In These Times

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• • 17 Nov 09
  • 11:09 am

  Brother Greg, from my perspective (son of immigrant working class family), young people and immigrant /black workers are not in competition, hell we are all broke - parents and children alike. I would warn against any mentality that says we leave "them" out of it (whether the them be "hipsters", immigrants, white people, or some other "them" that we have grudges against, even if those grudges have some real life experience attached to them) because one of the most important thing we can do to create working class consciousness and some oxygen for labor is to create a tent that believes …

  Posted to Unions Must Attract the Young and Hip—or Become Obsolete

• • 17 Nov 09
  • 1:03 pm

  to be clear, I didnt mean labor needs to be "hip" as in trendy. I also hear folks talk about the need for labor to be "cool" and always want to ask, "homies - what you all know about cool?" you don't do something and be cool, we always called those folks posers.... and I dont think that's what labor ought to do. you practice what you think/preach, and be yourself and original while being consistent in what you project as values/important. Nothing cooler than the swagger folks who are truly into something project, I love being around ppl like that. …

  Posted to Unions Must Attract the Young and Hip—or Become Obsolete

• • 17 Aug 09
  • 2:58 pm

  I think you've actually hit on what's wrong with "progressives" and we're getting crushed on all these issues, although not implicitly. I will preface and say that this is something that's a wider problem than we admit to ourselves, but to not wrestle with it is to continue on a losing path.... so hope you'll entertain the thought. At times, and I mean recent ones, I've been guilty of the same. The list of organizations you mention, while good and being folks that do good work, are not focused on building long-term people powered organizations. HCAN is a coalition that popped …

  Posted to Who’s Got the Power?