From Rich Gibson in San Diego:
The Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil is updated.
Of special interest this week:
*To top the Oscars, a new online archive of movies whose copyrights have expired, including the classic Marxist and almost altogether banned Salt of the Earth is here, download free!
*Baltimore students took the lead in direct action, opposing counterfeit claims to school reform.
*The split in the AFL-CIO represents a falling out among opportunists. Clearly, the NEA has lined up with old guardsman, John Sweeney, in forming a partnership to inveigle dues from NEA members, and a few luncheons for misleaders of both organizations. The AFL-CIO’s organizing principle remains the unity of politicians, corporate leaders, and union leaders, in the “national interest,” that is, against the interest of rank and file members, and against the interest of workers in the rest of the world.
Andy Stern was Sweeney’s protege, and is president of the Service Employees International Union. He betrayed Sweeney, led a splinter group involving nearly half of the members of the AFL-CIO, including some of the most mobbed-up unions in the US, including the Teamsters, the UFCW, and UNITE-HERE. With SEIU, each union can take credit for organizing large numbers of low-wage workers, and bargaining the minimum wage for them, minus union dues.
Stern’s work is described in a recent article, “His goal was to consolidate AFL-CIO’s 58 affiliated unions, no longer blame corporations on all of its troubles, and to re-establish the labor union as a partner instead of an adversary to corporations and multinationals.”
*A new book by Robert Fitch, while narrow in scope, limiting its critique to union corruption (with some amusing side glances to those “public intellectuals who, from comfortable positions, refuse to recognize the dead-end of US unionism), is worth the candle: Solidarity for Sale.
*Watch for the next issue of Substance News for a description of this week’s AFL-CIO executive committee meeting in San Diego.
*March 18 marks year three of US capital’s invasion of Iraq, for oil and social control of the vital mid-east region, seeking to stave off moves from Russia, China, Europe, and Japan. The failure of the US military adventure, already lost, is breathtaking. Here are past, and prescient, articles from the Rouge Forum News.
*We have joined with hundreds of other grassroots groups to endorse the many demonstrations that will take place throughout the world on March 18. Join us!
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