Leninist camp (which includes the Maoists, the Trotskyists and of course the Stalinists) who steadfastly believe that violence is the only way to get rid of capitalism and then there is the reformist camp that believe electing their members to congress or the senate and legislating socialism into existence is the only way to go. Naturally neither camp is going to put a stamp of approval on our methods. There is no doubt that if we entered into a revolutionary period where there was obvious and widespread support for getting rid of capitalism elections would either be suspended or heavily tampered with to keep the wishes of the majority hidden. That is why we also need to be organized and ready on the economic front. Just because the election never takes place or is tampered with doesn't change the mood of the people, we will know that if the election had been carried out legally we would have won in a landslide. So, once it is announced that the election is suspended (probably through a declaration of a state of emergency and initiation of martial law) or that pro capitalist candidates have won when it is obvious that no one voted for them the workers will simply take over operation of the means of production and establish the socialist commonwealth anyway. The question then will come up, why bother with trying to use the ballot at all, why not just take over? The reason is we live in a civilized society and we need to at least try to use the avenues provided for us by that society to express the wishes of the majority. Winning at the ballot box would send a clear message that the majority wants socialism. Of course the capitalists will never allow us the chance to have that mandate expressed, we already know that. At least by trying we show the civilized nature of our efforts and by them denying us our rights they reveal their true nature- tyrants.
The Greenman	Posted: 04 Jul 2008 07:11 pm    Post subject: Thanks for explaining it that way. By showing the population that we are willing to do everything legal under the present system the people would realize that the SIU is a credible alternate economic system. I do worry about the various Leninist stripes and their belief in violence and their demand that everyone follow their party line or else someone will take you away in the middle of the night. We have discussed that political government would just be limited in protecting free speech and other civil rights and locking up real criminal. You know, those who murder or harm others such as rape or assault. By the way, the link to "One Big Union" is working and I saved it as a PDF file.
mikelepore	Posted: 05 Jul 2008 02:42 am    Post subject: Carl, my views about the ballot are different, in two ways. (1) I believe that an honest socialist election cannot be prevented or tampered with. I say this because there is no "they" involved in the process besides the working class. The people who count and record the votes by voting place, county and state are working class people. Their political composition will change if the political composition of the working class as a whole changes. Therefore I believe that socialists will someday, eventually, I don't know in what century, be elected to, and have control of, the presidency, congress and state legislatures. What they should then do with that opportunity is, as we know, a matter for discussion. (2) I believe that political victory more literally _required_ than what DeLeonism has ever suggested. If the election process were stopped by a "state of emergency" then, in my opinion, the SIU cannot change the social system -- it cannot as De Leon suggested "mop the earth" with the ruling class. The capitalist system would be defended by law enforcement. The fight then would have to be to restore an electoral system before anything else would be achieved. For the working class to socialize industry before elections could be restored would require a violent rebellion against all of the country's law enforcement and military forces, and would require that this be done by a relatively unarmed population, which I think is a technical impossibility.
davesearles	Posted: 05 Jul 2008 12:12 pm    Post subject: OMG Mike, how can we just give up on that MTE revolutionary rhetoric!! But we need to be real on both sides - IF IF IF the workers in ANY apreciable degree were to form into these ready to take over the means of production unions for all practical purposes I do not see the ruling class even wanting to hold on to the means of production. (MOP, was this DeLeon's hidden joke?) ANALOGY ALERT Every once in a while I'll see a basketball game or some other timed sports event and it gets down to a certain point and it seems like by magic the game is over while the clock is still running. That's how I see the revolution happening at the moment of the revoution, here anyway.
davesearles	Posted: 05 Jul 2008 12:39 pm    Post subject: This is taken from Chap. X of AN INTRODUCTION TO THE INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND by EDWARD P. CHEYNEY Professor of European History in the University of Pennsylvania New York The MacMillan Company London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1916 All rights reserved Copyright, 1901, By The MacMillan Company. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21660/21660.txt Mike maybe you would want to move the below text (sections 79-83 of the book) to an archive file and leave a link to it here so we can refer to in in discussion. Or if you find that it's not too long simply leave it here for the time being. *79. Opposition of the Law and of Public Opinion (to Trade Unions). The Combination Acts.*--Their growth, however, was slow and interrupted. The poverty, ignorance, and lack of training of the laborers interposed a serious obstacle to the formation of permanent unions; and a still more tangible difficulty lay in the opposition of the law and of public opinion. A trade union may be defined as a permanent organized society, the object of which is to obtain more favorable conditions of labor for its members. In order to retain its existence a certain amount of intelligence and self-control and a certain degree of regularity of contributions on the part of its members are necessary, and these powers were but slightly developed in the early years of this century. In order to obtain the objects of the union a "strike," or concerted refusal to work except on certain conditions, is the natural means to be employed. But such action, or in fact the existence of a combination contemplating such action, was against the law. A series of statutes known as the "Combination Acts" had been passed from time to time since the sixteenth century, the object of which had been to prevent artisans, either employers or employees, from combining to change the rate of wages or other conditions of labor, which should be legally established by the government. The last of the combination acts were passed in 1799 and 1800, and were an undisguised exercise of the power of the employing class to use their membership in Parliament to legislate in their own interest. It provided that all agreements whatever between journeymen or other workmen for obtaining an advance in wages for themselves or for other workmen, or for decreasing the number of hours of labor, or for endeavoring to prevent any employer from engaging any one whom he might choose, or for persuading any other workmen not to work, or for refusing to work with any other men, should be illegal. Any justice of the peace was empowered to convict by summary process and sentence to two months' imprisonment any workmen who entered into such a combination. The ordinary and necessary action of trade unions was illegal by the Common Law also, under the doctrine that combined attempts to influence wages, hours, prices, or apprenticeship were conspiracies in restraint of trade, and that such conspiracies had been repeatedly declared to be illegal. In addition to their illegality, trade unions were extremely unpopular with the most influential classes of English society. The employers, against whose power they were organized, naturally antagonized them for fear they would raise wages and in other ways give the workmen the upper hand; they were opposed by the aristocratic feeling of the country, because they brought about an increase in the power of the lower classes; the clergy deprecated their growth as a manifestation of discontent, whereas contentment was the virtue then most regularly inculcated upon the lower classes; philanthropists, who had more faith in what should be done for than by the workingmen, distrusted their self-interested and vaguely directed efforts. Those who were interested in England's foreign trade feared that they would increase prices, and thus render England incapable of competing with other nations, and those who were influenced by the teachings of political economy opposed them as being harmful, or at best futile efforts to interfere with the free action of those natural forces which, in the long run, must govern all questions of labor and wages. If the average rate of wages at any particular time was merely the quotient obtained by dividing the number of laborers into the wages fund, an organized effort to change the rate of wages would necessarily be a failure, or could at most only result in driving some other laborers out of employment or reducing their wages. Finally, there was a widespread feeling that trade unions were unscrupulous bodies which overawed the great majority of their fellow-workmen, and then by their help tyrannized over the employers and threw trade into recurring conditions of confusion. That same great body of uninstructed public opinion, which, on the whole, favored the factory laws, was quite clearly opposed to trade unions. With the incompetency of their own class, the power of the law, and the force of public opinion opposed to their existence and actions, it is not a matter of wonder that the development of these working-class organizations was only very gradual. Nevertheless these obstacles were one by one removed, and the growth of trade unions became one of the most characteristic movements of modern industrial history. *80. Legalization and Popular Acceptance of Trade Unions.*--During the early years of the century combinations, more or less long lived, existed in many trades, sometimes secretly because of their illegality, sometimes openly, until it became of sufficient interest to some one to prosecute them or their officers, sometimes making the misleading claim of being benefit societies. Prosecutions under the combination laws were, however, frequent. In the first quarter of the century there were many hundred convictions of workmen or their delegates or officers. Yet these laws were clear instances of interference with the perfect freedom which ought theoretically to be allowed to each person to employ his labor or capital in the manner he might deem most advantageous. Their inconsistency with the general movement of abolition of restrictions then in progress could hardly escape observation. Thus the philosophic tendencies of the time combined with the aspirations of the leaders of the working classes to rouse an agitation in favor of the repeal of the combination laws. The matter was brought up in Parliament in 1822, and two successive committees were appointed to investigate the questions involved. As a result, a thoroughgoing repeal law was passed in 1824, but this in turn was almost immediately repealed, and another substituted for it in 1825, a great series of strikes having impressed the legislature with the belief that the former had gone too far. The law, as finally adopted, repealed all the combination acts which stood upon the statute book, and relieved from punishment men who met together for the sole purpose of agreeing on the rate of wages or the number of hours they would work, so long as this agreement referred to the wages or hours of those only who were present at the meeting. It declared, however, the illegality of any violence, threats, intimidation, molestation, or obstruction, used to induce any other workmen to strike or to join their association or take any other action in regard to hours or wages. Any attempt to bring pressure to bear upon an employer to make any change in his business was also forbidden, and the common law opposition was left unrepealed. The effect of the legislation of 1824 and 1825 was to enable trade unions to exist if their activity was restricted to an agreement upon their own wages or hours. Any effort, however, to establish wages and hours for other persons than those taking part in their meetings, or any strike on questions of piecework or number of apprentices or machinery or non-union workmen, was still illegal, both by this statute and by Common Law. The vague words, "molestation," "obstruction," and "intimidation," used in the law were also capable of being construed, as they actually were, in such a way as to prevent any considerable activity on the part of trade unions. Nevertheless a great stimulus was given to the formation of organizations among workingmen, and the period of their legal growth and development now began, notwithstanding the narrow field of activity allowed them by the law as it then stood. Combinations were continually formed for further objects, and prosecutions, either under the statute or under Common Law, were still very numerous. In 1859 a further change in the law was made, by which it became lawful to combine to demand a change of wages or hours, even if the action involved other persons than those taking part in the agreement, and to exercise peaceful persuasion upon others to join the strikers in their action. Within the bounds of the limited legal powers granted by the laws of 1825 and 1859, large numbers of trade unions were formed, much agitation carried on, strikes won and lost, pressure exerted upon Parliament, and the most active and capable of the working classes gradually brought to take an interest in the movement. This growth was unfortunately accompanied by much disorder. During times of industrial struggle non-strikers were beaten, employers were assaulted, property was destroyed, and in certain industrial communities confusion and outrage occurred every few years. The complicity of the trade unions as such in these disorders was constantly asserted and as constantly denied; but there seems little doubt that while by far the greatest amount of disorder was due to individual strikers or their sympathizers, and would have occurred, perhaps in even more intense form, if there had been no trade unions, yet there were cases where the organized unions were themselves responsible. The frequent recurrence of rioting and assault, the losses from industrial conflicts, and the agitation of the trade unionists for further legalization, all combined to bring the matter to attention, and four successive Parliamentary commissions of investigation, in addition to those of 1824 and 1825, were appointed in 1828, 1856, 1860, and 1867, respectively. The last of these was due to a series of prolonged strikes and accompanying outrages in Sheffield, Nottingham, and Manchester. The committee consisted of able and influential men. It made a full investigation and report, and finally recommended, somewhat to the public surprise, that further laws for the protection and at the same time for the regulation of trade unions be passed. As a result, two laws were passed in the year 1871, the Trade Union Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act. By the first of these it was declared that trade unions were not to be declared illegal because they were "in restraint of trade," and that they might be registered as benefit societies, and thereby become quasi-corporations, to the extent of having their funds protected by law, and being able to hold property for the proper uses of their organization. At the same time the Liberal majority in Parliament, who had only passed this law under pressure, and were but half hearted in their approval of trade unions, by the second law of the same year, made still more clear and vigorous the prohibition of "molesting," "obstructing," "threatening," "persistently following," "watching or besetting" any workmen who had not voluntarily joined the trade union. As these terms were still undefined, the law might be, and it was, still sufficiently elastic to allow magistrates or judges who disapproved of trade unionism to punish men for the most ordinary forms of persuasion or pressure used in industrial conflicts. An agitation was immediately begun for the repeal or modification of this later law. This was accomplished finally by the Trade Union Act of 1875, by which it was declared that no action committed by a group of workmen was punishable unless the same act was criminal if committed by a single individual. Peaceful persuasion of non-union workmen was expressly permitted, some of the elastic words of disapproval used in previous laws were omitted altogether, other offences especially likely to occur in such disputes were relegated to the ordinary criminal law, and a new act was passed, clearing up the whole question of the illegality of conspiracy in such a way as not to treat trade unions in any different way from other bodies, or to interfere with their existence or normal actions. Thus, by the four steps taken in 1825, 1859, 1871, and 1875, all trace of illegality has been taken away from trade unions and their ordinary actions. They have now the same legal right to exist, to hold property, and to carry out the objects of their organization that a banking or manufacturing company or a social or literary club has. The passing away of the popular disapproval of trade unions has been more gradual and indefinite, but not less real. The employers, after many hard-fought battles in their own trades, in the newspapers, and in Parliament, have come, in a great number of cases, to prefer that there should be a well-organized trade union in their industry rather than a chaotic body of restless and unorganized laborers. The aristocratic dread of lower-class organizations and activity has become less strong and less important, as political violence has ceased to threaten and as English society as a whole has become more democratic. The Reform Bill of 1867 was a voluntary concession by the higher and middle classes to the lower, showing that political dread of the working classes and their trade unions had disappeared. The older type of clergymen of the established church, who had all the sympathies and prejudices of the aristocracy, has been largely superseded, since the days of Kingsley and Maurice, by men who have taken the deepest interest in working-class movements, and who teach struggle and effort rather than acceptance and contentment. The formation of trade unions, even while it has led to higher wages, shorter hours, and a more independent and self-assertive body of laborers, has made labor so much more efficient that, taken in connection with other elements of English economic activity, it has led to no resulting loss of her industrial supremacy. As to the economic arguments against trade unions, they have become less influential with the discrediting of much of the theoretical teaching on which they were based. In 1867 a book by W. T. Thornton, _On Labor, its Wrongful Claims and Rightful Dues_, successfully attacked the wages-fund theory, since which time the belief that the rate of wages was absolutely determined by the amount of that fund and the number of laborers has gradually been given up. The belief in the possibility of voluntary limitation of the effect of the so-called "natural laws" of the economic teachers of the early and middle parts of the century has grown stronger and spread more widely. Finally, the general popular feeling of dislike of trade unions has much diminished within the last twenty-five years, since their lawfulness has been acknowledged, and since their own policy has become more distinctly orderly and moderate. Much of this change in popular feeling toward trade unions was so gradual as not to be measurable, but some of its stages can be distinguished. Perhaps the first very noticeable step in the general acceptance of trade unions, other than their mere legalization, was the interest and approval given to the formation of boards of conciliation or arbitration from 1867 forward. These were bodies in which representatives elected by the employers and representatives elected by trade unions met on equal terms to discuss differences, the unions thus being acknowledged as the normal form of organization of the working classes. In 1885 the Royal Commission on the depression of trade spoke with favor cf trade unions. In 1889 the great London Dockers' strike called forth the sympathy and the moral and pecuniary support of representatives of classes which had probably never before shown any favor to such organizations. More than $200,000 was subscribed by the public, and every form of popular pressure was brought to bear on the employers. In fact, the Dock Laborers' Union was partly created and almost entirely supported by outside public influence. In the same year the London School Board and County Council both declared that all contractors doing their work must pay "fair wages," an expression which was afterward defined as being union wages. Before 1894 some one hundred and fifty town and county governments had adopted a rule that fair wages must be paid to all workmen employed directly or indirectly by them. In 1890 and 1893 and subsequently the government has made the same declaration in favor of the rate of wages established by the unions in each industry. In 1890 the report of the House of Lords Committee on the sweating system recommends in certain cases "well-considered combinations among the laborers." Therefore public opinion, like the formal law of the country, has passed from its early opposition to the trade unions, through criticism and reluctant toleration, to an almost complete acceptance and even encouragement. Trade unions have become a part of the regularly established institutions of the country, and few persons probably would wish to see them go out of existence or be seriously weakened. *81. The Growth of Trade Unions.*--The actual growth of trade unionism has been irregular, interrupted, and has spread from many scattered centres. Hundreds of unions have been formed, lived for a time, and gone out of existence; others have survived from the very beginning of the century to the present; some have dwindled into insignificance and then revived in some special need. The workmen in some parts of the country and in certain trades were early and strongly organized, in others they have scarcely even yet become interested or made the effort to form unions. In the history of the trade-union movement as a whole there have been periods of active growth and multiplication and strengthening of organizations. Again, there have been times when trade unionism was distinctly losing ground, or when internal dissension seemed likely to deprive the whole movement of its vigor. There have been three periods when progress was particularly rapid, between 1830 and 1834, in 1873 and 1874, and from 1889 to the present time. But before the middle of the century trade unions existed in almost every important line of industry. By careful computation it is estimated that there were in Great Britain and Ireland in 1892 about 1750 distinct unions or separate branches of unions, with some million and a half members. This would be about twenty per cent of the adult male working-class population, or an average of about one man who is a member of a trade union out of five who might be. But the great importance and influence of the trade unionists arises not from this comparatively small general proportion, but from the fact that the organizations are strongest in the most highly skilled and best-paid industries, and in the most thickly settled, highly developed parts of the country, and that they contain the picked and ablest men in each of the industries where they do exist. In some occupations, as cotton spinning in Lancashire, boiler making and iron ship building in the seaport towns, coal mining in Northumberland, glass making in the Midland counties, and others, practically every operative is a member of a trade union. Similarly in certain parts of the country much more than half of all workingmen are trade unionists. Their influence also is far more than in proportion to their numbers, since from their membership are chosen practically all workingmen representatives in Parliament and local governments and in administrative positions. The unions also furnish all the most influential leaders of opinion among the working classes. *82. Federation of Trade Unions.*--From the earliest days of trade-union organization there have been efforts to extend the unions beyond the boundaries of the single occupation or the single locality. The earliest form of union was a body made up of the workmen of some one industry in some one locality, as the gold beaters of London, or the cutlers of Sheffield, or the cotton spinners of Manchester. Three forms of extension or federation soon took place: first, the formation of national societies composed of men of the same trade through the whole country; secondly, the formation of "trades councils,"--bodies representing all the different trades in any one locality; and, thirdly, the formation of a great national organization of workingmen or trade unionists. The first of these forms of extension dates from the earliest years of the century, though such bodies had often only a transitory existence. The Manchester cotton spinners took the initiative in organizing a national body in that industry in 1829; in 1831 a National Potters' Union is heard of, and others in the same decade. The largest and most permanent national bodies, however, such as the compositors, the flint-glass makers, miners, and others were formed after 1840; the miners in 1844 numbering 70,000 voting members. Several of these national bodies were formed by an amalgamation of a number of different but more or less closely allied trades. The most conspicuous example of this was the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the formation of which was completed in 1850, and which, beginning in that year with 5000 members, had more than doubled them in the next five years, doubled them again by 1860, and since then has kept up a steady increase in numbers and strength, having 67,928 members in 1890. The increasing ease of travel and cheapness of postage, and the improved education and intelligence of the workingmen, made the formation of national societies more practicable, and since the middle of the century most of the important societies have become national bodies made up of local branches. The second form of extension, the trades council, dates from a somewhat later period. Such a body arose usually when some matter of common interest had happened in the labor world, and delegates from the various unions in each locality were called upon to organize and to subscribe funds, prepare a petition to Parliament, or take other common action. In this temporary form they had existed from a much earlier date. The first permanent local board, made up of representatives of the various local bodies, was that of Liverpool, formed in 1848 to protect trade unionists from prosecutions for illegal conspiracy. In 1857 a permanent body was formed in Sheffield, and in the years immediately following in Glasgow, London, Bristol, and other cities. They have since come into existence in most of the larger industrial towns, 120 local trades councils existing in 1892. Their influence has been variable and limited. The formation of a general body of organized workingmen of all industries and from all parts of the country is an old dream. Various such societies were early formed only to play a more or less conspicuous role for a few years and then drop out of existence. In 1830 a "National Association for the Protection of Labor" was formed, in 1834 a "Grand National Consolidated Trades Union," in 1845 a "National Association of United Trades for the Protection of Labor," and in 1874 a "Federation of Organized Trade Societies," each of which had a short popularity and influence, and then died. In the meantime, however, a more practicable if less ambitious plan of unification of interests had been discovered in the form of an "Annual Trade Union Congress." This institution grew out of the trades councils. In 1864 the Glasgow Trades Council called a meeting of delegates from all trade unions to take action on the state of the law of employment, and in 1867 the Sheffield Trades Council called a similar meeting to agree upon measures of opposition to lockouts. The next year, 1868, the Manchester Trades Council issued a call for "a Congress of the Representatives of Trades Councils, Federations of Trades, and Trade Societies in general." Its plan was based on the annual meetings of the Social Science Association, and it was contemplated that it should meet each year in a different city and sit for five or six days. This first general Congress was attended by 34 delegates, who claimed to represent some 118,000 trade unionists. The next meeting, at Birmingham, in 1869, was attended by 48 delegates, representing 40 separate societies, with some 250,000 members. With the exception of the next year, 1870, the Congress has met annually since, the meetings taking place at Nottingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and other cities, with an attendance varying between one and two hundred delegates, representing members ranging from a half-million to eight or nine hundred thousand. It elects each year a Parliamentary Committee consisting of ten members and a secretary, whose duty is to attend in London during the sittings of Parliament and exert what influence they can on legislation or appointments in the interests of the trade unionists whom they represent. In fact, most of the activity of the Congress was for a number of years represented by the Parliamentary Committee, the meetings themselves being devoted largely to commonplace discussions, points of conflict between the unions being intentionally ruled out. In recent years there have been some heated contests in the Congress on questions of general policy, but on the whole it and its Parliamentary Committee remain a somewhat loose and ineffective representation of the unity and solidarity of feeling of the great army of trade unionists. As a result, however, of the efforts of the unions in their various forms of organization there have always, since 1874, been a number of "labor members" of Parliament, usually officers of the great national trade unions, and many trade unionist members of local government bodies and school boards. Representative trade unionists have been appointed as government inspectors and other officials, and as members of government investigating commissions. Many changes in the law in which as workingmen the trade unionists are interested have been carried through Parliament or impressed upon the ministry through the influence of the organized bodies or their officers. The trade-union movement has therefore resulted in the formation of a powerful group of federated organizations, including far the most important and influential part of the working classes, acknowledged by the law, more or less fully approved by public opinion, and influential in national policy. It is to be noticed that while the legalization of trade unions was at first carried out under the claim and with the intention that the workingmen would thereby be relieved from restrictions and given a greater measure of freedom, yet the actual effect of the formation of trade unions has been a limitation of the field of free competition as truly as was the passage of the factory laws. The control of the government was withdrawn, but the men voluntarily limited their individual freedom of action by combining into organizations which bound them to act as groups, not as individuals. The basis of the trade unions is arrangement by the collective body of wages, hours, and other conditions of labor for all its members instead of leaving them to individual contract between the employer and the single employee. The workman who joins a trade union therefore divests himself to that extent of his individual freedom of action in order that he may, as he believes, obtain a higher good and a more substantial liberty through collective or associated action. Just in as far, therefore, as the trade-union movement has extended and been approved of by law and public opinion, just so far has the ideal of individualism been discredited and its sphere of applicability narrowed. Trade unions therefore represent the same reaction from complete individual freedom of industrial action as do factory laws and the other extensions of the economic functions of government discussed in the last chapter. *83. Employers' Organizations.*--From this point of view there has been a very close analogy between the actions of workingmen and certain recent action among manufacturers and other members of the employing classes. In the first place, employers' associations have been formed from time to time to take common action in resistance to trade unions or for common negotiations with them. As early as 1814 the master cutlers formed, notwithstanding the combination laws, the "Sheffield Mercantile and Manufacturing Union," for the purpose of keeping down piecework wages to their existing rate. In 1851 the "Central Association of Employers of Operative Engineers" was formed to resist the strong union of the "Amalgamated Engineers." They have also had their national bodies, such as the "Iron Trade Employers' Association," active in 1878, and their general federations, such as the "National Federation of Associated Employers of Labor," which was formed in 1873, and included prominent shipbuilders, textile manufacturers, engineers, iron manufacturers, and builders. Many of these organizations, especially the national or district organizations of the employers in single trades, exist for other and more general purposes, but incidentally the representatives of the masters' associations regularly arrange wages and other labor conditions with the representatives of the workingmen's associations. There is, therefore, in these cases no more competition among employers as to what wages they shall pay than among the workmen as to what wages they shall receive. In both cases it is a matter of arrangement between the two associations, each representing its own membership. The liberty both of the individual manufacturer and of the workman ceases in this respect when he joins his association. (end of quotation)
cmiller2005	Posted: 05 Jul 2008 03:47 pm    Post subject: Mike, You make a good point in the first of the two but wouldn't the second reason have a similar result since the police and the National Guard etc. are also made up of working class people? I guess the question comes down to how well indoctrinated the police and NG are when the revolutionary period occurs, either in defending capitalism or siding with the revolution. Would they shoot people in their own cities, towns, counties etc. to protect a dying system? Also, on your second point I think it would be an unmitigated disaster if revolutionary momentum were built up for the final showdown at the ballot box only to have the election stolen or suspended and then have the working class just wait until the next election cycle. People will know who would have won anyway, without waiting for the next cycle. It would be far better tactically to proceed with taking over the operation of society without the sought after mandate at the ballot box to prevent a reactionary backlash and risk the loss of that momentum between election cycles, in my opinion anyway. Besides, the workers would have demonstrated their willingness to use civilized means to change the system in spite of the fact that no actual ballot was cast or that the worker's ballots weren't counted at all. That is the whole reason for organizing economically as well as politically, so that we can enforce the wishes of the working class, whether that will is expressed via the ballot or otherwise.
davesearles	Posted: 05 Jul 2008 04:15 pm    Post subject: DAS repeats: But we need to be real on both sides - IF IF IF the workers in ANY appreciable degree were to form into these ready to take over the means of production unions for all practical purposes I do not see the ruling class even wanting to hold on to the means of production. (MOP, was this DeLeon's hidden joke?) and continues: Why do we think that the capitalist class would even want to continue if it could have a rational socialist system? The reason for the long excerpt from [i]Indutrial and Social History of England[/i] is that Parliament 3 different times during a 30 year period drastically loosened the legal restraints on the formation of labor unions. Why the ruling class dominated state have done that and not have simply maintained a total ban on them?
mikelepore	Posted: 05 Jul 2008 06:43 pm    Post subject: More about the government's repression of an illegal socialist revolution. First, I want to dispose of that idea that the government troops could side with the workers. A sample doesn't statistically represent the whole population if the sample is made up of those people who decided to join particular groups, particularly if the groups they joined are based on viewpoints. For example we can't measure how artistic human beings generally are by looking at the membership of the National Association of Independent Artists, or determine how scientifically educated people generally are by looking at the membership of the National Association for the Advancement of Science, or measure how pacifist people generally are by looking at the membership of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. In the language of statistics, you wouldn't have a representative sample. Similarly, people whose self-image is to select police and military careers, although they are part of the working class, will not represent the same attitude toward obeying legal authority that working class will have generally. They will usually lag behind other people in awakening to the idea that formal rules and laws shouldn't necessarily be enforced during a social upheaval. If the day comes that, say, 70 percent of the working class has become class conscious, we might see only 3 percent of the cops and the lifers in the military being class conscious. Also, it doesn't take everyone's cooperation. If the government official knows that the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th divisions are likely to refuse to massacre the workers, the official will therefore dispatch the 5th division to massacre the workers. It only takes the existence of someone who is willing to do it, not everyone. If the workers occupy a factory, the employer will announce that they are all fired. If the workers don't vacate the building, a judge or elected official will issue the paperwork that requires the law enforcers to "regain control." Other worker-directed actions would be various "offenses"; for example, if capitalist management says that a particular truck is to go to Newark, and worker-management says that that truck is to go to to Hoboken, the police are now expected to chase and arrest a driver who sets out for Hoboken and book that driver for grand larceny. Under the RICO statute, every member of the entire workers' organization can be indicted for every violation of the law committed by any member of the organization. The law never stops "before things go too far". If someone today is being chased for stealing a bag of pretzels, the limited set of outcomes are: the person hides and escapes from the police, the person is arrested and jailed, or the person dies in a hail of bullets. Law enforcement never gives up and walks away. Now, in the case where the stolen property isn't a bag of pretzels, but, instead, General Electric or Exxon, the law-enforcer's level of desperation would be increased correspondingly with the size of the property violation. The government has hesitated to bomb the factories, but the workers don't have an unlimited supply of food in the factory and they will have to come out of the building eventually and face violence. The workers occupying the plant would have an additional distraction when they receive the news that the government is firebombing their houses and some of them have family members at home. (This is precedented. The Philadelphia police in 1985 responded to one small outlaw hideout by bombing an entire city block.) I am convinced that the working class cannot win an illegal revolution.
mikelepore	Posted: 05 Jul 2008 06:53 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: IF IF IF the workers in ANY apreciable degree were to form into these ready to take over the means of production unions for all practical purposes I do not see the ruling class even wanting to hold on to the means of production. Every ruling class in history has viewed a revolution as the same thing as the total end of the world. Where do you get the idea that the r.c. wouldn't even want to hold on to the means of production?
mikelepore	Posted: 05 Jul 2008 07:03 pm    Post subject: cmiller2005 wrote: That is the whole reason for organizing economically as well as politically, so that we can enforce the wishes of the working class, whether that will is expressed via the ballot or otherwise. To me the main reason for organizing economically is because the new socialist administration has to be fully assembled offline and ready to function on the day it's activated. To do otherwise would involve workers not having a plan for what they're supposed to be working on. This would cause a shortage of life-sustaining products.
cmiller2005	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 01:05 am    Post subject: Quote: To me the main reason for organizing economically is because the new socialist administration has to be fully assembled offline and ready to function on the day it's activated. To do otherwise would involve workers not having a plan for what they're supposed to be working on. This would cause a shortage of life-sustaining products. Well, I agree that organizing before the event is a very wise move, to have all your ducks in a row so to speak. But there is a dual purpose for economic organization, both equally important I feel. One of those is what you mentioned in your post, to have the structure of the new system in place and ready once the time comes, but the other is equally as important and that is to back up the decision of the majority to establish socialism by taking control of the means of production and distribution. As to the other comments you made, about not being too confident about the police and the military not gunning down workers since they too are workers, I can agree with that, but these are situations that we have no way of predicting. We can look at the fall of the Stalinist system in Russia, the Red Army was called in but I don't believe they ever fired a shot. On the other hand we can look at the Tienemen (spelling?) square massacre in China. Both armies were highly indoctrinated but both behaved differently. Why? Guess we'll never know. Can we honestly say how the authorities will behave? I say no but the best thing the working class can do is be prepared for the worst. Lastly, about there being sufficient force to put down any move toward self government by the workers, I just don't see there being enough police or National Guardsmen to put down a massive revolt by millions of workers. Of course when I say revolt I am talking about the workers taking over operation of the means of production and society itself. We're talking about the majority of society here, not a small band of troublemakers. This is all speculation of course so I think the best thing we can do is to advocate organization, unity and try to instill some class consciousness. Right now that is the most realistic and prudent thing we can do.
mikelepore	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 06:06 am    Post subject: cmiller2005 wrote: the fall of the Stalinist system in Russia, the Red Army was called in but I don't believe they ever fired a shot. On the other hand we can look at the Tienemen (spelling?) square massacre in China. Both armies were highly indoctrinated but both behaved differently. I think that difference in those responses supports what I said. The 1989 repression in China was a "law and order" response to a crowd, instead of political leaders wrestling with each other. The attempted military coup in Russia in 1991 was directed against Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The legal political leaders were in the process of dissolving the Soviet Union. The country's vice-president, Gennady Yanayev, and a politiburo member, Valentin Pavlov, attempted a coup to topple their own national president and republic president. In effect, middle management attempted a coup against top management, and that didn't work.
mikelepore	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 06:13 am    Post subject: Then we agree that we can't know for sure what would happen, and the movement should err on the side of caution. The political-industrial program covers the necessary bases. You can see I'm opinionated about what I believe would would happen, but I can't claim that I know.
davesearles	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 07:13 am    Post subject: DAS: I do not see the ruling class even wanting to hold on to the means of production. ML: Every ruling class in history has viewed a revolution as the same thing as the total end of the world. Where do you get the idea that the r.c. wouldn't even want to hold on to the means of production? DAS: These little heresies have a way of just popping into my brain unbidden. (Actually I have this persistent habit of trying to take every idea and situation that I run across and asking myself, “What’s wrong here?”) “Every ruling class in history…” is not our ruling class, and history is not now. ISTM that our ruling class does not identify with the means of production. We know to the depth of our beings that the MOP is the source of all social wealth. The ruling class has literally forgotten that. Where does wealth come from? Investments in the stock exchange? Speculation in derivatives? (Which reportedly have more money in them than there is money in stocks.) Real estate? etc. WE always start with the Marxian analysis of commodities and the extraction of surplus value. The capitalist class has denied this so much for so many generations now that it seems that it may be a deliberately forgotten and irretrievable fact. The capitalist class in general doesn't believe it anymore than the working class does. My point is that our tactical analysis would be incomplete if it did not at least allow for this scenario.
cmiller2005	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 04:08 pm    Post subject: Mike, You make valid points but to return to the examples I mentioned, namely the collapse of the Stalinist system in Russia and the Tienemen square incident, I think that in both cases there was a significant threat to the status quo so both ruling groups used the armed forces to- on one hand unsuccessfully and on the other brutally effectively- squelch the rising tide of change. My point being that there is no way to predict what the reaction of the ruling class will be or who will side with who. You stated as much in a later post so I guess we can at least agree on that point. Dave makes some good points also, there is always the possibility that the powers that be will see the handwriting on the wall and allow the democratic process to proceed unmolested. De Leon claimed that our ruling class is a bunch of cowards anyway. I can see them running away in the face of a well coordinated and determined move by the working class to free itself from their beloved system. A good example of this was De Gaulle fleeing Paris during the May 1968 revolt. He planned to return with the military to re-install his government but he fled nonetheless. It turns out that wasn't necessary as the revolt fizzled shortly anyway. The reason- a clear lack of organization, tactics and goals and a failure to take advantage of what was a golden opportunity. The government had virtually ceased to exist and the students and workers only needed the will to fill that vacuum. Oh, what could have been!
mikelepore	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 04:21 pm    Post subject: dave wrote: capitalist class has denied this so much for so many generations now that it seems that it may be a deliberately forgotten. That's right, the capitalists don't talk about the extraction of surplus value either. What they think is they're so clever because they know what to say to a stock broker, and on what day to call the broker, and that cleverness is the thing that produces their entitlement to everything they have. But they also know there are millions of people who actually have to do the work and live poorly, which is their own fault, because they're too lazy to call a stock broker. If they'd rather dig ditches than make a simple phone call to a stock broker then let them do so. That's what capitalists say to themselves and each other. I don't know what that has to do with the previous discussion. Regardless of the theoretical model, the capitalists know that there is such as thing as ownership and that socialist ideas threaten it.
mikelepore	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 04:32 pm    Post subject: cmiller2005 wrote: the possibility that the powers that be will see the handwriting on the wall and allow the democratic process to proceed unmolested. I lean more toward the theory that that the rulers would do anything, no matter how drastic, to subvert the revolution, if they could, but the ruling class only has the kind of power that's based on the willingness of the working class to believe what we're told and express our consent to their rule. That's what is education and religion are - the system of assuredness that most people will be happy being ruled and regimented by the time they're old enough to vote.
mikelepore	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 05:29 pm    Post subject: cmiller2005 wrote: Lastly, about there being sufficient force to put down any move toward self government by the workers, I just don't see there being enough police or National Guardsmen to put down a massive revolt by millions of workers. Of course when I say revolt I am talking about the workers taking over operation of the means of production and society itself. The working class would eventually win a violent revolution, that is, that's the working class minus the million or so dead people. But most people would consider that high cost in advance and would therefore remain conservative and not desire a revolution at all. It's only the plan to have a peaceful and orderly transition that will allow the working class to want revolutionary change in the first place. Quote: We're talking about the majority of society here, not a small band of troublemakers. That's also the reason I conclude that the ballot cannot be taken away. It has to be available for victory to be possible, and because we have waited patiently for majority consent to develop, the ballot will be available. *** As we noted, these different views that we hold reflect the fact that no one can have certain knowledge. *** I have a mechanistic view of the socialist reconstruction. It probably affects my outlook that my education and job experience are in physical science and engineering. I picture the new administrative system is a complicated machine that has to be designed and assembled carefully before we can throw the switch and bring it online. It has to be debugged before first use. You don't launch a new kind of spacecraft without previously testing the engine. Anything that we don't know requires a contingency plan. When I wrote about the dangers involved with a workers' organization taking control of the means of production while the ruling class still controls the state, I see this as the the same worry as if we were about to launch the space shuttle for the first time and we just realized we have never tested the solid rocket boosters. To be persuasive, socialists need to show the working class a plan that says we must have this set of parts -- this and this and this. We should show people: The reliability of this plan doesn't come from your willingness to believe anyone, but from the right parts obviously being included. I think De Leon partially contradicted himself in "As To Politics". At great length he describes the ballot as ensurer of peaceful change. Then he undermines that assuredness by suggesting that the ballot may be lost, and in some sentences he says that it will be lost. So now we have someone saying: this space shuttle absolutely must have two solid rocket boosters, but, oh by the way, they may not successfully fire when we go to use them. That form of presentation has always bothered me.
The Greenman	Posted: 06 Jul 2008 08:18 pm    Post subject: Carl wrote: Quote: Dave makes some good points also, there is always the possibility that the powers that be will see the handwriting on the wall and allow the democratic process to proceed unmolested. De Leon claimed that our ruling class is a bunch of cowards anyway. I can see them running away in the face of a well coordinated and determined move by the working class to free itself from their beloved system. A good example of this was De Gaulle fleeing Paris during the May 1968 revolt. He planned to return with the military to re-install his government but he fled nonetheless. It turns out that wasn't necessary as the revolt fizzled shortly anyway. The reason- a clear lack of organization, tactics and goals and a failure to take advantage of what was a golden opportunity. The government had virtually ceased to exist and the students and workers only needed the will to fill that vacuum. Oh, what could have been! Perhaps we should have slogans which reflects the Socialist Industrial Union: Training and organizing workers to run the entire economy! Electronic labor credits = the full value of labor Of course we should not get hung up on slogans. :wink: I was too young to remember 1968. I do realize that we have to mostly organize economically on industrial lines. I also realize that there has to be a reasonable political organization that would serve the interest of the working class. De Leon was right that organizing both politically and industrially would fill that vacuum. John T.
mikelepore	Posted: 08 Jul 2008 05:01 am    Post subject: I like the idea of slogans. The more of them we generate, the more we can identify the best ones. You know the secret of professional protographers? Ask one the secret to taking the most gorgeous photographs. It's this: a regular person shows others almost all the photos they have taken. A professional takes a very large number of photos that get thrown away, and only shows others the best of them. The whole secret is selection. Same thing with political argument. Every slogan and sentence and paragraph should be rewritten many times. Forget each one and write it again from scratch. Then select the best.
cmiller2005	Posted: 10 Jul 2008 12:14 pm    Post subject: Hi John, I was only 3 yrs old myself during the 1968 revolt so my memories are pretty much non existent also. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because the US media reported the event as a "riot", not as the astounding social event it actually was. I guess it was probably the same with the Paris Commune. I didn't know anything about either of these events until I became politically "aware", and got the internet : )
cmiller2005	Posted: 10 Jul 2008 12:22 pm    Post subject: Here are some telegrams sent by the student's council to various governments: POLITBURO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE USSR THE KREMLIN MOSCOW SHAKE IN YOUR SHOES BUREAUCRATS (STOP) THE INTERNATIONAL POWER OF THE WORKERS COUNCILS WILL SOON WIPE YOU OUT (STOP) HUMANITY WON’T BE HAPPY TILL THE LAST BUREAUCRAT IS HUNG WITH THE GUTS OF THE LAST CAPITALIST (STOP) LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLE OF THE KRONSTADT SAILORS AND OF THE MAKHNOVSHCHINA AGAINST TROTSKY AND LENIN (STOP) LONG LIVE THE 1956 COUNCILIST INSURRECTION OF BUDAPEST (STOP) DOWN WITH THE STATE (STOP) LONG LIVE REVOLUTIONARY MARXISM (STOP) OCCUPATION COMMITTEE OF THE PEOPLE’S FREE SORBONNE The Sorbonne is the university where the student movement began. POLITBURO OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY GATE OF CELESTIAL PEACE BEIJING SHAKE IN YOUR SHOES BUREAUCRATS (STOP) THE INTERNATIONAL POWER OF THE WORKERS COUNCILS WILL SOON WIPE YOU OUT (STOP) HUMANITY WON’T BE HAPPY TILL THE LAST BUREAUCRAT IS HUNG WITH THE GUTS OF THE LAST CAPITALIST (STOP) LONG LIVE FACTORY OCCUPATIONS (STOP) LONG LIVE THE GREAT CHINESE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION OF 1927 BETRAYED BY THE STALINIST BUREAUCRATS (STOP) LONG LIVE THE PROLETARIANS OF CANTON AND ELSEWHERE WHO HAVE TAKEN UP ARMS AGAINST THE SO-CALLED PEOPLE’S ARMY (STOP) LONG LIVE THE CHINESE WORKERS AND STUDENTS WHO HAVE ATTACKED THE SO-CALLED CULTURAL REVOLUTION AND THE MAOIST BUREAUCRATIC ORDER (STOP) LONG LIVE REVOLUTIONARY MARXISM (STOP) DOWN WITH THE STATE (STOP) OCCUPATION COMMITTEE OF THE PEOPLE’S FREE SORBONNE As you can see from these telegrams, the students very much advocated genuine socialism.
mikelepore	Posted: 12 Jul 2008 09:11 am    Post subject: Dave, I don't want to permanently archive anything from Project Gutenberg because of their sadistic lawyers. Their license agreement says, by using any of their files in any way, including simply reading it, you indicate that you agree to the entire license agreement. One of the provisions of that agreement says, if you copy anything, you have to include the entire license agreement, which happens to be 326 lines and and 17,658 bytes. The conclusion is: the book that they got the text from is in the public domain, but their electronic edition is not.
davesearles	Posted: 12 Jul 2008 12:35 pm    Post subject: It's not that important. What I'll do is scan and OCR the scetion and repost it. I assume that the Gutenberg link to the book can remain?
davesearles	Posted: 12 Jul 2008 10:26 pm    Post subject: CM: Here are some telegrams sent by the (French 1968) student's council to various governments ... DAS: Chris I was a highschool student in 68. It was a time of so many things happening that I literally never turned my radio off for fear that I'd miss something. Mike may remember some of this. The assainations, Gene McCarthy, the Chicago police riots, France. Did Columbia go up later in the year? The Berkley Free Speech movement around the same time? Mohamed Ali and the draft and on and on. If all these things didn't happen all at once, they seemed to. At the time I thought the SLP's staunch and inflexible anti-reform program to be entirely justified - hell we were going to have the revolution just in a week or so.
mikelepore	Posted: 13 Jul 2008 08:41 am    Post subject: Dave, I sent you a PM.
davesearles	Posted: 13 Jul 2008 02:32 pm    Post subject: DAS: At the time I thought the SLP's staunch and inflexible anti-reform program to be entirely justified - hell we were going to have the revolution just in a week or so. DAS continues: ISTM We would have been a much more productive bunch if we had adopted a non-reform outlook as opposed to ANTI-reform. Too much institutional memory such as from the Hillquit split and not enough practical knowledge.
mikelepore	Posted: 13 Jul 2008 07:58 pm    Post subject: I didn't interpret it as anti-reform instead of non-reform. Reformed capitalism is a form of capitalism. A group that considers all capitalism to be slavery by its nature has to delplore unreformed capitalism as slavery and also to deplore reformed capitalism as slavery. Add to that, when the reformed capitalism is customarily called "socialism" (as with Hillquit) there is also a problem with false information. A group that considers itself to be an educational foundation would naturally address the false information about its specialty subject. That's not being anti-reform. That's pointing out that the reform leaves the situation mainly as it was before. Reform is like sleeping. Before you fell asleep slavery existed, and after you woke up slavery still exists. To point out that fact isn't to be anti-sleep. It's neutral about sleep. The thing that it's against is slavery. It has to be understood that refraining from abolishing slavery is exactly that -- refraining from abolishing slavery.
davesearles	Posted: 14 Jul 2008 10:40 am    Post subject: Given experience it seemsthat peole are going to pretty much propose reforms to capitalism no mater what. I'm paying 29% on my credit cards. My member of congress wants to pass legislation to reform some credit card practices - that you should get a notice 60 days befre they raise your rate to 29%. Hell don't you think I wrote a letter to the editor saying that he;s in bed with the banks for not trying to prohibit the high interests rates as usory? The SLP's response? To say that the reform might save a lot of working class families from bancruptcy? Might allow them to pay doctor bills instead of interest fees? Why is calling for a wage increase from the boss not a reform but calling for legisation that would have the same effect not in the same category? Or when there is a statute in place such as the American with Disabiities Act to call for its full enforcement? To me there is a differnce between not having reform as a part of your program but its another to view them all as viruses MORE dangerous to the movement than capitalism itself. Nat Pressman's (who was a long time SLP member in the NY area) inlaws were members of the Workman's Circle which was primarlity a social organization primarily of NYC Jewish workers it seems. From time to time they would in their publication support some reform or speak highly of some capiltalst politician who would. They had a tiny life insureance program that they offered to its members and their families for some low premium. Well Nat wasn't sure if that would be alright so he wrote to the party. The response - no it would not be alright to particiate in any manner with these reformers. Nat's wife's reply? "Oh they would rather that we would have gotten the policy from the Prudential Insurance Company."
mikelepore	Posted: 14 Jul 2008 05:30 pm    Post subject: Quote: a differnce between not having reform as a part of your program but its another to view them all as viruses I agree with that. There's a difference. Reforms are part of everyday life. In the same way that people use the supermarket or the post office, or buy insurance, people also complain about things to Congress and City Hall. We have to live in the society that we were born into. To have form is part of existence, and threfore the process of reform is also part of it. I also went through a period of about ten years during which I traded a lot in the stock market, and I found it was possible to make money just by drawing graphs and making phone calls. That's the form of the world that we were born into. I see no reason to avoid it. I stopped doing it only because I started to perceive the data tracking as a chore, whereas in the beginning I thought of it as a brain-twister puzzle. Quote: as viruses MORE dangerous to the movement than capitalism itself. The temptation to load up a socialist platform with reforms seems to be very strong. If there are such things as "viruses of the mind" (Richard Dawkins), I think reformism is one of them. This doesn't affect non-socialists. For people who believe in the permanence of capitalism, there's nothing wrong with reformism. They're already against progress anyway. But for people who already look to fundamentals and should know better, they need to resist the temptation, which is like a drug addiction. From Brian Moore's list of "critical issues" -- "Conduct massive rebuilding of United States infrastructure of bridges, railroad lines, major highways and subway systems and rural communities." "Public transportation in urban and rural area such as rail systems, foot and bicycle paths, pedestrian ways, renewable fuels and control of the airline industry" I can see how it must be so tempting to go off like that when someone asks, "Hey, I just heard of your socialist group for the first time. What do you folks stand for?" An opportunity wasted. And yet I understand why it's so tempting. It has the same kind of immediate gratification that religion has. In religion it's so easy to tell the kids that when Grandma died she went to a happier place in the sky, and then the kids will stop crying, and so it's very tempting to say it. In writing a socialist platform, you know that most people who read it will shake their heads because you're a crackpot, so it's so tempting to tell them that your platform consists of building better roads and bridges.
cmiller2005	Posted: 15 Jul 2008 01:04 pm    Post subject: Speaking of reviving defunct organizations, the SDS or Students for a Democratic Society has been revived. Check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_a_Democratic_Society_%282006_organization%29 Here is an article about it from Time magazine: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1651473_1651472_1651475,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-sidebar
mikelepore	Posted: 15 Jul 2008 07:24 pm    Post subject: The "new SDS" says: "... a movement to build a society free from poverty, ignorance, war, exploitation, racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and environmental destruction." http://newsds.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page I suppose it's easier to say what we don't want than say what we do want instead. To write "a society free from ..." is really a don't-want statement given a do-want syntax. I imagine that the drafting of that sentence was easy. A plan for an alternative type of society, that's the hard part. Let's see the details about that possible world without exploitation and war and .... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe we can get some brain stimulation from their recommended reading list: http://newsds.org/wiki/index.php?title=Reading_List
davesearles	Posted: 15 Jul 2008 07:32 pm    Post subject: picky picky
cmiller2005	Posted: 22 Jul 2008 01:18 pm    Post subject: Reading about the rebirth of the SDS is very interesting. It seems the kids who started this were high school age and they got in touch with a few of the former members and the thing just exploded. Now they claim to have more than a thousand members and chapters all over the country. The thing is they have no real structure at this point, no constitution or bylaws, and the chapters operate pretty much autonomously. They have had a couple of conventions but from what I have read they have been somewhat dis-organized. Without any structure they don't charge dues for membership and people just sign up online. The problem with a similar revival of the WIIU is that there are no former members (at least that I'm aware of) to get in touch with, I don't have very many connections with people in the activist or labor/socialist community who might be interested in getting involved, and the organization would have scarce little money or time to set up a face to face founding convention to get the ball rolling. My ideas for getting around some of this was to hold the founding convention online, using one of the IM services or chat rooms or something similar, along with e-mail to exchange documents or reports and get things started that way. Of course at some point there would have to be a face to face convention but that could come later after a basic structure was set up and some money raised. It was also one of my ideas to allow people to sign up online and not to charge any dues or initiation fees until the organization was fully formed. This way we could try to build up a core group of interested people who could form the backbone of the new organization. The problem is I don't see a new WIIU having the same universal appeal as a new SDS or IWW. This is just conjecture on my part but I don't think it will have the same impact on people. The WIIU just doesn't have name recognition, but maybe it doesn't need to. Of course, the WIIU is a labor oriented and socialist based organization and the SDS is an issue based organization so it would be like comparing apples and oranges I guess.
davesearles	Posted: 22 Jul 2008 05:27 pm    Post subject: just a suggestion - istead of trying with no resources to start up a union from scratch, perhaps a workers' association would be a better start.
mikelepore	Posted: 23 Jul 2008 06:53 am    Post subject: What was the attractiveness in reusing the name WIIU at this point?
mikelepore	Posted: 23 Jul 2008 06:57 am    Post subject: How about drafting a list of concepts to approach the neo-SDS with? Maybe they can be persuaded to adopt some slogans about the workplace and production process becoming a democracy.
cmiller2005	Posted: 23 Jul 2008 01:00 pm    Post subject: Dave- A worker's association is about all it could be at the start. It would definitely be a union in name only. The other thing to realize is that this isn't a trade union, we aren't going to need a vast amount of money to offer pensions, health insurance, trade schools etc. Mike- I guess the reason for using the name WIIU is that like the SDS it has a history behind it, a philosophy and a framework in the form of a constitution and some remaining literature. That's not to say that the name couldn't be changed at some point. Approaching the SDS is something that could be pursued once the organization is formed. I would have no problem whatsoever working with them on workers issues.
CommunistLeague	Posted: 08 Sep 2008 11:41 pm    Post subject: If the idea of rebuilding the WIIU is something that you and others are interested in, we'd certainly be willing to sign on and help with it. We've been working in the IWW, but are critical of its "no politics" stance and have more in common with the viewpoint of the original IWW and WIIU.
cmiller2005	Posted: 10 Sep 2008 03:32 pm    Post subject: Well, as the person who originated this thread let me say that I am glad someone finds the idea of resurrecting the WIIU appealing. I'm afraid that I am the only person on this particular forum who has advocated this until now. The fledgling WIIU is a one man operation you might say. Of course, this is my fault as I have done nothing to promote the idea elsewhere. I have been working on a website but work and other things have kept the project on the back burner. I am hoping to get something up soon so that we can start attracting a core group of people who can help get this off the ground.
mikelepore	Posted: 10 Sep 2008 05:33 pm    Post subject: Carl, I believe the small group using this forum unanimously agrees with your WIIU suggestion, even though no one has promised specific levels of commitment. You will find that everyone helps by generating some publicity, and those who have specific skills will speak up.
cmiller2005	Posted: 11 Sep 2008 02:57 am    Post subject: Okay, poor choice of words maybe. I guess I should have said that we all agree that it needs to be done (reviving the WIIU) but nothing concrete has come of it yet. Sorry if I made it sound like I was the only one in favor of it. But I will have to say that those who are interested in committing to this should probably go ahead and speak now, I mean its been hanging out there for some time and no one has said "Okay, count me in, I want to help" I guess that's what I've been looking for in sort of an indirect way. Well, I'm saying it directly now, All those who are on board should either post here or contact me off forum at cmiller85@verizon.net
CommunistLeague	Posted: 11 Sep 2008 04:26 am    Post subject: cmiller2005 wrote: Okay, poor choice of words maybe. I guess I should have said that we all agree that it needs to be done (reviving the WIIU) but nothing concrete has come of it yet. Sorry if I made it sound like I was the only one in favor of it. But I will have to say that those who are interested in committing to this should probably go ahead and speak now, I mean its been hanging out there for some time and no one has said "Okay, count me in, I want to help" I guess that's what I've been looking for in sort of an indirect way. Well, I'm saying it directly now, All those who are on board should either post here or contact me off forum at cmiller85@verizon.net Count us in, we want to help. league@communistleague.us comleague@gmail.com
mikelepore	Posted: 11 Sep 2008 04:27 am    Post subject: I can help the WIIU in these ways: 1. If leaflet-like documents get written, I can post them to numerous Usenet newsgroups and other forums. 2. I'm a good copy editor, which means: if other people have written something, I'm good at suggesting improvements to grammar or sentence structure. I was always an A+ guy in English. 3. If online graphic arts are needed, my experience using Paint Shop Pro to edit image files may be of assistance. 4. In case someone would like to produce videos, I have been learning how to edit camcorder footage on the computer, add such special effects as captions and fades, and create a DVD from the results. 5. If computer programming is needed, I know HTML, perl CGI, and MySQL databases. 6. I own a web hosting source and I can contribute free disk space. Even though you earlier mentioned using another host, it helps to have "mirror sites" duplicate some of the literary content, to boost the number of Google search hits.
cmiller2005	Posted: 11 Sep 2008 01:00 pm    Post subject: My thanks to CL and Mike for stepping up to the plate. Unfortunately the weather situation here in Southeast Texas will keep me from doing anything for the next couple of days as we may need to evacuate due to hurricane Ike. I am not certain of what the storm will do so it may be more than a couple of days before I can devote any time to this due to power outages and or storm damage etc. They are calling for mandatory evacuations near our zip code but as yet there is only a voluntary evacuation for my area. We are considering leaving but have made no firm decision as of yet. I will keep you updated.
davesearles	Posted: 11 Sep 2008 03:02 pm    Post subject: to the extent that socialists pray at all you and yours are in our prayers
cmiller2005	Posted: 12 Sep 2008 04:08 am    Post subject: Thank you comrades for your concern and your prayers as well. We have decided that leaving the area is probably the best course of action. We will leave early in the morning for Jackson Miss. My wife has a sister there and we will be lodging with them for the weekend. We will try to return Sunday but in all probability there will be no power and no phone as well so I may be offline for a while. Carl
mikelepore	Posted: 12 Sep 2008 04:27 pm    Post subject: I split the topic. Posts since September 9 that were not about who wants to help the WIIU were relocated to the new topic "Discussion with the Communist League" (clickable) -- Mike Lepore, Grand Cyclops
cmiller2005	Posted: 16 Sep 2008 09:53 pm    Post subject: I have returned home to a very fortunate situation. There was very little damage to the apartment complex I call home and there was also electricity and running water (even though we have to boil it before we can drink it). The rest of the Baytown area fared far better than I imagined. The only complaint I have at this point is the serious shortage of gasoline. At stations where there is power there are lines for blocks and there have been reports of violent incidents at some stations in the area. Tempers will flare in these situations I suppose. Coastal areas such as Galveston and the Bolivar peninsula took the brunt of the storm and as you can imagine some parts of those areas are totally devastated. My heart goes out to those folks.
mikelepore	Posted: 16 Sep 2008 10:23 pm    Post subject: Welcome home, Carl. I'm glad you didn't get hurt and didn't lose a lot.
cmiller2005	Posted: 17 Sep 2008 12:29 am    Post subject: Thanks Mike. We didn't lose anything really, none of our posessions or our vehicles left behind were damaged. We are really counting our blessings. Now, I was wondering if I could e-mail you a rough looking start for the WIIU website and maybe you could look it over and offer an opinion on making it look a little more professional? I have no skills with graphics and such and graphics are what it's going to need. Since you have Photoshop maybe you could whip up some examples I could look at when you have time.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 Sep 2008 03:45 am    Post subject: Yeah, of course. I have never seen Photoshop, I use Paintshop Pro, and it's a ten-plus year old version at that, but it does the editing basics like rotate, color adjustments, overlaying, superimposing text, drop shadow, etc. As for my email, the button "email" that's an inch below my post produces a temporary address that is automatically forwarded to my real address, except the domain name is garbled with the addition of "remove-this-". For regular talking I hate email because I only like to check it about once a month, but if you want to forward a document to me then email may be the only method you have.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 Sep 2008 03:59 am    Post subject: To many people a useful step in designing a web site is to sketch it roughly on a sheet of paper. Like suppose you wanted to have a picture in the middle, with columns of words to the left and right of the picture, and row of buttons across the top, and a row of buttons across the bottom, etc. (That's a separate step from producing the intelligent content, choosing what to say.) What software do you use to edit a page? If you cna turn on the use of cascading style sheets (CSS) then a site with many pages is a lot easier to change one's mind about appearance in the future. You can go back anytime in the future and tell it, for example, all writing in paragraphs anywhere on this site, set them to this font, this size, this color. All headers at the tops of any pages on this site, set them to this font, this size, this color. ------------------------------------------------------------ Here, have some color selection charts: http://customerservicedept.com/colors1.htm http://customerservicedept.com/colors2.htm When you want to talk to someone else about a color that you're thinking of, it's best to specify it by number. For example, the color that some people call turquoise is specified precisely by typing 40e0d0.
CommunistLeague	Posted: 17 Sep 2008 06:25 am    Post subject: If you need any kind of graphic art and website work done, I can help on that. I've got years of experience with that kind of stuff.
cmiller2005	Posted: 18 Sep 2008 02:36 pm    Post subject: Thanks for the assistance, it is much needed and much appreciated. I have sent private messages to both of you (ML and CL) so check your inbox when you log onto the forum. I have sent an e-mail to RUSS and offered to get them in on this also. I'll let you know what I find out. I figured I would contact them since they call themselves a union so maybe there is some interest in getting onboard with the WIIU.
cmiller2005	Posted: 05 Oct 2008 06:28 pm    Post subject: I got a reply from RUSS today stating that the e-mail I sent was forwarded to Don but he had not responded as yet. Hopefully they will want to help out with this. I sent a copy of the website to CL and I also sent them the WIIU pamphlets. That's where we stand at this point. I will continue to work on the website, in spite of my limitations as a web designer, and we'll see how it comes out.
mikelepore	Posted: 05 Oct 2008 08:49 pm    Post subject: When it comes to computer graphics (artwork) it sound like CL may be more skilled than me. Instead of saying "who can help" maybe you can make a list of specific things that are needed. People might want to know what tasks there are before they can volunteer. As I said earlier, if you make a style sheet and have all the web pages use it, you will be thankful in the future, when you will have one master file to control all appearances on all pages, such as colors, fonts, margins, etc. Tell me if you are interested in hearing about the syntax for doing that. This is the style sheet I use on this site: http://deleonism.org/css/c.css -- is that all "greek" to you?
cmiller2005	Posted: 07 Oct 2008 02:51 pm    Post subject: I am somewhat familiar with style sheets, but not sure how to implement that with Composer. On another front, I received a reply from Don with RUSS. They are in the midst of working on a project, he didn't go into details, but they have given their tacit endorsement of the WIIU. Of course what I want is for them to get on board and help form the organization. Hopefully they will once they have time to read over what I sent them. I will inform everyone once they reply.
mikelepore	Posted: 07 Oct 2008 05:03 pm    Post subject: After sufficient anti-procrastination nagging, the other groups, Campaign for Working Democracy People for a New Society, can be expected later to endorse it also, I believe. World in Common won't exactly endorse anything one thing but will embrace it as part of it's general mission, publicize it, republish its statement of principles, etc. ************* As for style sheets in Composer, here' a guess -- if you a text editor such as notepad to go into the thing that Composer has produced, and insert the line telling to look at a style sheet, it would be interesting to see if that causes Composer to continue using that style sheet later. What I do is I have file c.css in a folder named css, so immediately before the line </head> I have two things. The first thing is a "link" tag telling the browser to look at the sheet. I will point to the name css/c.css , assuming that the css folder is nested at the same level as the current html document. The second thing is a pair of <style> and </style> tags, between which are any exceptions for the current page, in other words, make the styles on this page just what the whole-site style sheet says, except for the following overrides that apply to the current page only (if any). The style overrides for the current page have to be contained in html comment symbols, which are <!-- and --> , and that group is contained within the <style> and </style> tags. Then i'm ready to close the head section and begin the body section. ------------------------- example ------------------------- <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/c.css" title="MyStyleSheet"> <style type="text/css"> <!-- p.xxx{font-size:12px;font-weight:bold;} td.zzz{background-color:blue;} --> </style> </head> <body>
The Greenman	Posted: 23 Oct 2008 03:08 pm    Post subject: Would not the WIIU seek membership and do collective bargaining under capitalism at this time? After the revolution, would it be fair to say that the no one would need to join the union and become a member? What I mean is that everyone would have the right to vote on economic issues of production and distribution. Membership would no longer be necessary being that a Republic of Labor exist.
davesearles	Posted: 23 Oct 2008 08:07 pm    Post subject: jt: After the revolution, would it be fair to say that the no one would need to join the union and become a member? What I mean is that everyone would have the right to vote on economic issues of production and distribution. Membership would no longer be necessary being that a Republic of Labor exist. ds: Under the davesearles plan there would be the industrial economy for lack of a better term. If you got tired of working at the jt hand whittled fishing plug shop and would rather work in some industrial setting you could go the the union shop for employment. You could ask the union if it was interetsted in acquiring the fishing plug whittling shop into the industrial setup - but uness you have some really fancy robotics going on the answer just might be no - the union doesn't want the shop but that you can join the union and they'll try to find a job or shared jobs that you'd like to do close to your home. Maybe you could find a buyer for the fishing plug shop, or you could work there part time or close it up completely. In my view when you're in the union and you work you get to vote in the industrial democracy setup. Everyone however still votes in the general political govt. which will of course within constitutional bounds and democratic constraints have some say over most everything, including the industrial economy. Does this make sense?
The Greenman	Posted: 23 Oct 2008 09:11 pm    Post subject: Okay, the union is members only but it is always open for new members at all times. Everyone in the union has a say through their votes on industrial matters and management placement. The SIU is about large industries which includes agriculture--most likely we will get safer foods. I do like your concept that allow for C-M-C to continue with small businesses like Joe's Garage, mom and pops, and those who teach martial arts or dance. They take up the slack that is not under the SIU. I do believe the M-C-M is abolished because of the SIU. I do understand that everyone would or should participate in voting in the political process. The first question I have about the WIIU is that under the present system will it just do collective bargaining? The IWW does that but that is just class struggle stuff. Like a tug of war. Or will it be an organization that people join to learn what the administration of things will be in each department (that would include the time labor credits) so when the time comes those members would automatically assume their roles and to democratically elect those in leadership positions, elect the their regional congresses, and from there the all industrial congress?
Jacob Richter	Posted: 23 Oct 2008 11:49 pm    Post subject: ^^^ Greenman, in spite of your post in another thread about socialism not "happening," what you've said in terms of the key combination of worker ownership of MOP and labour credits is the key. In your opinion, do these credits circulate?
mikelepore	Posted: 24 Oct 2008 02:28 am    Post subject: If the union reaches a majority in a workplace, while not a majority societywide, seems to me it would have to engage in collective bargaining. Whenever workers say they would work for wage x or more, but not less, is that collective bargaining? how could