• About
  • Documentary Films
  • Index
  • Nota bene
  • Protect and Serve
  • Readings

Lumpenproletariat

~ free speech

Lumpenproletariat

Monthly Archives: Mar 2017

Dr. Jane F. McAlevey On Working Class Politics and Organising for Power in the New Gilded Age

21 Tue Mar 2017

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Civic Engagement (Activism), collective bargaining, Global Labour Movement, Political Science

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Against the Grain, deep organising, Dr. Jane F. McAlevey (b. 1964), KPFA, Pacifica Radio Network, Sasha Lilley, shallow advocacy, slacktivism

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—On today’s edition of free speech radio’s Against the Grain, veteran organiser Dr. Jane F. McAlevey discussed class politics, how to organise working class power, and other themes relevant to working class emancipation, which she wrote about in her recent book, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age (2016).  Dr. McAlevey is also author of Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement (2012), which The Nation called “the most valuable book of the year [for 2012]”.  In conversation with Sasha Lilley, Dr. McAlevey offered critical and empowering advice to left organisers (actual and potential) in the working class spheres of the workplace, the union, and the political party form, beyond the constraints of temporal mobilisations and defanged advocacy.  Listen (and/or download) here. [1]

Messina

***

AGAINST THE GRAIN—[21 MAR 2017]  “Today, on Against the Grain, for the last 40 years, unions, and the left more broadly, have been in decline.  Clearly the business class went on the offensive during this time, but is that the whole story?  Veteran organiser Jane McAlevey argues that the left abandoned deep organising just at the moment when the right was organising its grassroots; and the result has been devastating.  I’ll speak with her about how to turn the tide after these [KPFA] News Headlines with Max Pringle.”  (c. 2:08)

[KPFA News Headlines (read by Max Pringle) omitted by scribe]  (c. 5:30)

SASHA LILLEY:  “From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain from Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.

“The last 40 years have not been good for radical politics, nor for unions, which became ever smaller.  And, yet, despite the decline of the left there have been some spectacular moments, in which people have come together in the millions, such as in 2003 against the Iraq War or recently against the Trump administration.  But the conundrum has been that these mass mobilisations have been just that, and have not been translated into sustained movements.

“My guest today, a veteran of the labour and environmental movements, has spent a lot of time thinking about why this might be.  In her book, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, Jane McAlevey argues that the left and labour abandoned deep organising in the 1970s in favour of a shallow mobilisation and even shallower advocacy.  And the result has been defeat after defeat.

“Last year, McAlevey was involved in the largest successful union organising campaign in the country by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (or PASNAP).

“Jane, it’s great to have you with us.  Can you start by defining the difference as you see it between deep organising and shallow mobilising?”  (c. 7:16)

DR. JANE F. MCALEVEY:  “For me, organising implies several core things, several core concepts.  And the first—I’d like to say is—when you’re organising, when you wake up in the morning, every morning, your goal is to figure out how to spend the day really productively engaging people, who basically don’t wanna talk to you, or who are not in your Twitter feed or your Facebook feed.  Like, my goal every single day of my life, when I’m running campaigns, as in last year in Philadelphia, is:

Who are the key people, who are not really engaging with us?

‘Cos, if we’re gonna build super-majorities, what I call demonstratable super-majorities—that’s what we have to do to win a union campaign—in a structure, a hospital, in the case of most of my work for the last decade—we know that we can win, if we can build demonstratable super-majorities, that the employer can actually see, that the boss can see.

“So, what does that really mean?  Why is that organising?  What does that have to do with the original question?

“So, in order to build demonstratable super-majoritities, where you can see people acting collectively together, to do something high-risk—usually in the case of a union, or going up against Trump, frankly, will also be high risk; for lots of folks it already is—it means that there’s a certain bunch of activists.  When you start, someone calls the office and says:  We want to form a union.  And there’s a certain bunch of worker activists.  And they’re ready to go, like, they’re the ones, who called for the union.  Meanwhile, they aren’t enough to actually win in a tough campaign.  You actually have to have demonstratable super-majorities to win tough fights.  And, so—”

SASHA LILLEY:  “And that means the vast majority of the workers, who work in a place.”

DR. JANE F. MCALEVEY:  “Exactly.  And I’m gonna make a metaphor to the whole country, though.  Right?

“So, um, in a work place, a given work place—let’s just say a thousand, a thousand workers—in order to win a union election, those of us who still win, which is not enough, start with the assumption that we have to get 85 percent of them affirmatively, positively committed to the campaign before even filing for a union election.  And that’s a demonstratable super-majority.

“That means 85 percent or more have signed union membership cards.  85 percent or more have signed I’m-gonna-vote-yes-for-the-union.  Because our assumption is the minute the campaign surfaces, we’re gonna get eroded.  We’re gonna lose—about 25 percent is gonna get shaved by a right-wing, Breitbart-like attack, which happens at every union drive in this country.  (c. 9:24)

“So, back to organising:  We’ll have this core of people, who’ll wanna talk to us every day.  That’s the activist inside the workplace.  But they’ll be a small portion of the people at the beginning of the campaign.  So, the question is:  If you wanna actually win, you have to plot a strategy with careful intention to reach super-majorities.  And that means finding and engaging strategically with the vast majority of people, who are not just coming to the meetings.  They didn’t call the union office to form the union.  But we have—they’re in our voter universe.  So, we actually have to get up and find them.

“So, I can make a metaphor to the whole country about this.  But, for me, that is the example.  Like, the way I think about retaking [takes deep breath] the United States from the crisis level of evilness, that we’re facing right now, is that we have to get much more clear that, just like in a workplace, if we rely just on those activists, who are already predisposed to the union, and who are already coming to the union meetings from the first union meeting, we’re not winning that way.  (c. 10:24)

“What we have to, actually, do is make a conscious plan to get up in the morning and reach out to most of the working class in this country, again, who are not sort of sitting in our Twitter feeds and they’re not, honestly, probably, not listening to KPFA.  And they’re not listening to Pacifica.  And they’re not with us already.  So—and that’s okay because, from my view of 25 years in the field organising, it really is true that the vast majority of people I’ve met in the working class in my lifetime, with one decent conversation, uh, where you help them, themselves, connect the dots in the conversation about who the oppressor is and what’s wrong, pretty quickly come to understand that capitalism is a really big problem, maybe not using that word.  But, like, they get that the boss is a problem and that their boss is connected to a bunch of bosses; and those bosses are connected, too.

“And, so, when we stopped doing that, we surrendered most of the country to the kind of crap, that we’re seeing right now, which is, uh, devastating.  Right?

“So, organising is:

How do we engage the vast majority of people, who are not engaging us, and do it systematically, and do it smartly, and do it with a plan?

“And mobilising is, like—mobilising is great.  I mean I’ve gone to many demos.  I’ve been arrested many times.  I’ve been on picket lines.  Like, I love a good demonstration.  But it’s not a measure for us, even if, like, to your point.  Even if a demo is big, what I repeatedly say is: Who’s there? And how did they get there? And how long can we sustain it for?  Which are, again, the same things, that I had to learn and re-learn all the time when I’m in the field doing work, and not writing about it, which is:

If we’re gonna get ready for a strike, which I call the highest sort of threshold of, like, super high-risk action in this country, we have to know we have demonstratable majorities; we have to hold them in high-risk moments. And we have to be able to sustain them.”  (c. 12:10)

SASHA LILLEY:  “[snip]

[additional notes pending]

[snip]  (c. 59:59)

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

***

[1]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Against the Grain – Organizing Class Power, Turning the Tide Against the Right, this one-hour broadcast hosted by co-host Mickey Huff, Friday, 23 SEP 2016, 13:00 PDT.

Broadcast summary from the kpfa.org archive page:

Organizing Class Power, Turning the Tide Against the Right

For the last forty years, unions and the left more broadly have been in decline.  Clearly the business class went on the offensive during this time, but is that the whole story?  Veteran organizer Jane McAlevey argues that the left abandoned deep organizing just at the moment when the right was organizing its grassroots, and the result has been the devastating.  She discusses, in concrete terms, how to turn the tide.

Resources:

Jane F. McAlevey, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age Oxford University Press, 2016

Who Rules America?

Also see other relevant Lumpenproletariat articles, such as:

  • Dr. George Lakoff On Why Liberals Lose and Conservatives Win; 19 FEB 2004.
  • The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power by Professor Steve Fraser; 26 OCT 2015.

***

[Image of Dr. Jane F. McAlevey by source, used via fair use (creative commons) licensure.]

[22 MAR 2017]

[Last modified on 29 DEC 2020 at 04:02 PST]

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

The State of Eugenics (2016) directed by Dawn Sinclair Shapiro

20 Mon Mar 2017

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Totalitarianism, Documentary Film, History, U.S. History: 20th Century, Women's Reproductive Rights

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Rude Awakening, KPFA, Mitch Jeserich (SaveKPFA), Pacifica Radio Network, Sabrina Jacobs, The State of Eugenics (2016), UpFront

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—A new documentary entitled The State of Eugenics (2016) will be screened at UC Berkeley‘s Boalt Hall, School of Law, tomorrow night (Tuesday, March 21st, 2017, 5-7:30pm). [1]  The film’s director, a self-described filmalist (i.e., filmmaker/journalist), Dawn Sinclair Shapiro will be in attendance at UC Berkeley for a Q&A as well as part of an event sponsored by the UCB Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.  The film is

about the eugenic sterilization program [in] North Carolina [which] ran between the 1930s and 1970s.  The film documents how that long-forgotten program was brought back to light by researchers and journalists, resulting in a pitched political battle over compensating victims.

Questions of genetic enhancement and reproductive rights are controversial because they touch upon issues of women’s rights, discrimination, race, and class.  The eugenics movement became negatively associated with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust when many of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials attempted to justify their human rights abuses by claiming there was little difference between the Nazi eugenics programs and the U.S. eugenics programs.  Lumpenproletariat acquaintance (c. 2010-2012) Sabrina Jacobs has interviewed the film’s director Dawn Sinclair Shapiro.  Listen (and/or download) here. [2]

UPDATE—[21 MAR 2017]  Free speech radio’s UpFront has also broadcast an interview with filmalist Dawn Sinclair Shapiro on The State of Eugenics.  Listen (and/or download) here. [3]

Messina

***

The State of Eugenics (2016) directed by Dawn Sinclair Shapiro

***

UC BERKELEY—[accessed 21 MAR 2017]

Film Screening: The State of Eugenics

Film – Feature | March 21 | 5-7:30 p.m. | Boalt Hall, School of Law, Room 100

Sponsor:  Department of Gender and Women’s Studies

Please join us at 5:00 pm on March 21, 2017 at UC Berkeley for a free screening of The State of Eugenics, the just-released film about the eugenic sterilization program North Carolina ran between the 1930’s and 1970’s. The film documents how that long-forgotten program was brought back to light by researchers and journalists, resulting in a pitched political battle over compensating victims.

Comments and Q&A after the screening by filmmaker Dawn Sinclair Shapiro and University of Michigan Professor Alexandra Minna Stern.

Pizza and refrehsments will be provided at no additional cost!

This is the second event of the 2017 Being Human in a Biotech Age Film Series at UC Berkely.

Film is captioned but we are not able to provide live captioners/interpreters.

About the Film:

The State of Eugenics shines a light on a sorry and often-forgotten chapter in American history— the forced sterilization of thousands of Americans thought to have “undesirable” genetic make-ups. The film follows researchers and journalists who delved into dusty archives to bring North Carolina’s extensive eugenics program into the sunlight. When the journalists succeed in connecting those files to living survivors and the vast network of perpetrators are revealed, a grassroots movement begins, tirelessly insisting the state confront its nefarious past. The documentary— four years in the making, brings into focus the human tragedy that unfolded behind closed doors for decades and gives voice to survivors who believed their poverty would leave their stories untold and their pain unrecognized.

Across four decades, the state of North Carolina sterilized more than 7,600 people— men and women, adults and adolescents. The program ended in the 1970’s, dismantled after a landmark lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of survivor Nial Ruth Cox. This sordid history had been largely forgotten until December 2002 when the Winston–Salem Journal published a five-part series, “Against Their Will,” that examined in stunning detail North Carolina’s eugenics program.

Historian Johanna Schoen and reporters John Railey, Kevin Begos and Danielle Deaver put the horrors of forced sterilization back in the headlines, prompting Governor Mike Easley to apologize for his state’s eugenics policies. That apology, however, provided only cold comfort to survivors. The film interweaves the stories of crusading journalists and contrite politicians with the inner thoughts of eugenics survivors: Nial Ruth Cox, Willis Lynch, and Dorothy Mae Grant. The three had been sterilized as teenagers by a state Eugenics Board that had become increasingly aggressive about advocating for sterilization as the answer to problems of entrenched poverty.

As survivors’ stories unfold in the film, a new effort to atone for the wrongs done to them emerges— monetary compensation.

About the Speakers:

Dawn Sinclair Shapiro began her journalism career working for the award winning news magazine program, CBS News Sunday Morning.Dawn has worked as a Producer, Associate Producer, Writer, Online Editor/Writer for Tribune Broadcasting, CNBC, MSNBC, Dateline NBC and Chicago Public Radio. She directed, wrote and produced her first feature length documentary, “Inside the Handy Writers’ Colony”, which aired nationally on PBS on October 23, 2008. In addition to the summer 2010 release of The Edge of Joy, current projects include post-production on Dialogues with China, a character study of world-renowned curator of contemporary Chinese art, Wu Hung.

Alexandra Minna Stern is a Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan, and hold appointments in the Departments of History, Women’s Studies, and Obstetrics and Gynecology. Currently she directs the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and co-direct the Reproductive Justice Faculty Program based at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Her research has focused on the history of eugenics, genetics, society, and justice in the United States and Latin America. She also has written about the history of public health, infectious diseases, and tropical medicine. Through these topics, she has explored the dynamics of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, social difference, and reproductive politics.

For more information about the film The State of Eugenics and to watch the trailer, visit https://vimeo.com/191200802.

[snip]

Learn more at UC BERKELEY.

***

A RUDE AWAKENING—[20 MAR 2017]  [notes pending]

[snip]  (c. 29:59)

Learn more at A RUDE AWAKENING.

***

UPFRONT—[21 MAR 2017]  [notes pending]

[snip]  (c. 59:59)

Learn more at UPFRONT.

***

[1]  For more information on the documentary film, The State of Eugenics, and eugenics in general, see:

  • The Internet Movie Database (IMDb):  The State of Eugenics (2016)
  • The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics edited by Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine.
  • Against the Grain; 8 AUG 2006.
    • broadcast summary:  “Anthony Platt’s book “Bloodlines,” which begins with the Huntington Library announcing its ownership of an original copy of the Nuremberg Laws, explores anti-Semitism, German and US eugenics, and the responsibilities of cultural institutions.”
  • Against the Grain; 5 MAR 2008.
    • broadcast summary:  “Anna Stubblefield talks about how the US eugenics movement produced distinctions between “pure” and “tainted” whites, which led to the sterilization of many white women classified as feebleminded.  And Heather MacDonald has made a film about anti-gay politics and violence in Oregon in the context of a divisive ballot measure.”
  • Against the Grain; 12 JUN 2013.
    • broadcast summary:  “Biologist Stuart Newman contends that efforts to improve humans via inheritable genetic modification constitute a “new drive toward DNA-based eugenics.””
  • Letters and Politics – The History of the US Eugenics Movement; 11 JUL 2013.
    • broadcast summary:  “The History of the US Eugenics Movement with medical historian Alexandra Minna Stern, author of the book Eugenic Nation.  And, Ariel Dorfman.“
  • Pushing Limits – Eugenics and preventing disability; 29 AUG 2014.
    • broadcast summary:  “We want to cure cancer, end war, and clean up the environment.  But, what do we lose if we end the disabilities caused by these things?  þ  Our guest is Dr. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, a professor in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Emory University who works in the field of Critical Disability Studies.  þ  Let’s end war and, in the process, stop creating veterans with PTSD and brain injuries.  Let’s clean up the environment and end the epidemic of chemical sensitivity.  Let’s cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other diseases so people will not suffer their pain and limitation.  þ  But, wait.  Consider that, historically, people with disabilities have been horribly abused and murdered to meet a eugenics goal of eliminating disability.  When we assume prevention is positive, are we close to preaching a form of cultural genocide?  Will we eliminate the many future intellectual and cultural contributions by people with various disabilities if we eliminate their disability?  Do people with disabilities contribute something important, something that comes out of their experience of living with disabilities?  þ  Dr. Garland-Thomson navigates the philosophical, cultural and social landscape as Eddie Ytuarte asks, “Isn’t preventing disabilities a good idea. . . sometimes?””
  • Pushing Limits – Anne Finger: Soviet Eugenics; 2 DEC 2016.
    • broadcast summary:  “Modern genetics offers parents the dream of choosing the characteristics of their children and aborting those who don’t fit their ideal.  As scientists move in this direction, disabled people are understandably critical.  They cite, for instance, the strong historical link between genetics and eugenics.  þ  In this program, Oakland writer Anne Finger explores these issues with Eddie Ytuarte through the lens of eugenics in the Soviet Union.  þ  Ms. Finger tells stories of a variety of unusual characters seeking real or supposed scientific truth amid the maelstrom of gigantic changes occurring in Russia before, during, and following the October 1917 Revolution.  Her essay, “The Left Hand of Stalin: Eugenics in the Soviet Union,” appears in the volume, “Disability Politics in a Global Economy: Essays in Honour of Marta Russell.”  þ  In Nazi Germany the theory of eugenics brought the world the ideal of the perfect Aryan race.  This led to the round up and death of 275 thousand people with disabilities and, eventually, the death chambers of the holocaust.  þ  Eugenic theory took a different tack in the Soviet Union where the goal was, not the perfection of a specific race, but the perfection of humanity as a whole.   There was early USSR resistance to the Darwinian theory of “survival of the fittest,” Finger says, citing early scientists who found that, in the harsh Siberian climate “sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.”  þ  Join us for an in-depth look at eugenic-genetic questions.  þ  Produced and hosted by Eddie Ytuarte.”

[2]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  A Rude Awakening, this one-hour broadcast hosted by Sabrina Jacobs, Monday, 20 MAR 2017, 15:30 PST.

[3]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  UpFront, this one-hour broadcast hosted by Sabrina Jacobs, Monday, 21 MAR 2017, 07:00 PST.

***

[Image of UC Berkeley film screening of The State of Eugenics used via fair use.]

[21 MAR 2017]

[Last modified at 13:34 PST on 22 MAR 2017]

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...

“Issues” (2017) by Julia Michaels

15 Wed Mar 2017

Posted by ztnh in History of Pop Music, Music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

"Issues" (2017), Julia Michaels (b. Julia Carin Cavazos 1993), pop music

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—When I’m down, I get real down.  When I’m high, I don’t come down…

Messina

 

“Issues” (2017) by Julia Michaels

I’m jealous, I’m overzealous
When I’m down, I get real down
When I’m high, I don’t come down
I get angry; baby, believe me
I could love you just like that
And I could leave you just as fast

But you don’t judge me
‘Cos if you did, baby, I would judge you, too
No, you don’t judge me
‘Cos if you did, baby, I would judge you too

‘Cos I got issues
But you got ’em, too
So, give ’em all to me
And I’ll give mine to you
Bask in the glory
Of all our problems
‘Cos we got the kind of love
It takes to solve ’em

Yeah, I got issues
And one of them is how bad I need you

You do shit on purpose
You get mad and you break things
Feel bad, try to fix things
But you’re perfect
Poorly wired circuit
And got hands like an ocean
Push you out, pull you back in

‘Cos you don’t judge me
‘Cos if you did, baby, I would judge you, too
No, you don’t judge me
‘Cos you see it from the same point of view

‘Cos I got issues
But you got ’em too
So, give ’em all to me
And I’ll give mine to you
Bask in the glory
Of all our problems
‘Cos we got the kind of love
It takes to solve ’em

Yeah, I got issues
And one of them is how bad I need you

(I got issues, you got ’em too)
And one of them is how bad I need you
(I got issues, you got ’em too)

‘Cos I got issues
(I got)
But you got ’em, too
So, give ’em all to me
(You got ’em too)
And I’ll give mine to you
Bask in the glory
(I got issues)
Of all our problems
‘Cause we got the kind of love
(You got ’em too)
It takes to solve ’em

Yeah, I got issues (I got)
And one of them is how bad I need you (You got ’em too)
Yeah, I got issues (I got issues)
And one of them is how bad I need you (You got ’em too)
Yeah, I got issues (I got)
And one of them is how bad I need you

Songwriters:  ERIKSEN, MIKKEL / LEVIN, BENJAMIN JOSEPH / TRANTER, JUSTIN / BLANCO, BENNY / HERMANSEN, TOR / MICHAELS, JULIA

“Issues” lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

***

[JULIA MICHAELS lyrics are property and copyright of their owners.  “Issues” lyrics are provided here for educational and personal use only.]

[15 MAR 2017]

[Last modified at 11:43 PST on 1 MAY 2017]

Save

Save

Share this:

  • Tweet

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts
Newer posts →

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
%d bloggers like this: