Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 07.18.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     07.18.05

1. Wendy Wilde/950AM    7.19 9am
2. Hiking trails        7.19 10am
3. Wearables party      7.19 5pm
4. Salon/peace          7.19 6:30pm
5. Anti-CIA film        7.19 8:30pm

6. Public $$$ basics    7.20 7:30am
7. Parks/stop DeLaSalle 7.20 5pm
8. Cuba/Venezuela       7.20 7pm?
9. Reel politics        7.20 8pm

10. Andrew Blackman - What is the soul of socialism?
11. Smith/Johnson   - Empty bed blues

--------1 of 11--------

From: Wendy Wilde <wendywilde [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Wendy Wilde/950AM 7.19 9am

7.19.2005

9-10am David Morris from NewRules.org - topic to be determined and George
Stephanopoulos joins Wendy to promote his speaking engagement in the Twin
Cities this week.

10-11am David Rubenstein on how the Center for the American Experiment is
a Republican propaganda machine and an incubator for Republican candidates
and operatives in Minnesota. It defines the Republican agenda, including
regressive tax cuts, privatization and the crippling of the public sector
to the denial of global warming and the invasion of Iraq.

Encore broadcast of Wendy Wilde Show at 5pm

Wendy Wilde www.wendywilde.com AM 950 Air America Minnesota Mon-Fri
9am-11am


--------2 of 11--------

From: GibbsJudy [at] aol.com

Subject: Hiking trails 7.19 10am

The Superior Hiking Trail Association is seeking volunteers to help build
14 of 40 miles through the city of Duluth during 2005. No experience is
needed, tools and equipment provided. Please call 218-728-9827 or email
gibbsjudy [at] aol.com to register or for more information. Or go to the SHTA
website: www.shta.org and click on the Duluth Section to find up to the
minute details.

July 19, 10-3 pm Meet in Mission Creek. To get there from the north, take
I-35 to Grand Avenue and follow it all the way out to 131st Ave. West.
(The name on Grand changes to Commonwealth and then to Evergreen
Boulevard.) To get there from the south, take the Midway Road exit, turn
right onto Midway Road, follow it to the stop sign on Commonwealth (Grand)
and turn right. Follow to 131st Ave. West. Meet at the park called "Fond
du Lac park".

July 19, 6-9 pm meet at this locale: Meet at Skyline Drive parking area
located .9 miles from highway 53 on Skyline Parkway, or .8 miles form
Haines Road/40th Ave west junction of Skyline drive.

July 20, 10-3 pm Meet in Mission Creek. To get there from the north, take
I-35 to Grand Avenue and follow it all the way out to 131st Ave. West.
(The name on Grand changes to Commonwealth and then to Evergreen
Boulevard.) To get there from the south, take the Midway Road exit, turn
right onto Midway Road, follow it to the stop sign on Commonwealth (Grand)
and turn right. Follow to 131st Ave. West. Meet at the park called "Fond
du Lac park".

July 21, 10-3 pm Meet in Mission Creek. To get there from the north, take
I-35 to Grand Avenue and follow it all the way out to 131st Ave. West.
(The name on Grand changes to Commonwealth and then to Evergreen
Boulevard.) To get there from the south, take the Midway Road exit, turn
right onto Midway Road, follow it to the stop sign on Commonwealth (Grand)
and turn right. Follow to 131st Ave. West. Meet at the park called "Fond
du Lac park".

Judy Gibbs 728-9827 5875 North Shore Dr., Duluth, MN 55804


--------3 of 11--------

From: Recyclaholics <wearables [at] recyclaholics.com>
Subject: Wearables party 7.19 5pm

Recyclaholics & the Alliance for Sustainability
Present
The First Annual "WEARABLES" Party
http://www.recyclaholics.com/wearables

A mixture of Fashion, the Earth and Fun
Tuesday July 19
5-9pm
at "The IN" 983 Hennepin Ave E, Minneapolis

Featuring:

INSPIRING DIALOGUE by Terry Gips, Founder, Alliance for Sustainability
Without a doubt, one of the country's premier experts on sustainability.

A FASHION SHOW of recycled, haute couture Featuring Ruby 3 by Anna Lee
(www.ruby3.com).

Plus...
Dancing & DJ
Networking Opportunities
Appetizers and Cash Bar

Dress Code:
* please wear at least one item that is recycled.
* awards for the most creative use of materials.
* recycled-fashion police will be at the door.

Help us demonstrate that recycling is hip, fashionable, profitable and for
the greater good! You will never see the Earth quite the same way again!

TICKETS:
$20 advance sales
$25 at the door
purchase tickets: http://www.recyclaholics.com/wearables

Fifteen percent (15%) of the profits from this event will go to the
Alliance for Sustainability. Special "recycle bins" will also be set up to
accept additional donations for several animal rights, human rights and
environmental organizations. Bring your spare change! Bring your blank
checks! To find out more, e-mail us or call (612) 521-LOOP.

This will be zero-waste event. All generated waste will either be donated,
recycled or composted.

This Wearables Party is co-sponsored by RECYCLAHOLICS
(www.recyclaholics.com), the largest supplier of biodegradable packaging
on the planet, and the ALLIANCE FOR SUSTAINABILITY
(www.allianceforsustainability.net), promoting sustainability through
projects that are ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just
and humane.

Lisa Mitchell Witchell Founder, Recyclaholics Phone: (612) 521-LOOP
E-Mail: info [at] recyclaholics.com Web: www.recyclaholics.com


--------4 of 11--------

From: patty guerrero <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Salon/peace 7.19 6:30pm

On Tuesday July 19, Polly Mann of Women Against Military Madness and lots
of other peace and justice organizations will lead us in a discussion of
how peacemakers can view the world.

Salons are held (unless otherwise noted in advance):
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Mad Hatter's Tea House,
943 W 7th, St Paul, MN

Free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------5 of 11--------

From: Timothy Fay <fayxx001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Anti-CIA film 7.19 8:30pm

Twin Cities Indymedia will host a screening of the film THE SPOOK WHO SAT
BY THE DOOR on Tuesday, 19 July, at 8:30pm at the Dinkytowner Cafe in
Minneapolis.

This controversial 1973 film, directed by Ivan Dixon (Sgt. Kinchloe from
the TV series HOGAN'S HEROES), features Lawrence Cook as Dan Freeman, a
CIA recruit who turns against the Agency and uses his training in spy
craft and urban warfare to foment inner-city revolution.

THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR is over 30 years old, but the film's
revolutionary ideals and stinging criticism of U.S. government, society
and racism are still right on target.  It is rarely screened, so don't
miss this unique political thriller.

Presented by Twin Cities Indymedia ( http://tc.indymedia.org ) and The
Usual Suspects ( http://www.browncross.com/usualsuspects/ )

For more information, contact Twin Cities Indymedia.

For a copy of the flyer:
http://www.rootoon.com/text/spook.pdf


--------6 of 11--------

From: erin stojan <erinstpaulissues [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Public finance basics 7.20 7:30am

Folks--for those of you interested in learning basics about many levels of
public finance (woohoo!), the Citizens League is offering breakfast
workshops in St. Paul.  They are reasonably priced, and have many great
topics and speakers.  The last event, on Sept. 14, talks about the impact
of public safety spending on city finances, and how to get more out of St.
Paul safety dollars, presented by Matt Smith, Director of Financial
Services, City of Saint Paul.

(BTW, what you see below is what I know; all questions should be directed
to the Citizens League
(http://www.citizensleague.net/html/mind-openers.html)).

Public financing is hardly exciting stuff, but these decisions
dramatically affect the services available to citizens.  Check it out if
you have the chance.

Show us the money! Public finance event series hosted by the Citizens
League

All events will be held at 7:30am. @ Four Points Sheraton (Midway) -
I-94 & Hamline, St. Paul.  Breakfast served; $15 nonmembers, $10 members.
Check, credit card, cash accepted.

Preregistration and more info at
http://www.citizensleague.net/html/mind-openers.html

--
Wednesday, July 20
The Basics
with Dr. Art Rolnick
What is a public good and how do you deliver it? What can the market do
and when does it fail? What is the role of government? What have we been
doing in Minnesota, and how well have we performed?

Wednesday, August 3
The Future
with State Demographer Tom Gillaspy and State Economist Tom Stinson
If demography is destiny, what do the tea leaves predict for Minnesota?
How should we be spending our public dollars now to prepare for the
future? How will we be spending our dollars then?

Thursday, August 18
The Feds
with Tim Penny, Humphrey Institute Policy Forum (and other guests)
How will spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid affect
Minnesota's budget for the next generation?

Wednesday, August 31
The 800-Pound Gorilla in Minnesota: Health Care with Dan McElroy, Chief of
Staff to Governor Tim Pawlenty
With costs ballooning and demographic trends becoming more troubling, how
can state spending maximize efficiency and quality in health care?

Wednesday, September 14
The 800-Pound Gorilla in Our Backyards with Matt Smith, Director of
Financial Services, City of Saint Paul
Public safety makes up a major portion of local spending. How can we spend
our public safety dollars differently (and better!) at a time when public
safety is more important than ever?


--------7 of 11--------

From: ed
Subject: Parks/stop DeLaSalle 7.20 5pm

Please attend the next meeting of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation
Board.
5-8pm, Wednesday, July 20
Park Board administrative headquarters
2117 West River Road

---
From: Elizabeth Wielinski <lizski [at] goldengate.net>

For many of you interested in the DeLaSalle athletic facility brouhaha
you can now view the proposed agreement which comes before the planning
committee at the MPRB this Wednesday at 5pm at the headquarters
building on the shores of the Mississippi along West River Road.

Go to the MPRB website at
http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=37&calid=310 and scroll
to the bottom and click on the link to the agreement at the bottom of the
page ( .pdf file).

Having briefly perused the agreement I have a few questions and comments.

#1 Since the MPRB has worded the agreement to be neither a lease or sale
of land, and the land will be owned by the MPRB...  will the stadium (
oops, athletic facility) construction be handled by an RFP process and
will the company be required to hire "prevailing wage"  employees?  For
those of you unfamiliar with this term it basically means "union labor".
I think our good friends in labor would be curious about this.  I asked GM
Siggelkow if the new kitchen construction at the Nicollet Island Pavilion
had to do this and they did not because as PRIVATE LEASE HOLDERS did not
need to comply with the regulations the MPRB does.  The event at the
Nicollet Island Pavilion last weekend for Microsoft had a show and guess
what... no union stagehands.  I know quite a few of our commissioners get
endorsed by the unions and if they truly embody union principles I say
great.  However, by leasing out and privatizing our parkland they are
actually working against the unions.  As a member of union household I am
not too keen on that idea.

#2 Auxiliary Parking Lot with a bituminous surface.  Okay, I have been to
many meetings and seen many diagrams etc...  I remember tennis courts
being to the east of the facility, not a parking lot.  Where did this come
from?  And I suppose it will run off directly into the river?

#3 A minimum of 3 tennis court will be built on MPRB land at DeLaSalle's
expense....  I guess this answers part of #2.  There is MPRB land all over
the place so I guess the courts are going to Boom Island or Edgewater Park
or Gluek Park or somewhere off campus.  I guess the tennis players can
play where ever just not the football and soccer teams.

#4 DeLaSalle shall make available to the MPRB their sports facilities for
MPRB constituents.  After perusing the DeLaSalle website I noticed they
have a music and fine arts program.  Loring Park has a "cultural program"
couldn't NE have one as well and base it out of DeLaSalle's shared
facilities.  Not all forms of recreation involve running and getting
sweaty ( spoken like a true couch potato... I know ).

Not wanting to sound completely negative I must say that I was glad to see
ADA requirements written into the agreement as well as enough provisions
to cover most legalities and questions of what will be done if the Met
Open Space board asks for their money back.  And of course it looks like
my pet peeve the legal costs, will all fall to DeLaSalle so that is one
less worry.  I have heard a rumor that due to the historic nature of the
island the retaining wall can not be just any old cement eyesore.  I am
curious as to what the Historical Society Folks will say and if they will
be included before the final design plans are approved.

The process the MPRB used throughout this entire matter was shoddy ( and
possible against their own regulations according to Scott Vreeland's
posts) and I'm sure more questions beyond the few I've mentioned will come
up at Wednesday's meeting.  I hope the staff has covered all the
contingencies, and if not I would hope any vote would be postponed.

Liz Wielinski Columbia Park
http://www.parkboardreform.org http://www.mplsparkwatch.org

---
From: Shawne FitzGerald <sean [at] tcq.net>

The De La Salle agreement fails to protect the public in important ways.
De La Salle is not required to post development bonds that will ensure
that any construction ordered by De La Salle during the term of the
agreement is paid for in full and the public title remains clear.  This is
the same mistake that the MPRB made when turning over the 201 Building at
Fort Snelling to Robert Naegle III dba The Fort LLC.  On that project, the
developer walked away and there are $2.5 million in liens filed against
the parkland.  The matter is now in court for the contractors are trying
to foreclose on the liens.

The MPRB is being asked to sign this agreement without seeing De La
Salle's financial plan.  Also, there is no neighborhood and citywide
review for the actual plan that now includes a parking lot.

Use by city residents, staffing, and maintenance is not clearly defined in
the agreement.  What will it really cost the MPRB to use this facility?

This agreement empowers De La Salle to lobby the State of Minnesota (the
Met Council) and the City of Minneapolis on behalf of the MPRB in order to
get project approvals.  MPRB and De La Salle may have different interests
in the process & the MPRB will have to be involved so this is a cost to
the public.

The MPRB Commissioners have yet to say what land they will trade to the
Met Council Open Space & Regional Parks program for the De La Salle space.

De La Salle can abandon the project at anytime yet the MPRB has no out.
Should De La Salle abandon the project, it can strip the facility of as
little or as much as it wants and return it to the MPRB ready for
"immediate" use.  De La Salle is not required to restore the land back to
its present day condition - no bond is required to ensure this.

There is no mention of payment of storm runoff fees.  With astroturf and a
new parking lot, an increase in storm runoff fees seems likely.  MPRB (the
taxpayers) will have to pay these on the portion owned by the MPRB.

This agreement gives De La Salle use of our parkland for up to 70 years -
we will be dead before there is even a chance to oppose a renewal.  My
grandson is 14 - he will be 84 when this agreement expires.  As a
practical matter, this really is a land giveaway to a private religious
institution with hidden costs that will be borne by taxpayers.

Shawne FitzGerald
Powderhorn
People Opposed to Park Privatization (POPP)

---
From: Annie Young <anniey [at] visi.com>

Wednesday evening is an agenda item for the Planning Committee regarding
DeLaSalle.  It is a study report item with public hearing and comment on
the reciprocal agreement.

Actions are set (at the moment) for a Aug. 3rd Planning Committee vote and
a full Board vote on Aug. 17th.

Annie Young citywide Park Commissioner

---
From: Christine Viken <c1900 [at] sihope.com>

The announced PUBLIC HEARING on Wednesday, July 20 to consider locating a
DeLaSalle Stadium on public land has now become a FORUM -- a change
neither explained nor defined. Since the time seems also to have shifted,
that won't be noted until it can be verified.

Perhaps these changes reflect the fact that DeLaSalle has dropped all
references to the disputed 1983 agreement -- the supposed basis for their
claim to Park Board Land. The assertion that the 750+ stadium seating
would not create parking problems has also shifted and drifted to the
riverbank and become a bituminous parking lot.

Additional changes include stripping down the reciprocal use agreement
into wording so minimal it's become the legal version of a SPEEDO. And it
leaves about as much uncovered!

Tune in to the broadcasts and you can see two parents and one grandparent of
DeLaSalle grads and one former DeLaSalle faculty member assert they are
entirely impartial in voting a multimillion dollar benefit for DeLaSalle.
While this may not fit the legal definition of "conflict of interest", it
certainly gives rise to questions of whether these commissioners are lacking
neutrality and conjures up the appearance of impropriety by members who
still haven't answered for their coup 'd Gurban.

It's especially questionable in light of failure to follow their own
policies REQUIRING the establishment of a citizen advisory board and this
rush to vote. It's as if this must move before the tide of public
awareness catches up with the shifting, drifting sand of this "shared use"
proposal. (Read the agreement on www.minneapolisparks.org: shared use
means the public gets DeLaSalle's leftovers.)

Could this "hell bent for a stadium" timeline owe something to the fact
that the board composition may be dramatically changed following
November's election?

There's a saying: "A wise man realizes he can't see the hair on his own
back." If these commissioners refuse to acknowlege the obvious and simply
go ahead with a yes vote, the voters should see that they have time for a
shave following election day.

I'm certain the alum of DeLaSalle will be more than happy to pay for a shave
AND a haircut."

---
ed
I think it not unlikely that a majority of the public park board doesn't
like public parks - or anything else public either, preferring to
privatize everything into the hands of the rich, leaving the public with
nothing public. And oh, get off their land. Now. Or else. The same kind of
thing we're getting from Bush and Pawlenty - overall, the biggest theft in
the history of the world. -ed


--------8 of 11--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Cuba/Venezuela 7.20 7pm?

Wednesday, 7/20, start of Cuba and Venezuela film and discussion group.
Free.  Meets 1 night per week for 8 weeks.  Contact Joan 651-451-4081 or
justnad [at] comcast.net


--------9 of 11--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Reel politics 7.20 8pm

Stevens Square Community Organization partners with Search & Rescue, a
program of MN Film Arts to present

REEL POLITICS: Cinema and Civics in Stevens Square Park

In an age when the relevancy of art in relation to society becomes
increasingly disjointed, REEL POLITICS: Cinema and Civics In Stevens
Square Park is a welcomed response. Presented on Wednesday nights in July
at Stevens Square Park, REEL POLITICS mends the fracture between art and
civics by employing the town square format of civic dialogue in a time of
change and development in the Stevens Square-Loring Heights neighborhood.
This public forum offers the chance to experience methods of communicating
long considered outdated.  Providing a chance to hear whatıs on the minds
of neighbors and city officials, while attempting to preserve discarded
collections of 16mm film, REEL POLITICS is truly an attempt to swim
against the stream. The Stevens Square Community Organization has invited
candidates for city offices including Mayor, City Council, Park & Rec, and
Library Board to join in this discussion with the community.

Films for the program have been provided by Minnesota Film Artsı Search
and Rescue program. Working with discarded archives and neglected titles
the series presents a wide variety of animation, documentary and
experimental films, all intended to bring neighbors together in the park
for a unique experience of cinema, community and history. These four
programs of short films, most of which are under 10 minutes in length and
are drawn from a broad spectrum of the film arts provide something for
everybody and a rare opportunity for all.

Reel Politics: Cinema and Civics takes place on Wednesday evenings in July
and will also include:
· 8-9 pm: Local Djıs will groove you through the summer sunset.
· 8 pm: SSCO Hot Dog Sale and potluck style picnic-inı: buy a dog, pass a
dish, taste a dish.
· 8 pm: Stage and mic open to musicians and performers.
· 8:30 pm: Itıs an election year! Candidates for city offices take it to the
town square.
· Dusk:  Screening of Search and Rescue films. (please find schedule of
films below)

July 20
Fiddle Dee Dee ­ Mclaren again, master of timing and texture.  Ants ­ A
close up view of our tiny friends and their surprisingly complex
communities.  Frank Film ­ one manıs manic attempt to understand his own
life through collage. Overwhelming.  One World Or None ­ Remember the
dream of the UN ­ hereıs why it happened.  Powers of 10 ­ the great film
by designers Charles and Ray Eames that highlights just how small and how
big we all actually are.  Project Apollo ­ Our special tribute to the 36th
anniversary of the so called ³moon landing². Judge for yourself and
celebrate!

July 27
Is My Palm Read ­ Bimbo goes into fortune telling and Betty Boop barely
escapes. Geography of Your Community ­ A plodding but informative
description of how it all used to work. Eggceptional ­ What came first?
A complete mystery expertly done.  Wonders of the Sea ­ for those who
canıt make it to the beach.  A Sense of Responsibility ­ a little bit of
English humor.  Marx for Beginners ­even more English Humor. Shooting
Gallery ­ Stop motion animation from Prague circa ı78. Italian Children ­
No wonder Neo-realism worked so well ­ these kids are terribly cute.
Mountain Music ­ Its all fun and games until you start using really big
amps.  Where The Wild Things Are ­ an animated version of the Sendak
classic.

Wednesdays 8 pm July ı05 Motion Pictures at Dusk
Provided by Search and Rescue/MN Film Arts For More Information check
www.sscoweb.org 612-871-7307


--------10 of 11--------

What is the Soul of Socialism?
by Andrew Blackman
Monthly Review

At midnight on January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement
took effect. Years in the making, the treaty was designed to solidify the
rule of capital over the lives of millions of people from Calgary to
Guadalajara. It would smooth the way for capital investment across
borders, while blunting labor and environmental laws and reducing the
governments' ability to tax and regulate businesses.

At precisely the same moment, groups of men and women in ski masks were
busy setting up roadblocks around the picturesque tourist town of San
Cristobal de las Casas in the mountains of Chiapas in southern Mexico. As
the people of the town and its soldiers slept off their holiday
celebrations, the clandestine troops secured the police station and the
municipal palace. When the good people of San Cristobal awoke on New
Year's morning, they found their town in the hands of the Zapatistas.
Later that morning the group's spokesman, Subcomandante Marcos, addressed
the assembled crowd of citizens and reporters in the plaza. "The whole
neoliberal project that [Mexican President] Carlos Salinas represents is
put in jeopardy by our challenge," he said. As the reporters questioned
him about the link between the Zapatistas' actions and the start of NAFTA,
known in Mexico as the TLC, Marcos replied, "Of course what we are doing
here has to do with the TLC." He went on to explain how NAFTA would
threaten Mayan agriculture by allowing a flood of U.S. grain imports,
concluding: "To us, the free trade treaty is the death certificate for the
ethnic peoples of Mexico."1

That nocturnal strike against capitalism is emblematic of the soul of
socialism. Socialism lives not just in the Zapatistas' fight for
indigenous people's rights but also in the people of Bolivia's resistance
to the privatization of their water and other basic utilities. It thrives
in the people of the Narmada Valley in India fighting for their land and
resisting the construction of thousands of dams along the river. It
inspires the people of Brazil, Venezuela, and India who are voting for new
leaders and rejecting the neoliberal policies that have destroyed their
local industries for the sake of adding a couple of percentage points to
the market share of Bechtel and Chiquita. It breathes in Cuba's stubborn
half-century struggle for survival despite the persistent attempts of the
world's superpower to destroy its leadership and open its market to
capitalism. It resides in the repeated attempts by other tiny Caribbean
islands to elect socialist leaders despite massive pressure from the bully
in their backyard. It nourishes the people of the Niger Delta as they
struggle against the plunder of their land by multinational oil companies.
This is the soul of socialism.

New forms of socialism emerging in the global South may draw more
inspiration from local thinkers and heroes than from European icons like
Marx and Engels. They vary widely in scope, aims, and organization. They
may not even identify themselves by the word "socialism." But in their
basic struggle for a fairer distribution of the available resources, they
embody what George Orwell called "the underlying ideal of Socialism;
justice and liberty."2 Very few of the Mexican peasants who joined the
Zapatistas had read Marx or Engels, let alone Lukacs and Gramsci. They
were fighting not for the logical fulfillment of dialectical materialism
but for the right to farm their own land. The Zapatistas' original
eleven-point demand was work, land, shelter, bread, health, education,
democracy, liberty, peace, independence, and justice. This sounded so much
like a socialist manifesto that American journalist Bill Weinberg was
motivated to ask the Zapatistas whether they were "fighting for socialism,
like in Cuba." To this the Zapatistas' leader Marcos replied:

The directorate of our army has never spoken about Cuban or Soviet
socialism. We have always spoken about the basic rights of the human.
Education, housing, health, food, land, good pay for our work, democracy,
liberty. Some people may call this socialism. But it doesn't matter what
name you give these demands.

Weinberg reports that on his way to interview Marcos in the early days of
1994, the Zapatistas who were transporting him said that their preparation
involved both military training and political education. Weinberg asked
whether they had been schooled in the Russian or Chinese revolutions.
"They said no," he says. "Solo Zapatismo."3 The inspiration for the
movement was Emilio Zapata, a Nahua Indian who fought for land reform in
the Mexican Revolution of 1910 but was betrayed and murdered by an army
general in 1919. Despite his murder and the subsequent betrayal of many of
the ideals of the revolution, he and other revolutionaries left a legacy
of land reform. Article Twenty-Seven of the 1917 constitution established
that the Mexican people owned the land and that communal properties known
as ejidos were "inalienable and imprescriptable." In spite of this the
indigenous people still suffered as the large landowners found ways around
these rules. By the 1930s, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had
established an iron grip on power and would not lose an election for the
rest of the twentieth century. Apart from short periods of populism, the
decades of PRI rule generally allowed well-connected landowners and
businessmen to maintain and increase their power, while the interests of
indigenous farmers were frequently and casually sacrificed.

In Chiapas, the discontent had been brewing for many years, as the largely
Mayan population there saw the Mexican government becoming more and more
solicitous of foreign investors and neglecting the needs of its people.
But what Marcos called the "detonating" factor was the rewriting of
Article Twenty-Seven in 1992. While much of the "land reform" had been
elusive or illusory over the past seventy-five years, this move signaled
that the government no longer even thought it important to maintain the
pretense any more. The Mayan farmers were already being pushed higher and
higher into the mountains and deeper into the jungles as the big ranchers
moved into the more fertile plains, and they knew that with the removal of
any last legal protections, as well as the flood of cheap agricultural
imports that would result from NAFTA, their way of life was under serious
threat. So at the very moment when socialism across the world was
supposedly dying with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the
Soviet Union, it was flourishing in tiny villages across southern Mexico.
Marcos admitted that he was surprised by the appeal of the Zapatistas at
such an apparently bleak moment for socialist movements:

When the whole world was saying no to armed struggle because communism had
disappeared, we thought the people here were going to say no to the
Change, much less the armed struggle. This was logical - the ideological
bombardment was strong. But in the communities, the reverse happened. This
was the time when more people came over to incorporate themselves in the
militias of the Zapatista Army. Things had gotten so bad that the towns
declared they were left with no other road to take.

The people with no other road to take have always been at the heart of any
substantial socialist movement. The people with access to other
roads - wealth accumulation, academic careers, political power - are
frequently unable to resist their lure for very long. Once they are on the
more comfortable road, their privilege enables them to deny or ignore the
detrimental effects of capitalism. But the people who are stuck at the
bottom, working hard all their lives and receiving little benefit for all
their efforts but seeing all the profit from their labor go to the owners,
have an intimate knowledge of the downside of capitalism.

They know that meritocracy is a myth, because they have seen their own
efforts fail for want of a small loan or capital investment, while others
have succeeded with fewer talents but better connections. They've seen
executives ruin companies and receive multi-million-dollar payoffs, while
the workers pay for those bad decisions by getting laid-off. They've seen
politicians attack them for receiving government welfare, even as those
same politicians hand out billions of dollars in tax breaks to their
corporate contributors and spend billions more to bail out failing banks
and airlines.

For people who have seen the hypocrisy of capitalism firsthand and have
suffered its vicious effects, there is a point at which participating in a
game that's rigged against them is no longer a serious option. Malcolm X,
for example, didn't buckle when white politicians and journalists
denounced him and the threat of assassination was upon him. He believed
that "you only get action as a black man if you are regarded by the white
man as 'irresponsible.' In fact, this much I had learned as a little boy.
And since I have been some kind of a 'leader' of black people here in the
racist society of America, I have been more reassured each time the white
man resisted me, or attacked me harder - because each time made me more
certain that I was on the right track in the American black man's best
interests."4 He resisted and paid for it with his life, because he simply
could not participate in a system that had forever excluded and exploited
people like him.

Others not traditionally seen as socialists, like Martin Luther King Jr.
and Cesar Chavez, have done more to advance the cause of justice and
equality than many highly regarded, and securely tenured, socialist
thinkers. Increasingly, large populations in the South are finding
themselves with no other road to take, squeezed as they are by the ever
greater demands of profit-seeking corporations on the one hand and the
blithe equivocation of co-opted national governments on the other. Direct
action is becoming the only way to escape from the cycle of
impoverishment.

In taking this direct action, they are using a diverse set of tactics.
Whereas many socialist movements of the twentieth century used Marx or
Lenin as a foundation, the new movements are drawing more on local
traditions and developing tactics that are suited purely to that local
environment. Resistance to India's huge dam projects has been influenced
by Gandhian principles such as Satyagraha, nonviolent resistance.
Villagers have conducted sit-ins and hunger strikes. In some cases they
have refused to move from their homes even as the waters came up to their
necks.

The Ogoni people of the Niger Delta pursued various nonviolent tactics
against Shell after decades in which the company extracted massive amounts
of oil and profits and the local people received no benefit. Three hundred
thousand Ogoni held a peaceful protest on January 4, 1993, to demand an
environmental cleanup and payment for the loss of their resources.
Organizations such as the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People
were formed and continued to operate even after leaders like Ken Saro-Wiwa
were executed. The protests continue to this day, including an occupation
of a ChevronTexaco oil terminal by a group of Ogoni women in 2002, where
they secured their demands of jobs, schools, and water systems in part by
threatening to strip naked.

As for the Zapatistas in Mexico, they are a curious amalgam of military
hierarchy and participatory democracy. While they are heavily armed and
don't hesitate to use military tactics, they were very quick to accept a
ceasefire in the early days of their 1994 uprising and to engage in talks
with the Mexican government. These talks dragged on for many years, partly
because of the Zapatistas' loose, egalitarian organizational structure,
which required its leaders to return to their jungle base after every set
of talks to see if the new developments had the support of each of the
communities they represented. Even senior members of the hierarchy are
careful to point out in their public comments that they do not speak for
the whole Zapatista movement.

Even though the new socialism is local in its methods, these methods are
usually in response to conditions resulting from globalization. In the
case of Chiapas, NAFTA was a key factor. In the case of Bolivia, it was
multinational corporations seeking to establish even greater control over
basic natural resources like water and gas. In dozens of countries around
the world, it is the stringent demands of the International Monetary Fund
or the World Bank.

Globalization, of course, is nothing new. Nineteenth-century imperialism
was an earlier, cruder form. The economies of countries like Britain went
in a relatively short space of time from being dependent on local
agricultural markets and small-scale artisans to being the hub of a
massive global system for expropriating resources from Asia, Africa, and
the Americas, sending them to the factories of Manchester and shipping the
resulting goods out to foreign markets. Tens of millions of Africans were
taken from their homelands and transported to distant slave plantations to
support this massive accumulation of capital. Wars were fought and
missionaries were dispatched to all points of the globe, in order to
secure the fragile shipping routes that made this enormous heist possible.
As the Mayans in Chiapas can attest, and as hundreds of lost civilizations
now can't, globalization has wreaked havoc on the world for centuries.

Its recent manifestation, therefore, is not a radical departure from the
past. Consuls and armies have simply been replaced by trade subsidies and
structural adjustment programs. The language of economic imperialism is
much more cryptic than that of the old military variety, masking the
underlying exploitation with harmless-sounding talk of promoting free
trade and removing artificial barriers. But to Africans, Asians, West
Indians, and South Americans it is all too familiar. The cry of resistance
that resonates from the South illustrates this. It is not a cry of outrage
at some new phenomenon, but it is the cry of resistance to one more
depredation after centuries of depredations.

What is new this time is that, thanks in part to technological
developments like television and the Internet, information is also being
globalized along with capital. In the past, the European bankers and
bureaucrats could remain invisible, letting local politicians take the
flak for the problems they had created. Now, the formerly invisible
architects of globalization find themselves squarely in the firing line.
In Argentina, thousands marched through the streets in 2001 with banners
denouncing the government's "submission" to the IMF and the United States.
In Ecuador in the same year, protesters occupied IMF offices in Quito. The
London-based World Development Movement documented 111 protests against
the IMF or World Bank in twenty-five developing countries during 2002, up
from seventy-seven in 2001.

The privileged are also finding it harder to ignore the uncomfortable
reality of where their privilege comes from. Whereas previous generations
basked in the glory of empire and celebrated what they saw as the
civilizing influence that their enterprises were having on backward
natives around the globe, the current generation cannot enjoy their
designer clothing without seeing images of Guatemalan women and children
working all day in sweatshops for poverty wages and being killed or
sexually abused if they try to demand any improvement. They can't drive an
SUV without seeing images of children dying in Iraq. Many people, of
course, still live in denial of the connection between the luxuries they
enjoy and the plight of people in the "third world." But it's becoming
increasingly hard to do so. Globalization has a name, and finally it is a
bad one.

The World Social Forums held in Porto Alegre and Mumbai show the potential
for a new kind of international movement to rekindle the fire of
socialism. In just four years these forums have evolved from a small
gathering of Brazilian politicians and activists to a massive
coming-together of about a hundred thousand people from around the globe.
They have also spawned regional and national social forums all over the
world and, thanks to the Internet, coordinating local movements is easier
than ever before. The global day of protest on February 15, 2003, against
the war in Iraq was unprecedented in its size and global reach. Ten
million people were simultaneously on the streets of capitals from Rome to
Kuala Lumpur, cities from Sydney to Seville, and towns and villages from
Elkins, West Virginia to McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The potential
power of this was not lost on the elites. The front page of the New York
Times two days later bore the headline "A New Power in the Streets" and
said, "There may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States
and world public opinion." This is a profound achievement in an era when
popular movements are supposedly dying and corporations are tightening
their grip. It is true that these mass mobilizations do not often bear the
name of socialism. It is true that for many people today, the word
"socialism" is equated with a failed twentieth-century ideology that led
to gulags, fences, purges, soup lines, and starvation. But if their goals
are socialist goals, it hardly matters whether they call themselves
socialists, Greens, anarchists, antiglobalization protesters, or anything
else. Any globally coordinated effort at justice and equality is a victory
for socialism, no matter what it is called.

But while coordination, cooperation, and mutual support are important, the
signs are that the socialism of the twenty-first century will be more
diverse and localized than the monolithic Soviet structure of the
twentieth. The dreadful experiences of Soviet satellites in Eastern
Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as those of countries under U.S.
domination, especially in Latin America, illustrate the dangers of
imposing a rigid, alien system on another group of people. The dividing
line between ideology and imperialism can too easily become blurred. And
besides, it is the basic right of any group to decide how they wish to be
governed. The Zapatistas in Chiapas drew on centuries of tradition and
local experience to formulate a method that was designed to meet the needs
of its own people. So did the struggles against water privatization in
Bolivia and against dam projects in India. Each used its own methods and
organization, appealing to the local people in terms they could identify
with, with no reference to "scientific" socialism. At the World Social
Forums, the only real agreement was on the point that "another world is
possible." Beyond that, groups from around the world had radically
different views of what that world would look like. The challenge for
socialism in the twenty-first century is to recognize that those
differences are OK, that socialism will look different in different
places, and to find a way to support each other in establishing different
versions of socialism in different parts of the world.

In fact, the effect of all these new movements must be to subvert the
Eurocentric nature of the socialist dialectic and to force people in the
West to reassess many of their assumptions. Socialism has suffered from a
Eurocentric bias from its very inception. When Marx and Engels wrote in
1848, "Working men of all countries, unite!" they certainly did not have
Indian villagers or Mayan farmers in mind. Even thirty-four years later,
when they wrote the preface to the Russian edition of the Communist
Manifesto in 1882, they recognized the limited scope of the earlier
edition but said only that "Precisely Russia and the United States are
missing here." Such myopia is understandable in the context in which they
were writing, but too much socialist writing has remained stuck in the
limited framework of European industrial societies to this day. Yet in a
way the globalizing of socialism is a natural result of Marxist theory.
For as Marx wrote in the Manifesto, "The need of a constantly expanding
market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of
the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish
connexions everywhere."5 As capitalism forces more globalization, it is
natural that labor follows. As it does, the equation of globalization may
start to shift. Workers around the world communicating and cooperating
with each other would be capitalism's worst nightmare. It could seriously
threaten capital's ability to shift constantly to countries with the worst
wages and the most brutal working conditions. It could mean an end to the
constant supply of cheap labor from immigrants escaping those very
conditions. True collective action across geographic boundaries could
truly change the power dynamic, giving working people a chance to bargain
for better conditions without the threat of someone else taking their
jobs. Marx's prophecy about the bourgeoisie producing its own gravediggers
might still come true after all, if not quite in the way he imagined.

While relinquishing control over the fate of socialism may be a painful
process for some in the West, it may ultimately help Western socialism to
rediscover its soul and purpose. With rising quality of life in the
capitalist nations and appalling living conditions in the former communist
countries, the whole premise of socialism has been called into question.
Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto that as capitalism developed,
workers became "a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are
consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the
fluctuations of the market."6 He said that "the burden of toil increases"
and that "as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases."
This was certainly true in the early days of the Industrial Revolution,
when Marx was writing. But as capitalism developed further, wages actually
improved and the burden of toil decreased. Whereas Marx predicted that the
lower middle class would "sink gradually into the proletariat," in many
European societies the opposite seemed to be happening by the late
twentieth century: thanks to union gains and progressive legislation, many
workers were attaining middle-class lifestyles. Even in the United States,
where there is a substantial underclass and a virulent backlash against
many worker protections, it is certainly the case that working people
enjoy much better living and working conditions at the beginning of the
twenty-first century than at the start of the twentieth. Hence the
frequent argument in favor of capitalism: because it's a system that
creates wealth, the poor will still be better off, even if the
distribution is unequal. Getting a small piece of a lot of wealth is
better than an equal share of nothing. Socialism in the West has not
provided a convincing rebuttal to this argument and hence has lost much of
its mass appeal.

It is only by broadening its view beyond the borders - or, increasingly,
the
fortress walls - of its own privileged nations that socialism in the West
can hope to see the way out of the ideological cul-de-sac in which it
finds itself. For it is there that we will immediately see the
impoverishment that Marx wrote about. The statistics are so familiar as to
be almost numbing: about half of the world's population is living on less
than two dollars a day, almost a billion people are chronically
undernourished, and three billion have no access to sanitation. Yet these
statistics are often seen as abstract facts, with little examination of
how these conditions arose or who is responsible. The implicit, or
sometimes explicit, blame falls on the victims themselves, as if the
person in Bangkok stitching sweatshirts for a dollar a day were somehow
just that much less creative and skilled than the office worker in New
York making $50,000 a year. As if there really were a level playing field,
as if all the talk of free trade and unfettered competition were actually
true. Such collective societal blindness to the cause of the world's
inequality makes it possible for this horrendous inequality to persist and
to become more entrenched by the year.

Western socialism can only rediscover its own soul when it opens its eyes
to this suffering. While many progressives in the West do fight for fair
trade and debt cancellation, it is often seen almost as a charitable
gesture, separate from the socialist struggle that has traditionally been
the preserve of people in industrial nations. Meanwhile, the labor
movement is frequently so focused on protecting the jobs of its own
members that it lobbies for trade policies that protect Western industries
while decimating those of developing nations. When Western socialists come
to embrace the cause of people in the South as inseparable from their own,
they will see new possibilities that could breathe life into their dormant
movement. When they acknowledge that whenever their own labor movements
make a small gain, the corporations simply look for new workers in new
countries to exploit instead, they will be forced to fight against the
oppressors, not against those even worse off than themselves. When they
start to connect with antiglobalization protesters and environmental
activists from North America to South Korea, they will rediscover their
relevance and be able to appeal to a new generation.

For now, however, the soul of socialism can be found in the struggles of
people who often don't call themselves socialists: grassroots movements in
the global South and that small but rapidly growing minority who support
them in the West. The people toiling in the sweatshops of Beijing and
Calcutta, the banana plantations of Central America, the diamond mines of
Africa - these are the people who are supporting the extravagant,
comfortable lifestyles of people in the West. Their struggles often seem
futile or incomprehensible because the system they are fighting against is
so huge and all-encompassing. It carries the weight of five centuries of
colonization and exploitation. Many news reports speak of "violence" and
"unrest" in far-off countries without even giving the cause, perhaps
because the aim - changing the world - is simply too large to be
comprehended.

Yet people in the South are forced to comprehend it every day. The need to
overthrow capitalism has been drilled into them and their ancestors for
centuries. Every time they were driven from their land, saw their gold and
minerals loaded onto European ships, or were forced to work for the
profits of rich white people, the imperative became clear to them: they
have no choice but to change the world, or it will destroy them. The
Zapatistas understood this so well that they were able to sum it up in
just two words: "Ya Basta!" ("Enough!"). These movements are not always
doctrinally orthodox. But in their basic struggle for justice they embody
everything that socialism has meant to generations of activists. Too
often, the soul of socialism is obscured and divided by religious, racial,
and cultural boundaries, and distorted by establishment scaremongering.
But it's still lurking there behind the hatred and mistrust, waiting to be
rediscovered. If we look long enough and hard enough we might just find it
before it's too late. And if people in the West are able to turn back
after that to look in the mirror and examine the five centuries of
exploitation that we have countenanced and silently benefited from, then
there's even a slim chance that some of us might be able to redeem our own
souls too.

Notes

1. John Ross, Rebellion from the Roots (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1995), 21.

2. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (Orlando, Florida: Harcourt,
1958), 216.

3. Bill Weinberg, Homage to Chiapas (New York: Verso, 2000), 123.

4. Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Books), 389.

5. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1967), 83.

6. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1967), 87.


--------11 of 11--------

 Bessie Smith
 Empty Bed Blues
 by J. C. Johnson
 recording of March 28 1928, New York City
 from The Complete Recordings, Vol. 4 (Columbia/Legacy 52838)

 I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
 I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
 My new man had left me, just a room and a empty bed

 Bought me a coffee grinder that's the best one I could find
 Bought me a coffee grinder that's the best one I could find
 Oh, he could grind my coffee, 'cause he had a brand new grind

 He's a deep sea diver with a stroke that can't go wrong
 He's a deep sea diver with a stroke that can't go wrong
 He can stay at the bottom and his wind holds out so long

 He knows how to thrill me and he thrills me night and day
 Oh, he knows how to thrill me, he thrills me night and day
 He's got a new way of loving, almost takes my breath away

 Lord, he's got that sweet somethin' and I told my girlfriend Lou
 He's got that sweet somethin' and I told my girlfriend Lou
 From the way she's raving, she must have gone and tried it too

 When my bed get empty make me feel awful mean and blue
 When my bed get empty make me feel awful mean and blue
 My springs are getting rusty, sleeping single like I do

 Bought him a blanket, pillow for his head at night
 Bought him a blanket, pillow for his head at night
 Then I bought him a mattress so he could lay just right

 He came home one evening with his spirit way up high
 He came home one evening with his spirit way up high
 What he had to give me, make me wring my hands and cry

 He give me a lesson that I never had before
 He give me a lesson that I never had before
 When he got to teachin' me, from my elbow down was sore

 He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot
 He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot
 When he put in the bacon, it overflowed the pot

 When you git good lovin', never go and spread the news
 When you git good lovin', never go and spread the news
 Yes, he'll double-cross you, and leave you with them empty bed blues

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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