First appeared at SocialistWorker.org on 5/5/11.
The Exploitation of NineEleven
I HAD two responses to the killing of Osama bin Laden. One was sober--it was about September 11.
I was near the towers that day, working at a UPS facility in lower Manhattan. It was, as you might expect, an awful day. I saw people jumping to their death. I felt fear like I've never known, although it turned out I was never in any real danger.
But in recent years, I almost forgot I was there as the events of that day got lost behind "NineEleven"--the official celebration of American innocence and victimhood.
My memories of that day don't fit the typical narrative of instant unity and desires for collective vengeance. When the second tower was hit, it sparked screaming matches across the city between UPS workers and their managers, who wanted the drivers to stay on the job--in some cases so we wouldn't give up prized parking spaces. In the ensuing weeks, I delivered packages to glum office workers who knew they were breathing in dangerous particles, assurances of the Environmental Protection Agency be damned.
And I remember how Union Square became a 24-hour gathering spot for strangers to cry and sing and debate why the attacks had happened, and what was the appropriate response.
The only aspect of official "NineEleven" that I can attest to was the heroism of the first responders. While most of us fled the chaos and destruction, they drove in the opposite direction to help those in the middle of it. And when the first tower collapsed, and we stood on the Brooklyn Bridge watching--an unforgettably surreal sight--we knew that some of those who had driven past us minutes earlier were now dead.
I don't begrudge the friends and family of those who died that day their feelings of satisfaction or vengeance at bin Laden's death. But I also don't forget that their grief has been used to cause widowhood and bereavement for an exponentially greater number of Afghani, Iraqi, Pakistani and Yemeni friends and families, all in the name of finding Osama.
Some of the loved ones of September 11 victims approve of this, and some don't. Either way, it was never up to them. NineEleven is owned by the White House and Pentagon. It's the get-out-of-jail free card for all future American war crimes, and even past ones--starting with taking the name "Ground Zero" from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Recently, NineEleven was losing its mojo. Rudy Giuliani put it up for election in the 2008 elections, and it didn't even make it past its first primary. The eventual winner of that election was a cosmopolitan professor who promised to move us past the globally embarrassing stupidity of "Bring it on" and "They hate our freedoms."
But with bin Laden's murder, the hype machine has been cranked back up again. Reporters are breathlessly telling the story of the amazing commando raid, which could turn out to be a production from the same folks who brought you "The Amazing Adventures of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch."
And on Thursday, Barack Obama is going to Ground Zero (in New York City, not Japan) to enter the pantheon of NineEleven heroes.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
WHICH BRINGS me us to my other response to bin Laden's killing: satire. Here's a speech that I'm offering to Obama to use for use at the World Trade Center site on Thursday:
When I ran for president, I promised to bring back an America that can do whatever we set our mind to--the America that built the automobile industry, put a man on the moon and ended racial segregation.
Today, we can proudly tell the world that America may not be what it used to be, but when we work together and spend incredible amounts of money, we can locate any human being on the planet and kill him! Say it with me, everybody: Yes we can! Yes we can!
Families will remember this day for generations to come--some of us will annually gather around our framed New York Daily News headline: "Rot in Hell." When our children despair of ever finding a job, we'll reassure them: "Now remember, son, what did America do when it looked like we'd never find bin Laden?" And if they say, "Bribe a Pakistani intelligence official," we'll wash their mouth out with soap until they give us the correct answer about persistence and courage.
Today, we celebrate the daring and the heroism of the elite Special Forces units that tracked down and killed the enemy in central Pakistan. But we should also celebrate the sacrifice and suffering of the hundreds of thousands of American troops who have served hundreds of miles away from the enemy--in Iraq and Afghanistan. These young men and women should feel proud to have participated in the largest decoy operation in military history.
Now I'm not going to lie. Our nation has spent a tremendous amount of resources in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In fact, some economists have estimated that the total cost of America's wars since September 11 is $3 trillion. But if bin Laden took comfort in that, the final joke was on him, because much of that money stayed right here in the pockets of American weapons manufacturers and military contractors. All together now: USA! USA!
Perhaps most importantly, today brings closure for the families of those who died in the September 11 attacks. The type of closure that comes not from a criminal trial in which the accused is definitively convicted and punished, but from a secret military operation that leaves no witnesses and breeds conspiracy theories for decades to come.
Let us remember the spirit of community we felt in the days after the September 11 attacks. Firefighters and construction workers thought nothing of risking their long-term health breathing fumes while they conducted search and rescue operations. Yet today, these same workers are unwilling to give up their health care plans to rescue the American economy. Let's put aside such petty self-interest in the service of our country.
We all know that Washington has lost some of the unity of those days, too. It's not right for politicians to ask the American people to do one thing while we're doing another. That's why I'm announcing today that for the rest of my term, I promise to agree to all Republican proposals--no matter how insane--and spare the nation the divisiveness of political debate.
The world is a safer place now that Osama bin Laden is dead. This safety puts us all in great danger from the terrorists who want to avenge his death. These evildoers are still quite capable of attacking us because bin Laden was merely their symbolic leader. In fact, you might say that his murder was the most significant military achievement that has absolutely no military impact in American history.
Let me conclude by saying that Americans did not choose this fight. And, trust me, you won't get to choose the next three being cooked up in the Pentagon either. But today is a day for all of us to unite in celebration, while keeping our eyes peeled for which one of us might be a terrorist.
Thank you and God Bless America.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
The Still-Groggy Giant
First appeared at SocialistWorker.org on 3/29/11.
The Still-Groggy Giant
ALMOST EVERY interview I heard from the Wisconsin protests included some version of the line "Scott Walker woke up a sleeping giant."
It got to the point where I was hoping to hear that teachers and nurses rampaged through the capitol building chanting, "Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a Republican!" When workers in Madison finally stood up after taking years of abuse, they did indeed look like a giant towering over the Tea Party, which was suddenly revealed to be a little man with a big Fox News megaphone.
So what happened when Scott Walker poked the giant in the eye by ramming through his anti-union bill? More than 150,000 workers gathered to let out a mighty roar and vowed to...gather signatures to recall the governor next year.
Wait a second. Walker is trying to get rid of public-sector unions not next year but now--isn't there something more immediate and direct that can be done?
The fact that most protesters agreed with the recall strategy pushed by union leaders and politicians shows that even as workers begin to sense their power, they don't know how best to use it. In other words, the giant seems to wake up the way most of us do--groggy and with eye boogers.
In truth, workers have a weapon more powerful than the campaign contribution or the tri-folded brochure. We don't celebrate the great Flint Phone Bank of 1937 or remember how Eugene Debs organized railroad workers to campaign in swing states. By responding to Walker's passage of the bill with a recall campaign instead of a strike, unions are essentially bringing an online petition to a gunfight.
It's also a step backward from the participatory democracy that thousands experienced in the Capitol rotunda, where for two weeks a "people's mic" was open to all. Imagine if corporate lobbyists had to do their business in the rotundas of Capitol buildings instead of the private offices:
Uh, hi everybody. My name is Phil, and I work for Koch Industries. I think we should support this environmental exemption because it will make my company a boatload of money. Thank you, and God bless America.
On the recall campaign, free expression will be replaced by a script, which will praise the "Fab 14" Democratic senators for standing up to Walker but say precious little about what their party proposes to do if elected.
That's because the major debate in our two-party system today is whether to fund three wars and corporate tax breaks by stealing workers' pensions or to fund three wars and corporate tax breaks by stealing workers' pensions and busting their unions.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
WHAT THOSE weeks of protest in Wisconsin that captivated the national spotlight showed was that tens of thousands of workers in Wisconsin--and presumably millions across the country--reject that non-debate and were looking for a radical strategy to bring about a different outcome.
For the first time in generations, people who raised the idea of a general strike were not considered crazy--or French.
There hasn't been a general strike in this country since a couple of Scott Walker's Republican ancestors named Taft and Hartley passed a law in 1947 that barred workers from striking against anyone other than their direct employer. In other words, you are not allowed to withhold your labor to protest laws or support other workers in the land of the free.
Taft-Hartley denies workers their most powerful form of political expression and forces us to compete--with corporations--in the rigged game of American politics. To paraphrase Anatole France, American democracy, in its majestic equality, allows both workers and CEOs to donate a million dollars to candidates or invite them for rides on their private jets.
(Funny story about Taft-Hartley, by the way. Harry Truman and the Democrats campaigned the year after it was passed on a promise to overturn the law. So unions launched a massive turnout effort, re-elected Truman, won Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, and...we still have Taft-Hartley. Truman himself used it 12 times to break strikes in his second term.)
Unions have been fighting a losing battle ever since. Somehow, they managed to find $74 million in 2008 to elect a president who visited the Madison protests as many times as he visited the moon. They're vowing to raise even more in 2012. Jesus Christ, how are workers going to come up with that money? There are only so many binder clips and pens we can steal from the office.
If this strategy wasn't already obviously bankrupt, Republicans like Scott Walker are trying to drive the point home by abandoning the old rules and trying to eliminate unions entirely. You might think that this would be the time to say screw it and fight for survival.
But that's not how most labor leaders think. If one of these guys saw his house in flames, he would dash off to the bank to get money for a Democrat who promised to put out the fire after his election.
It's going to be up to the rank-and-file radicals (new and old) to find each other and figure out how to make this giant rise and shine.
The Still-Groggy Giant
ALMOST EVERY interview I heard from the Wisconsin protests included some version of the line "Scott Walker woke up a sleeping giant."
It got to the point where I was hoping to hear that teachers and nurses rampaged through the capitol building chanting, "Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a Republican!" When workers in Madison finally stood up after taking years of abuse, they did indeed look like a giant towering over the Tea Party, which was suddenly revealed to be a little man with a big Fox News megaphone.
So what happened when Scott Walker poked the giant in the eye by ramming through his anti-union bill? More than 150,000 workers gathered to let out a mighty roar and vowed to...gather signatures to recall the governor next year.
Wait a second. Walker is trying to get rid of public-sector unions not next year but now--isn't there something more immediate and direct that can be done?
The fact that most protesters agreed with the recall strategy pushed by union leaders and politicians shows that even as workers begin to sense their power, they don't know how best to use it. In other words, the giant seems to wake up the way most of us do--groggy and with eye boogers.
In truth, workers have a weapon more powerful than the campaign contribution or the tri-folded brochure. We don't celebrate the great Flint Phone Bank of 1937 or remember how Eugene Debs organized railroad workers to campaign in swing states. By responding to Walker's passage of the bill with a recall campaign instead of a strike, unions are essentially bringing an online petition to a gunfight.
It's also a step backward from the participatory democracy that thousands experienced in the Capitol rotunda, where for two weeks a "people's mic" was open to all. Imagine if corporate lobbyists had to do their business in the rotundas of Capitol buildings instead of the private offices:
Uh, hi everybody. My name is Phil, and I work for Koch Industries. I think we should support this environmental exemption because it will make my company a boatload of money. Thank you, and God bless America.
On the recall campaign, free expression will be replaced by a script, which will praise the "Fab 14" Democratic senators for standing up to Walker but say precious little about what their party proposes to do if elected.
That's because the major debate in our two-party system today is whether to fund three wars and corporate tax breaks by stealing workers' pensions or to fund three wars and corporate tax breaks by stealing workers' pensions and busting their unions.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
WHAT THOSE weeks of protest in Wisconsin that captivated the national spotlight showed was that tens of thousands of workers in Wisconsin--and presumably millions across the country--reject that non-debate and were looking for a radical strategy to bring about a different outcome.
For the first time in generations, people who raised the idea of a general strike were not considered crazy--or French.
There hasn't been a general strike in this country since a couple of Scott Walker's Republican ancestors named Taft and Hartley passed a law in 1947 that barred workers from striking against anyone other than their direct employer. In other words, you are not allowed to withhold your labor to protest laws or support other workers in the land of the free.
Taft-Hartley denies workers their most powerful form of political expression and forces us to compete--with corporations--in the rigged game of American politics. To paraphrase Anatole France, American democracy, in its majestic equality, allows both workers and CEOs to donate a million dollars to candidates or invite them for rides on their private jets.
(Funny story about Taft-Hartley, by the way. Harry Truman and the Democrats campaigned the year after it was passed on a promise to overturn the law. So unions launched a massive turnout effort, re-elected Truman, won Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, and...we still have Taft-Hartley. Truman himself used it 12 times to break strikes in his second term.)
Unions have been fighting a losing battle ever since. Somehow, they managed to find $74 million in 2008 to elect a president who visited the Madison protests as many times as he visited the moon. They're vowing to raise even more in 2012. Jesus Christ, how are workers going to come up with that money? There are only so many binder clips and pens we can steal from the office.
If this strategy wasn't already obviously bankrupt, Republicans like Scott Walker are trying to drive the point home by abandoning the old rules and trying to eliminate unions entirely. You might think that this would be the time to say screw it and fight for survival.
But that's not how most labor leaders think. If one of these guys saw his house in flames, he would dash off to the bank to get money for a Democrat who promised to put out the fire after his election.
It's going to be up to the rank-and-file radicals (new and old) to find each other and figure out how to make this giant rise and shine.
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