The Willie Horton Hustle 2009

When Bay Area activist Van Jones was first appointed by President Barack Obama as Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality, I could hear the right-wing pundits sharpening their knives.

To me, it seemed a question of when, not if the knives would plunge in.  The chorus of pundits “revealing” to the world what was never hidden in the first place: Jones’ former membership in a Marxist organization, any number of speeches he’d given decrying police brutality, stated support for the human rights of Palestinians, and the list goes on.

I expected that Van’s face would be plastered all over the media sometime in 2010, as the Republicans geared up to take some Congressional seats back. Surprise, election season is here, although a bit early.

In the past, the Republican Party would have left Van Jones alone, and instead find the image of a Black inmate, who managed to rape, rob, steal and scare the suburbs while on furlough. The Willie Horton Hustle worked well in 1988, killing Michael Dukakis’ campaign for the White House and ushering in the reign of Bush I.

That playbook isn’t going to work in exactly the same way. Fanning racial resentment while a Black President is in office is a different beast. The assault on Jones is a new bag: “expose” how Obama is catering to “reverse racists” with “dangerous” socialist ideas.

The image of a Black man sneaking in a (white) grandmother’s house and raping her has been replaced by the image of an angry army of Black professionals (college educated thanks to affirmative action) plotting the economic subjugation of all white folks.  The beat remixed, yet the song remains the same.

Those who profit from this demonology are the same people who freaked out when they realized their own children bought Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet not to burn, but to dance  to. Twenty-years later, they are far more concerned with making sure that health reform saves private profits, and that the Obama administration stays the course in Iraq and Afghanistan. Stoking white people’s Fear of a Black President, and his dangerous advisors is a tune that has withstood the test of time. With Jones’ resignation, we’re likely to hear it again next year, and for years after.

The knife of white resentment is always one that cuts the hand that wields it. In the end, it isn’t Obama himself that the racist wing of the Republican Party is afraid of. His monumental caution and pandering to their needs should have allayed that fear. What they are afraid of is that the hundreds of thousands of people of all races who bought the  Hope and Change product are actually going to get up and demand some, beyond the confines of both major parties.

San Francisco Budget Wars 2009

(This is the first installment of a series of posts on the San Francisco City Budget and campaigns to challenge cuts to vital human services and layoffs of workers. I’m writing this aware that many of my good friends closely involved with these issues have sharply different opinions. Hopefully, this series with spur serious strategic debate. I’m always open to being proven wrong.)

Late into the evening of July 1st, the Budget Committee of the San Francisco Board Of Supervisors approved a budget that restored about $44 million dollars of cuts proposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom. The deal prevented the outsourcing of City jobs to private contractors and preserved hundreds of vital life-saving services. Immediately, some started to question whether or not the victory was worth the paper it was printed upon. Supervisor Chris Daly, in a near twenty-minute monologue, pointed out that without mechanism to hold the Mayor accountable, many of the funds could simply be held back.

Were Wednesday’s results an organizing victory, or simply a feel-good moment for progressive Supes unwilling to use their majority on the board to secure a deal with teeth? The truth of the matter is firmly located in a grey-area of real politics, and does not fit neatly into any neat explanation of “victory” nor “sell-out.”

The budget, if implemented by the Mayor, is indeed historic in these economic times. Applying Naomi Klein’s concept of the “Shock Doctrine” to local concerns, the economic collapse is a perfect opportunity for those in ideologically attached to a small role for local government to eviscerate city jobs (such as security jobs at museums) and replace them with lower-paying and non-unionized positions. Likewise, low-income working-class people depend on a variety of services saved through the deal. The restoration of eviction defense services, HIV and gang-intervention work, and mental health programs aren’t simply part of a “safety net” or an “entitlement” but rather a part of a “social wage”— based in needs held by most low-income workers yet unreachable by most through high costs. The critique of the deal has much traction.

The Mayor is allowed to simply not spend budget allocations, and given the horrendous situation the State is in, another fight over mid-year reductions is only weeks away. But before condemning Budget and Finance Committee Chair  John Avalos as foolish, one needs to keep a piece of reality in mind: his allies on the Board have six votes, not a veto proof eight. In a sense, what we saw on June 1st 2009 was largely determined by the outcome of the November 2008 election. Had one less progressive Supervisor been elected, Newsom’s budget would have stood largely untouched. Yet in absence of two extra votes, compromise would be inevitable. A compromise it was—leaving many of Newsom’s questionable priorities (such as increased PR staff and a homeless court) unscathed.

Mainstream and most progressive news sources ignored was that the Mayor and the Board Of Supervisors were only two forces in the overall budget debate. Labor and Community organizations, such as the Coalition to Save Public Health and the Budget Justice Coalition had waged a spirited fight back against the cuts since December of 2009. In the final weeks before the deal, Direct Action to Stop the Cuts had led several daring actions against the Mayor, highlighting the impact of the cuts to the public health system and people living with HIV.

Next Fragile Coalitions: Labor and Community Come Together for a Just Budget.

Republic Revolt

This article, which I co-authored with Kari Lydersen, originally appeared on the Dollars and Sense website.  Kari is currently blogging about it at Melville House Publishing’s website and is putting together a book about the struggle due out in January. I’ve been checking out some of the other commentaries of the takeover, especially the very engaging Professor Darren Hutchenson at Dissenting Justice. In the next few days, I hope to offer some dialogue around the points that he and others have put forward.

One thing is certain: the economy isn’t getting much better anytime soon, and the more debate and discussion about where to go from here is needed. Let’s take our collective hats off the the brave Republic workers. Hopefully their action will inspire a sense that no one has to take the economic crisis sitting down (unless of course, it is a sit-in) and also help sharpen an analysis about what to fight for in the coming years.

The Real Audacity of Hope

Republic Windows Workers Stand Their Ground

The 2008 holiday season is one of high hopes and high anxiety. Barack Obama’s November victory has raised expectations of meaningful change, while the Department of Labor estimates over a half million jobs lost in November alone.

Workers at Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors weren’t waiting for the White House when they learned that they were losing their jobs due to a plant closing. They occupied their workplace, insisted on receiving their full vacation and sick days pay—and won. Whether it be the shape of things to come or just a fleeting moment remains to be seen. Their action forced the mainstream media to show the faces behind the statistics—ones filled with pride and defiance, not pity and powerlessness.

Last fall, workers at Republic noticed that important pieces of equipment had disappeared from their Goose Island warehouse. Alarmed, they notified their union, United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, Local 1110 (otherwise known as UE), an independent union with a tradition of direct action. Republic’s management assured the union that no plant closure was afoot; and that the equipment would be replaced with modernized pieces.

Not willing to take the company’s word for it, the union covertly monitored the plant, and watched as trucks removed the very machinery needed to produce windows and doors. Meanwhile as the foreclosure crisis unfolded, Republic lost most of its contracts for new home construction.

Then on Tuesday, December 2, employees were told what they feared had been coming for a long-time. Friday, the plant would be shuttered. They were to come pick up their checks and file for unemployment. Company officials blamed the closing on the economic crisis, and on Bank of America, who they said clamped down on their credit despite a federal bailout package of $25 billion in taxpayer money.