Views in brief

October 7, 2014

A healthy dose of skepticism

THOUGH I am replying to Paul D'Amato's polemic "Against the climate march cynics," I was actually prompted to write by stumbling across Todd Gitlin's piece on the same topic. For those who have been spared such an encounter, Gitlin is a former leader of the important 1960s radical group Students for a Democratic Society, who has spent his half-century career as a historian since using his fame to propagate pernicious "good '60s" versus "bad '60s" myths; defend (as in this article) "important distinctions among types of capitalists and forms of capitalism"; and red-bait social movements.

All that makes it both surprising and unfortunate when Gitlin's take on a movement sounds very similar to one published by SocialistWorker.org. Paul D'Amato is a socialist and a revolutionary, and not a Todd Gitlin, as regular readers of SocialistWorker.org will know. But he aligns himself with Gitlin in dismissing People's Climate March critics as carping do-nothings who fail to understand how social movements work.

Image from SocialistWorker.org

D'Amato does score some good points against leftists who see no opportunity whatsoever in a liberal-led mass march and their "complacent separation" from mass politics. But in lumping critical participants like Arun Gupta with the event's most dismissive opponents, and treating all criticism of the event as an attack on the movement, he does his better arguments a disservice.

There is nothing automatic about mass protest resulting in a positive outcome, and it is not "elitist" to acknowledge that sometimes pro-corporate politics--and even "sinister corporate campaigns"--win out. Political struggles within the movement matter, and SocialistWorker.org has previously made valuable contributions to them. But D'Amato leaves little space for any of this: while he acknowledges that there are "things to criticize about the march," he does not say he agrees with any of the diverse criticisms he summarizes.

It is not unreasonable for activists to feel some pessimism about climate change. We have very little time to stave off dramatic temperature rises, and radical changes in the organization of society will be necessary to do so. Yet the U.S. is clearly not on the verge of revolution. In this context, if we dismiss any criticism of the still-far-from-adequate existing movement, clear-sighted climate activists will have little reason to trust us.
David Judd, Oakland, Calif.

Readers’ Views

SocialistWorker.org welcomes our readers' contributions to discussion and debate about articles we've published and questions facing the left. Opinions expressed in these contributions don't necessarily reflect those of SW.

The source of Big Brown's wealth

Regarding your article about UPS and rage killings ("Why isn't UPS on trial?"): I am 68 years old, and I do not remember people in the 1950s and 1960s going into work and killing people. In the 1950s, there was not a lot of crime, and a crime of this type would have definitely stood out.

A number of years ago, I worked for a printing plant and I was amazed at how badly the workers were treated. When I went to work there, one of my friends told me, "You're blue collar now--a step above livestock." I know this wasn't his attitude, but he meant the attitude of management.

At one point, a grievance was filed against a couple of supervisors with 80 people filing grievances and even coming out of retirement to file. In the end, absolutely nothing was done. I understood why people got angry.

I want to be clear that violence is never ever an option. It's better to walk away and live another day to go on to better things. It's far better and more effective to make the abuses public. But when the workplace killings began, I understood that the worker was very probably not the real reason, but management was. And of course, Reagan was very anti-worker, as was Clinton, whom I will never again vote for in any gender.

Labor is the source of all wealth, which is why I support employee direct ownership. No single person makes a billion dollars without the people who do the actual work.
Anne Stuart, Tracy, Calif.

Age discrimination at UPS

IN RESPONSE to "Why isn't UPS on trial?": I filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination against UPS.

I claimed age discrimination because they were posting the performance of all drivers. Being (at the time) 51 years old with 31 years in (at the time), I was subjected to the same time standards as someone 30 years younger than me. Anyways, the company retaliated against me for the charges like you cannot believe. I had an entire notebook of all the retaliation against me. Today, I got a letter in the mail that stated that my case was dropped due to lack of evidence.

They put me through HELL. I am in the process of writing a book called sdn: The Upside-Down World of UPS. This will take up a part of that. I am the poster driver for retaliation and workplace bullying. I'd love to expose all the shit I went through without being sued for slander.
David Roy, from the Internet

All about the numbers

IN RESPONSE to "Why isn't UPS on trial?": I agree 100 percent on your article. It's about time that the world sees the life of a UPS employee and where push comes to shove.

I thank you for writing this article. They are demanding even more than ever from the employees these days, which causes more injuries, accidents, nervous breakdowns and divorces.

It is a shame this happened, but it was only a matter of time. The company wants drivers who are 50 or 60 years old to go faster then they ever did before. Your body takes on a lot of wear and tear doing this job. The demand on a driver is as high as I have ever seen it. It's all about the numbers.
Alex, Matairie, La.

Who impacts policy?

IN RESPONSE to "What divides Black America?": Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes that "not only is there an African American president and Attorney General, but there are literally thousands of Black elected officials holding office across the nation. Despite this unprecedented access to political power and office, precious little has changed for ordinary Blacks."

However, according to a study recently reported on in The Hill, "ordinary Americans have virtually no impact whatsoever on the making of national policy in our country." This is true for everyone, not just Blacks.

While I'm not at all trying to negate the huge difference that racism makes, even anti-racist whites have no influence on policy--at least until we have a huge national movement of everyone fighting the elites.
Bill Michtom, Portland, Ore.