| Home | About CDSA | New Ground | Events | Debs Dinner | Links | Join DSA | Audio | Email us |
New Ground 106May - June, 2006Contents
New Ground 106.1 - 05.23.2006
New Ground 106.2 - 06.03.2006
New Ground 106.3 - 06.13.2006
New Ground 106.4 - 06.22.2006
The Illinois Coalition for Peace and Justiceby Bill Barclay
Founding ConferenceThey came from Mahomet. They came from DeSoto. They came from Griggsville. They came from Rock Falls. And of course they came from Chicago, Oak Park, Champaign-Urbana and Bloomington-Normal. If you don't recognize some of these places, look them up because they illustrate the geographical spread of the Illinois movement against the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. On April 1st, delegates from more than 80 organizations met in Champaign-Urbana for the Founding conference of the Illinois Coalition for Peace and Justice (ICPJ). The organizations spanned the range of the diverse anti-war movement in Illinois and the US. There were student groups from campuses in the northern, central and southern parts of the state, representatives of religious-based peace and justice committees, community organizations active against the war and on an array of other issues, and a scattering of representatives from the growing labor activism against US militarism and the Iraq War. The delegates debated a range of proposals for political action. Anti-war ballot initiatives, a march from Springfield to Chicago, a sustained campaign against Illinois representatives who fail to actively oppose the war, advocacy of a Department of Peace, creation of a data base on all Illinois elected political officials' Iraq War stands, and action against Illinois based war profiteers garnering the most support from the delegates. Several of these actions are already underway. The impetus for the conference was the growing sense that we, those of us who oppose the US imperial adventure in Iraq, are the majority and we need to start acting like and mobilizing like one. The goal of the conference was to create a network of groups across the state that could act together to increase the impact of each. To achieve this goal the delegates established a loose organizational structure. A Coordinating Committee consisting of individual committee chairs (elected at the conference) and at large members to insure diversity will discuss ICPJ issues on a regular basis. However, any member organization may use the tools of the ICPJ website to recruit other ICPJ members for an action or campaign, insuring continued support for a range of political work.
Initial ICPJ ActivitiesThe contacts made established and the ideas exchanges at the founding conference have already borne fruit. Immediately after the conference several ICPJ member organizations began working on the strategic goal of "nationalizing" the November elections, countering candidates' tendency to run on disparate, local issues. Instead, the election should be a referendum on the Bush administration's Iraq War policy. The initial step in this effort was to utilize the democratic structures that exist at the township level in Illinois. Several ICPJ member organizations began efforts to get an Iraq War referendum on their township November ballot by attending their township's annual meeting of electors (any registered voter in the township). The wording of the referendum closely tracks the wording used by the Wisconsin Peace and Justice Network in their recent success in obtaining approval for this resolution in more than 20 Wisconsin cities and towns.
ICPJ member organizations succeeded in placing this referendum on the November ballot in the Aurora, Berwyn, DeKalb, Geneva, Oak Park and Sycamore townships as well as in the cities of Springfield and Champaign. However, this is only the beginning of ICPJ work around the November election. A large number of member organizations are now turning their attention to getting a similar proposal on county wide ballots, including Cook and the surrounding collar counties. This task is much bigger, requiring valid signatures of 8% of the number of voters in the previous gubernatorial election. While the challenge is significant, ICPJ members are confident this goal can be achieved in many locales and that the process of collecting these signatures will itself increase the salience of and opposition to Bush's war among Illinois residents. Most importantly, success in placing this referendum on countywide ballots will provide a vehicle for anti-war groups to demand that candidates speak to the issue of the Iraq invasion rather than ducking this most important national issue. ICPJ organizations are also involved in the innovative effort by state Rep. Karen Yarbrough to request that the Illinois state legislature call for the U.S. House to consider impeachment proceedings against George Bush. Under what are known as the Jefferson Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives, any state legislature may call for impeachment of a sitting president (or vice president) and the House must consider this as a priority item of business. This action is obviously a higher stakes effort but it shows the benefits for the anti-war movement of a state wide organization.
Looking ForwardICPJ is barely two months old but the organizational gains from its creation are already evident. Without the contacts made through the founding conference, coming together on ballot initiatives or the Yarbrough impeachment resolution would have been more difficult. Certainly fewer of the township resolutions would have on the November ballot. The organizers of the founding conference were careful to limit the range of formal political discussion to U.S. militarism and the Iraq War, not because we saw these as the only issues facing us but because we wanted to get an organization up and running without distracting discussions on the broad range of questions on which many of us work. However, we believe that the formulation "peace and justice" allows scope for the political growth of ICPJ as the member organizations become more confident and have the experience of working together. The potential for this broader focus was foreshadowed in the break out sessions at the founding conference itself. These ranged from discussions of the interaction/tension between popular pressure and electoral work to how progressives can/should use the media to feminism and US militarism. Stay tuned or better yet, join us. ICPJ has only begun its journey.
Editor's Note: Bill Barclay was a member of the ICPC Conference Planning Committee. He is a member of Greater Oak Pak DSA, a founding member of DSA, and is on the OPCTJ Organizing Committee. A Nation on the Move: the 48th Annual Debs Thomas Harrington Dinnerby Ron Baiman The assembled convened for the 48th Annual Debs Thomas Harrington dinner on a beautiful spring night at the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza, against a backdrop of marches and demonstrations. There was a sense that the great masses of America had come alive. And though this meant some empty seats (some of our usual comrades were off on the all night ride to New York to march in the April 29 anti-war march), the attendees reveled in the sense of renewed activism and in anticipation of the May 1 immigration march that was to be the largest demonstration in Chicago history. The Dinner Committee's honoring of an organization, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), a key sponsor of the peace march, was more than symbolic of this new hope translated into activism. Master of Ceremonies, long time Chicago DSA Secretary and retired UCC Minister, Rev. Eugene Birmingham, started the evening with a passage from Michael Harrington's The Politics of God's Funeral by stating that though "the political God is dead, the politics of the spirit is what can bring us together". Gene than recognized and thanked the two most important organizers of the dinner: the visible Carl Shier, grandmaster of the dinner since its inception, and the invisible (as usual) co-grandmaster and volunteer organizer of the dinner, Bob Roman. A number of years ago, Bob revealed himself to a Dinner but has since gone under cover again behind the DSA tables in the hallways. Calvin MorrisGene Birmingham then asked Jane Ramsey, Director of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and former member of the Harold Washington Administration, to introduce the first honoree of the night, Reverend Dr. Calvin Morris, Executive Director of the Community Renewal Society (CRS) and Chicago Jobs with Justice co-Convener. Ramsey proceeded to enumerate some of the highlights of Calvin Morris' personal history. This included serving as: Associate Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Congress Operation Bread Basket (now Rainbow-Push) under Martin Luther King, and as Director of the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta with Coretta Scott King; a myriad of distinguished academic posts at Simmon's College in Boston, Howard School of Divinity in Washington DC, and the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta; to the CRS in Chicago. Throughout his career, Ramsey said, Calvin Morris has been a smart, reflective, activist, who is a passionate activist for peace and social justice who is always on the side of labor and the poor. Ramsey than read the Debs Thomas Harrington award to Morris:
After thanking Ramsey and the Committee, and noting that he had been to the dinner many times over the years "in many capacities," Calvin Morris demonstrated his prodigious ability to inspire and move people with his acceptance remarks. He talked about growing up in North Philadelphia where his Mom was a chambermaid in a hotel, his dad a sanitation worker, and his grandparents laundry and Junior High School food service workers. He noted that there was not one college educated person in the entire Congregation of the small North Philly Mission Church that he grew up in. "These people," he said, "are my heroes. I owe to them whatever I have been able to do with my life." From these roots, he said, he had been encouraged and supported by his family, who "had to take a lot of stuff" from employees in order to help him to become the person that he is. He said that when he sees "my brothers and my sisters at the Congress Hotel and the laundry workers here in Chicago, I see immigrant workers encouraging their children to strive," just as his family did for him. At age 12-13 he began going to a Quaker school downtown. He learned about pacifism and non-violence, and that residing in each individual is "a spark of the divine." His life of activism began with fund raising for the Montgomery Bus Boycott and for the Hungarian revolution. U.S. Labor Against the WarGene then turned to Lynn Talbott, an international vice president of UNITE-HERE and a co-manager of its Chicago and Mid-west Regional Joint Board , to present the next award to Maria Guillen representing, as co-convener, U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW). Lynn Talbott noted that when USLAW started at the hall of Teamster Local 705 on a cold day in January 2003 there were few members and even fewer union leaders present. Now, in 2006, after three years of organizing efforts, USLAW has 125 unions, central labor councils, state feds, and internationals, as members. She noted that USLAW organized and supported the U.S. 25 city tour of Iraqi labor leaders and tours by military veterans and their families speaking out about the war's costs. She said that (as of April 28, 2006) there were 2,389 U.S. dead, more than 48,000 U.S. wounded, and over a 100,000 Iraqis dead based on the most credible estimates, and that most Iraqis have no jobs, electricity, or health care. For a cost of $251 billion and counting we have created "training and recruitment" grounds for terrorists, and at the same time provided tax breaks for the rich and increased our national debt by $1.3 trillion. She urged solidarity with the marchers in NYC and added that USLAW helped organize 150 buses of demonstrators to NYC representing a wide range of unions and labor organizations, including: UNITE-HERE, UE, SEIU, UAW, JwJ, CLEW, LACLA, and CBTU. Maria Guillen, Vice President of SEIU Local 790 and delegate of the San Francisco Labor Council, accepted the award:
Guillen spoke of the honor of being the first organization to be awarded the Debs Thomas Harrington award. She said that USLAW includes organizations that represent 3-4 million members, and spoke of the "insanity of even contemplating war with Iran at this time," and that the war feeds off of greed and tries to rob us of the "well textured cloak of Civil Rights." She said that last July's resolution against the war at the national AFL-CIO convention before the break up, which was a direct result of USLAW's efforts, was the first time labor in the US had opposed an administration during war time, something Eugene Debs in particular would have been proud of. She ended her talk by citing Eugene Debs who was famously jailed for his opposition to World War I. Debs stated that there is only one war he would support: the war to overthrow the exploiting classes of all nations May Day RisingTim Yeager was then recognized to urge all to attend the May Day event at Haymarket Square after the immigration March on Monday that, as has been noted, was to mark Chicago's biggest ever May Day demonstration (its taken immigrants to show the "natives" how to do this right again!) Henry TamarinJohn Wilhelm, President of UNITE HERE's Hospitality Division, was then invited to the podium to recognize Henry Tamarin. He remembered that Henry had been the key note speaker at the dinner in 2003 that was held at the Congress Hotel before the Congress Hotel strike that is now 3 years old. He moved to recognize six leaders of the Congress Hotel strike at this dinner. He then talked about Henry Tamarin's history as a key organizer of the Hotel workers who was brought in time and again to re-energize and refocus organizing campaigns from Hartford (where he got his start), to Boston, NYC, Atlantic City, and now Chicago, one of the most important hotel cities in north America. In spite of the hardship to himself and his family "Henry never complains about anything" and in fact "is one of the funniest people alive", eliciting a laugh from the UNITE-HERE tables at the dinner. Furthermore, "you would think that he lived in Chicago for 50 years" after just a few years here. He's a harmless nice guy if you're on his side, but a fierce opponent if your not. Henry Tamarin than rose and accepted his award:
In his opening remarks Henry Tamarin quipped: "An intelligent person would sit down right now." He continued by reminiscing about the first (2003) dinner that he had attended honoring the Bernice and Syd Bild and Mitch Vogel before the Congress Hotel strike. He described the confrontation with a large "security guard" who had threatened workers from the Congress Hotel, who were guests at the dinner, with termination if they participated. When the hotel management backed down in the face of the resistance of the dinner participants, he said, "I thought, 'this organization is pretty nifty!'" He thanked Lynn Talbott (a past honoree) and his many brothers and sisters and colleagues and comrades from UNITE-HERE and spoke of the optimism, vitality, and great hope that he saw for the future during "this remarkable period in our history". He noted that "over 100,000" people would be marching on Monday in a march in which "everyone and no one is in charge" and that a massive outpouring would occur in NYC on Saturday. This, he said, gives him hope and optimism but that "fighting the good fight is not enough; I really like winning!" He encouraged folks to come out and support the Congress Hotel strikers. He noted that many of the people at the dinner have do this from time to time, so this is a "great place to meet people!" John Nichols Burns the BarnNext Gene introduced the key note speaker: John Nichols, one of the nation's pre-eminent progressive journalists, columnist for The Nation, Associate Editor of the Capital Times in Madison, author of numerous books including: Dick The Man Who is President, and recipient of numerous awards for columns and editorials. Nichols began with an admonishment: "Comrades, though everything of consequence has been said, not everyone has said it yet," and another quote from Eugene Debs: "Chicago is a product of modern capitalism and, like other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation." He thanked Calvin Morris for his moving sharing of his personal and family history and noted that whatever their differences, the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win federation are united in USLAW in opposition to the war in Iraq, adding that UNITE-HERE "is a pretty smart union" that organizes workers from Latin America and Asia that reflects the best of US Labor. He remembered the last time he was on a picket line with Paul Wellstone in Madison. Paul had terrible back pain and could barely stand up but he went to visit a picket line after a talk in Madison anyway. He forced himself to go and told the workers to: "Join the union, get a contract, and demand respect form your employers." Nichols said that he almost didn't make it to the dinner as he was waiting to get a call from the White House to replace Scott McClellan. But they preferred Tony Snow of Fox News who found Bush's last "State of the Union" to be an "excellent address" and particularly highlighted his "brilliant foreign policy". But sincerely, he said, you can't make up some of the stuff that is happening now with this administration. Their Court of Appeals nomine is caught shop-lifting from Wal-Mart and Bush's rating is now the same as Nixon's in April before his impeachment. This year is the end of this administration. The only thing that stands in the way is the Democratic Party. You would have thought that after 9/11 the Democrats would have an agenda to address problems at home that did not include invading countries that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. But instead, Nichols said, leaders of the party helped craft a resolution giving Bush authority to invade Iraq. Now that 70% of the public think the war is a mistake and 60% want to get out now, the Democrats still consider it too politically "risky" to come out boldly against the war. Moreover, they are being dysfunctional on what to do about Iran. The single best position Nichols said he had heard on this was from Ron Paul, a Republican Representative from Texas, who asked why should we be making Iran a US priority when the threat is mostly to Europe and Israel and is 10-15 years away. And what about their policy on Gas prices? Republicans want to give us $100, and Democrats want to repeal the $0.18 a gallon gas tax. What about the $8 billion profits for the oil companies? When is somebody going to knock some oil company heads?! The problem with the Democrats is that they're trying to stumble into power if Bush screws up enough. But they need an alternative. Toward this end Nichols posed three points: "Read the polls. The people are more radical than the Democrats. They don't like stupid immoral wars and they say that hotel workers should get a living wage. "Educate. Take a stand and stick to it for 3 or 4 years. If Bill Clinton had stuck with health care we might have one, but he had to be willing to lose on this. The abolitionists took 40 years to end slavery. This is a life long struggle. DSA is right. Progressives need to come into the Democratic Party and make it our party. "In spite of my books I don't like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc, but they don't matter. Politics today is all about personality, but what matters is what politicians do." Look for inspiration at the DSA Debs Thomas Harrington Dinner, he continued. These democratic socialists were patriotic "anti-imperialists". Our nation's flag should not be searching for monsters abroad to destroy. They were "anti-corporatists" before anti-corporate was cool. Though they believed in the power of government to do good, they also felt that it functioned best when nobody in government could operate without checks and balances. This Socialist progressive project is the only critique that makes sense. But though it has been stolen from discourse, stifled by spin and fear, and stymied by power, it is still due and rising. On April 4, twenty four Wisconsin counties voted for mandatory withdrawal for troops from Iraq. Thought the Democrats stayed away from immigration issue after the Sensenbrenner bill, immigrants took to the streets. The Sensenbrenner bill will not become law. They have permanently changed politics. Nichols continued: as Debs said we should work "not for empire but for Liberty" and as Wisconsin's Progressive Governor and Senator Robert LaFollette said: "The people shall rule." Or quoting the great democrat Tom Paine: "We have it within us to begin the world anew". New York City! Chicago! Do not destroy the power of the American revolution that is coming. Join kids in Wisconsin, immigrants in the street, and anti-war protests to carry it on. Brother, Sisters, Comrades, defend it. Followers of Debs Thomas Harrington, this is our time to "begin the world anew". With this rousing conclusion the assembled rose up and sang the traditional "Solidarity Forever". We were inspired and we will take action, John. To misquote another patriotic American "the times, they do seem to be a changing" finally!
Editor's Note: Ron Baiman is Co-Chair of Greater Oak Park DSA and represents GOP DSA on the Chicago DSA Executive Committee. Other Newscompiled by Bob Roman
Chicago DSA Annual Membership ConventionOur annual membership convention will be on Saturday, June 24, at 1 PM. The venue will be the Chicago DSA office at 1608 N. Milwaukee, Room 403, in Chicago. This is on the 4th floor of the Northwest Tower Building (aka "Coyote Tower") at the 3-way intersection of Milwaukee, North, and Damen avenues, just off the Damen Avenue stop on the CTA Blue Line to O'Hare. The agenda will include the election, for a two-year term, of a Female Co-Chair, Treasurer, and Political Education Officer. We will also adopt a budget for the July 1 June 30 fiscal year, plus "Good and Welfare" (in other words, whatever else comes up). All DSA members really ought to attend this meeting, at least, but others are welcome too. Incidentally, at press time it was still not clear whether we will be moving the office at the end of June, but it's looking more likely. For more information, call 773.384.0327.
IRS Decides DSA Is FineAbout a year ago (July 27, to be exact, see New Ground 101, "Other News") we organized a house party to raise money for DSA's legal defense. Some years ago, during Wellstone's last campaign to be exact, the DSA Fund (our 501c3 arm) had organized a voter registration effort in Minnesota. A local right wing group charged that we were actually raising money to bring students to Minnesota to vote. They later admitted this was nonsense, but not before it was picked up by the Drudge Report then by other "mainstream" media. The consequence was some letters of complaint to the IRS and a subsequent IRS investigation. It was all very costly, as one can't trust the truth alone to be victorious; you need lawyers too. The good news is that the IRS has found the DSA Fund had done nothing worthy of a fine or, worse, revocation of its tax exempt status. The bad news is that at least 80 other organizations have been subjected to this harassment and the IRS is seeking to end the exempt status of 3. More details are available in the Spring, 2006, issue of Democratic Left, available online at http://www.dsausa.org/dl/Spring_2006.pdf.
Walk for Justice Update - Springfield to ChicagoSpeaking of the taxman (but not too loudly), the "successor" to Voices in the Wilderness is the more aptly named Voices for Creative Nonviolence. They are starting an interesting educational project, a "Walk for Justice: from the Midwest to the Mideast". This will be a march from Springfield, Illinois, starting on June 7. Scheduled stops on the march include Pekin, Peoria, El Paso, LaSalle, Ottawa, Sandwich, DeKalb, St. Charles, Batavia (hello, Speaker Hastert!), ending in North Chicago on July 5th. As the name suggests, the primary focus of the educational efforts will be on Iraq, Iran, and Israel / Palestine. But they also intend to address the war on minority youth here in the States (thus the stops for prisons in Pekin and St. Charles), the inadequate care for veterans, and military recruitment. For more information, call 773.878.3815 or email info@vcnv.org or go to http://www.vcnv.org.
"Meeting Face to Face"About a year ago, US Labor Against the War sponsored a nationwide speaking tour of the United States by six senior Iraqi labor leaders. This really caught the attention of the U.S. labor movement as even then there were growing questions about what we are doing over there and what the next steps should be. This was a priceless opportunity to get a perspective directly from those most affected, people very much like the target audience. If you missed this opportunity for dialogue, the Center for Study of Working Class Life at SUNY Stony Brook has produced a 27 minute documentary that "breaks through the media walls that keep Iraqi and labor voices out of the debate about the war Meeting Face to Face brings the voices of Iraqi working people directly into the conversation as we consider the war and continuing occupation and what the next steps should be." The documentary has its own web site: http://www.meetingfacetoface.org, where copies may be ordered and where more information is available. The price is $9.95 in DVD format or $14.95 in VHS for individuals in the U.S. Outside the States and for institutions, the pricing is different. New York residents need to add sales tax and they're charging $5 per copy for shipping and handling. Make your check or money order payable to "Meeting Face to Face SBU" and mail to Meeting Face to Face, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384.
"New Ground" Email EditionJust a reminder that New Ground also has an email edition. It's been coming out about 4 to 6 times every two months, not quite weekly but no less than bi-weekly. The latest issue, New Ground 105.6, included coverage of the May Day Immigrant Rights march in Chicago, the effort at beginning the impeachment process through the state legislatures, opposition to the Estate Tax repeal, a discussion of the Israel Lobby paper by Mearsheimer and Walt, and a review of the new history Death in the Haymarket by James Green. Some of this is written specially for New Ground, the rest consists of links set in context. Each issue is posted on our web site, so it vaguely resembles a blog. But if you'd like to get it delivered directly to your inbox, simply send an email to ng@chicagodsa.org with "Add" in the subject line.
DSA Books On-lineDSA's on-line bookshop has been completely redesigned. The bookshop offers members and friends the opportunity to order books from the on-line bookseller powells.com. Books by members and non-members of DSA are among the featured titles. Powell's search engine and other books are also available for sale there. DSA receives a small commission (up to ten percent) that is used to support our program to educate a new generation of socialists. As you read about social change you can help us to make social change. So as you get ready for the summer reading season be sure to check out DSA's on-line bookshop: http://www.dsausa.org/books/books.html. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|