It's been an open secret for almost two years that something important was buried next to the historic Haymarket Martyr's Monument in Forest Park. On Oct. 3, archaeologists and volunteers dug up an object they think may be an 1892 time capsule containing letters, trial documents and other artifacts from Chicago's Haymarket Affair.
Reader Comments: Bernie, Endorse?, What Next?; Dominican Republic; Indigenous Peoples in US; Hawaii; Tair Kaminer - Israeli Political Prisoner - Inspiring People Worldwide; Elie Wiesel - Responses to Max Blumenthal; Austrian Election Update; On Socialism; on the IWW; Angry response to post about Viet Thanh Nguyen;
Resources: The Invention of the White Race; Mining and Resistance in Dinétah; Announcement: From Sanders to the Grassroots: National Student Conference
This memoir by physics and geology professor Anatole Dolgoff of his father, IWW activist Sam Dolgoff (1902-1990), beautifully captures the aura of the anarchist and related movements in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, says reviewer Peter Cole.
The centennial celebration of Joe Hill's execution is being marked by concerts, symposiums, meetings and forums, and the publication of new books, or new editions. Labor historian Paul Buhle reviews two of these. Franklin Rosemont's Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, with a new introduction by David Roediger; and
Philip S. Foner's The Letters of Joe Hill, with new material by Alexis Buss and foreword by Tom Morello.
Joe Hill -- executed 100 years ago by a Utah firing squad -- knew the power of harnessing creativity. The Wobblies embraced songs, comics, soapboxing, and other creative tactics in reaching out to unorganized workers as well as in direct actions on the job site. “A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over,” Hill wrote in a letter to the editor of Solidarity in November 1914.
At the center of the liberal democratic system, workers have fiercely resisted exploitation through the development of worker-based organizations rooted in the ideal of paving the road to a classless and democratic society. All those seeking greater labor militancy must recognize that traditional unions are unable to escape the trap set in the 1930s through fidelity to the collective bargaining agreement. [An earlier version was published by CounterPunch.]
Casey Jones -- Union Scab, was written by IWW songwriter Joe Hill in 1911 during a nationwide railroad strike. It is a parody of a then-popular song romanticizing a loyal railroad employee.
“Solidarity Forever” echoes symbolically this Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. Dr. King’s last sermon was delivered in Memphis during the sanitation workers strike, a strike in which he acted not just as a civil rights leader but also a union leader. He even called for a general strike of black workers and students in Memphis.
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Announcements - Left Forum, June 7 - 9; Iraqi Workers After the War - new video; Ruby Dee Documentary - June 26; Commie Camp - new film on Camp Kinderland - additional show - June 29
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