> >From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> >
> >[This is pretty funny - they're soooo rigid, but they're also
> immensely
> >popular. And all without gangsters. I wonder if anyone at the AFL-
> CIO is
> >asking how the French unions can cause such trouble with just 8%
> density.
> >Maybe it's all that red wine.]
>
> Actually, according to Craig S. Smith, it's because the unions:
>
> >... have found a willing populace, thanks perhaps to the romantic
> legacy of
> >the French Revolution.
>
> So what the hell is wrong with the romantic legacy of the
> *American* Revolution?
The American Revolution is not as romantic as the French Revolution or the wars of independence in Latin America, because it didn't fight for independence by abolishing slavery (the French "voted to abolish slavery in all the French colonies on 4 February 1794" <http:// chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap8b.html>). So, the Americans ended up fighting each other over slavery in the mid-19th century, when Europeans were fighting for democratic revolutions. Just as the French were rising up to establish the Paris Commune, Blacks in the US were fighting for Black Reconstruction. It's interesting that the anti-CPE mobilizations are happening in France at the same time as the predominantly Latino pro-immigrant rights mobilizations in the US. Once again, while in France the class question alone can motivate workers of all colors to rise up, it takes a combination of class and race questions to motivate mainly workers of color to rise up in the US.
Political culture matters far more than dollars and cents questions.
Note that both of the recent national days of action against the CPE were held to coincide with the major evens in the calendar of the Paris Commune: 18 March 1871, when "the people of Paris seized the cannons of Montmartre and the soldiers rallied to the cause of the people, forcing the government to flee to Versailles" (Erik Grobet, "The Cry of the People: The Commune in Image," <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grobet270306.html>); and 28 March 1871, , when the Commune was officially established after the elections of 26 March 1871.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>