PUBLISHER'S NOTE – 55.3
Written by SP Editor
Longtime author and organizer, Mike Miller, argues that the coming US election is in jeopardy, and that we need to aggressively organize to prepare for this problem, as an inevitability. Another veteran organizer, Kim Harmon, instead offers tips on successful negotiations for both labor unions and community organizations. ACORN’s Elliott Anderson offers a global snapshot on the climate change induced heat extremes, and the actions being undertaken by ACORN and its allies to meet that challenge.
This issue includes an extensively researched excerpt from Professor Thomsen’s book, The Money Signal, about the pernicious role of money in politics at every level in the United States. It is no surprise, given the enormous amounts now being spent, that she sees the mixture of money and politics as a direct threat to our democracy. The collective organization agenda is non-violence even in these darkest days.
Our book reviews look at the reflections from the careers of controversial activist, Michael Ansara, and former organizer and current professor, Marshall Ganz. I remember Ansara from occasional conversations in the neutral ground of Anna’s Brookline Lunch in Cambridge in the late 60’s, when he was at his office in the Old Mobe, nearer to Mass Ave, and we were on the other side of Anna’s in the storefront occupied by Massachusetts Welfare Rights Organization. I remember another lunch in Watsonville with Ganz, when he was still organizing after his time with the UFW and between things after working on voter mobilization for California’s Senator Cranston. Both have lots to say about hope, power, and lessons learned near the frontlines that are worth attention today, as they were then.
Our columnists are all about now and going full speed forward without looking in the rearview mirror. Phil Mattera makes the case that even as the government retreats from its role in ensuring accountability and protection for the citizenry, that doesn’t mean that others haven’t steeped into the gap, and done so with success. Drummond Pike has learned quite a lot from a lifetime avocation of growing grapes in his vineyards and finds the Trump manufactured attack on immigrants an unsustainable disaster for farm labor and agricultural enterprises. John Anderson keeps us up to date on the fight for affordable housing in Canada. Professor Squires offers us an update on social justice research and finds signs of its potential resurgence. In backstory, I offer some reflections on labor’s role in our political crises in the US and abroad, and whether or not we are meeting the challenges of our times.
Even a cursory examination of the articles in this issue will find that in none of these arguments is there any remote hint of violence in the pursuit of change, despite endless and constant provocation. Collective organization and actions are avowedly about building power and making change, but even in these darkest of days, violence won’t be found on the agenda. There’s hope that the doors will be opened for people and a better future, but people won’t wait forever for the change they demand. It will be those that lock and block the doors that will be responsible for the deluge. Meanwhile as this issue points out again, there’s work to be done.
