Rouge Forum Update

Dear Friends,

There are actions running up to Mayday in communities all over the US and around the world, many of them in response to cutbacks in education, health care, and jobs demanded by ruling elites. When they say “Cutback,” or “Get Back,” we should say, “Fightback.”

Here is the call for Mayday actions from the Rouge Forum http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/CutbackFightbackFlyer.pdf

and an original Mayday flyer (takes a minute to come up as it has graphics)
http://www.richgibson.com/rouge_forum/mayday.pdf

and the traditional Rouge Forum Mayday flyer http://www.richgibson.com/mayday.htm

and a Mayday song, en espanol http://calacapress.com/gigantedespierto/mp3/PrimeroDeMayo.mp3

Mayday is an international workers’ holiday. Rouge Forum members have celebrated Mayday for eleven years with parties, demonstrations, book talks, film (like “This Land is Mine,” or “Salt of the Earth,”) and discussion groups. However, until the massive general strike initiated by immigrant workers in 2006, most people in the US thought that Mayday, was “Law Day,” a day set aside to celebrate obedience and loyalty to laws designed to protect property, not people, promoting the ethics of slaves. http://www.abanet.org/publiced/lawday/2008/home.shtml

In the face of real promises for perpetual war from all the actors in the hothouse for witless patriotism that is US capitalist democracy we should do all we can to shut down schools, the military, and workplaces on Mayday, marching in the streets against the empires’ wars, against the nationalism that makes them possible, and against further cuts into the lives of poor and working people—and against the failed system of capital itself—toward a world where people can live more or less equitably, creatively, in freedom and community. Surely we can see the choice is equality or barbarism. Where we can, we should conduct freedom schools about the history of Mayday and why it is we must fight again.

Here is Chalmers Johnson writing in Le Monde on Why the US is Really Broke
but oil profits and CEO pay are higher than ever. The degree of the cuts, or the gains made by working people, will depend on the level of resistance, and its wisdom, that we are able to mount. The coffers are not empty.

Nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee close at midnight Monday. So far we have 25 people nominated though we need to confirm their desire to serve. The SC will guide the Rouge Forum between yearly conferences with online and phone discussions and meet once a year, in the fall. Nominate yourself or someone else.

We note with considerable sadness the death of Ira Gollobin, author of “Dialectical Materialism,” one of the best texts on why things are as they are, and what to do. Ira was an inspiration to many of us, always ready to add his considerable wisdom and good humor. Ira was a lead attorney in the battle against HUAC years ago. We hope to join others in seeing that his book is re-published and gets the attention it deserves.

In addition, Abe Osheroff died last week. Abe was a lifelong radical and veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade whose stance was nicely summed up in his New York Times obit, “If you need a victory, you aren’t a fighter,” he said in 2000, “you’re an opportunist.”

As an indicator of the current state of the US trade unions, we condemn the leadership of the Service Employees International Union who used violence this weekend to attack leaders of the California Nurses Association at the Labor Notes Conference in Michigan. SEIU President Andy Stern’s SEIU’s fascist thugs assaulted CNA’s leaders who are, now, among the last unionists in the US who understand that workers and employers have contradictory interests.

Thanks to Erin, Amber, Alan, Wayne, Adam, Sherry, Joe, Doug, Candace, Barb G, Kimmie, Victoria, Matt, Marty, Greg, Katie, Bill (congrats, dad, again), Patrick, Billy, Tom, Bob, TC and Kathryn, Kelly, Chalmers, Larry, MrJ the teacher, Marty, and Glenn. But what has come of the Tigers?

all the best,

r

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