Street People are Workers; Movie review: Goodbye Solo: A study in dialectics; Palestinian Charity Workers Given Harsh prison Sentences
In normal times, desperate people begging on street corners are not seen as critical to the class struggle. Though they represent a heart-rending commentary on capitalism, they are usually almost impossible to organize and more likely to be hired by capitalists for the foulest deeds than to make a genuine contribution to the workers' struggle. Tacticians refer to them not as workers but as a separate class of "lumpen proletariat."
But these are not normal times.
In the present crisis (2007-?) long-term unemployment is reaching all-time highs, and home foreclosures have broken all records. American workers are living in shelters and seeking their subsistence on the streets. In a November 2 article in the Las Vegas Sun, "The New Faces of Day Labor. U.S. citizens are joining immigrants in store parking lots," reporter Timothy Pratt interviews a number of workers with solid employment backgrounds who now stand on sidewalks among the immigrant day laborers they may previously have scorned!
In several cities, street people are crudely organized around production and distribution of a "street newspaper." It is usually written by out-of-luck street people but edited and produced through charitable persons. Its main economic role, in normal times, is to provide first amendment protection for newspaper salespersons who might otherwise be arrested for panhandling. In this crisis, though, such publications are more important and need to be looked at with a tactical eye.
The Dallas "Street Zine," subtitled "Self-Help for People Living in Poverty" sells for $1 on downtown sidewalks. The vendors are carefully vetted and wear badges approved by city government. They pay $15 for a bundle of 60 papers, but may realize more than $60 from sympathetic buyers. Several businesses pay $25 to $400 to advertize in the paper. One ad asks for $15 contributions to help street people buy their first bundle. The November issue was apparently paid for by the journalism department of Southern Methodist University. A hard-hitting lead article by SMU student Jessica Huseman exposes the city's anti-panhandling law as a mean-hearted failure. Another article by Huseman explains the motivations of SMU graduate Reverend Dennis Strickland, who credits Professor Joerg Rieger for directing him into a ministry of helping "persons who had become disenfranchised." Rieger's name comes up often in North Texas labor union circles as he works for labor/church cooperation.
Students contributed other relevant articles, including several interviews with street people, but some of the articles and poems carry both a name by-line and the vendor number of a newspaper distributor. Aaron McCord (Vendor Z-1490) writes a summary of the American health care crisis that is as good as any published anywhere.
The physical center of organization for Dallas homeless is the Stewpot, where lunches are served from the basement of First Presbyterian Church. They ask for $15 newspaper contributions and other help to be sent to The Stewpot, 408 Park Av, Dallas 75201. It's worth looking into.
--Jim Lane
When a federal judge imposed harsh sentences on the people raising funds to help Palestinians, I wrote a PWW article.
The underlying questions concern democracy, civil rights, peace, and imperialism.
A serious look at events entails the need to understand civil rights in America, which is usually referred to in theoretical papers as the national question. CPUSA leader Jarvis Tyner wrote an excellent paper dated November 16-17, 2002. It was written during the post 9-11 Bush hysteria and during the same time that the Justice Department was raging against the Holy Land Foundation of Richardson, Texas. Tyner wrote, "Over a thousand Arabs and Arab Americans are in jail with no charges against them. People are being fired, beaten up and killed. [Attorney General] Ashcroft, whose racism is well known, is leading this anti-Arab racist offensive, in order to scare the American people into accepting their program of war, racism and repression. This is clearly a massive diversion from growing problems of poverty, homelessness, unemployment and hunger. This is very dangerous."
Click here for our short educational treatment on the national question.
The persecution of this charitable organization, which had its actual beginnings with the 9-11 terrorist hysteria, is really only a small ugly tile in a mozaic of horror known to the world as the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The United States continues to back untold death and misery there since they took it over, along with most of the other leading world imperialist nations' activities, in the period after World War II. In general, England had taken advantage of world-wide revulsion against anti-semitism, continuing anti-semitism in the imperialist nations where many European Jews had hoped to settle, and its own need to establish a beachhead of power in the oil-rich Middle East to establish the theocratic state of Israel. The issues are not simple nor easily resolved, but a better understanding of imperialism, which is treated in our on-line school, helps.
The People's Weekly World blog has an article on the Dallas picket May 29, 2009, for the Employee Free Choice Act. It is part of a nationwide effort to target the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act.
Getting the Act passed is a major priority for progressive Americans. It would make union organizing much easier. Its detractors, unable or unwilling to declare simply that they oppose having workers organize, are basing their campaign on an outrageous lie.
Underlying the drive for Employee Free Choice Act are a number of very interesting theoretical questions.
Are unions more important than other progressive organizations? If so, why?
How does this national struggle relate to the class struggle in general?
How does this national struggle relate to the struggle for democracy?
A lot of different tactics are being applied on behalf of Employee Free Choice. Which ones are most appropriate?
The Little School has some relevant educational modules:
What makes unions so important?
More on strategies and tactics
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