Letter: Chicago should honor May Day
April 27, 2008
Substance:
Dear Working People!
This letter is being written to analyze, from a working-class viewpoint, “Getting on the Bus for Justice — Veterans from Chicago and Northwest Indiana Participate in ‘Winter Soldier’ Hearings in the Washington, DC Area,” and “More materials on line about the wars...class lessons on the wars,” both by Kim Scipes (“Substance,” April, 2008, pp. 24, 20; 14-15).
We encourage readers to (re)read both the article, and the letter, the former being an excellent account of the recent, important hearings, organized by Iraqi Veterans Against the War (IVAW, www.ivaw.org). Both the article and the letter have loads of subject references, most on-line.
The central criticism that we have is the absence of the terms (categories) “capitalism” and “imperialism” and “class,” even, ironically, in “class lessons”!
We’ll try to fill in most of the gaps: the working class and the unemployed actually are primarily fighting and dying in the imperialist Iraqi Oil War and fought and died in the imperialist Vietnam War; the officer corps in both wars mainly come/came from the upper middle class, and secondarily the bourgeois. Both of these imperialist wars are/were waged in the “national” — class interests — of the big capitalist ruling class!. The U.S. Government acts as THE representatives of the big capitalist ruling class. We, the working people, are just expendable pawns in the U.S. Armed Forces, in the financial, global chess war in the struggle for the class profits/interests of big business.
The only way to end this murderous cycle of imperialist wars is the REAL socialist revolution world-wide by the international working-class and the unemployed, where workers democratically govern through workplace councils that are democratic.
NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR!? [IWW/CHIREVNET slogan]
For the CHIcago REVolutionary NETwork [CHIREVNET]
Perry Sanders
Denver, Colorado
perrysanders90@comcast.net
Comments:
By: john whitfield
UNION MAID
UNION MAID, by Woody Guthrie
There was once a union maid, Who was never afraid of the goons and the ginks and company finks And the deputy sheriff who made the raid. She'd go to the union hall When the meeting it was called, And when the company boys came'round she always stood her ground.
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm stickin' to the union. I'm stickin to the union, I'm stickin to the union. Oh, you can't scare me, I'm stickin' to the union. I'm stickin' to the union, till the day I die. The union maid was wise To the tricks of the company spies;
She'd never be fooled by the company stools, She'd always organize the guys. She'd always get her way when she struck for higher pay,
She'd show her union card to the National Guard and this is what she'd say:(chorus) A women's struggle is hard
Even with a union card,
She's got to stand on her own two feet, And not be a servant of the male elite. It's time to take a stand, Keep working hand in hand. There's a job that's got to be done, And a fight that's got to be won. (chorus)
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm stickin' to the union. I'm stickin to the union, I'm stickin to the union.
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm stickin' to the union. I'm stickin' to the union, till the day I die.
By: john whitfield
! Perry Sanders Presente !
Professor Perry Sanders (St. Francis College, computer Instructor, Joliet, IL.) passed away long ago. Like George Schmidt was a true comrade, and co-founder of ChiRevNet. We put out a publication 'Rev News', some of you just might recall. I met Perry at a 25th year commemoration of the 'Kent State Massacre', and he subsequently came to our school, Cesar Chavez School in the Back of the Yards to speak to some Jr. High age students. Perry left the Air Force after denouncing the horrific bombings taking place in Viet Nam, but also suffered life long damages from being in the brig, and psychologically tortured. It affected him for the rest of his life. Perry showed the students a video of going through the draft, and what can happen when the military drafts you into the armed services.
Perry called every week end inquiring about the family, school, and we shared what was going on in the city, our country, the world, and mother earth, as he and Diana were also nature photographers. You can go to ChiRevNet.com (Chicago Revolutionary Network) of which Perry was co-founder of, to see some of Perry Sander's writings / letters to Red and Black Notes for example.
Perry and I along with Dave O. , and the legendary Carlos Cortez served on the GDC of the IWW. I felt fortunate to have met the people that I was able to meet while having lived in Chicago, like Dolores Huerta of the UFW, and working on the strawberry campaign in Chicago, which Chicagoans supported wholeheartedly. It was the struggle in Watsonville, California. Still a couple a months away, but have a revolutionary MAY DAY workers of the world.