THE PREAMBLE

OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD

 

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.

We find that the centering of management of the industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

Rest in Peace, Comrade Seeger

Пожалуйста, нажмите здесь!

America, b.1776-d.2013: (Mistah Kurtz - he dead)...A penny for the Old Guy

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  Hey NSA!!

 

CHECK THIS OUT!!

The Four Rules of Capitalism

Seems like Aaron Swartz forgot the rules. Let us review....

BUY LOW. SELL HIGH.

MONEY TALKS. SHIT WALKS.

MONEY GOES UP. SHIT GOES DOWN.

FUCK YOU. PAY ME.

We're back online today.

We're back online today.

I think I'll violate my rules and talk directly about me.

l am a communist, of the Marx/Engels/Rosa Luxemburg flavor. Russian and Chinese communism is bullshit.

I have lost faith in democracy.

Eisenhower only got it half right; I hate the Military Industrial Commercial Entertainment Advertising complex amerika has become.

Manufactured popular culture nauseates me.

I have taken more than my share of shit from people in my life who you wouldn't expect to give you shit.

If I hadn't met a few people, I would have been dead decades ago.

I am a MUSICIAN, goddamit. Always was. Always will be.

You want a picture? It's at the top.

You want music? Click here.

ACT UP NYT/Bruni

• http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/bruni-the-aids-warriors-legacy.html?hp#comments 

COMMENT

• steve
• east coast

NYT Pick

“We, Act Up, got those drugs out there."

Not true. _I_ did.   More accurately, my friends and I did.

We were Synthetic Organic Chemists. We worked in the Development departments of companies like Merck, Pfizer, Warner Lambert/Parke Davis, SmithKline, Upjohn, Abbott, Burroughs Wellcome, Glaxo, and Hoffman LaRoche. We worked under enormous pressure. Our management told us that every delay caused somebody's death. The chemistry was so difficult, we thought our task was impossible.

We stopped the plague. Not politicians, the government, AIDS activists, nor celebrities.

WE DID.

s.

• 
  
• Recommended 4

We Consider Stupidity

Welcome to the fifth "Give the Fiddler a Dram" podcast.

[Proverbs 26:11] A fool doing some stupid thing a second time is like a dog going back to its vomit.

Podcast Nr. 5

Time to Reactivate This Blog

Sorry I was gone...

This is absolutely the last sociopolitical post. Our new focus will be music!

"It was not Obama who deluded the left; the left deluded itself. His rise to the presidency was the product of a disoriented conception of politics that elevated race and gender into the central and defining issues in American life. Along with this went the repudiation of social class as the essential analytic category. The historic problems of social and economic equality seemed to disappear from liberal discourse. Sadly, liberals did not really care what Obama really thought about the concentration of wealth in the United States. They cared about the fact that he was African-American. But that is only part of the story. The sort of liberal constituency that existed in Roosevelt's time -- which favored a substantial redistribution of wealth in the United States -- is not to be found. In reality, liberals (as that term is used today) are distinguished from conservatives largely by secondary cultural issues. The liberal elite and its affluent constituency have no interest in any significant economic restructuring of American society. They are for "reform" to the extent that it does not affect their stock portfolios and personal wealth.Obama's empty rhetoric -- which consisted of stringing together cliches about change that lacked, upon examination, any significant social content -- appealed to wealthy supporters who enjoyed indulging their self-satisfied illusions in their own "progressive" intentions. The failure of Obama reflects the bankruptcy of the sort of identity-politics liberalism that raised him into the White House." -----somewhere in the NYT

click on the image for more detail...

An excerpt from the Spartacist Manifesto (published in 1918):

The question today is not democracy or dictatorship. The question that history has put on the agenda reads: bourgeois democracy or socialist democracy. For the dictatorship of the proletariat does not mean bombs, putsches, riots and anarchy, as the agents of capitalist profits deliberately and falsely claim. Rather, it means using all instruments of political power to achieve socialism, to expropriate the capitalist class, through and in accordance with the will of the revolutionary majority of the proletariat.

Virtuosos Becoming a Dime a Dozen

An article in the NYT covered the breathtaking technical and interpretative skills of the current crop of concert pianists and young classical musicians in general (Virtuosos Becoming a Dime a Dozen). I submitted the following response:

Sir:

Interesting article. Indeed, when I studied clarinet in the early 60s, it was unusual to encounter a fellow 16-year-old playing the Nielsen concerto, much less the Francaix. As I approach my mid-sixties, I find the solo piano works of Liszt, the entire output of Paganini, and arrangements of Flight of the Bumblebee for inappropriate instruments (contra bass, theremin, etc) to be simply irritating. Musicians push the envelope to pay the bills. The results may stink to the ear.

Can You Detect A Difference?

NYT,tonight:

President Obama acknowledged the challenge in his Saturday radio and Internet address, saying the country’s “urgent mission” now was to grow the economy and create jobs.

“Our job right now has to be doing whatever we can to help folks find work,” he said, “to help create the climate where a business can put up that job listing; where incomes are rising again for people. We’ve got to rebuild this economy and the sense of security that middle-class families have felt slipping away for years.”


Roosevelt 1st Inaugural Address:

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power- to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

Old, old school...(pre KAPD!)

Krugman, NYT today

In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.
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I give up. Last time America reached this point, the South seceded and we had a civil war. Time to fly my true colors... remember Rosa Luxemburg!

Vote Communists

KPD Spartakusbund

The Legislative Process

NYT, today

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she was pleased with what she had heard about the contours of the potential agreement.

“This provides an opening to a very broad sweep of changes,” Mrs. Feinstein said. Referring to the tortuous legislative process, she said: “Sausage making is not pretty. But the sausage we have, I think, is a very different sausage from when we started.”

Wobbly

This comment appeared on a NYT discussion board today:

Republicans stand firm.
Pass the "Cut, Cap, and Balance" bill again with one change.
Separate the bill into two parts and have the Balanced Spending as another bill.
Keep passing the same bill and sending it to Reid and remind everyone of his "intransigence" in not passing the bill in the Senate.
As a great conservative once said to a RINO, "This is no time to go wobbly"

Hiuh??

NYT, today:

Members of the House Republican caucus said after a morning meeting that Mr. Boehner opened by urging the rank and file to “get your ass in line,” but then listened as many of them voiced lingering concerns.
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I've never been a fan of capitalism...now, I'm wondering about democracacy.

Goodbye Bill, goodbye

We Consider Death

Welcome to the fourth "Give the Fiddler a Dram" podcasts.

"All things pass; all that lives must die. All that we prize is but lent to us, and the time comes when we must surrender it. We are travelers on the same road that leads to the same end."

Podcast 4

BROOKS USES HEAD - WINS PULLITZER PRIZE!!

NYT, today: Brooks Quits Amid Scandal as Murdoch Empire Reels

Until the scandal erupted, Ms. Brooks, 43, had been a star within News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation, editing two influential tabloids and rising rapidly to head the division. British analysts described her as enjoying the status of a favored daughter, with close ties not only to the Murdoch family but also to leading politicians.

American Democracy: The New Normal

NYT, today

Recounting how the 1995 government shutdown helped President Bill Clinton win re-election the next year, Mr. McConnell said any impasse that hurt the nation’s credit and led to government checks being delayed could have the same result for President Obama.

“He will say Republicans are making the economy worse,” Mr. McConnell, who is recognized as one of his party’s top political strategists, said in an interview with the radio host Laura Ingraham.

“It is an argument that he could have a good chance of winning and all of the sudden we have co-ownership of the economy. That is a very bad position going into the election.”

Meanwhile, one Republican presidential hopeful, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, was drawing a hard line against voting to raise the debt ceiling and disputing the idea that the government’s credit standing would be jeopardized by the impasse.

“I’m a ‘no’ on raising the debt ceiling right now because I have been here long enough that I have seen a lot of smoke and mirrors in the time I have been here,” Ms. Bachman said.

Prairie In The Sky

About 20 years ago, I was in Bozeman, MT attending a scientific conference. I explored Yellowstone, the Gallatin Valley, took a ski lift to the top of a mountain, bought a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots, got hammered on local beer in a bar where the band played Ian Tyson covers, and went to the rodeo.

It was touch-and-go at the airport. At the very last minute, I got on board for Philadelphia. Decision? Fear?

I ride an old blue roan, I carry all I own
In the pouches of my saddle bags with my bedroll tied behind

There's a prairie in the sky, I'll find it by and by
Hues of brown and yellow to make a soul unwind

Let the music take me home to where my heart may roam
I'll fly across the meadows, and touch the tall grass as I go.

Let the gentle western wind stay with me 'til the end
Beside me 'til the day is done and the sun has settled low.

Leave the ponies to run free, far as the eye can see
I'd ride the range forever just to see them once again.

Let the wild, flying things soar above me on their wings
The stars fill up the night sky and the moon light up the plains.

I ride an old blue roan, I carry all I own
In the pouches of my saddle bags with my bedroll tied behind.

-Mary McCaslin

All due respect...

NYT tonight

Opinion
The Good Short Life
By DUDLEY CLENDINEN
Published: July 9, 2011

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BALTIMORE
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Sorry, Dudley. I've been doing this since the mid 90s. I won't take anyone with me, but I'm fuckin' going down fighting. No vent, either.