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Today's
Stories
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
November 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
November 13, 2003
Jack McCarthy
Veterans
for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade
Adam Keller
Report
on the Ben Artzi Verdict
Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time
Vijay Prashad
Confronting
the Evangelical Imperialists
November 12, 2003
Elaine Cassel
The
Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?
Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited
Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo
Jonathan Cook
Facility
1391: Israel's Guantanamo
Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home
Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike
John Chuckman
Forty
Years of Lies
Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency
Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left
Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops
November 11, 2003
David Lindorff
Bush's
War on Veterans
Stan Goff
Honoring
Real Vets; Remembering Real War
Earnest McBride
"His
Feet Were on the Ground": Was Steve McNair's Cousin Lynched?
Derek Seidman
Imperialism
Begins at Home: an Interview with Stan Goff
David Krieger
Mr. President, You Can Run But You Can't Hide
Sen. Ernest Hollings
My Cambodian Moment on the Iraq War
Dan Bacher
The Invisible Man Resigns
Kam Zarrabi
Hypocrisy at the Top
John Eskow
Born on Veteran's Day
Website of the Day
Left Hook
November 10, 2003
Robert Fisk
Looney
Toons in Rummyworld: How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East
Elaine Cassel
Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag (of Tricks): Patriot Act Spawns Similar
Laws Across Globe
James Brooks
Israel's New War Machine Opens the Abyss
Thom Rutledge
The Lost Gospel of Rummy
Stew Albert
Call Him Al
Gary Leupp
"They
Were All Non-Starters": On the Thwarted Peace Proposals
November 8/9, 2003
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Zionism
as Racist Ideology
Gabriel Kolko
Intelligence
for What?
The Vietnam War Reconsidered
Saul Landau
The
Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz
Brian Cloughley
Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police
William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report:
A Permanent Occupation?
David Lindorff
A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War
Elaine Cassel
Bush's War on Non-Citizens
Tim Wise
Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring
Hollow
Toni Solo
Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood"
Michael Donnelly
Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up?
Mark Hand
Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum
Disorder
Norman Solomon
War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy
Norman Madarasz
American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post
Adam Engel
Raising JonBenet
Dave Zirin
An Interview with George Foreman
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert and Greeder
November 7, 2003
Nelson Valdes
Latin
America in Crisis and Cuba's Self-Reliance
David Vest
Surely
It Can't Get Any Worse?
Chris Floyd
An Inspector
Calls: The Kay Report as War Crime Indictment
William S. Lind
Indicators:
Where This War is Headed
Elaine Cassel
FBI to Cryptome: "We Are Watching You"
Maria Tomchick
When Public Transit Gets Privatized
Uri Avnery
Israeli
Roulette
November 6, 2003
Ron Jacobs
With
a Peace Like This...
Conn Hallinan
Rumsfeld's
New Model Army
Maher Arar
This
is What They Did to Me
Elaine Cassel
A Bad
Day for Civil Liberties: the Case of Maher Arar
Neve Gordon
Captives
Behind Sharon's Wall
Ralph Nader and Lee Drutman
An Open Letter to John Ashcroft on Corporate Crime
November 5, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Just
a Match Away:
Fire Sale in So Cal
Dave Lindorff
A Draft in the Forecast?
Robert Jensen
How I Ended Up on the Professor Watch List
Joanne Mariner
Prisons as Mental Institutions
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Not Organizing Iraqi Resistance
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Centaurs
from Dusk to Dawn: Remilitarization and the Guatemalan Elections
Josh Frank
Silencing "the Reagans"
Website of the Day
Everything You Wanted to Know About Howard Dean But Were Afraid
to Ask
November 4, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing
Said and Ashrawi: When Did "Arab" Become a Dirty Word?
Ray McGovern
Chinook Down: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Vietnam
Woodruff / Wypijewski
Debating
the New Unity Partnership
Karyn Strickler
When
Opponents of Abortion Dream
Norman Solomon
The
Steady Theft of Our Time
Tariq Ali
Resistance
and Independence in Iraq
November 3, 2003
Patrick Cockburn
The
Bloodiest Day Yet for Americans in Iraq: Report from Fallujah
Dave Lindorff
Philly's
Buggy Election
Janine Pommy Vega
Sarajevo Hands 2003
Bernie Dwyer
An
Interview with Chomsky on Cuba
November 1 / 2,
2003
Saul Landau
Cui
Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
Noam Chomsky
Empire of the Men of Best Quality
Bruce Jackson
Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver
Brian Cloughley
"Mow the Whole Place Down"
John Stanton
The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines
William S. Lind
Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit
Ben Tripp
The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes
Christopher Brauchli
Divine Hatred
Dave Zirin
An Interview with John Carlos
Agustin Velloso
Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle
Josh Frank
Howard Dean and Affirmative Action
Ron Jacobs
Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon
Strickler / Hermach
Liar, Liar Forests on Fire
David Vest
Jimmy T99 Nelson, a Blues Legend and the Songs that Made Him
Famous
Adam Engel
America, What It Is
Dr. Susan Block
Christy Canyon, a Life in Porn
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Albert & Guthrie
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
October 31, 2003
Lee Ballinger
Making
a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy"
Combs
Wayne Madsen
The
GOP's Racist Trifecta
Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"
Elaine Cassel
Coming
to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)
Linda Heard
An Arab View of Masonry
October 30, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Popular
Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia
Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military
Families
Dave Lindorff
Big
Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"
Philip Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of
Israel
Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak
Robert Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?
Alexander Cockburn
Paul
Krugman: Part of the Problem
October 29, 2003
Chris Floyd
Thieves
Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton
Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans
Rick Giombetti
Let
Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy
The Intelligence Squad
Dark
Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors
as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists
Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement
Gary Leupp
Every
Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures
October 28, 2003
Rich Gibson
The
Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003
Uri Avnery
Incident
in Gaza
Diane Christian
Wishing
Death
Robert Fisk
Eyewitness
in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"
Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte
Jason Leopold
Halliburton in Iran
Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten
Chris White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October 27,
2003
William A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October 25 / 26,
2003
Robert Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets' Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October 24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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November
26, 2003
Naming
the System
An
Interview with Michael Yates
By
DEREK SEIDMAN
Derek Seidman, an editor of Left
Hook, interviewed Michael Yates, author of the new book Naming
the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy.
Yates is a radical economist, a longtime labor educator, and
a former Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh
at Johnstown. He is the author of numerous other books, including
Longer
Hours, Fewer Jobs and Why
Unions Matter. He is currently the associate editor of
Monthly Review (www.monthlyreview.org).
DS: Thank you for agreeing to do this
interview Mike. Your books, articles, and activity deal with
some underlying concerns: work and the people who do it, unions,
unemployment, radical economic critique, and efforts to resist
capitalism. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how
and why you came to be concerned with these issues?
Michael Yates: I was born in a small
coal mining village about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
along the Allegheny River. My mother had a job when she was about
14 unloading dynamite at a coal mine for use by the miners who
used their own explosives to get at new seams of coal. She, her
brother, and their mother (my grandmother) did this work to help
eke out a living after my grandfather died. They all had severe
asthma and collapsed on the floor when they got home. The house,
which is the one I lived in for one year, had neither inside
plumbing nor hot water, just a mine company shack. We soon moved
up the river a few miles to a town where my father grew up. He
worked in the large glass factory doing various kinds of manual
labor for 44 years. He developed emphysema from cigarettes, asbestos,
and silica dust and died at age 75.
I am sure that the experience of growing
up in the heart of the working class and learning from my parents,
and especially from my grandmother (who also worked on a barge
boat as a cook and a servant for rich folks in Manhattan, Newport,
Grosse Point, and Sewickley, all havens of the very rich), that
life was not especially fair and always full of bad possibilities,
helped shape my future take on life. Then what really transformed
my thinking was the war in Vietnam and trying to be a good teacher.
The war was so obviously evil and bore down most heavily upon
working class youth that it made me think about things more deeply
than I had before. It disillusioned me completely and forever
about the government. And it made me aware that the media and
the government lied almost as a matter of course. But it also
opened my eyes to what was really going on in this country. With
respect to teaching, I couldn't make sense of mainstream economics
when I had to teach it to college students. At the same time,
I could see at the school that there was a whole lot of hypocrisy.
Not much real respect for the "higher learning." So
when the custodians and maintenance workers at the school began
a union campaign, I jumped right in and helped them win. I tried
to organize the teachers too but never did succeed. All of this
looking at work, combined with the difficulties teaching mainstream
crap, plus the war, all sort of worked together to move me toward
a radical perspective. Why was there this horrible war? Why was
the school screwing the workers? Why were some of the teachers
so damned stupid? Why was mainstream economics silent on these
things? A radical perspective made good sense of all of these
things.
Eventually I became so disillusioned
with the whole academic scene, so I started to teach workers,
and I have been doing this since 1980. I had to continue college
teaching to pay the bills, but in 2001 I had enough money in
my pension to quit that. My wife and I gave all of our possessions
to our four kids, libraries, friends, and charities, and took
off. Since then we have lived in Yellowstone National Park, Manhattan,
Miami Beach, and Portland, Oregon.
DS: Earlier this year Staughton Lynd
published a piece in Monthly Review entitled "Students and
Workers in the Transition to Socialism". In March I heard
him give a talk on this article at the Socialist Scholars conference,
where he said that "students and workers are different but
equally necessary actors and social forces". What do you
think is the political significance of youth as a social force?
In the struggle for change, what is the relationship between
youth as a particular group and the working class?
Yates: I was on the editorial committee
which decided to publish Lynd's article, which had won a prize
set up by the estate of Daniel Singer, the wonderful journalist
and writer. I still believe that workers must be the basic force
which must organize and eventually transform society (along with
peasants in poor countries). This is because they are the source
of the profits which make capitalism what it is. They can shut
the system down, and at the same time they possess the unique
knowledge needed to make it work in everyone's interests.
Having said that, I agree in principle
with Lynd. First, young people are more likely to be idealistic
and think that radical change is both necessary and possible.
They may not yet be stuck in the routinized and sterile life
that work and age often bring, nor stuck in any kind of rigid
way of thinking. They have great energy and can get things done.
Furthermore, most young people are or will soon enough be workers.
They can help to energize and radicalize the workers' movement.
And what revolution has ever succeeded without youth?
Of course, there can be problems. Maybe
youth don't want to take time to really learn about things. And
maybe older folks will refuse to give youth their chance. It
might sound phony, but I was glad to quit my job, not just because
I did not enjoy doing it anymore, but also because it was time
to let younger people make their marks.
All of the youth ferment on campuses
is a very good thing. Lots of people are being permanently transformed
and will do good thing throughout their lives. However, young
people must be careful not to be coopted, even by labor unions
and the like. They must keep their eye on a radical transformation
of society.
Of course we can talk about the radical
potential of youth. But in the U.S. it is still the case that
most youth are conservative and not very sympathetic to the working
class.
DS: Four-fifths of the US working
class in now engaged in service work. Union membership is at
an all time low. Massive segments of the working class are first
generation immigrants from other countries and are separated
from other workers by their cultural heritage, language, type
of work they do, and sometimes their "illegal" status.
There is a great deal of national chauvinism in certain segments
of the working class. What are the major changes, features, and/or
problems in the development and reality of the modern working
class that need to be understood in order to get a grip on the
parameters of today's class struggle?
Yates: The main dividing line is still
race. This is the issue that must be focused upon in all working
class organizations. Without an understanding of the issue of
race and a willingness to confront it head on, the working class
will not build its strength. There are some good signs in terms
of the great willingness of racial minorities, including immigrants,
legal or not, to organize and support unions. And a few unions
are doing good work organizing these workers. But so much more
needs to be done. Why no mass meetings, etc. by the AFL-CIO and
its unions to discuss race frankly? Why no discussion in labor
about the mass incarceration of Black men (and women too)? Racism
is the most divisive force in our society, so until it is dealt
with we cannot hope for much.
Another problem is what you call "national
chauvinism." This is a very tough nut to crack, since a
vast propaganda network is in place to keep the workers whipped
up into a patriotic frenzy. Maybe this will change, but I doubt
it unless it is addressed. Of course, I think the two issues,
racism and chauvinism, are linked. Look at how much weaker was
support for U.S. actions in Iraq among black people.
DS: In your book you talk about the
resilience of capitalism. What do you see as capitalism's most
resilient aspects today in the USA, not in terms of economics,
but in a political and social sense? In other words, what is
it about recent history and the recent development of capitalism
that has been most problematical for the Left, for the workers'
movement, for the struggle of poor and oppressed people who seem
so fragmented and politically pacified? How do we begin to practically
confront these problems?
Yates: One of the main things is the
power of nationalism. The system has a way of convincing people
that because they live in the USA they are better off than all
other people in the world. This gets them focused on the wrong
things, of course, but it has been a tried and true way of deflecting
class struggle, something I don't think Marx didn't fully anticipated.
The education system, and the whole culture really, has a lot
to do with how these feelings are transmitted to each new generation.
When parents say their kids were heroes when they died for nothing
in Iraq, you can see the power of this.
Also this system is good at making it seem as if there are no
real alternatives to what is, so we just have to make the best
of it. Enough people do make it (at least enough to live ok)
to give some credibility to the "American Dream" idea
and this reinforces the idea that this is as good as it gets.
Capitalism is a powerful producer of
output, crisis-mongering on the left notwithstanding, and this
too makes the system seem to have a lot of promise. This is why
it is so important to agitate against the system in good times
and bad. We can't depend on some super crisis to get folks thinking
but instead have to focus on all of the contradictions of the
system which cannot be ultimately resolved by it.
We must not forget either that some of
the system's resilience is due to its ability to coopt people
with money and prestige. It is easy to get sucked right in. Those
who grasp the system are also likely to be talented and capable
of doing well within the system. Who will turn down a lot of
money? Who doesn't have an ego? A compromise here, another one
there, and pretty soon, you are sucked right in. Look at Christopher
Hitchens, Todd Gitlin, and many others. Look at most of the labor
movement. Shouldn't John Sweeney be a lot more radical? Why isn't
he?
And if you do keep the faith and continue
to be radical, very bad things can and do happen to you. At the
very least you will be marginalized. Same if you are poor and
strike out. Prison awaits you in the USA.
Lastly, capitalism forces us into a competitive
way of living: "Get yours because someone else will if you
do not. Look after yourself because no one else will. Life is
a bitch and then you die." Life here becomes so trivial
and fucked up that you take this selfish attitude as a survival
mechanism.
DS: The great workers' organizations
and internationals of the late 19th/early 20th century were products
of mass upheavals, long struggle, and sustained organizing. They
took decades to really develop into formidable forces that were
organically rooted in the concrete struggles of the time. Whether
or not it can be said that we are living in a distinctly new
era of global capitalism, it is indeed the case that people-mostly
from the grassroots- are beginning to fight back on a global
level, with activism assuming ever more international coordination
and solidarity. At the end of your book you discuss some of these
new types of movements emerging to challenge capitalism. What
are the unifying themes that justify calling the global justice
movement a real movement? What are the major issues it needs
to confront to effectively challenge capitalism?
Yates: Well, one unifying theme is that
life as we know it is fundamentally unsatisfying. I think most
folks feel this to be true. They know that a life of aimless
consumption isn't much of a life. And work offers us very little
satisfaction. Plus our work and consumption is destroying the
environment. And this is in the rich countries. Add starvation,
etc. to the mix, and you have a lot of people in the world pretty
unhappy with things as they are. Modern communications make all
of this known to people far and wide, and we see the fundamental
unfairness of it all. We are all, after all, just human beings,
and most of us have a lot in common.
But as the song says, "Something's
happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear." What needs
to be grasped is that the system itself is the cause of all of
the misery in the world. This is a simple but powerful idea.
But many activists don't want to hear about some grand narrative,
one that could unify all of our struggles. So the major issue
that needs to be addressed is how to get people to see that there
is indeed a grand narrative which just happens to be true. Capitalism
is, in Mao's language, the main contradiction in the world today
and so our efforts have to be focused on ending this system and
making a new one. I don't say that other struggles have to be
set aside in favor of this one. Far from it. We know form past
experience that when you put women's issues or face issues on
the back burner, they never get dealt with. So all struggles
have to be dealt with simultaneously, but within an anti-capitalist
framework. A monumental task, but nothing less will do.
DS: You've done a lot of work with
labor education, giving classes to workers. You've given prison
classes. Today we see figures such as Michael Moore-a down to
earth radical from the working class who can speak its language-really
gaining a mass audience. From your experience, do most ordinary
people understand something is very wrong with our society? I
know in times like this it's tough for the Left, but how do we
relate to these people?
Yates: Well first off, we perhaps shouldn't
say "these people." We should assume, as Moore does,
that we all have a lot in common. Speak as if our views are the
only sensible ones. This resonates with ordinary people, as long
as we speak ordinary language and don't come across as elitists.
Since I am from the working class, I have never had much problem
with this. However, I have had plenty of battles. You can't take
the view of some of the sectarian parties that hard issues can't
be confronted when dealing with workers. If you don't confront
these issues, what will ever change? Moore sometimes fudges here.
He tells us to go to the bowling alleys and car race tracks to
meet the people. Well, I was a very good bowler and I hung out
in bowling alleys even when I was a college teacher. You meet
a lot of good salt of the earth folks, but you also meet a lot
of assholes and bigots. A guy once threatened to beat me up one
afternoon at the local bowling alley because I said innocently
that Michael Jordan was a great basketball player. He went on
a racist tirade in front of his young son. I told him his kid
would grow up to be a bigot just like him. Then all hell broke
loose. Maybe Michael Moore would have handled this differently.
So you have to consider all workers as your equals and speak
matter of factly about things. People do want to understand things
and respect you if you know what they do not know. And you have
to respect what they know that you do not. And you have to get
out in the world and meet folks on their own turf, something
which a lot of urban radical intellectuals seldom do. And don't
ask for trouble (I go get a beer at a ball game so I don't have
to stand for the national anthem, rather than risk a confrontation
if I sit down in my seat). But then remember that most people
in this country, while they might not be happy about things,
also are woefully ignorant about many things. Sometimes people
can learn, but other times they have to be confronted. When I
worked for the farmworkers' union in California and fell in love
with the campesinos, my grandmother told me to remember that
there are a lot of bad people among the poor too!
I really do admire Moore. Whatever flaws
he might have, he sure beats most left-wingers, academics and
nonacademics alike, who live in a world far removed from ordinary
folks and are not keen to get too close to the unwashed masses.
Not many academics do labor education. Why not? The need is great.
This is where the youth are so important. If faculty were as
engaged as young students are in anti sweatshop campaigns, prison
campaigns, etc., it would be a good thing.
DS: You are affiliated with Monthly
Review. How did you get involved with them? Can you tell the
readers a little bit about Monthly Review and where you see it
going in the future?
Yates: Monthly Review was founded in
1949, at the height of the Cold War by Paul Sweezy (a great left-wing
economist still livingage 93) and popular writer and labor
educator Leo Huberman.
After Leo died, Harry Magdoff became
an editor, and he is still going strong at 90. Too younger editors
are now on board: John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney. MR
is as it says on the cover "an independent socialist magazine."
It aims to provide sound analyses and critiques of every aspect
of capitalism, socialist societies, and anti-capitalist movements.
It is sadly probably better known outside of the US than it is
here. Nearly every radical writer of merit in the world has written
in its pages, including Albert Einstein who authored the very
first article (Why Socialism, May 1949). We like to think of
it as the radical magazine "of record." I have to say
that you won't find better analysis than the best in MR. I think
John Foster is one of the best left scholars in the world today.
He has been writing some great stuff on US imperialism, building
on the great work of Harry Magdoff.
I started writing for MR in the mid 1970s,
mainly by chance, as I relate in my new book. Eventually MR published
four of my books (three authored and one co-edited by me). I
later began to do some editing of MR articles and helping with
the summer issues. After I retired I became Associate Editor.
I think MR has a great future. It's firm
anti-capitalist stance, adherence to Marxist analysis, and its
support for revolution will come to be more appreciated as the
current struggle deepen and extend themselves. Of course we need
the support of radicals, and especially youth. I want to encourage
young people who read this to submit articles to MR and subscribe.
In fact, I will give a one-year gift subscription to the first
10 people who read this and send me an email with their addresses!
My email is mikedjyates@msn.com
You can read some of Mike's articles
online:
"Workers of All Countries Unite": Will
This Include the US Labor Movement?
Us Versus Them: Laboring in the Academic Factory
Working to Live, Living to Work (Mike's autobiography, still in progress)
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
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