feminist blogs

Those of you who know me personally may know that I spent last week on the road, visiting my folks back in Alabama. Along the way I gathered together a lot of my old stuff to take back with me; one of the things I found was my old bag of flyers, leaflets, and tools from Auburn Peace Project — the local group that we formed to coordinate demonstrations and vigils against the run-up to the Iraq war during late 2002 and early 2003. Here’s one of the activist tools that we used—a clever little fold-over letter to the President, with the envelope made up to look like a $1,000 bill, protesting the costs that an tax-funded invasion and occupation of Iraq would force on all of us against our wills.

Anyway, I mention this mainly as a nostalgia piece from the carefree, optimistic days of the early ’00s. Man, remember back when we thought the Iraq war was only going to cost $1,000 for every U.S. citizen?

Further reading:

• Veronique de Rugy, Reason (May 2008): The Trillion-Dollar War

There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!

—Last words of August Spies (1887-11-11), immigrant, anarchist, and Haymarket martyr

Fellow workers:

Today is May Day, or International Workers’ Day, a holiday created by Chicago workers—most of them anarchists—to honor the memory of the Haymarket martyrs and to celebrate the struggle of workers for freedom, for a better life, and for control over the conditions of their own labor. It was created during the radical phase of the struggle for an eight-hour day: after legislative campaigns by the Knights of Labor and the National Labor Union failed, labor radicals in Chicago — organizers like Albert Parsons, Lucy Parsons, August Spies — declared that workers should take matters into their own hands, in the form of direct action on the shop floor. Workers would no longer try to get an eight-hour day by promising a useful and compliant voter base in return for patronage from politicians. To get an eight-hour shift, workers would make their own: in many shops, workers in the International Working People’s Association would bring their own whistle to work and blow it at the end of an eight hour shift — at which point most or all of the workers on the floor would just get up and just walk off, like the free people they were, whether or not the boss demanded more hours of labor. At the height of the struggle, they organized a General Strike, in defiance of the bosses and in spite of repeated violence from the Law.

Today is also the third annual day of rallies, strikes and marches against the criminalization of immigrant workers. A day which immigrant workers have chosen for actions against the bigotry of nativist bullies, the violence of La Migra, and the political system of international apartheid, as contemptible as it is lethal. A day to proudly proclaim We are not criminals and We are not going anywhere, to demand the only political program that recognizes it — open borders and unconditional amnesty for all undocumented workers.

And it is a joy for me to read that today is also a day of strikes against the bosses’ war in Iraq, which will shut down all the sea ports on the west coast of the United States, as an act of defiance against the State war machine and against the worthless political opportunists who promise to end it while voting, over and over again, to sustain it:

Amid this political atmosphere, dockworkers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have decided to stop work for eight hours in all U.S. West Coast ports on May 1, International Workers’ Day, to call for an end to the war.

This decision came after an impassioned debate where the union’s Vietnam veterans turned the tide of opinion in favor of the anti-war resolution. The motion called it an imperial action for oil in which the lives of working-class youth and Iraqi civilians were being wasted and declared May Day a no peace, no work holiday. Angered after supporting Democrats who received a mandate to end the war but who now continue to fund it, longshoremen decided to exercise their political power on the docks.

—Jack Heyman, San Francisco Chronicle (2008-04-09): Longshoremen [sic] to close ports on West Coast to protest war

The Longshore workers have the explicit support of postal workers in New York and San Francisco, and I hope this will be only the beginning of ongoing, widespread industrial action to end a war that political action — even after two election cycles, after hundreds of millions of dollars, after countless hours of lobbying and electioneering, after a change in government, and with the backing of an overwhelming supermajority of the populace — has proven completely incapable of ending.

This is May Day as it is and ought to be. A Day of Resistance against the arrogance and power of bosses, bordercrats, bullies, and the Maters of War, who would harass us, intimidate us, silence us, exploit us, beat us, jail us, deport us, extort us, and do anything else it takes to stop us from coming into our own. A day to celebrate workers’ struggles for dignity, and for freedom, through organizing in their own self-interest, through agitating and exhorting for solidarity, and through free acts of worker-led direct action to achieve their goals, marching under the banners of We are all leaders here and Dump the bosses of your back. A day to remember:

There Is Power In A Union

There is power, there is power,
In a band of working folk,
When we stand
Hand in hand.

—Joe Hill (1913)

Radio Bilingüe has a list of immigration marches and rallies across the country today. I plan to be at the mitin in Las Vegas tonight:

• Las Vegas immigrant rights mitin (rally)
• Tonight, May 1, 2008, 7:00 PM
• Federal Courthouse, 333 Las Vegas Blvd S.

Meanwhile, in the news, some useless idiot is wandering around Washington proclaiming Law Day, accosting hundreds of millions of complete strangers to tell them to put on ceremonies in praise of his own power to do the beating, jailing, deporting, etc. In Istanbul, organized workers marched to Taksim Square in defiance of the Turkish government, which has declared their free assembly illegal, and which has deployed government riot cops to attack them with firehoses and tear gas. In Harare, organized workers are holding rallies today to call attention to the devastating effect of the government’s hyperinflationary money monopoly on workers’ wages—and an apparatchik of the Zimbabwean government—one of the most violently anti-worker governments in the world—is taking the opportunity to wear a concerned expression and assure that Government would at all times endeavour to make sure that workplaces were monitored through inspections to minimize hazards that might injure or kill them. (No word yet on whether the hazards the inspectors will be inspecting for include the Zimbabwe Republic Police or the Central Intelligence Organization.) We must never forget what this band of creeps and fools is doing their best to remind us of — that the State is the most deadly weapon of our enemies, and that it is a weapon that we will never be able to wield for ourselves without chaining ourselves to politics and destroying the very things we meant to fight for.

In this season and in these days, in the midst of Babel during its most raucous festival—when so much of what we see and hear are the endless shouts of professional blowhards who know of no form of social change other than political change, and who know of no site of political change other than the gladiatorial arena of electoral politics, and who seem to know of no form of electoral politics other than polling, horse-trading, and endlessly shouting about a series of nomenklatura-contrived issues, which boil down to little more than a media-facilitated exchange of racist, sexist, ageist, and authoritarian barbs among the nomenklatura-approved serious candidates—it’s important to remember that, in spite of all the noise and spectacle, the most significant events for labor and for human freedom are happening in the streets of cities all over the country and all over the world, where workers are organizing among themselves, demanding their rights, fighting for their lives, and defying or simply bypassing the plutocrats and their so-called laws. In the U.S.A., while the punch-drunk establishmentarian labor movement reels from one failure to another, some of the most dynamic and successful labor struggles in the past few years have been fought by a grassroots union organized along syndicalist lines without NLRB recognition, using creative secondary boycott tactics which would be completely illegal if they had submitted to the regulatory patronage of the Wagner-Taft-Hartley system. There is a lesson here—a lesson for workers, for organizers, for agitators, and anti-statists. One we’d do well to remember when confronted by any of the bosses—whether corporate bosses or political, the labor fakirs and the authoritarian thugs styling themselves the vanguard of the working class, the regulators and the deporters and the patronizing friends of labor all:

Dump the Bosses Off Your Back

Are you cold, forelorn, and hungry?
Are there lots of things you lack?
Is your life made up of misery?
Then dump the bosses off your back!

—John Brill (1916)

Happy May Day, y’all.

Elsewhere Today:

• Scott McLemee, Crooked Timber 2008-04-30: All Out for May Day
• Gulf Stream Blues 2008-05-01: Labour Movements Cry Mayday!

Further reading:

• GT 2007-05-01: May Day 2007
• GT 2006-05-01: May Day 2006: A Day of Resistance
• GT 2005-05-01: May Day, May Day
• GT 2004-05-01: Free the Unions (and all political prisoners)!

Today, Tax Day, marked the first public action of the Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left. Here are the flyers we posted today.

How Government Works (#1)	How Government Works (#2)
Taxes Pay For Torture (#1)	Taxes Pay For Torture (#2)
Taxes Pay For War (#1)	Taxes Pay For War (#2)
Your Money Or Your Life!	Your Tax Dollars At Work (#1)
Your Tax Dollars At Work (#2)

Here’s the communiqué I wrote to go along with the flyers, because I like that kind of goofy shit.

Communiqué #1

This is the first communiqué from the Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left.

Today, April 15^th, guerrilla educators affiliated with Southern Nevada ALL struck targets in the streets of southeastern Las Vegas and on the UNLV campus. Flyers—with slogans including Taxes Pay For Torture, Taxes Pay For War, and Your Money Or Your Life,—were raised to reach out to unwilling taxpayers and potential new ALLies, and to raise public consciousness about taxes.

On the filing deadline for 2007’s federal income tax—when countless honest working folks are sick of meddlesome government—when they are tired of being forced to fill out complex forms—and when they are forced to take (on average) 30% of the money that they worked to earn in the previous year and render it as tribute to the United States federal government—against their will, and whether or not they approve of what the government will do with the money—we have a perfect opportunity to spread our message about the violence of government taxation.

Taxes mean violence, both at the point of collection, and at the point of government spending. Collecting taxes is inherently violent because taxpayers are forced to pay the government whether or not they want to, under the threat of government violence. Those who refuse to turn over the money are subjected to government fines, confiscation of their homes and effects, or locked away in prison. It must never be forgotten that anything is funded by taxes could have been funded voluntarily, if enough people could have been convinced to donate the money willingly, or to give it freely in exchange for something that they get in return. In the last analysis, there is no reason to fund a project by taxation unless there is no honest and peaceful way to persuade people to support that project voluntarily. But if there is no honest and peaceful way to fund something, then it should not be funded. Taxation ought to be considered the last resort of the scoundrel and the thug. Morally, there is no difference between tax collection and highway robbery.

But the violence of taxation is even worse than the violence of highway robbery—for while the robber takes your money violently to satisfy his own greed, and then leaves you alone, the tiny handful of people who constitute the the ruling faction of the federal government take your money violently, and then they use that money to fund yet more violence — whether by locking nonviolent drug users away in government prisons, or in the form of police brutality, or in the use of torture by government intelligence agencies in the name of National Security, or in the form of government wars and occupations. The government’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost more than half a trillion dollars, and which cost millions of dollars more with every passing day, and the onlyem> reason that this government can afford to continue with their occupation and their bombings, long after the majority of people in the United States have concluded that the wars are hopeless and fundamentally wrong, is that tiny handful of people have the power to force the millions of us who are against these wars to fund them anyway, against our will and in violation of our own conscience. Taxes pay for police brutality. Taxes pay for torture. Taxes paid for Guantanamo. Taxes paid for Abu Ghraib. Taxes pay for war. And when taxes pay for something, what that really means is that unwilling victims, including you and me, are forced to pay for it even if they don’t think that it is worthwhile. Even when they think that it is abhorrent to their own beliefs.

We believe that there is another way. Southern Nevada ALL is working to raise public awareness, and to work towards a new, consensual society, in which no-one will be forced to pay for torture or war, and in which working folks will be able to keep what they have earned, rather than being forced to turn it over to be used at the whim of the violent minority faction known as the United States federal government. We are starting small, and we are starting here, because that is what we have, and this is where we live. We ask that everyone in Southern Nevada who believes in peace, voluntary co-operation, mutual aid, and individual liberty join us in our struggle.

—ALLy C.J., 15 April 2008.

The Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left can be reached through its website, sonv.libertarianleft.org, or through its e-mail list ALLSouthernNevada.

This is phase 1 (or maybe version 0.1) of organizing an ALL chapter in southern Nevada. Our next step is to meet any new ALLies we may find, start talking about plans, and prepare some more (hopefully eye-catching) flyers, handbills, and pamphlets to spread the word. (For example, distributing some copies of William Gillis’s excellent Market Anarchy zine series, and some other pamphlet-length articles similarly formatted, hopefully to get them circulating amongst local anarchists, libertarians, and peace people.) After that, to begin talking about local networking, informal gatherings, on-the-ground activism, and spinning off affinity groups and longer-term projects. I think that global popular revolution is scheduled for sometime after next March.

If you’re interested, and you’re in (or know people in, or are just interested in) the area of Las Vegas and southern Nevada, consider joining the e-mail list. If you enjoy the flyers, you’re free to take them, modify them as necessary, and re-use them as you see fit.

Onward.

Last week the U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted to to rename Squaw Peak in Arizona for Lori Piestewa, the Hopi woman who was killed in combat in Iraq in March 2003. Cecelia notes that because the word "squaw" has long been used to denigrate Native women, the name change to honor Piestewa is especially welcome.

From a Rolling Stone profile of Piestewa:

The attack made Jessica Lynch famous. U.S. Special Forces later plucked her from an Iraqi hospital and rushed her to safety, and the media seized on the daring rescue to create a tale of American heroism and valor. But the real story of what happened in Nasiriyah that day -- and the clear warning it offered of things to come -- involves a different soldier, one who gave her life to protect her friends. Lori Piestewa, born and raised a Hopi on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, became the first American woman to die in the war, and the first Native American woman ever to die in combat on foreign soil. Only twenty-three years old, Piestewa saw herself as a Hopi warrior, part of a centuries-old tradition developed by a people who once resisted an invasion and occupation by the U.S. military -- much as the Iraqis are doing today. She went to war, but she believed above all in peace, in doing no harm to others. "I'm not trying to be a hero," she told a friend just before the invasion. "I just want to get through this crap and go home."

Here’s two passages from two different articles that I read today. See if you can fill in the blanks to identify the spokesman, the military force in question, and the enemy force being condemned.

1. […], rejecting criticism of attacks by […] that have killed thousands, maintained that it does not kill innocent people. … If there is any innocent who was killed in the […]’s [bombings], then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity, […] said. He went on to accuse […]’s opponents of being the ones who kill innocent people. He also charged that the enemy intentionally takes up positions in the midst of […] for them to be human shields for him.

2. Anecdotally, […] also add some caveats to recent civilian casualty headlines. They acknowledge that mistaken intelligence has led to some truly accidental deaths, including the deaths of children. But in other cases, they say, […] appear to be delivering inflated reports of civilian deaths. […] also fights among civilians, dramatically increasing the likelihood of civilian deaths …. ([…] say that during a recent firefight, innocent civilians were forced into a trench alongside […] so that any [bombings] would result in the significant loss of civilian lives).

See the answer to number 1 here. And the answer to number 2 here.

Here’s the opening of a MoveOn fundraising letter that I got just before going out of town last week. I’ve cut it off at the point where I stopped reading:

From: Nita Chaudhary, MoveOn.org Political Action <moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
Subject: 60 votes to win
Date: 3/19/2008 6:46 AM

Dear MoveOn member,

It’s happened again and again this year, on every issue we care about. Iraq. Health care. The climate crisis. Strong bills have sailed through the US House, only to stall in the face of Republican obstruction in the Senate. Republicans are on pace to double the Congressional record for the most filibusters.

Here’s the good news: Republicans are defending 23 Senate seats next year, compared to just 12 for the Democrats. Democrats could gain as many as 60 seats in the Senate, enough to break Republican filibusters and usher in a new era of progressive reform.

We’ve got a plan to take advantage of every seat that’s in play, make even more races competitive, and create a progressive majority that will last for a generation. But it’s going to take sustained support from you to pull it off and there’s no time to waste. Can you contribute $15 per month (you can cancel at any time) from now through Election Day?

Last year, the Senate Republicans obstructed numerous bills including stalling health insurance for the children who need it most and blocking a time-line to bring the troops home from Iraq.

Now look at some of the proposals from the Democratic presidential candidates that will almost certainly take 60 votes in the Senate to pass:

• No more blank checks in Iraq

[…]

I stopped reading here because this is a lie.

It does not take 60 votes in the Senate to pass No more blank checks in Iraq. It does not take a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate — any more than it takes a veto-proof majority in the House — to halt blank-check funding for the Iraq War.

It doesn’t take positive legislation of any kind at all to halt funding for the Iraq War; all that it takes is a lack of any more laws to keep on funding it, whether in the form of regular budget line items or in the form of the repeated off-the-ledger infusions of cash which go to fund the Occupation’s perpetual state of emergency. Republican Senators can’t filibuster a non-bill and neither can President George W. Bush — or any President who might succeed him — veto it. It doesn’t take 60 Senators or 290 Representatives to stop bills from passing. All you need is a simple majority, which the Democrats already have, and have had for the last year and a half, and with which they have done worse than nothing over and over again.

The reason that those blank checks keep getting written, with Democrat Harry Reid and Democrat Nacy Pelosi’s signatures right by the X, is because the Democratic leadership, so-called, doesn’t give enough of a damn about ending the war to take on the political costs of blocking funding for it. The only reason that they could possibly think that doing what they want depends on having a larger majority than they already have is if what they want to do is something other than halting war funding.

The Democratic leadership clearly wants a larger majority in Congress, and they are going to keep on giving George Bush every dollar he asks for unless and until they get that larger majority. They don’t need the larger majority to stop sending him the money, so one of two things must be true. Either the Democratic leadership is waiting until they consolidate more political power so that they can pass a plan which will prolong the war rather than ending it, or else they are waiting until they consolidate more political power because they don’t want to end the war until after they’ve fully exploited it as a campaign issue in the upcoming Congressional and Presidential elections. In either case, the strategy is despicable. And in either case, it’s shameful to see a putatively antiwar group repeating their opportunistic lies.

No union with war-mongers, spiritually or politically.

Further reading:

• GT 2008-02-17: In Ten Words or Fewer: brass tacks edition
• GT 2007-12-16: Reformist overtures

The fabulous organization MADRE has released a statement on women and violence in Iraq. It's really a must-read. MADRE also lists resources for perspectives of Iraqi women, so get on over there.

Happy Anniversary to those very special enablers who helped sell the Iraq War.

[Meanwhile, two black dudes have to crawl on the ground for their love.]

We couldn't have planned this better!

My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.

The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again — because we are not dealing with peaceful men.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq’s neighbors and against Iraq’s people.

The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.

The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.

Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq. America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. We believe in the mission of the United Nations. One reason the U.N. was founded after the second world war was to confront aggressive dictators, actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.

In the case of Iraq, the Security Council did act, in the early 1990s. Under Resolutions 678 and 687 — both still in effect — the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. This is not a question of authority, it is a question of will.

Last September, I went to the U.N. General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an end to this danger. On November 8th, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm.

Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power. For the last four-and-a-half months, the United States and our allies have worked within the Security Council to enforce that Council’s long-standing demands. Yet, some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace, and a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world. The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.

…

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

…

Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it. Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past. War has no certainty, except the certainty of sacrifice.

…

As we enforce the just demands of the world, we will also honor the deepest commitments of our country. Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty. And when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.

The United States, with other countries, will work to advance liberty and peace in that region. Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time. The power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and every land. And the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace.

That is the future we choose. Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent. And tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility.

Good night, and may God continue to bless America.

—President George W. Bush, Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003, 8:01pm EST

Further reading:

• GT 2006-12-21: In ten words or fewer (personal pronouns edition): George W. Bush on the next year of the Iraq War
• GT 2006-10-12: In Their Own Words, See No Evil, Hear No Evil edition
• GT 2005-03-20: In Their Own Words: The Anniversary edition
• GT 2004-06-12: Outrage fatigue