One of my frustrations with the semi-academic left is that they talk to each other too much and don't take their useful analysis to those who might listen and be effected. Yes, I'm all for taking it directly to the rank-and-file, but most folks on this list are even less likely to go organizing a million rank-and-filers than send a quick email to be read by labor activists over at SEIU's blog.
Nathan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis Redmond" <dredmond at efn.org> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 4:04 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Wimps on LBO
> Geez-- how many times on LBO have people railed against "labor
> bureaucrats"?
Generally speaking, those seem to be the people who never worked with unions or experienced a significant real life organizing campaign (I'm not talking demos, I'm talking the whole kit and caboodle, from target selection to campaign to card drive to elections).
> So SEIU opens a site soliciting comments on its largest new organizing
> effort, targeting the Wal-Marts of the country, and I've only seen one
> LBOer post over at the SEIU site.
Chill out, dude. I can't speak for others, but I tried to be a labor activist once, and totally sucked at it, mostly because I'm an inveterate text-geek, not a community organizer. So this is *my* resistance: Walmart is a giant vampire, sucking dry the surplus value of SE Asian workers. I've been writing a cultural analysis of the East Asian mass media (circa 1983-2001), showing how the new trans-Pacific consumer culture is spawning all these new and interesting forms of class struggle, and how the great artists of the day are tapping into those resistances. That's my personal contribution to the fight against consumer capitalism. Other LBOistas, especially the community activists, will be able to give much better brass-tacks advice than me.
> Don't you have the guts to tell Andy Stern at SEIU directly what's wrong
> with his leadership and how to do his job better?
If I was an SEIU member, sure. But I'm not. Stern was elected by the SEIU membership, so that's a question for SEIU members to decide. We indie Leftists can solicit, aid and advise, but union democracy rests on its members.
That said, Stern is a sharp dude. I know I'm going to get into trouble for saying this, but the top leaders of SEIU are sharp as a razor. Very quick, very pragmatic, and most of all, they don't like to lose. Echte Genossen ("true comrades"), as the IG Metallers/Verdistas would say. Big Purple is the future of the US labor movement.
-- DRR
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