David Harvey: Interesting Speech and Red Shirt

Every time I have seen Harvey give major speeches that are not outdoors, he’s in red shirts.   This, however, leads me to wonder if many don’t mistake his obvious Marxist symbolism as a sign of a short lived  cameo on Star Trek.

His points on Das Kapital are worth every minute of that lecture:  I admire that he admits what I have known since undergraduate.  That Das Kapital is not only the most important, but also the most BORING of Marx’s major texts

 

Qualified Success, Failure, and Occupy: a dialectic of my two minds with self-caricature

I have been pegged with two caricatures of my positions on Occupy. So I an instead of merely ranting in a vague and inchoate matter, I have decided to present my this systematically in a series of caricatures of myself and my positions.

“Skepoet as Ghost of Adorno”:  There can be no positive vision for Occupy, all it can do is point out the contradictions between the actionism of my liberal activists in the so-called progressive movement of the Democratic party and the manic actions of those effectively engaged in a Black Bloc, which is the bourgeois manifestation of their own privilege warping into Barrack’s Socialism. Indeed, the best occupy can do is show us dialectic between two negative positions.  In short it enables us see what not to do.

“Skepoet as Anarchist”:  Smash the system.

“Skepoet as Critic of Anarcho-liberalism”: Look, only an anarcho-liberal can advocate for Keynesianism and a “new” New Deal while using Black Bloc tactics. This is incoherent.

“Skepoet as High Academic Marxist”:  Don’t you see that the Occupy movement has not changed the base of society yet, and thus cannot change the superstructure by living in tents in a public park.

“Skepoet as Vulgar Marxist”:  The Oakland commune is a reincarnation of the 1917 Soviets.

Those are semi-legitimate caricatures of my positions. I, however, am not on the ground–I am facilitate  discussion  on social networking sites, report on it second hand, and criticize. In short, I don’t use Spanish anarchist hand-signals when I talk.  I would if I were in the U.S.  I am about to speak on Unions, but I am going to give a few caveats: 1) I have never been in a Union although I did try to start one in 2004 when I discovered that all public sector unions in my home state were illegal as they are in many Southern states, and 2) I now live in a country where non-nationals are also “discouraged” from unionizing.
So I am going to lay this out in a vulgar Hegelian dialectic of my own thoughts:

Thesis:  The Occupy the West Coast Ports is a qualified success in many terms showing the successes of  direct action.  This also shows the working rank-and-file that they do not need the blessings of Union Leadership.  The Unions in the US have not been responsive even though their leadership is far more democratic than the say the election of a U.S. senator.  The Unions stood in solidarity in Wisconsin and Ohio, but did not mention that they had not done much to counter-act this in the South East. The more cynical parts of me thinks this is because Ohio and Wisconsin are “battle ground” states in the upcoming election. Occupy is harder to co-opt in that regard.  So pointing out this failure is crucial, and the fact that the Union leadership couldn’t organize fast enough to deal with the situation with voices expressed by the rank and file is crucial. The repressive legal framework of the Taft-Hartley act functionally kill the ability of established unions to be successful.  In this sense we must move past them. Furthermore, Unions cannot  speak for or aid the unemployed.

Anti-thesis:  While the Longshoreman are respecting the picket line, this arguably hurts them as much if not more than it hurts the nominal 1%.  Furthermore, the idea of avant-garde or vanguard of students and the unemployed that animated quite a few in the Oakland Commune did not truly represent wishes.  Anarchists, in particular, are hypocrites when they claim to speak for an oppressed class that is not speaking for itself in its own direct actions.

 Approaching Synthesis:  I don’t have an answer, but I would say the illuminating contradictions is important. Take this article by Richard Myers in the DailyKos:

Suggesting that a union does, or does not support an action like shutting down the ports (on the basis of what we’ve seen so far) is a gross oversimplification. In the first place, the no-strike clause has legal implications, with the result that statements of position may exist primarily to satisfy legal obligations.

Second, as we have apparently seen with ILWU 10, there may be significant differences in position and perception between local leadership and national/international leadership.

Third, all of those stating in comments on other KOS articles that they’ve drawn conclusions based upon what has been published ought to hold their breath; we’ve never before seen a global movement like OWS interact with a mainstream labor movement before. It is very likely, in spite of pronouncements, that many union leaders at the local AND the national level hadn’t yet formed opinions on a one day demonstration port shutdown; many will have awaited the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of, and the public’s reactions to, the day’s actions.

Read Myer’s article, while it’s a bit too soft on the AFL-CIO leadership, it’s interesting on the over all role of the rank-and-file of unions. We need to move through and start emerging with counter-institutions.

Occupy Houston: Why are the Police hiding behind a tent in the middle of the night?

Houston Police Department is not allowing the media or the Occupiers to see what they are doing when arresting protesters?  Why?  This is a key question.  What are they afraid of making to a live feed?

West Coast Ports and the coming debates

While I write this, the Port actions are still going on in Seattle, and I heard word of wildcat actions still going on in Vancouver and Portland.  So CNN reported this:

“What has this accomplished?” he asked. “This is disrupting the 99%”

Oakland has been a flashpoint of the Occupy movement since October, when police used tear gas to break up demonstrators who refused to leave downtown. One demonstrator, a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq, suffered a skull fracture after being hit with a police projectile, according to a veteran’s group; police said they acted after the crowd threw paint and other objects at officers.

The ILWU — which represents 15,000 dockworkers — has distanced itself from the protest movement. The union “shares the Occupy movement’s concerns about the future of the middle class and corporate abuses,” ILWU President Robert McEllrath wrote to locals last week — but he urged the movement to stay out of its dispute with the port of Longview, Washington, and warned against “outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda.”

Monday’s demonstrations also took place in Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston and Portland, Oregon. Organizers said the goal was to shut down ports in an effort to “disrupt the economic machine that benefits the wealthiest individuals and corporations.”

In Houston, police arrested 20 protesters after dozens of police on foot and on horseback confronted a somewhat larger group of Occupy protesters who blocked an interstate on-ramp, authorities said.

Groups of up to six protesters lay down on the pavement and interlocked arms and legs, while a larger group stood near them yelling protest slogans. Officers set up barricades to cordon off protesters in an attempt to free the ramp for traffic. The majority of the protesters could be seen moving behind the barricades, with a few exceptions, including those who had lain down.

Police handcuffed some protesters and led them to a police vehicle. Six face felony charges of using criminal instruments to block a public roadway, said Houston Police Department spokesman Victor Senties.

In Long Beach, California, protests caused isolated traffic delays but did not hinder port operations, according to Police Chief Jim McDonnell.

There is quite a bit to unpack in that: First, notice that labor leadership is moving away from a broader labor movement is only concerned about its specific workers. The leadership doesn’t want solidarity because then solidarity would be expected of it.  Second, we see other copy-cat disruption tactics without clear goals.  I don’t know how I feel about this except it is easy pickings for the cops. Third, the ILWU leadership is not the same thing as the ILWU rank-and-file, so it is very hard to say given that the rank-and-file didn’t vote, but they will held to the picket line in three cities, so CNN is obviously not giving you the whole story.  

Still, reading the articles, #Occupy had success at Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Longview, Washington,  But losses at Long Beach and Los Angeles. Symbolic victories can be listed to include Scott Olson leading the line at Oakland. 

So interesting, we’ll see how this is used over the next three days. Does this lead to more radical “strike” actions, will labor back it or more even more towards the Democrats. This article goes into the problems well and shows the mixed reactions just prior to today:

Rank and filers won’t get a chance to have their say. Local 8’s next membership meeting is December 14.

Occupiers leafleted the dispatch hall but members say they might have succeeded in convincing more of the Portland rank and file if outreach had started before the action was set.

Levens expressed support for the Occupy movement’s goal—to confront corporate power—but not its approach in this action.

“The lack of communication with the members and union officials leaves the Occupy activists and union members without the benefit of sharing our [earlier] Oakland experience with shutting down the port and community pickets,” said Levens, who has been active in Oakland general assemblies.

Parker said the constraints on unions are too great to expect a better process.

“Even if Occupy Oakland were the best, most democratic it could be, there is no way that they could consult with elected leaders of the ILWU,” he said. “Unions are faced with a choice of gambling everything [by openly supporting a strike] or of protecting themselves by disclaiming responsibility and honoring lines by using loopholes.”

It doesn’t help that the institutions assessing liability—right-wing courts—are not on labor’s side.

Parker says the occupiers may have to look for new ways to hit the 1%.

“The continued focus on the docks, because it is easy and takes advantage of the solidarity traditions of the dock workers, makes the dock workers themselves the targets and the targets start resenting it,” Parker said.

Obviously the Longshoremen respected the picket lines in Oakland, Portland, and Seattle and violence has been minimal.   This, at current, can be rated a success in the short-term, and it changes things for Occupy and the Left as a whole.  In that sense, it is a net good.  But it also exposes further intractable areas for the left and for Occupy: these contradictions and complications have yet to be resolved, but I suspect they will start pushing things in the forefront.

Updated: According one of my online sources, the attacks in Houston were not a “confrontation” because “demonstrators were mostly asleep at the time, since the attack was unanounced and in the dead of night.” So keep your skeptical eyes up on the articles describing police actions.