Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Farmworkers
Congratulations to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers on their latest partnership with Verite. Monitoring is essential to improving the lives of farmworkers.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thanksgiving
I spent much of the 4th Thursday in November as I usually do, recalling the horrific histories of the Powhatan Confedederacy encounters with the English around Jamestown - where my own ancestor's people, the Wicocomico, were destroyed; then the disastrous series of betrayals that characterized the English encounters with the Wampanoag, events now recalled by saccharine tales of "Thanksgiving."
But what strikes me increasingly in the last couple of years as I re-read these histories, and the histories of early European incursions into India, Africa and elsewhere, is how repetitious the pattern is. It begins with trade and trade routes, alliances made with one local group of people or another to facilitate this trade. It progresses quickly from there to war as European demands expand and begin putting pressure on local economies, foreign trading companies begin playing off one group against another, strategizing to maintain "friendly" leaders in positions of power, king-making. The English and French in the Southeastern US, Africa and elsewhere notoriously established "medal chiefs" - rulers by virtue of their alliances with foreign powers. Sound familiar?
The genocide or ethnocide and the enslaving or other subjugation of entire nations is just one strand of the net, the final one for many people, pulled tight around the neck at last. Those who see it coming, who try to resist, are branded "rebels" or "terrorists" - not always incorrectly, but always without telling the full story.
In fact, I think this may be the most important lesson of the story of "The Day of Mourning" or what my friend Alan Jamieson calls the "Last Supper for Native People": the conquest continues. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In Africa. In South America. In North America.
Which helps explain why people get so upset when you talk about it.
But what strikes me increasingly in the last couple of years as I re-read these histories, and the histories of early European incursions into India, Africa and elsewhere, is how repetitious the pattern is. It begins with trade and trade routes, alliances made with one local group of people or another to facilitate this trade. It progresses quickly from there to war as European demands expand and begin putting pressure on local economies, foreign trading companies begin playing off one group against another, strategizing to maintain "friendly" leaders in positions of power, king-making. The English and French in the Southeastern US, Africa and elsewhere notoriously established "medal chiefs" - rulers by virtue of their alliances with foreign powers. Sound familiar?
The genocide or ethnocide and the enslaving or other subjugation of entire nations is just one strand of the net, the final one for many people, pulled tight around the neck at last. Those who see it coming, who try to resist, are branded "rebels" or "terrorists" - not always incorrectly, but always without telling the full story.
In fact, I think this may be the most important lesson of the story of "The Day of Mourning" or what my friend Alan Jamieson calls the "Last Supper for Native People": the conquest continues. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In Africa. In South America. In North America.
Which helps explain why people get so upset when you talk about it.
Friday, November 6, 2009
More unemployed, more unemployed organizing
What did I say? The pattern is pretty clear. Every month the papers announce unemployment is not as high as expected -- then two weeks later, oh, p.s., it's actually higher.
The pundits can tell us how much better things are getting 'til they're blue in the chips -er- face. But the unemployed, and those of us close to it, are starting to figure out a few things: step one - organize!
The pundits can tell us how much better things are getting 'til they're blue in the chips -er- face. But the unemployed, and those of us close to it, are starting to figure out a few things: step one - organize!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Police policing police
The community where I live is reeling from a fatal police shooting of an unarmed 15 year old black child on Oct. 9. The young man and his friend (who now faces charges of felony "resisting arrest") had often stayed at the house they were allegedly "burglarizing." The homeowner says they were both welcome any time. According to the police, the boys saw two cops appear with weapons drawn and tried to run. But what is that, a capital offense now?
Friday, October 23, 2009
Break 'em up while we still can!
So I'm in Northeast Mississippi just for a day or two and I happen to check out the Daily Journal, and I see that unemployment in the land of my birth has dropped (the same song we're hearing all around the country) - probably because more people have just given up. Even the official rate (we know how accurate that is) in Alcorn County is now 11.3 percent, and it's worse in nearby Tippah and Benton Counties. This is recovery?
Friday, October 9, 2009
Organizing the Unemployed and Homeless
So there's these crazy people in Fort Wayne, actually believe people don't want to be unemployed! Who'da thunk it? I talked to this barn-burner, Tom Lewandowski. They're leafletting Michael Moore's new movie - unemployment offices and such - and talking to people about the economy! What good is that gonna do? Isn't our current system inevitable, exactly as it is?
They're negotiating with development boards in Fort Wayne - like a union - trying to get some money for job creation. They act like they think we ought to have some say in how that money gets spent, just because it came from our taxes.
Next they'll be saying that if Walmart wants us to build a parking lot for them, or otherwise subsidize them, they have to do something for the community. Pay a living wage? Provide employee health benefits (note: a "benefit" is something you get because you work there, not something you can buy if you work there)? ACCEPT A UNION? Where will it end?
The rabble could fall out of line and even think beyond jobs per se. They might even start to think the work ought to do more than just go to poor people. They could decide it also should serve poor communities.
What if big businesses that move into our communities and need a little help with zoning - not like those damn homeless neighbors of ours who expect local governments to bankrupt themselves so they can put up six or even seven tents like they think they own the place - OK, so they have permission from the property owner, but still! - you know, lovely big businesses, had to contribute to the public schools or something instead of taking tax money away from them? Where would be then?
What are they going to do when they realize they don't have enough left over for a nice big new clock tower like ours in Champaign-Urbana?
They're negotiating with development boards in Fort Wayne - like a union - trying to get some money for job creation. They act like they think we ought to have some say in how that money gets spent, just because it came from our taxes.
Next they'll be saying that if Walmart wants us to build a parking lot for them, or otherwise subsidize them, they have to do something for the community. Pay a living wage? Provide employee health benefits (note: a "benefit" is something you get because you work there, not something you can buy if you work there)? ACCEPT A UNION? Where will it end?
The rabble could fall out of line and even think beyond jobs per se. They might even start to think the work ought to do more than just go to poor people. They could decide it also should serve poor communities.
What if big businesses that move into our communities and need a little help with zoning - not like those damn homeless neighbors of ours who expect local governments to bankrupt themselves so they can put up six or even seven tents like they think they own the place - OK, so they have permission from the property owner, but still! - you know, lovely big businesses, had to contribute to the public schools or something instead of taking tax money away from them? Where would be then?
What are they going to do when they realize they don't have enough left over for a nice big new clock tower like ours in Champaign-Urbana?
Friday, September 11, 2009
Tomato pickers victory!
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers show once again the power and the value of self-organization. Reports of their demise or imminent demise have been greatly exaggerated - repeatedly.
But these mostly immigrant, low-paid, tough organizers extraordinaire keep coming back with more victories against all the odds. I admit that when I first began my own association with these folks, as a supporter - I signed up to receive a giant puppet that was traveling the nation during the Taco Bell campaign, and to organize a local demo within a day or so of the puppet's arrival - I secretly thought to myself, "What chance do they really have?" After all, in the real world, when David goes up against Goliath, he often gets his proverbial ass handed back to him tied up with a nice frilly ribbon.
Not this time.
And maybe even more amazing, the five years to the Taco Bell win was followed by two years to another unexpected win at McDonald's - of all places! we were all already on the way to corporate headquarters, thousands of us, when we got the word: the protest would now be a celebration! - another year to victory at Burger King ... and along the way picked up Subway and others.
In 2008, Whole Foods became the first supermarket chain to settle with CIW, and a year later growers who sell to Whole Foods had begun signing up to participate.
A strident growers' lobby called the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange had held up progress for some time, threatening to fine any of its member growers who agreed to pay the penny-a-pound extra demanded by the CIW, tangling them all in court, etc. But eventually, like water dripping persistently against a rock, CIW wore them down.
Stung by criticism that they won't deal with the CIW despite their claims to serve "Food with Integrity", Chipotle Mexican Grill then began claiming they were "working with" the CIW - even as CIW was still asking to negotiate. Now a really big grower, East Coast Growers and Packers, has broken ranks with FTGE - or joined ranks with CIW. Chipotle then apparently announced they would buy from East Coast, but still has no deal with CIW to my knowledge. Trying to have it both ways, Chipotle?
But these mostly immigrant, low-paid, tough organizers extraordinaire keep coming back with more victories against all the odds. I admit that when I first began my own association with these folks, as a supporter - I signed up to receive a giant puppet that was traveling the nation during the Taco Bell campaign, and to organize a local demo within a day or so of the puppet's arrival - I secretly thought to myself, "What chance do they really have?" After all, in the real world, when David goes up against Goliath, he often gets his proverbial ass handed back to him tied up with a nice frilly ribbon.
Not this time.
And maybe even more amazing, the five years to the Taco Bell win was followed by two years to another unexpected win at McDonald's - of all places! we were all already on the way to corporate headquarters, thousands of us, when we got the word: the protest would now be a celebration! - another year to victory at Burger King ... and along the way picked up Subway and others.
In 2008, Whole Foods became the first supermarket chain to settle with CIW, and a year later growers who sell to Whole Foods had begun signing up to participate.
A strident growers' lobby called the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange had held up progress for some time, threatening to fine any of its member growers who agreed to pay the penny-a-pound extra demanded by the CIW, tangling them all in court, etc. But eventually, like water dripping persistently against a rock, CIW wore them down.
Stung by criticism that they won't deal with the CIW despite their claims to serve "Food with Integrity", Chipotle Mexican Grill then began claiming they were "working with" the CIW - even as CIW was still asking to negotiate. Now a really big grower, East Coast Growers and Packers, has broken ranks with FTGE - or joined ranks with CIW. Chipotle then apparently announced they would buy from East Coast, but still has no deal with CIW to my knowledge. Trying to have it both ways, Chipotle?
Friday, August 14, 2009
What would a real racist be like?
You really just cannot make this stuff up, even remotely. First white cops arrest African American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates for breaking into his own house (OK, for getting annoyed when they accused him breaking into his own house). Then reporters ask Obama, who is trying to have a press conference about a little thing like health care at the time, what he thinks. Well, duh. What does any sane person think?
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Black = criminal
Honduras and Obama: Change versus No-Change
The latest crackpot take on Honduras is that Zelaya was "properly impeached" - after the army removed him in his pajamas at gunpoint and declared martial law, of course, suspending all that free speech stuff, etc. (They had learned, I guess, from previous outbreaks of anti-American riots over far lesser offenses.)
But all the serious commentary agrees that the media-christened "interim government" that resulted is not precisely constitutional or democratic. What follows that is mostly hand-wringing and little else.
Meanwhile there have been some interesting connection made. The shocking and of course completely unexpected presence of US-trained thugs among the coup perps are just one - as if the School of the Americas phenom hadn't lurked behind the scenes of most right-wing coups in the Americas since, well, forever.
Another is the degree of influence that Honduran business has a big slimy foot in the Beltway door (in the person of Lanny Davis) and maybe another (in the person of our old friend Otto Reich):
"Otto Reich has [...] been investing his energy during the last couple of years in a campaign against President Zelaya. [...] Reich also co-founded an organization in Washington named Arcadia Foundation together with a Venezuelan, Robert Carmona-Borjas, a lawyer specialized in military law who is linked to the April 2002 coup d'etat in Venezuela, per his own resumé. [...]Since last year, Reich and Carmona-Borjas have been conducting a campaign against President Zelaya, accusing him of corruption and limiting private property rights. Through the Arcadia Foundation, they created a series of video clips that have been shown in different media, attempted to portray Zelaya as a corrupt president who violates the basic rights of the Honduran people.
[...] Carmona-Borjas has traveled frequently to Honduras during the last few months and even held public meetings where the coup against Zelaya was discussed openly. At one encounter where Carmona-Borjas was present, the Honduran Public Defender, Ramón Custodia, who was involved in the coup d'etat, declared to the press that "Coups are a possibility and can occur in any political environment." After the coup took place, Robert Carmona-Borjas appeared at a rally in support of the de facto regime, on July 3rd, and received the honors and applause from the coup leaders who declared him "an important actor" that "helped make possible" the removal from power of President Zelaya and the installment of the dictator Roberto Micheletti as de facto president."
US tentacles run deeper, of course, down to a USAID-funded opposition coalition ...
"The "Democratic Civil Union of Honduras" is composed of organizations including the National Anticorruption Council, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP), the Council of University Deans, the Workers Federation of Honduras (CTH), the National Convergence Forum, the National Federation of Commerce and Industry of Honduras (FEDECAMARA), the Association of Communication Media (AMC), the Group Peace & Democracy, and the student group Generation for Change."
... and through one of those tangled web-thingies involving ex-Contra czar Negroponte, who's back pulling strings again ...
"In his new role, John Negroponte presently works as Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Remember, the current US Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens [who has been working with the coup since it started], has worked closely under Negroponte during the majority of his career. So it would not be a far jump to consider that John Negroponte, expert in crushing leftist movements in Central America, has played a role in the current coup against President Zelaya in Honduras."
... and even to discussions with "our partners" involved in the coup in the days just prior, although naturally as regards "precise knowledge of military actions" of course we had no idea!
Although the Obama Administration did withdraw some (not all) aid, its response to the coup has been perhaps the most telling example of what it's Doctrine of Change actually means: mostly not.
But all the serious commentary agrees that the media-christened "interim government" that resulted is not precisely constitutional or democratic. What follows that is mostly hand-wringing and little else.
Meanwhile there have been some interesting connection made. The shocking and of course completely unexpected presence of US-trained thugs among the coup perps are just one - as if the School of the Americas phenom hadn't lurked behind the scenes of most right-wing coups in the Americas since, well, forever.
Another is the degree of influence that Honduran business has a big slimy foot in the Beltway door (in the person of Lanny Davis) and maybe another (in the person of our old friend Otto Reich):
"Otto Reich has [...] been investing his energy during the last couple of years in a campaign against President Zelaya. [...] Reich also co-founded an organization in Washington named Arcadia Foundation together with a Venezuelan, Robert Carmona-Borjas, a lawyer specialized in military law who is linked to the April 2002 coup d'etat in Venezuela, per his own resumé. [...]Since last year, Reich and Carmona-Borjas have been conducting a campaign against President Zelaya, accusing him of corruption and limiting private property rights. Through the Arcadia Foundation, they created a series of video clips that have been shown in different media, attempted to portray Zelaya as a corrupt president who violates the basic rights of the Honduran people.
[...] Carmona-Borjas has traveled frequently to Honduras during the last few months and even held public meetings where the coup against Zelaya was discussed openly. At one encounter where Carmona-Borjas was present, the Honduran Public Defender, Ramón Custodia, who was involved in the coup d'etat, declared to the press that "Coups are a possibility and can occur in any political environment." After the coup took place, Robert Carmona-Borjas appeared at a rally in support of the de facto regime, on July 3rd, and received the honors and applause from the coup leaders who declared him "an important actor" that "helped make possible" the removal from power of President Zelaya and the installment of the dictator Roberto Micheletti as de facto president."
US tentacles run deeper, of course, down to a USAID-funded opposition coalition ...
"The "Democratic Civil Union of Honduras" is composed of organizations including the National Anticorruption Council, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise (COHEP), the Council of University Deans, the Workers Federation of Honduras (CTH), the National Convergence Forum, the National Federation of Commerce and Industry of Honduras (FEDECAMARA), the Association of Communication Media (AMC), the Group Peace & Democracy, and the student group Generation for Change."
... and through one of those tangled web-thingies involving ex-Contra czar Negroponte, who's back pulling strings again ...
"In his new role, John Negroponte presently works as Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Remember, the current US Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens [who has been working with the coup since it started], has worked closely under Negroponte during the majority of his career. So it would not be a far jump to consider that John Negroponte, expert in crushing leftist movements in Central America, has played a role in the current coup against President Zelaya in Honduras."
... and even to discussions with "our partners" involved in the coup in the days just prior, although naturally as regards "precise knowledge of military actions" of course we had no idea!
Although the Obama Administration did withdraw some (not all) aid, its response to the coup has been perhaps the most telling example of what it's Doctrine of Change actually means: mostly not.
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