Washington politicos lack not only courage, but along with Labor “Leaders”, lack historical perspective.
We are in the decline phase of the Capitalist system. It is not cyclical phenomonon, it is dying, almost dead. So it is also that we have long passed, overshot, the limits of growth on a finite planet with finite resources.
If we have any hope to adjust, we must recognize these realities and overthrow the paper shackles of the puppets in DC. Labor leaders may be able to fill the void if they would adopt the radical perspective that challenges every given of the Divine Right of Kings/Divine Right of Corporations, Investment Banks, Banks, Bourgeoise Landlords and all the lackey politicians and media that follow in cue.
We need something completely different. A Peoples Equity Union dedicated to community betterment, meeting the needs of people in an inclusive, affordable, humane, equitable, artisan, sustainable, and peaceful manner.
We need a fundamental overhaul and reorganization of the economic system.
But without leadership, the idiots will get up tomorrow and do something all too similar to what they did today. Is it approaching nothing?
Get real, Trumka. Face the Dead Air, and get Radical, like REAL LABOR LEADERS OF THE PAST. It is our only hope.
In Peace, Friendwalkin’, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
Eugene, OR
Peoples’ Equity Union
Showing posts with label Labor Issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labor Issues. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
AgriBUSINESS
Unless they can mechanize every aspect of the food production process, which of course they can't, they will eventually run out of willing and able workers to do their inhumane production work. It will wither away, the effects on pricing will be just the beginning. There will be no food.
It is not surprising that the attempting to profit-maximize corporate slavers and their servile educational and technological grunts have a total disdain for humanity in any aspect of their agriBUSINESS. They probably operate as loss leaders in highly diversified mega-corporations that falsify their records to show profits that don't and increasingly can't exist, eventually in all sectors of their fictitious entities.
The plight of farmers that you describe does not surprise me. As you ride the bus through Iowa, without exaggeration, one of every three farmsteads is abandoned and that does not count the ones that have been torn down.
Agriculture has always been a form of slavery and like I said, the enslavers will push it to the point of impossibility and we will all starve, unless we freeze first.
Ah, life in the gluttonous Pink Car Nation...
In Peace, Friendwalkin', Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
It is not surprising that the attempting to profit-maximize corporate slavers and their servile educational and technological grunts have a total disdain for humanity in any aspect of their agriBUSINESS. They probably operate as loss leaders in highly diversified mega-corporations that falsify their records to show profits that don't and increasingly can't exist, eventually in all sectors of their fictitious entities.
The plight of farmers that you describe does not surprise me. As you ride the bus through Iowa, without exaggeration, one of every three farmsteads is abandoned and that does not count the ones that have been torn down.
Agriculture has always been a form of slavery and like I said, the enslavers will push it to the point of impossibility and we will all starve, unless we freeze first.
Ah, life in the gluttonous Pink Car Nation...
In Peace, Friendwalkin', Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Letter to "Capitalist" Friend
Ian,
I am writing to request your assistance with respect to my strategy to transition the Private Investment Sector to a Quasi-Public Equity Sharing One. Certainly, if you have perused my web log you would have gleaned reference to such a fundamental paradigm shift from Capitalism to Socialism.
Recently, the USW (United Steelworkers) signed a letter of intent with the Mondragon Cooperative Community Corporation (MCC), a rather hopeful, peaceful evolutionary model that originated in the Basque Region of Spain and has grown tremendously (not without its problems associated with trying to integrate into the Capitalist Economy). I have been trying to work with USW, but have so far been rebuffed. My, not brazenly presented, suggestion that seriously pursuing such an intent translated to evolving the acronym USW to United Socialist Workers was rejected in an arrogant, reactionary manner.
I am frustrated by the apparent lack of historical perspective and long range vision that our Labor "leaders" possess.
Anyway, thee should read about Mondragon. I'll give a very brief recap.
They were formed in the Basque region of Spain, called Mondragon because it was a FORMER region of iron ore deposits and iron and steel smelting. The people of the region were separatists continuing rebellion in sympathy with the revolutionary movement in Spain, of which they were part, that was defeated by the notorious forces of Franco.
The Mondragon system came about as an attempt to positively channel the Socialist ideals of the communities in the region. They started not-for-profit workers' cooperatives with pre-determined revenues earmarked to re-invest in new workers' cooperatives. Being a very principled and democratic organization, based on the principles of the International Cooperative Alliance, and being fortunate enough to be starting while the Capitalist economy, within which they were working, was still in a growth phase (unlike the very dangerous resource constraints that the world faces now) and astute enough to find opportunity, they were fabulously successful.
They grew so much, so fast, that they began to and increasingly to stray from the ideals upon which they were formed, eventually being corrupted by their perceived growth needs and less than fully principled leadership that saw, rightly or wrongly the need to integrate themselves into the ways of Capitalism as they began joint ventures with less than principled Corporations.
Being a product of their times, they are not and never were "green".
Our discussion of Zip-Car, which I stated to be a less than optimal co-optation of the great and necessary idea of vehicle cooperatives, could be a small move in the right direction if it were structured as a not-for-profit worker/community hybrid cooperative.
Your thoughts?
In Peace, Friendwalkin', Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
Eugene, OR, USA
(541) 343-3808
I am writing to request your assistance with respect to my strategy to transition the Private Investment Sector to a Quasi-Public Equity Sharing One. Certainly, if you have perused my web log you would have gleaned reference to such a fundamental paradigm shift from Capitalism to Socialism.
Recently, the USW (United Steelworkers) signed a letter of intent with the Mondragon Cooperative Community Corporation (MCC), a rather hopeful, peaceful evolutionary model that originated in the Basque Region of Spain and has grown tremendously (not without its problems associated with trying to integrate into the Capitalist Economy). I have been trying to work with USW, but have so far been rebuffed. My, not brazenly presented, suggestion that seriously pursuing such an intent translated to evolving the acronym USW to United Socialist Workers was rejected in an arrogant, reactionary manner.
I am frustrated by the apparent lack of historical perspective and long range vision that our Labor "leaders" possess.
Anyway, thee should read about Mondragon. I'll give a very brief recap.
They were formed in the Basque region of Spain, called Mondragon because it was a FORMER region of iron ore deposits and iron and steel smelting. The people of the region were separatists continuing rebellion in sympathy with the revolutionary movement in Spain, of which they were part, that was defeated by the notorious forces of Franco.
The Mondragon system came about as an attempt to positively channel the Socialist ideals of the communities in the region. They started not-for-profit workers' cooperatives with pre-determined revenues earmarked to re-invest in new workers' cooperatives. Being a very principled and democratic organization, based on the principles of the International Cooperative Alliance, and being fortunate enough to be starting while the Capitalist economy, within which they were working, was still in a growth phase (unlike the very dangerous resource constraints that the world faces now) and astute enough to find opportunity, they were fabulously successful.
They grew so much, so fast, that they began to and increasingly to stray from the ideals upon which they were formed, eventually being corrupted by their perceived growth needs and less than fully principled leadership that saw, rightly or wrongly the need to integrate themselves into the ways of Capitalism as they began joint ventures with less than principled Corporations.
Being a product of their times, they are not and never were "green".
Our discussion of Zip-Car, which I stated to be a less than optimal co-optation of the great and necessary idea of vehicle cooperatives, could be a small move in the right direction if it were structured as a not-for-profit worker/community hybrid cooperative.
Your thoughts?
In Peace, Friendwalkin', Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
Eugene, OR, USA
(541) 343-3808
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
12/7/09 Post to AFL-CIO Blog
Yes, Cherry, you are correct.
There have always been these tendencies relative to Labor/"Management" Relations, and the real exclusion of thinkers, organizers, agitators, and brave strikers and fighters who often if not most of the time had the best interests of workers and the benefit of the poor, and more recently the natural environment/resource base in their minds, their hearts, their bodies.
You are right that Organized Labor has been, as we so colorfully say "blown out of the water", particularly in the last thirty years. I would venture a guess that many if not most who built the once strong labor movement in the USA, if alive, would admit that their complicity with Capitalists after they achieved a relative parity was a huge strategic mistake.
Did you know that Lawrence Summers, who was Clinton's Treasury Secretary and Geithner's boss and mentor, before the latter became Chief of the Federal Reserve of the Empire City was one of Ronald Reagan's Chief Economic Advisors?
Anyone who had a good introductory Economics course would know that Say's "Law", which supply-side economics is based on, is totally fallacious.
We now find ourselves in the very precarious position of a post over-supply side economy, where the off-shoring has deadened demand and accompanied by an imploding finite resource supply.
That's all for now.
It looks like the best we can do, these days, is keep chippin' away.
I have a sincere Cynical hope that that will change soon.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
Peoples' Equity Union
Eugene, OR
There have always been these tendencies relative to Labor/"Management" Relations, and the real exclusion of thinkers, organizers, agitators, and brave strikers and fighters who often if not most of the time had the best interests of workers and the benefit of the poor, and more recently the natural environment/resource base in their minds, their hearts, their bodies.
You are right that Organized Labor has been, as we so colorfully say "blown out of the water", particularly in the last thirty years. I would venture a guess that many if not most who built the once strong labor movement in the USA, if alive, would admit that their complicity with Capitalists after they achieved a relative parity was a huge strategic mistake.
Did you know that Lawrence Summers, who was Clinton's Treasury Secretary and Geithner's boss and mentor, before the latter became Chief of the Federal Reserve of the Empire City was one of Ronald Reagan's Chief Economic Advisors?
Anyone who had a good introductory Economics course would know that Say's "Law", which supply-side economics is based on, is totally fallacious.
We now find ourselves in the very precarious position of a post over-supply side economy, where the off-shoring has deadened demand and accompanied by an imploding finite resource supply.
That's all for now.
It looks like the best we can do, these days, is keep chippin' away.
I have a sincere Cynical hope that that will change soon.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,
Mike Morin
Peoples' Equity Union
Eugene, OR
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
With Respect to May Day
We've got much more to protest than for a thirty hour week. Many would like to have the opportunity to work thirty hours or maybe even more (especially if the work was interesting and productive for community betterment).
If we are going to discuss the more trivial pursuits of the historical Labor Movement, then I believe that we should be working for guranteed income and living wages for the folks that are trapped as wage earners in the Capitalist system.
Those are short term needs and they are important. However, our organizings must not preclude the larger issues such as financial systems restructuring, demand side management and supply side reallocation, neighborhood redevelopment, inclusion, humanity, equity, jobs... and, oh yeah, sustainability. In other words, an evolution to a socialist economy and concurrent political realignment.
If we are going to discuss the more trivial pursuits of the historical Labor Movement, then I believe that we should be working for guranteed income and living wages for the folks that are trapped as wage earners in the Capitalist system.
Those are short term needs and they are important. However, our organizings must not preclude the larger issues such as financial systems restructuring, demand side management and supply side reallocation, neighborhood redevelopment, inclusion, humanity, equity, jobs... and, oh yeah, sustainability. In other words, an evolution to a socialist economy and concurrent political realignment.
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