Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog » lieberman

Julian Assange and Bill Bill Haywood

jstuart — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:03:13 +0000

Miami There are some pieces of this story that none of us really want to believe are happening, there are other parts that are way across the line are need huge pushback, as I have argued. Talking to Canadian associates last night about the case, there was consensus that this was a “family-oriented” blog, so I should skirt away from some of the Swedish surprises other than to say it has always been a solid rule of organizing to keep away from the volunteers, and clearly these sisters weren’t volunteering for quite the full package here. All that will sort out somehow, god knows, and stuff happens, and I’m petty alcohol was on the screen: young people!

But Attorney General Eric Holder, Senator Lieberman (?-CT), and the right wing bar’s new found love affair with the World War I era Espionage Act gives me the total creep out even more. We are past long memories certainly, but that doesn’t mean that history is not worth attention and that the warnings should be heeded.

The Espionage Act was categorically a blunt weapon to attack progressives and others out of favor. The great Non-Partisan League and its chief organizer, Arthur C. Townley, certainly one of the greatest ever, and many of its leaders had built a huge base starting in North Dakota and then sweeping like a prairie fire through the Plains and Mountain states with a pro-farmer, anti-corporate program and an organizing strategy that Townley famously attributed to “$5 and a Ford,” meaning dues and mobility for his organizers and his program.

Even more widely known was the use of the Espionage Act to eviscerate the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which then was something much different that the small time, marginal wannabe and cover band of today. They had organized frontline strikes in important industries in textiles, around free speech in San Diego and throughout the west, in the mines through the Western Federation of Miners which held sway in whole towns and counties in some parts of Idaho and Montana, and with leaders like Big Bill Haywood and other organizers, they were well known and highly regarded from coast to coast. They were not much of a business unionism operation and their disputes with Samuel Gompers and the fledgling American Federation of Labor (AFL) were equally contentious. They were a problem though, because politically they were pretty much stone cold anarchists, which is highly discomfiting to governments and other power structures because even when dissent and difference is tolerated, it has to be by a certain consensus on rules of engagement, which as we can see now from some of Assange and Wiki-leaks more bizarre pronouncements and threats is not part of the anarchist playbook as a rule.

When the U.S. Government arrested Big Bill Haywood and charged him under the Espionage Act, he did get bail, unlike Assange in the London this week, but of course one-eyed and gnarly Big Bill was not about to deny who he might have been, when it was as obvious as the day is long. As I recall it was in Chicago and the trial was scheduled for there as well. Haywood skipped bail and fled the country believing with damn good reason that no fair trial was possible for a fiery speaker and union leader as crusty as he had been. He ended up in Russia which in the wake of WWI and the Russian Revolution was the “it” place at the time. Emma Goldman, John Reed, and others were extending the grand tour to the east, so Haywood could expect some sympathy and support for his brand of politics and action.

I’m sure the authorities weren’t thinking about Big Bill as Julian Assange was denied bail in England, nor does Attorney General Holder or Senator Lieberman seem to be especially astute citizens of history in the kangaroo courts some of them are running, but Assange is clearly a rolling stone with increasing risks particularly about where he lays his head to rest, so who knows where he might have ended up. It might be worth Assange thinking about Big Bill Haywood and the demise of the IWW through this persecution of political differences in times of war and threats.

It’s fair to call it an ever present danger.

Finally Left Leverage on Healthcare

dine — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:32:16 +0000

Niagara Falls, Ontario Maybe progressives and liberals are finally willing to exercise some leverage rather than watching painfully as conservatives and moderates strip every bill that arises down to the bone with health care reform being the latest front page casualty? There are signs of a stirring.

SEIU and Andy Stern after having seemed for so long to have been a White House annex office at their headquarters on Dupont Circle finally is snapping back at the evisceration of health legislation. Trumka and the AFL-CIO are unhappy and balking at the compromises. MoveOn which has been indistinguishable from Obama’s Organizing for America is sending out emails targeting Lieberman and praising Senator Bernie Sanders and his threats to NOT vote for the health care bill’s Senate version. There are real discussions everywhere that people gather where folks are trying to find a way to still rationalize supporting so little at this late date in the fight.

My assumption is still that enough no’s will be held to get the votes come hell or high water. That assumption is based on the premise that once passed, evolution would improve the features of the package over time.

Talking to my colleagues in Canada is sobering, since here the evolutionary record is a dilution of health care benefits rather than improvement. Vision coverage for example In Ontario national health care pays for nothing. Not the glasses. Not the eye check even.

I’ve talked earlier about the problems with “opt outs” which are also prevalent in Canada. Each province (think states Americans) can add or subtract some parts of the package especially when it comes to paying for the costs of drugs and other add-ons to the basic health care package.

We need to be careful that we don’t go down from here, like our northern neighbors.

Make a Deal With Mary Landrieu

jstuart — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:22:17 +0000

New Orleans Senate debate is scheduled for tonight on Senator Reid’s patchwork quilt healthcare bill and as everyone head counts central figures become the ridiculous Joe Lieberman from Connecticut, the uncertain Blanche Lincoln preparing for a re-election campaign in Arkansas, and the go-with-the-wind Mary Landrieu from Louisiana, where I pull a lever.

I’m betting we get Mary’s vote on healthcare and she bails on labor law reform and maybe later on immigration, if it ever comes to a vote.

The maverick vote from Republican outlier Joseph Gao for the House healthcare reform who was the only member of the GOP to break ranks and vote with the Democratic majority helps pave the way for Landrieu partially because it once again underscores how deeply and desperately there is an understanding of the healthcare crises in Louisiana and the number of people left out of any insurance coverage. It also helps that abortion funding has become embattled in the House healthcare package. This has been the one area where Mary has consistently, and to her credit, actually showed conviction and political courage by standing firm with her base of women support even when it has encouraged the wrath and threats of excommunication from the Catholic hierarchy in Louisiana. It would be hard for her to find forgiveness if she went south on this. She also knows that if she votes for the Reid bill she can hide behind the state “opt out” on the public option, because she knows that’s going to be a huge fight in Louisiana, and she can say she’s on the sideline, “it’s up to Louisiana,” and take a walk on that.

The final kicker was the news reported that she had negotiated an agreement on the Senate side for a $100 to $300 million dollar bailout for Louisiana’s Medicare payment problems from the feds. I’m not saying she traded her vote for this little sweetener. This was just a little Louisiana leverage applied for some lagniappe to help her make the sale on a vote she has clearly decided to finally cast the right way for her desperate constituency.