Sorry to be such a bother to such good and earnest people, but please allow me to further explain, (after my previous, and rather harsh 'Defeat is Victory' piece). Caliban is NOT 'anti-Union'. I am VERY much PRO-Union. "Us workin' folks gotta all stick together else we ain't gotta chance anymore" - Woody Guthrie. That sums it up. Lots of people have said the same, but nobody ever said it better than ole Woody. We must ALL 'stick together'. We must 'unite'. We must form 'union'. Surely we all know that these words derive from the Latin 'unum', meaning one. And surely we all can see that sinister forces in our nation are causing us to go in the EXACT opposite direction. We are being intentionally DIVIDED along the fatal fault lines of our most primitive tribal passions. The concept of 'union' is sound. It is the required 'scale' that remains occluded from our vision. That is where we are now, and that is where Humanity remains stalled, at the stage of being 'unified' into nations. There's nothing 'wrong' with nationalism. You don't destroy the smaller circles to make them parts of larger ones. You rather build and support the strength of the smaller 'unions'. You 'incorporate' them, whole and strong into the larger ones. The pattern is concentric. We all instinctively know this. But we have no 'circle' yet devised to encompass nations into the obviously needed circle, the human 'family of nations', the 'union' of nations. We all know that we are "whistling in the graveyard". Humanity will not survive much longer, our own grandchildren will not likely raise children of their own, unless we can create some kind of 'union', some kind of 'unity', to contain ALL the nations.  Expanding the concept of 'union' to an adequately large circle, into the proper 'scale', is the key. Forming unions is exactly what we need to do, but we must do it on a scale that matches the scale of the power we are confronting. To bring this back down to the scale of the so-called 'labor movement', what is the proper scale that can succeed in countervailing against the immense and highly sophisticated powers arrayed against us? Before trying to address that question, (which I intend to), first we could benefit from examining the inadequate scale we are thinking and working in now. Amazon has almost 1.3 million employees, (as of 2020). Organizing them into tiny .4% circles, (the work force of 5800 in the 'giant' Bessemer warehouse is only about 4 tenths of 1% of all of Amazon's employees), has ZERO chance of leading us to, or even toward success. And as I tried to point out in my last essay, claiming an incremental victory when all can see that we just suffered a crushing and humiliating defeat, just makes us look even weaker. It's a pitiably pathetic posture. It makes people snort in contempt of us because we are expressing our contempt for them. Working people are NOT stupid. Working folks in Bessemer, Alabama see and understand the immense power of Amazon perfectly well. Trying to convince people to risk their own security, because organizing this tiny .4% circle is going to succeed in countervailing against such immense power, is a contemptuous insult to working people's intelligence. Amazon is only one corporation in one nation. The smallest corporation in the largest 1000 US corporations has $2 billion in annual revenues. Amazon has almost a third of a TRILLION dollars in annual revenue. And these US corporations are actually supra-national corporations, and they are HIGHLY organized into a very sophisticated and powerful 'Syndicate' that controls governments. That Syndicate is organized into very well integrated concentric circles. (C'mon, folks. We ALL know this). If we attack them in only one small place, in Bessemer, Alabama, for example, they will marshall whatever forces are required to defeat us in that one small place. If they can defeat us with one cohort of infantry they will do that. If they have to 'go nuclear' to defeat us, they will do that. They will do whatever they have to do. In Bessemer, Alabama they didn't even have to try that hard. They barely stirred their pinky finger to defeat this 'all-out' effort. Rest assured ... They were fully prepared to do MUCH more had they needed to.  Thinking we can countervail against such a degree of power by organizing one tiny circle at a time, like the 'giant' Bessemer warehouse, which is actually tiny when viewed in scale, is foolish. It can never succeed. It's like thinking you can talk a few of your neighbors into standing up to challenge Tony Soprano and his boys. The bottom-up organizing v. top-down organizing dichotomy is a false one. Both must happen at the same time. Neither can succeed by itself. Each end nourishes the other. The collective is comprised of individuals. The macro is comprised from all the micros. All politics are local. That's true enough, but they're not ONLY local. It's also true that all politics are global. We're not going to get the workers in a single 'shop' to risk their immediate security, to risk their jobs, to risk their families well-being, to join something that they cannot conceive of being an entity that can prevail on the macro level. Without the macro vision to inspire us, the individual will not say to ourselves, "yes, I think this plan will work" . The people in the tiny circle must be able to see the larger more powerful concentric circles their tiny circle will be a part of.   Let's engage in some fantasy. Let's pretend that the Bessemer organizing drive was successful. If you were Jeff Bezos, if you had his evil self-serving motivations, how would you respond to such a defeat among .4 tenths of 1% of your employees? Would you allow a 'union victory' among this .4% of your workforce to stand, to inspire the other 99.6%? A less powerful corporation might simply go into 'stall' mode, refusing to cooperate with the new union, (as most all corporations do). Bezos, the sole owner of the Washington Post as well as Amazon, (and also intimate business partners with the CIA), would have many MUCH more powerful options. How much influence do we think he has cultivated in the US government? (He manages the CIA's cloud computer storage for them, besides having one of the nation's two 'newspapers of record' to serve as his personal megaphone). If I was him, and if I had his evil motivations, I sure know what I would do. I wouldn't dick around. I wouldn't waste time. No 'dance and jab'. No 'duck and weave'. No 'rope-a-dope'. A quick short right hand to the jaw, a devastating knockout blow. I'd just close the dang Bessemer facility down. I'd re-open another one just like it, just one state, or one county, or even just one town, over. If he did that, how do we think the NEXT Amazon organizing drive would go? You think you'd even get one vote? You think anyone would even talk to you? How much would it cost to close down a unionized Bessemer and re-open a non-union 'shop' to take its place? I have no idea. Let's say $100 million. (Say $250 million if you want, or $500 million). How much would it cost this evil goon Bezos if unionizing won a $1/hour raise for 1.3 million people? 1.3 million dollars per hour, for 8 hours per day, would equal $10.4 million per day. $100 million in less than 10 days. ($250 million in 24 days. $500 million in less than 2 months). Bezos might have better options than closing down Bessemer, but if he didn't, closing it down, no matter how much it cost, would be MUCH cheaper than letting a union victory inspire the other 99.6% of his employees. Have people just never thought of that, or what? It's been (what?) 15-16 years ago the UAW, then the most powerful US union, signed a gun-to-their-head "contract they couldn't refuse", which agreed to cut wages for new-hires in HALF. (In HALF!!). What was 'the gun'? The auto companies had already moved a large share of production to factories in Mexico. And the Super Wealthy Elites had already by that time used the terms of NAFTA to deliberately force about 10% of the ENTIRE population of Mexico, some 15 million desperately poor people, to migrate to the US in a twelve year period, to comprise a generous supply of 'scabs' (excess labor). "Sign here", they commanded, "or we'll shut down these factories and move the rest of our production to Mexico. Agree to lower wages, and we'll let you keep your jobs". And the UAW said, "OK". Large groups of incensed autoworkers wanted to fight back. They were enraged. They were chomping at the bit to 'take to the streets'. They wanted to organize politically to mount a fight. But what incentive did the wealthy UAW Big Honcho executives have to take that risk? THEIR pay wasn't being cut. Why should they risk their own jobs? Why should they bite the hand that feeds them? What would YOU do if you were this evil man, Jeff Bezos, if a union drive to unionize .4% of your employees succeeded, (instead of being voted down by a 71% majority, as it was in the real world)? .. Me? .. I don't figure Bezos got where he is by being stupid. I'm sure he's pretty good at simple arithmetic. Yea ... Short right hand square on the jaw ... watch that puny sucker RWDSU union faceplant like a falling tree on the rough-rosined canvas, then turn and smile arrogantly, hands raised in triumph, and say, "Who's next? Who ELSE wants to form a union?"  In the face of the IMMENSE power arrayed against us, we are NOT going to 'unite' people into 'unions' one tiny weak solitary union at a time. How can intelligent human beings ever think we could? Pass the PRO Act? (People's Right to Organize Act, for those who don't know, especially my international readers who perhaps don't keep up with such detail). Oh geez ... We just keep happily playing our simple-minded game of checkers in a complex game of 3d chess. (C'mon, folks ... Geez ...). Card check organizing? You want to paint the nation a picture of union thugs twisting arms to get unions formed? We ALREADY did all that. We already HAD thug-unions run by wealthy, powerful, and heavily entrenched 'union capos', but the whole thing fell apart. And we now think it will help working people just to start over and go through the whole charade again? Build the exact same thing back up again? Why did it all fall apart last time? What is different now? Even if we could build it up again in the current socio-political/economic environment, (even if a snowball would not melt in a blast furnace), why would the same thing not simply happen all over again? Only self-awareness can save us. If you could 'see yourselves as others see you' you would know what you look like, and how you sound, to working people. Asking working people to sacrifice their own security, and that of their families, to risk their jobs, to form a tiny circle 'union' that they can see perfectly well would just be squashed like Bezos slapping a bug on his neck, is nothing but raw contempt for the intelligence of American working people, by the people who just want their dues money. Let's see ... RWDSU is a sub-union of UFCW. Anthony Perrone, the current Capo that runs this UFCW 'crew', earns $341k per year. That's well up into the 'top 1%'. You want working people who are barely keeping their kids fed and the rain off their heads to risk their jobs, to risk their families' security, to pay dues to make this 'top 1%' wealthy and powerfully entrenched business executive, Big Tony Perrone, even wealthier and more powerful, on the off chance that they might someday get a raise if Amazon does not simply vomit them out of its evil dragon's belly and burn them to crispy critters with its evil breath to make an example of them?  If that's what you want, (as it apparently is),your degree of contempt for the intelligence of the people you are trying to organize is just staggering. Working folks are just NOT that stupid. They return your contempt in kind when they vote. They are NOT going to join this morally corrupt edifice of Big Labor because they can see perfectly well that it is morally corrupt. They can see perfectly well that Big Tony Perrone has no skin (nor bone nor blood) in this game.  When Reagan faceplanted PATCO in 1981, (nose first, like a falling tree, onto the rough-rosined canvas), with a short powerful right-hand to the jaw, the so called 'labor movement' still had the power to fight back. Organized Labor had the potential power to shut down the nation. But it would have taken courage and sacrifice on the part of the Union Capos. But Big Labor DIDN'T fight back!! It simply watched it happen. The entrenched Union Capos of American Organized Labor heard the peal of the so-called labor movement's death knell, and simply stood by and did NOTHING!! These powerful, wealthy, and deeply entrenched Union Capos did not lift a finger to try to 'save' the 'labor movement'. Why not? The simple obvious answer to that simple obvious question would tell us why it is so foolish now to just set out to build the same thing again that we already had before. Every 'union' was only its own separate circle. This so-called 'movement' had already by that time ceased to be organized into a concentric whole. In 1981, every union, each of them run by an wealthy, entrenched Union Capo, had actually bargained away Solidarity itself. O sure ... They continued to hold union rallies at which they'd lead the chorus in singing spirit-rousing renditions of 'Solidarity Forever', but each individual union, each wealthy Union Capo and his good-ole-boy gang of entrenched thugs, had been induced by their own self-interest to enter into contracts that actually FORBADE Solidarity. These contracts specified that a union was FORBIDDEN from striking in Solidarity with other unions. These contracts even specified that the Union Capos themselves could be imprisoned and heavily fined if their union exercised actual Solidarity with other unions. There were no concentric circles. Each union was a lonely tiny circle unto itself.  C'mon, folks. This ain't rocket science, fer crissakes. Solidarity is not just a 10 letter word. Solidarity is the 'whole shebang'. Concentric circles. Every 'union' has to be a strong tight circle, but that circle will have no power unless it is a concentric part of a larger circle. The pitiably and disgracefully weak remnants of this so called 'labor movement' in no way whatsoever even resembles anything that could possibly be construed by a rational and aware person as a 'movement'. Big Labor is nothing more than a loose collection of lucrative 'labor agency' subcontracting businesses, run by wealthy business executives who use a long dead mythology, ("Solidarity foreeeever...The Union makes us strong"), as they bargain away Solidarity itself, to grow and maintain their personal fiefdoms, in Big Money's neo-fuedal kingdom.   The Union Capos consciously bargained away American working people's ONLY strength. Why? A more pertinent question is maybe why isn't it obvious why? Because it was in their own self-interest to do so. Striking workers can't pay dues. Labor unrest is just a big headache for these wealthy Barons of Big Labor. You think they want the constant hassle? They want to enjoy their status, wealth, and privilege, not waste their time fighting for the dirty lowly peons. They signed away Solidarity itself because they no longer shared the interests of working people. Wealthy people have boat payments to make. You think your mortgage is bad? I'd sure like to see a picture of Richard Trumka's house. Or Mary Kay Henry's. Or Anthony Perrone's. What neighborhoods do the top 1% live in? What kind of houses do the top 1% live in? Imagine what their mortgage payments must be. These people, these Union Capos, these Barons of Big Labor, have nothing in common with our nation's suffering working people. They are an intrinsic part of the SAME status quo power structure that Jeff Bezos sits atop of. The top .1 %, or even the top .01%, may be calling the shots, but the top 1% Union Capos are surely enjoying the spoils of wealth and privilege. These wealthy union executives serve as 'agents', as labor management subcontractors, for the Big Money corporations. Like any and all 'agents', (in any business deal), their own self-interest lies in 'striking a deal'. Just like a real estate agent, it doesn't really matter to them which party gets the best deal, as long as a deal is made. Good deal. Bad deal. What does it matter to them? They get their cut, as long as a deal, as long as ANY deal, gets DONE. Bargaining away working people's ONLY power, bargaining away Solidarity itself, is in these powerful and deeply entrenched Union Capos' own best interests. They just do what humans do. They take care of themSELVES.   PATCO was the short powerful right hand that faceplanted the entire morally corrupt, Union Capo dominated edifice of Organized Labor. Reagan saw the opening. He saw that Big Labor had ceased to be a bona fide 'movement'. Every Union Capo just stood by and watched PATCO fall like a cut-down tree. Every one of these morally corrupt wealthy labor executives, these wealthy Barons of Big Labor, did NOTHING! Nothing at ALL!! They did not lift a finger as American Labor's death knell pealed.  What's different now? What's changed, besides that working people have suffered the devastating consequences of Big Labor's moral corruption? We still have wealthy powerfully entrenched Union Capos running organized labor as a collection of personal 'fiefdoms' in Big Money's increasingly feudal kingdom. These Labor Capos are still deeply entrenched in power. Do they not understand that despite their contempt for working people, us workin' folks are not stupid? We can see the moral corruption of Big Labor perfectly well. 71% of the Bessemer workforce that voted, voted 'NO' to a union. Only 52% of the entire Bessemer workforce even voted at all. Barely 12% of the entire Bessemer workforce voted to join the venal and morally corrupt US 'labor movement'. And the Union Capos and their disappointed minions are now crying 'foul, like silly crybabies, over Bessemer. "Unfair labor practices" they bawl out. We gotta pass the PRO act. We gotta have 'card-check' organizing. No secret ballots. We gotta be able to twist arms in private to squeeze dues outta the marks. We gotta fight 'right to work' laws. We gotta have the power to FORCE unwilling workers to pay us dues. (Yea ... That's sure going to go over big with working people).  And happily playing their simple minded games of checkers, as their Enemy, the King, plays 3d chess, they now take solace in the fact that the senile sock-puppet, ole Uncle Joe Biden, is on their side. "Scrap the filibuster", they bellow. Pass the PRO Act. "Heh-heh-heh". The evil resounding chuckle of the Ruling Elites that control the Uncle Joe sock puppet can be EASILY heard by anyone paying proper attention. The Ruling Elites, who control BOTH political parties, (as we ALL know perfectly well that they DO), are salivating at the prospect of sacking the filibuster, and then just needing to win a simple majority (on either side, they don't care) to pass anything they want to. The whole 'democracy charade' just gets that much easier for them to twist this way and that without these inconvenient rules that protect the minority against a 'tyranny of the majority'. "Heh-heh-heh", the Ruling Elites' sinister chuckle reverberates through the halls of Congress, echoes in the Oval Office, and resounds through the Halls of Justice. The current party in power speaks on behalf of the Ruling Elites who pull their strings, "We gotta throw these stupid Lefties some table scraps. We'll pass the PRO Act in the House, and pretend that we want it to pass in the Senate too, although we know perfectly well that it NEVER will". "We'll lure them into howling like stupid mindless banshees for eradicating the filibuster", the Democrats go on, in full service to the Elites, formulating their brilliantly evil plan, "and if they're dumb enough to do THAT, as it sure looks like they are, well, heh-heh-heh, that makes EVERYTHING much easier for us. Let's just go ahead and pass the PRO Act. Let's go ahead and throw the stupid Lefties a bone. Let them think we're on their side. That's exactly what we want them to think so they'll keep being too stupid to form up into their own political front. With good ole sheep-dog Bernie helping to keep them in line, and the bimbo glamour girl AOC helping out too, they'll just keep voting for us. They'll just keep voting for their own Enemy to remain in power. And if the DARE even think about forming their OWN party, well, we've got loyal old SDS 'radicals' like Carl Davidson, (and all his old Bolshevik buddies, and the old SEIU house-negro Bill Fletcher to punish them and whip them back into the Democratic Party Machines 'big tent' to do the bidding of their OWN Enemy, the Ruling Elites. "Trick them into thinking they can rebuild the same moribund 'labor movement' that failed last time", the Dems go on, in service to their Elite Masters. "Go ahead and pass the PRO Act if we need to, in exchange for obliterating the filibuster. We've got all the wealthy Union Capos in our pockets anyway, reliably bargaining away Solidarity itself. And we've got all these Lefty idiots in full roar anyway, supporting a Race War that they're too myopically stupid to see how idiotically counterproductive it is for them. They can't even win but barely more than a fourth of the vote in a 'shop' that is 85% black. Imagine how they'll do in integrated 'shops' where we can now EASILY stir up racist hatred of EVERY race against EVERY other". "Keep them immigrants pouring in", the Dems ALL say, in service to their Elite Masters. "Nothing strikes deadly fear into working people like desperate scabs lining up to take their jobs, eager and willing to work for less. Keep calling every working person who resents scabs pouring across the nation's 'picket line', pouring across across the nation's border to steal their jobs, keep our Mass Media calling working people with the sense to see what's what, keep calling them no good white supremacist nazi racist scum for opposing Open Borders, (even though African Americans quite naturally oppose immigration by a 3-1 margin)". "These stupid Lefties we have dancing on our strings", the Ruling Elites' loyal servants, the Dems, go on, "are so dingbat confused that they don't know which way is up. Orwell described all this, but it was people like Goebbels who really taught us how. Get them to think up is down. In is out. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Defeat is victory. More desperate scabs crossing the border by the teeming millions is good for American working people". "And most of all", saith the Elites' loyal servants, the Democratic Party Machine, "keep the Race War raging on. Get these Lefty idiots to keep themselves twisted up into their bizarre cult Identitarian ideology. Keep the Common People's most primitive tribal passions raging like the hottest fire. Keep racial hatred flowing like hot lava, and get these twisted Lefty idiots to believe that getting every tribal group among the Common People to hate every other is the vital key to forming up into strong unions." (Yea ... This poor pitiably ridiculous Marionette Left is really THAT 'confused'. Stupid is an unkinder but more accurate word). That's what working people's evil tormentors, the Ruling Elites, led by evil people like Jeff Bezos, are saying to each other. C'mon, folks. This ain't all that complicated. It sure ain't rocket science. Yea ... Chess is a little more complicated than checkers, but not so much so that we can't learn. If we just all take a long deep breath, hold it for a few brief moments while we listen to our own human hearts beating out the soft sure sound of our living Humanity, as EVERY human heart does, we can awaken from this nightmare. We can awaken from this crazy 'wokeness' that now has EACH of us twisted into crazed hateful 'gordian' knots. It's not hopeless. It only seems so. We ALL can easily awaken from this 'woke' nightmare that is onkly leading us to blood and ruin. Gimme ten Joshua Brewers. Gimme ten people with his magnificent spirit and courage. Let me take away their checkers sets and teach them 3d chess. They can play this game perfectly well. They just need to learn the moves. Gimme just ten like him, and we can start down the long road to winning this thing. Gimme a hundred, and a thousand, and we'll soon be millions strong. We just need a better 'plan', that's all. Caliban has one that WILL WORK! But this essay is already far too long, and Caliban is an old man. Energy wanes, and the hens still need to be fed and watered. Yea ... This is a little bit complicated, but c'mon, folks, it just ain't rocket science, fer crissakes We can DO this. Right now they got us EXACTLY where they want us. Get the Common People to believe that eternal Truth itself is a lie. Once they believe that, they won't know what to believe, and then they won't be able to think at ALL. Heh-heh-heh. They got us EXACTLY where they want us. Caliban R Zwarich Bent Birch Farm 63 Webber Rd Brookfield, MA 01506 774 449-8030 |
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