The 1969 Weatherman Statement Revisited: Excerpts from Part 10

It’s not likely that the New York Times will mark the 40th anniversary of the June 1969 Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] National Convention in Chicago by reprinting excerpts from the position paper of the Weatherman faction of SDS. So following are some excerpts from Part 10 of this historic position paper (that originally appeared in the June 18, 1969 issue of New Left Notes) which might interest U.S. anti-war activists in 2009—during the current U.S. historical era of “endless permanent war abroad and economic depression at home”:

“One way to make clear the nature of the system and our tasks working off of separate struggles is to tie them together with each other: to show that we’re one `multi-issue’ movement, not an alliance of high school and college students, or students and GIs, or youth and workers, or students and the black community. The way to do this is to build organic regional or sub-regional citywide movements, by regularly bringing people in one institution or area to fights going on on other fronts.

“This works on two levels. Within a neighborhood, by bringing kids to different fights and relating these fights to each other—high school stuff, college, housing, welfare, shops—we begin to build one neighborhood-based multi-issue movement off of them. Besides actions and demonstrations, we also pull different people together in day-to-day film showings, rallies, for speakers and study groups, etc. On a second level, we combine neighborhood `bases’ into a citywide or region-wide movement by doing the same thing; concentrating our forces at whatever important struggles are going on and building more ongoing interrelationships off of that.

“The importance of specifically neighborhood-based organizing is illustrated by our greatest failing in RYM [Revolutionary Youth Movement] practice so far—high school organizing…We’ve been unwilling to work continuously with high school kids as we did in building up college chapters. We will only reach the high school kids who are in motion by being in the schoolyards, hangouts and on the streets on an everyday basis. From a neighborhood base, high school kids could be effectively tied in to struggles around other institutions and issues, and to the anti-imperialist movement as a whole.

“We will try to involve neighborhood kids who aren’t in high schools too; take them to anti-war or anti-racism fights, stuff in the schools, etc.; and at the same time reach out more broadly through newspapers, films, storefronts. Activists and cadres who are recruited in this work will help expand and deepen the Movement in new neighborhoods and high schools. Mostly we will still be tied in to the college-based movement in the same area, by influencing its direction away from campus-oriented provincialism, be recruiting high school kids into it where it is real enough and be recruiting organizers out of it. In its most developed form, this neighborhood-based movement would be a kind of sub-region. In places where the Movement wasn’t so strong, this would be an important form for being close to kids in a day-to-day way and yet be relating heavily to a lot of issues and political fronts which the same kids are involved with…

“Another failure of this year was making clear what the RYM [Revolutionary Youth Movement] meant for chapter members and students who weren’t organizers about to leave their campus for a community college, high school, GI organizing, shops or neighborhoods. One thing it means for them is relating heavily to off-campus activities and struggles, as part of the citywide motion. Not leaving the campus movement like people did for ERAP [Education Research Action Project] stuff; rather, people still organized on the campus in off-campus struggles, the way they have in the past for national actions. Like the national actions, the citywide ones will build the on-campus movement, not compete with it.

“Because the Movement will be defining itself in relation to many issues and groups, not just schools (and the war and racism as they hit at the schools), it will create a political context that non-students can relate to better, and be more useful to organizing among high school students, neighborhood kids, the mass of people. In the process, it will change the consciousness of the students too; if the issues are right and the Movement fights them, people will develop a commitment to the struggle as a whole, and an understanding of the need to be revolutionaries rather than a `student movement.’…” (end of part 10 excerpts)

(New Left Notes 6/18/69)

The 1969 Weatherman Statement Revisited: Even More Excerpts from Part 9

It’s not likely that the New York Times will mark the 40th anniversary of the June 1969 Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] National Convention in Chicago by reprinting excerpts from the position paper of the Weatherman faction of SDS. So following are even more excerpts from Part 9 of this historic position paper (that originally appeared in the June 18, 1969 issue of New Left Notes) which might interest U.S. anti-war activists in 2009—during the current U.S. historical era of “endless permanent war abroad and economic depression at home”:

“SDS has not dealt in any adequate way with the women question; the resolution passed at Ann Arbor did not lead to much practice, nor has the need to fight male supremacy been given any programmatic direction within the RYM [Revolutionary Youth Movement]. As a result, we have a very limited understanding of the tie-up between imperialism and the women question, although we...guess that the breakdown of the family is crucial to the women question. How do we organize women against racism and imperialism without submerging the principled revolutionary question of women’s liberation? We have no real answer, but we recognize the real reactionary danger of women’s groups that are not self-consciously revolutionary and anti-imperialist.

“To become more relevant to the growing women’s movement, SDS women should begin to see as a primary responsibility the self-conscious organizing of women. We will not be able to organize women unless we speak directly to their own oppression. This will become more and more critical as we work with more oppressed women. Women who are working and women who have families face male supremacy continuously in their day-to-day lives; that will have to be the starting point in their politicization. Women will never be able to undertake a full revolutionary role unless they break out of their woman’s role. So a crucial task for revolutionaries is the creation of forms of organization in which women will be able to take on new and independent roles. Women’s self-defense groups will be a step toward these organizational forms, as an effort to overcome women’s isolation and build revolutionary self-reliance.

“The cultural revolt of women against their `role’ in imperialism (which is just beginning to happen in a mass way) should have the same sort of revolutionary potential that the RYM [Revolutionary Youth Movement] claimed for `youth culture.’ The role of the `wife-mother’ is reactionary in most societies, and the disintegration of that role under imperialism should make women more sympathetic to revolution.

“In all of our work we should try to formulate demands that not only reach out to more oppressed women, but ones which tie us to other ongoing struggles, in the way that a daycare center at U of C [University of Chicago] enabled us to tie the women’s liberation struggle to the Black Liberation struggle.

"There must be a strong revolutionary women's movement, for without one it will be impossible for women’s liberation to be an important part of the revolution. Revolutionaries must be made to understand the full scope of women’s oppression, and the necessity to smash male supremacy.” (end of third section of excerpts from part 9)

(New Left Notes 6/18/69)

The 1969 Weatherman Statement Revisited: More Excerpts from Part 9

It’s not likely that the New York Times will mark the 40th anniversary of the June 1969 Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] National Convention in Chicago by reprinting excerpts from the position paper of the Weatherman faction of SDS. So following are some more excerpts from Part 9 of this historic position paper (that originally appeared in the June 18, 1969 issue of New Left Notes) which might interest U.S. anti-war activists in 2009—during the current U.S. historical era of “endless permanent war abroad and economic depression at home”:

“What does it mean to organize around racism and imperialism in specific struggles? In the high schools (and colleges) at this time, it means putting forth a mass line to close down the schools, rather than to reform them, so that they can serve the people. The reason for this line is not that under capitalism the schools cannot serve the people, and therefore it is silly or illusory to demand that. Rather, it is that kids are ready for the full scope of militant struggle, and already demonstrate a consciousness of imperialism…To tell a kid in New York that imperialism tracks him and thereby oppresses him is often small potatoes compared to his consciousness that imperialism oppresses him by jailing him…And even where high school kids are not yet engaged in such sharp struggle, it is crucial not to build consciousness only around specific issues such as tracking or ROTC or racist teachers, but to use these issues to build toward the general consciousness that the schools should be shut down. It may be important to present a conception of what schools should or could be like (this would include the abolition of the distinction between mental and physical work), but not offer this total conception as really possible to fight for in any way but through revolution.

“A mass line to close down the schools or colleges does not contradict demands for open admissions to college or any other good reform demand. Agitational demands for impossible, but reasonable, reforms are a good way to make a revolutionary point. The demand for open admissions by asserting the alternative to the present (school) system exposes its fundamental nature—that it is racist, class-based, and closed—pointing to the only possible solution to the present situation: `Shut it down!’ The impossibility of real open admissions—all black and brown people admitted, no flunk-out, full scholarship, under present conditions—is the best reason (that the schools show no possibility for real reform) to shut the schools down. We should not throw away the pieces of victories we gain from these struggles, for any kind of more open admissions means that the school is closer to closing down (it costs the schools more, there are more militant blacks and browns making more and more fundamental demands on the schools, and so on). Thus our line in the schools, in terms of pushing any good reforms, should be `Open them up and shut them down!’

“The spread of black caucuses in the shops and other workplaces throughout the country is an extension of the black liberation struggle. These groups have raised and will continue to raise anti-racist issues to white workers in a sharper fashion than any whites ever have or could raise them. Blacks leading struggles against racism made the issue unavoidable, as the black student movement leadership did for white students. At the same time these black groups have led fights which traditional trade-union leaders have consistently refused to lead—fights against speed-ups and for safety (issues which have become considerably more serious in the last few years), forcing white workers, particularly the more oppressed, to choose in another way between allegiance to the white mother country and black leadership. As white mother country radicals we should try to be in shops, hospitals, and companies where there are black caucuses, perhaps organizing solidarity groups, but at any rate pushing the importance of the black liberation struggle to whites, handing out Free Huey literature, bringing guys out to Panther rallies, and so on. Just one white guy could play a crucial role in countering UAW counter-insurgency.

“We also need to relate to workplaces where there is no black motion but where there are still many young white workers. In the shops the crisis in imperialism has come down around speed-up, safety, and wage squeeze—due to higher taxes and increased inflation, with the possibility of wage-price controls being instituted.

“We must relate this exploitation back to imperialism. The best way to do this is probably not caucuses in the shops, but to take guys to citywide demonstrations, Newsreels, even the latest administration building [sit-in], to make the Movement concrete to them and involve them in it. Further, we can affect consciousness and pick up people through agitational work at plants, train stops, etc.,…, handing out leaflets about the war, the Panthers, the companies’ holdings overseas or relations to defense industry, etc….” (end of second section of excerpts from part 9)

(New Left Notes 6/18/69)

65th Anniversary of D-Day: An Alternative View

June 6, 2009 marks the 65th anniversary of D-Day. The Russian Version of the Second World War book, which Graham Lyons edited, presented an alternative version of what actually happened 65 years ago in Western Europe:

“In June 1944, when it had become obvious that the Soviet Union was capable of defeating Hitler’s Germany with her forces alone, England and the USA opened the Second Front.

“On 6 June the Allied forces, commanded by General Eisenhower, landed in Normandy (Northern France). The Anglo-American forces…advanced into the heart of France…

“…The Germans had diverted only 60 divisions to the Western front, while the Hitler command maintained 259 divisions and brigades on the Soviet-German front…”

According to The French Resistance: 1940 to 1944 by Frida Knight, during the days and weeks after D-Day in France, “towns and villages” in Normandy were “mercilessly bombed by the Allied planes;” and around the city of Caen, “the Allied Command ordered air-raids almost as cruel as those on Germany.” As a result, according to the same book, “hundreds died and thousands lost their homes;” and “when the Canadian division finally entered and `liberated’ Caen there was little left of the town” and “the population had declined from 32,000 to 12,000.”

The French Resistance book also asserted that “in Le Havre, the last Normandy town to be freed, where 1,500 tons of high explosives were dropped in two hours, there were between 2,000 and 3,000 dead, while 35,000 were completely bombed out of 10,500 homes;” and “it is now recognized but not always admitted that had the Allies understood the role of the French Resistance and incorporated its forces into their plans there would have been no need for the raids with their tolls of tragedy and harvest of bitterness…”

U.S. military casualties on D-Day included 1,465 killed, 3,184 wounded and 1,929 missing, according to The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan.

(Downtown 6/8/94)

Latino Worker Jobless Rate Under Obama Regime: 12.7 Percent

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latino workers in the United States jumped from 11.3 percent to 12.7 percent between April 2009 and May 2009 under the Democratic Obama Regime, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers also increased from 8.5 percent to 9 percent between April 2009 and May 2009.

For all U.S. male workers over 16 years-of-age, the officially “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate increased from 10 percent to 10.5 percent between April 2009 and May 2009.

For all U.S. workers, the “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate increased from 8.9 percent to 9.4 percent between April 2009 and May 2009.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for African-American female workers over 20 years-of-age also increased from 10.5 percent to 11.1 percent between April 2009 and May 2009; and the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all African-American workers increased from 14.4 percent to 14.7 percent during this same period.

The official “seasonally adjusted” rate for all African-American male workers over 20 years-of age was still 16.8 percent in May 2009.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for African-American youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 33.5 percent to 40.1 percent between April 2009 and May 2009, while the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Hispanic or Latino youth increased from 26.5 percent to 31 percent during this same period. The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age also increased from 18.8 percent to 21.1 percent between April 2009 and May 2009.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ June 5, 2009 press release:

“…Employment fell by 345,000 in May…Steep job losses continued in manufacturing...

“The number of unemployed persons increased by 787,000 to 14.5 million in May…

“The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 268,000 over the month…

“…The employment-population ratio, at 59.7 percent, continued to trend down…

“Manufacturing employment fell by 156,000 in May…Three durable goods industries—motor vehicles and parts (-30,000), machinery (-26,000), and fabricated metal products (-19,000)—accounted for about half of the overall decline in factory employment…Mining shed 11,000 jobs in May…

“Employment in construction decreased by 59,000 in May…In May, employment fell in nonresidential specialty trade contractors (-30,000) and in residential construction of buildings (-11,000)…

“Retail trade employment was down by 18,000 in May…Employment in wholesale trade fell by 22,000 over the month…

“Financial activities employment continued to decrease in May (-30,000). Securities lost 10,000 jobs and real estate lost 9,000…Employment in information decreased by 24,000 in May… “

The 1969 Weatherman Statement Revisited: Excerpts from Part 9

It’s not likely that the New York Times will mark the 40th anniversary of the June 1969 Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] National Convention in Chicago by reprinting excerpts from the position paper of the Weatherman faction of SDS. So following are some excerpts from Part 9 of this historic position paper (that originally appeared in the June 18, 1969 issue of New Left Notes) which might interest U.S. anti-war activists in 2009—during the current U.S. historical era of “endless permanent war abroad and economic depression at home”:

“How do we reach youth; what kinds of struggles do we build; how do we make a revolution? What we have tried to lay out so far is the political content of the consciousness which we want to extend and develop as a mass consciousness…Yet we are faced with a situation in which almost all of the people whose interests are served by these goals, and who should be, or even are, sympathetic to revolution, neither understand the specific tasks involved in making a revolution nor participate in accomplishing them. On the whole, people don’t join revolutions just because revolutionaries tell them to. The oppression of the system affects people in particular ways, and the development of political consciousness and participation begins with particular problems, which turn into issues and struggles. We must transform people’s everyday problems, and the issues and struggles growing out of them, into revolutionary consciousness, active and conscious opposition to racism and imperialism.

“This is directly counter posed to assuming that struggles around immediate issues will lead naturally over time to struggle against imperialism…This error is classical economism…

“On the one hand, if we, as revolutionaries are capable of understanding the necessity to smash imperialism and build socialism, then the masses of people who we want to fight along with us are capable of that understanding. On the other hand, people are brainwashed and at present don’t understand it; if revolution is not raised at every opportunity, then how can we expect people to see it in their interests, or to undertake the burdens of revolution? We need to make it clear from the very beginning that we are about revolution…

“In every case, our aim is to raise anti-imperialist and anti-racist consciousness and tie the struggles of working-class youth (and all working people) to the struggles of Third World people, rather than merely joining fights to improve material conditions, even though these fights are certainly justified. This is not to say that we don’t take immediate fights seriously, or fight hard in them, but that we are always up front with our politics, knowing that people in the course of struggle are open to a class line, ready to move beyond narrow self-interest.

“…What we must stress is the systematic nature of oppression and the way in which a single manifestation of imperialism makes clear its fundamental nature. At Columbia it was not the Gym, in particular, which was important in the struggle, but the way in which the Gym represented, to the people of Harlem and Columbia, Columbia’s imperialist invasion of the black colony. ..And the Richmond Oil Strike was exciting because the militant fight for improvement of material conditions was part and parcel of an attack on international monopoly capital. The numbers and militancy of people mobilized for these struggles has consistently surprised the left, and pointed to the potential power of a class-conscious mass movement…

“The masses will fight for socialism when they understand that reform fights, fights for improvement of material conditions, cannot be won under imperialism. With this understanding, revolutionaries should never put forth a line which fosters the illusion that imperialism will grant significant reforms. We must engage in struggles forthrightly as revolutionaries, so that it will be clear to anyone we help to win gains that the revolution rather than imperialism is responsible for them. This is one of the strengths of the Black Panther Party Breakfast for Children Program…Probably the American Friends Service Committee serves more children breakfast, but it is the symbolic value of the program in demonstrating what socialism will do for people which makes the Black Panther Program worthwhile.” (end of first section of excerpts from part 9)

(New Left Notes 6/18/69)

The 1969 Weatherman Statement Revisited: More Excerpts from Part 8

It’s not likely that the New York Times will mark the 40th anniversary of the June 1969 Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] National Convention in Chicago by reprinting excerpts from the position paper of the Weatherman faction of SDS. So following are some more excerpts from Part 8 of this historic position paper (that originally appeared in the June 18, 1969 issue of New Left Notes) which might interest U.S. anti-war activists in 2009—during the current U.S. historical era of “endless permanent war abroad and economic depression at home”:

“The contradictions of decaying imperialism fall hardest on youth in four distinct areas—the schools, jobs,…the army, and the…courts. (A) In jail-like schools, kids are fed a mish-mash of racist, male chauvinist, anti-working class…lies while being channeled into job and career paths set up according to the priorities of monopoly capital. At the same time, the State is becoming increasingly incapable of providing enough money to keep the schools going at all. (B) Youth unemployment is three times average unemployment. As more jobs are threatened by automation or the collapse of specific industries, unions act to secure jobs for those already employed. New people in the labor market can’t find jobs, job stability is undermined (also because of increasing speed-up and more intolerable safety conditions) and people are less and less going to work in the same shop for 40 years. And, of course, when they do find jobs, young people get the worst ones and have the least seniority. (C) There are…soldiers under thirty who are…forced to police the world, kill and be killed in wars of imperialist domination. And (D) as a `youth problem’ develops out of this, the…courts enforce curfews, set up pot busts, keep people off the streets, and repress any youth motion whatsoever.

“In all of this, it is not that life in America is toughest for youth or that they are the most oppressed. Rather, it is that young people are hurt directly—and severely—by imperialism. And, in being less tightly tied to the system, they are more `pushed’ to join the black liberation struggle against US imperialism. Among young people there is less of a material base for racism—they have no seniority, have not spent 20 years securing a skilled job (the white monopoly of which is increasingly challenged by the black liberation movement), and aren’t just about to pay off a 25-year mortgage on a house…

“While these contradictions of imperialism fall hard on all youth, they fall hardest on the youth of the most oppressed (least privileged) sections of the working class. Clearly these youth have the greatest material base for struggle. They are the ones who most often…get the worst jobs if they get any, who are most abused by the various institutions of social control, from the army to decaying schools, to the…courts….They are the people whom we can reach who at this stage are most ready to engage in militant revolutionary struggle.

“The point of the revolutionary youth movement strategy is to move from a predominant student elite base to more oppressed (less privileged) working-class youth as a way of deepening and expanding the revolutionary youth movement…This is part of a strategy to reach the entire working class to engage in struggle against imperialism; moving from more privileged sections of white working-class youth to more oppressed sections to the entire working class as a whole, including importantly what has classically been called the industrial proletariat…

“The above arguments make it clear that it is both important and possible to reach young people wherever they are—not only in the shops, but also in the schools, in the army and in the streets—so as to recruit them to fight on the side of the oppressed peoples of the world…” (end of second section of part 8 excerpts)

(New Left Notes 6/18/69)