Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Changing Fearful Minds

On my last blog, “Departure of Irving Kristol,” there was a comment asking what can we do about “fearful minds” that are being influenced by conservative bigots, falsifiers, and political right wing scoundrels? The hate talk on the televisions right wing-nuts is beginning to take on a far more ominous tone. Open talk about “killing the President” seems to be now acceptable behavior. This is typical example of how “fearful minds” become storm troops against democratic traditions. Having lived through the rise and fall of fascism I wonder if there are lessons that can be useful in the present struggle?

There are some similarities and some important differences between then and now. The present economic crisis, while not as severe, is a similarity. The difference is the present rapid response on the part of the governments to save the economic structure. That saved the banks and Wall Street but has left us with double digit unemployment. This is the root cause of the rising resentment amongst many Blue Collar people who rightly feel that the millionaires have been bailed out but they are the “forgotten.” That feeling is similar to how a much larger population in the 30ies felt about their situation. They were the “fearful minds” the fodder for the legends of fascist organizations that were springing up all over the western world.

Of course the extremes were in Germany and Italy. In the US we had similar but far less successful organizations. Father Couglin in Detroit or Huey long in Louisiana the German American Bund in New Jersey promising the world to the “fearful minds” of those who had lost their livelihoods, their homes and their hope for the future. The Couglin group actually tried to copy the Nazis with their publication of Henry Fords anti semitic diatribe, “The Protocols of Zion.” Did it catch on? Yes with some of the, “fearful minds” who were in dire need of someone to blame for their misfortune. The Jewish Bankers were handy or the Negroes for the Southern “fearful minds.” But as history has shown in didn’t quite catch on her as it did in Europe. The question is why not?

I believe there are a number of factors that played a critical role. First compared to Germany or Italy, there was a far more solid democratic tradition in the US going back to the founding fathers. Second President, F.D.R. was very empathic to those who were suffering the effects of the depression. I strongly believe that empathy grew out of his own struggle with infantile paralysis that left him with two totally useless legs that he needed to hold up with heavy steel braces. Third, he surrounded himself with a group of strong minded people who were determined to make some very critical changes in society. Finally and probably most important was the vibrant and powerful left that literally forced the F.D.R. administration to make serious economic concessions to the working class. The Wagner Act, Home Relief, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security just to name a few created in the 30ies. We now take them for granted. We refer to them as “the safety net.”

What can these lessons of the 30ies teach us for today? First the Obama administration needs to take some real action to help those victims of the recession who are the lowly wage earners down at the bottom of the economic ladder. Second the “new internet left” needs to swing into action to send President Obama a message that he needs to use the same kind of vigorous support he gave the banks to help those folks lower down on the economic scale who are suffering the most. The “fearful mind” folks need to see some leadership that is directing solutions in their direction. The important thing for those of us who believe in equality and fairness is to not cede the political playing fields to the right wing conservatives. They want to take us back to the dark ages of derivative Ponzi schemes that simply put, “make the rich richer at the expense of the working poor.”

Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Departure of Irving Kristol

The obituary on the death of Irving Kristol reminded me of my experience in the Alcoves at City College (CCNY). In my very radical youth years of the the ‘30s, I was working as a Plumber’s helper and spending my nights as a street corner speaker. One night I was asked to come to one of the Alcoves at CCNY to join the arguments going on between the Stalinists, Trotskyites, DeLeonists and other assorted left wing fervent believers. The Alcoves at CCNY, as I remember it, was part of the College cafeteria, a place where you could get food, but mostly you got hot and heavy arguments. Because plumbing work depended on availability, I did have periodic days off. On one of those days, I was invited to participate in the Alcove arguments. I went off to City College. As a Public School graduate with a few semesters of night High School, I was fearful of a world I knew nothing of.

With much hesitation I got involved in some of the arguments regarding world revolution versus the Russian Revolution. The Trotskyite position was that the Russian Revolution would fail unless there was the same kind of overthrow of all the capitalist systems. Back then I believed, if the Russian model could demonstrate its superiority, that would become a model for workers of the world. My arguments became an oddity as word spread around the Alcove that “there was a real worker here arguing the Stalinist position.” That drew a crowd of curious students who wanted to hear a “real worker.” I didn’t admit it at the time, but man with this crowd, was I ever over my head. They quoted stuff I never even heard of. Though I had been assured by many that I did just fine, I left with an overwhelming feeling that I had an awful lot to learn. I suppose I have had that feeling ever since.

It was there that I encountered many Irving Kristols’, Irving Howes’, and others who in later life would emerge as the new world of neo conservatives. Irving Kristol defined a neo conservative as a liberal who had been “mugged by reality.” Well that depends on how one experiences or views reality. In the CCNY Alcove, it was clear to me that my perception of reality as a plumber’s helper was very different from any of the political positions being argued there.

How one perceives what is going on in society depends on one’s “frame of reference.” For example, in my years of working on employment policy, I was often asked if a particular workplace “was a good place to work?” My standard answer became, “Compared to what?” This grew out of an experience I had touring with a group of economists in Europe. They were looking at unique workplaces where workers were participating in controlling their own work areas. In a truck plant in Sweden an economics Professor said, ‘This place is really noisy and stinks.” In fact it was the Taj Mahal of truck factories. I asked him, “Where have you worked in your life?” He replied, “Columbia University. I started there as a student and now I am a full Professor.” I laughed and he said, So what’s wrong with that?” Of course there was nothing wrong. It was simply that his narrow frame of reference gave him no way to understand what was going on in this truck factory.

One more illustration of this. In the ‘80s there was a television program about the anti-poverty programs. A number of the neo conservatives interviewed said they thought the programs were basically failures because they didn’t in fact end poverty. Needless to say, I was furious. Yes, they didn’t end poverty. I never believed they would. My frame of reference taught me to look beyond the immediate reported results. What I found was the emergence of a whole new group of Black and Latino leaders who came out of those programs. That experience helped them to understand the role of leadership. Their emergence has fundamentally changed the political spectrum in this country.

Irving Kristol, and now his son William, see reality as having been “mugged.” I am sure that being part of the mainstream is far more comfortable than being out there feeling mugged. “Mugged by reality,” there may be the fundamental difference. Being “mugged” infers a fear of reality. Others of us experience reality, but do not fear it. That experience may also make us far more empathic with those out there in the “mugged” world.

Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

"Liar"

I have been trying to understand the kind of vicious emotional hatred being expressed by people opposing the Obama Health Care Reform Legislation. I am reminded of earlier experiences around 1943. In the Machinists’ Union I helped the first black machinist get a job at a brewery in Brooklyn. There was no issue regarding his competence to do the job. Everyone agreed that was not a problem. When I asked, “Why are you guys all up in arms over this?”, one of the old timers who had supported me for years as the Local Lodge President said, “Schrank, you’ve gone too far. It’s one thing for us to take Jews in this Local. Now you’re asking us to take in ‘nig---s.’ Next you’ll be wanting to bring in Chimpanzees. It’s over. The answer is no.”

As always, after the meeting I hung around, drank some beer with the guys, and listened to what they had to say. What I found fascinating was what laid underneath the talk. They said things like, “You know, if we keep giving these ‘nig---s’ the same rights as we have, the next thing you know they'll be wanting to marry our daughters. Isn’t that what happened with the Jews?” I began to understand that underneath what appears on the surface of our thoughts and beliefs is a whole basement of prejudice and hate that humans carry around with them as regards their true feelings. This is particularly true of how they view minority groups. Even in the world of German radicals, socialists, anarchists, and freethinkers that I grew up in, when Hitler came on the scene many of these same radicals exploded with vicious anti-Semitism. It lay there all the time just waiting for the opportune moment to let it loose.

I believe this is a result of the demonization of minority groups, who are being used to take responsibility for our personal failures. During the McCarthy years it was the communists who were responsible for whatever went wrong in our relations with the rest of the world. The Hiroshima bomb probably hurt our standing with the rest of the world more than all the communists on the continent. In Hitler's Germany it was the Jews who were to blame for the fiasco of WW1. In the lynch world of the US it was the “nig---s” who were the cause of all our troubles, including droughts, floods, and white women who “don’t love me anymore.” Yes, that is the nature of the stuff we humans carry down below. It’s what Winnie The Pooh referred to as “in an underneath sort of way.” Isaiah Berlin calls it “what we carry below.”

I now believe that this is precisely what is going on as regards our President. I thank Congressmen Wilson for calling it to my attention. Yes Mr. Congressman, I accept the explanation of your outburst as “spontaneity.” That fits exactly what I am talking about. It also explains the hatred and vitriol on the faces of those folks in the Town Hall Meetings who were overcome with their own bitterness towards this “Black” man, who happens to be the President of the most powerful nation in the world. It is driving them crazy.

It makes me sad, but it also reminds me that this is the nature of change. I watched it happen in the Labor Movement, the Civil Rights movement, and the Women’s Movement. Victorious for some, difficult for others. That’s what change around power relationships is about. The election of Barack Obama is one of the biggest shifts in my long life. No wonder Mr. Wilson can’t control himself. All the more reason for us to support the President’s efforts. Never forget William Kristol’s advice to the right wing. He said, “Just Kill It.” And that is exactly what the Congressman Wilsons’ out there are trying to do. It is their best hope of destroying the creditability of the man they hate.

Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Labor Day 2009

Here’s yet another Labor Day and I continue to wonder about whatever happened to the militant Labor Movement I was part of for the first third of my working life? I just received an article from Bruce McIver out in Missoula, Montana about Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (who I had met on several occasions) and the Wobblies free speech fight. Missoula had refused them the right to speak on a street corner. What did the Wobblies do? They called all their followers in the Northwest to come to Missoula to pack the jails. Did it work? You betcha. With the jails overflowing the local government rescinded the ordinance and free speech was returned to Missoula. That’s the tradition of the American Labor Movement that made me proud to be part of it. So what happened to that tradition?

Labor won huge victories during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The the entire landscape of America’s Industrial Heartland was changed by the passage of the Wagner Act that made it possible to organize and win collective bargaining rights via an election. During this period we saw the emergence of the Steel, Auto, Rubber, Electrical, Textile, and Chemical Workers’ unions. With an overall membership of millions of unionized workers, they became a formidable force in the life of the country and particularly its politics; for example, the election of FDR to four successive terms. At the end of WWII big business decided it was time to put the unions back in a box. Giant corporations thought the unions had gained far to much power during the thirties and forties and they were determined to dramatically change that.

The end of WWII saw one of the greatest strike waves in history. Many of the strikes were Wild Cats that were never approved by the union leadership. Workers resented the huge profiteering that took place during the war, while their wages were frozen. The post WWII strike wave was an attempt to correct that injustice. As President of the Machinists Union in NY State, I was extremely busy running from one major strike situation to another. In a number of instances companies simply refused to recognize existing contracts. The Yale & Towne Lock Company in Stanford CT. was the leader in that struggle.

In 1948 Senator Taft and Congressmen Hartley introduced a bill in Congress called the Taft Hartley Act. At the urging of my members I wrote a pamphlet called “THIS IS AIMED AT YOU -- AN EXPOSE OF THE TAFT HARTLEY PLOT TO BUST THE UNIONS AND HI-JACK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.” A most critical part of the law was to put the Labor Movement under the supervision of the Government. This was best exemplified by the need of the union leadership to sign an affidavit that they were not communists, nor belonged to any organization on the Attorney Generals Subversive List. John L. Lewis, a dramatic leader of the Mine Workers Union, declared he thought it an insult for him to have to swear his loyalty to the government in order to lead his union. He refused to sign the affidavit; and that is exactly what the rest of the union leadership should have done. It would have made the Taft Hartly Law ineffective.

With the rising tension between the US and the Soviet Union, the union leaders seemed to fall all over each other in their haste to sign up to prove their patriotism. What they proved was the beginning of the end of a militant labor movement. Since that time we have literally seen the withering away of any militancy that once defined the American Labor Movement. It reached its peak when Ronald Reagan fired the striking aircraft controllers and the Labor Movement just snored through the whole event.

It was not by accident that during this period of decline the number of racketeering cases increased dramatically. Why you might ask? Once the “true believers” started to leave the unions, the business trade unionists took over. And who are they? These are people who see the union as a dues collection organization that resulted in major unions falling under the control of the Mafia. They add the additional feature of forcing employers to make payoffs if they want any kind of industrial piece. Are you still wondering why workers have become disillusioned and disgusted with the union leadership?

Is this just a hopeless scenario or is there hope for change? I believe that there are the beginnings of a new emerging voice of labor in the SEIU and a number of other emerging unions. Yes, they seem to be primarily in the white collar world, but one can argue that’s where the future of the job market is. Still it does make me sad to live through another Labor Day and the need to reflect on what happened to a once powerful voice of the downtrodden and oppressed.

P.S. I was one of those “true believers.” It took the Machinist Union leaders three years to get rid of me. They expelled me three times; probably a Guiness record.

Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.