Anarchist, Socialist, & Anti-Fascist Writings of David Van Deusen 1995-2018 — Chapter 11 : On the Road

By David Van Deusen (2018)

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Dave was elected President of the Vermont AFL-CIO on September 15th, 2019. He is a union rep for Vermont AFSCME members, previously a VSEA Union Rep, and still a Writer, and Harley Rider. (From: AFLCIO.org.)


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Chapter 11

Chapter XI: On The Road

AMERICAN DREAMS - WESTERN GREYHOUND (1995)

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Personal Journal Entry, July 21, 1995: Flying past suburban shadows at 60 mph on greyhound, heading east, stopping only for too few smoke & meal breaks and too often for unknown reasons other than to annoy passengers eager to be further from what they left behind in San Francisco or points thereafter; The American West by bus. [155]

In Sacramento, I had an untoasted-cold bagel with cream cheese then back on the road. Someone said something about the American River, but we kept going anyway. Greyhound never does stop for beauty alone, but it did stop somewhere in the Sierra Nevadas for a smoke. Beauty by happenstance. A child cried.

Reno for dinner, 6:00pm, no time to gamble. I only have $25. I wasn’t hungry but it was a dinner stop. Cup of black coffee and toast. Now 23 dollars remaining in my pocket. I had a smoke; GPC brand. In a greyhound minute we’ll all be off again –some to work construction in Salk Lake City, others to climb the Rockies for a summer adventure.

Two passengers across the aisle are from the Czech Republic here to tour the USA for first time; oh how huge the States must seem to them. They tell me the Republic is doing fine now, turning capitalist; they hope the US will befriend it; “money abundant, only a few minor problems brought about by turning free market; drugs, robberies, murders, depression”; nothing the USA didn’t have to deal with 100 years ago (and failed).

Some on the bus must assuredly be visiting family, or meeting their sweetheart in some small Utah town (population 300). Still others are probably embarking on one last trip knowing that they are dying; all of us are definitely dying in the way that life hinges its meaning on this common conclusion. I suppose I am dying in that way too, but I’m also headin’ to Denver.

My girl will be in Denver to meet me. So will Jerry, sunburnt and tired from the road, riding his 1100cc motorcycle all the way from Jacksonville. Scott’s still lingering in SF trying to hustle a way out while sleeping with an attractive Height Street waitress 10 years older than him. Hollywood must seem so far away from him now.

Tomorrow Colorado! Hopefully I’ll be able to turn $130 in food stamps into an adequate purse to present to my girl for fuel to get us back over the mountains. Salvation is never free.

The bus is pushing east again; wrestling with the hills and contemplating the desert and with the desert, and I sit and contemplate contemplation. Tomorrow Denver; but first we will face the wheeled asphalt night and see what’s around the next bend.

Night Patrol With The Vermont National Guard: In The Shadow of Katrina and Iraq (2005)

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New Orleans In Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Jefferson Parish, LA, September, 2005 - The Vermont National Guard has been distributing food and patrolling neighborhoods in Jefferson Parish for the last week.[156] On Tuesday, September 6th, I joined them on their first night patrol. At six PM, still light, I boarded a truck with ten solders from the 1st of the 86th Field Artillery. All of these men served eleven months in Iraq. They returned home February 29th, 2005.

As we left the gates of their headquarters, an old middle school, the solders loaded their M-16s. They had no more idea of what to expect than I did. All we knew were the images of chaos that flashed upon the nightly news several days before.

We rolled through the streets of Jefferson Parish. Katrina’s devastating power was evident. Telephone poles were snapped like toothpicks. Roofs we ripped from their beams. Electricity was still out. One gas station was simply flattened. I had never saw anything like it. A soldier turned towards me and said, “Better than we seen in Baghdad.”

We reached the sector assigned to the unit. Holms Avenue. The truck drove through the area to get a feel for it. One house had the entire second floor wall torn from its framing. I could see into what was once a person’s bedroom. It looked like a giant, postmodern dollhouse, made to appear in a war zone.

Four Guardsmen were dropped off at one end of the street. Four more at the other. I departed with the later. The two groups were maybe three miles apart. The plan was for them to slowly walk towards each other, with the truck patrolling in-between.

As we walked Sergeant Cramdon, the squad leader, said how strange this felt. All the open windows, all the alleyways; this would be a very dangerous situation back in Baghdad. Maybe subconsciously, maybe through intent, the group fell into military formation. It was the first time this unit was activated for such duty since Iraq. We continued on.

The subtropical heat barred down on us. I asked how they were doing in their heavy fatigues. “Every one of us was over [for eleven months]. We went on the last deployment to Iraq. I’m used to the heat. The humidity is another story,” said Sergeant Cramdon.

Moving into the side streets of what appeared to be a working class neighborhood of small ranch houses, it was not long before we heard gunshots. They came in groups of four and five. Fifteen shots in all, emanating from a few blocks away. The squad leader called for backup. When the truck arrived they moved towards the shots. A few residents, those who refused to evacuate, directed the Guard towards the perceived source. I was given the advice that “If we get shot at, find cover wherever you can.”

The search lasted a good twenty minutes. No shooter was found. Still, walking through the neighborhood, the soldiers were busy. A number of people standing in their driveways would ask, “When is the power coming on? Will you be patrolling all night? How are things going?” For most, this was the first sign of a government response to the destruction since the storm hit, nearly a week before. The Vermonters would stop, answer what they could, remind them of the encroaching curfew, and then be on their way.

As night drew near the two groups converged. The commanding officer decided that they would stay in and about the truck, together, for the remainder of the shift. They would patrol this way, for safety, until the sun came up.

Standing around the truck, we talked to pass the time. I asked what they thought about this assignment. Sergeant Cramdon answered, “[Compared with the Regular Army] We’re more public friendly.” This was a telling statement as it was rumored that tens of thousands of Regular Army troops were heading for the New Orleans area. The conversation quickly headed to their experiences in Iraq, and how the Vermont Guard approached their duties there.

Oversees they were assigned to protect military convoys passing through the Baghdad area. This is one of the most dangerous assignments in the occupied region.

Sergeant Scott, who in the civilian world works as an auto mechanic in Burlington, stated, “These guys [some Regular Army] don’t understand. You don’t want to piss off the people who live in your back yard.” Another Soldier added, “One guy got shot at the north gate there [in Iraq], and two days later we got mortared.”

I asked if there was a ‘cause and effect’ regarding their conduct in Baghdad. “Exactly, “ responded Sergeant Cramdon. “You just want to keep the peace in the community. Let them know your there, but let them know you’re not there… When we were over in Iraq we were never proactive, we were always reactive,” said Cramdon.

Sergeant Scott continued, “Like two days after we got mortared, [the sheikh] had heads at the front gate.” Cramdon continued, “The sheikh had somebody’s head... Cause he knew that there’d be repercussions to whoever was mortaring the base so he came up with their heads.”

I asked them what is the real situation in Iraq, how is the war progressing? Scott responded, “There’s the people who like us, the people that don’t like us but don’t fuck with us, and then there’s the people who fuck with us.”

Another soldier stated, “a lot of the insurgents pulled out of Falujah [when we attacked it]. Soon as we go into Falujah all hell broke loose in Baghdad.” Scott inserted, “In Ramadi too. That’s where our guys are being hit hard now… From what I understand we’re getting beat up pretty good over there too. We’re losing a lot of Vermonters over there now.

All talked of having to fire their weapons regularly. One soldier, helmet pushed forward, nearly sleeping, said he only fired his gun once in eleven months. The others looked at him. Some with near disbelief. Still leaning back, hardly bothering to open his eyes he said, “We threw rocks when other people were shooting bullets.”

“Rocks don’t do to good when they’re shooting bullets at you,” argued Sergeant Cramdon. I thought of the Palestinian youth who throw stones as the Israeli Army. Sergeant Cramdon was right; their fate is often death.

The stone thrower answered, “We [his unit] didn’t get shot at.”

“You didn’t get shot at? I can’t believe it. That’s unbelievable,” countered Cramdon. “We all were getting fucking plowed every day… Thirteen days straight we got hit.”

I foolishly pointed out the obvious and said that it must have been stressful. Sergeant Cramdon pardoned my flair for the obvious and answered, “That’s the biggest question I got when we came back. ‘It must have been stressful.’ To be quite honest with you, I slept better on nights that we came back that we got hit… because you leave the wire and it’s all bottled up in you. Stress and everything, you know. So when you get hit you start firing back and all the stress that you had built up in you comes out. I slept like a baby on the nights when we got hit.”

As the night wore on, there was little to do but maintain vigilance, smoke cigarettes, and talk. I looked up and noticed the stars. I thought how ironic it was that many local residents were seeing the beauty of the stars for the first time in their lives thanks only to this sea of destruction. The moment of reflection did not last long. The conversation again became gravely serious. Again recollections of Baghdad filled the space.

“[In Iraq we’d see] kids taking tires off of burning trucks. Tires would be on fire and they’d be rolling them down the road,” said Cramdon. “Pissing fucking fuel all over the ground… They’d be bare foot running in there trying to get what they could,” added Scott.

Sergeant Cramdon continued, “We got hit one time under 51 Alpha. It swept the whole underside of a trailer out. Flames everywhere. This truck was blazing. And they [kids] had the back of that [trailer] open, unloading it… MSR was two miles down the road, and that truck was half unloaded by the time that MSR patrol got there.” A soldier proclaimed, “Any thieves or anything around here, they got nothing on those Iraqis.”

Intermittently throughout the night we would board the truck and drive up and down Holms avenue. Flashlights would keep track of the passing landscape. From Holms we could see the raised highway, 90, which lead over the Mississippi Bridge into New Orleans.

Looking at the underpass just outside the unit’s area of patrol, Sergeant Cramdon stated, “[In Iraq] when you drove by they used to blow them [improvised explosives] up head level at you. At this bridge, 51 Alpha, is where a lot of shit hit the fan. Right in-between my two Humvees, I was in the middle, and they blew it up right in-between and missed everybody. I don’t know how they missed everybody, but they missed everybody. Unbelievable. Right at head level too. A lot of it over there was just luck. A lot of people were unlucky, a lot of people were very lucky”

A different Guardsman discussed his experience. “It was ok when you got passed the bridge, you know. Me being a driver and having a freakin’ [explosive] go off and having my driver side door blown open and having stuff flying out, it kinda scarred the shit out of me… They couldn’t really prepare us for it [in training]. You kinda learned as you went.”

Sergeant Cramdon went on to discuss other aspects of convoys in Iraq, “You’ll be driving down the road and these fuckers don’t want to wait for you behind the convoy. You’re doing sixty mile per hour in the convoy, but they want to do sixty-five, seventy. They’ll get into the oncoming lane and just play chicken all the way down the road. And then you’ll just see it. WHAM!… Multi-car pileup cause he hit another car head on, there had to be fourteen-fifteen dead people there… [Including] a dead infant.”

“I thought it was a doll. Two guys came running up. Picked it up. It was a baby. Just jello –mutilated,” said another soldier.

Much of the night was spent speaking of war. When I asked what it was like coming home, one Guardsman, who will remain unnamed recalled, “When I came back, I was having some issues with not being able to calm down. I was wound up all the time. Maybe three or four times I had slight anxiety attacks. I’d have to get up and walk around, and calm myself down. I went into the doctor cause one day my heart was flipping out, shit like that.” He went on, “so I went to my doctor and he [said] ‘it seems you got a little bit of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder going on. And it’s not like I’m depressed, or suicidal or anything, I’m just wound up, you know? I don’t know if you’ve heard of the drug zoloft or what not, but that shits expensive.”

“Did the military pay for it?” I asked.

“I went to my regular doctor and they’re not VA certified, so I went to the VA to go get it coved through the Veterans Administration, and they don’t buy name brand drugs, they use generic shit. The shit that they gave me makes me sick. Makes me want to throw up. So I kind of stopped taking it.”

Another soldier interjected, “I haven’t hardly slept since we’ve been back”

The night eventually grew into morning. As the six o’clock hour again approached, we headed back towards the base. I asked when is the soonest the unit can be ordered back to Iraq?

“February,” came the reply. Someone questioned, “Does this deployment extend that?” Sergeant Cramdon answered, “No, this is [a] state [mission].” “Shit,” said another.

If it were a federally directed mission, their likely re-deployment to Iraq would be pushed back. “One Weekend a Month.” My ass.

One soldier announced, “Fuck that. I’m not going back.” Another answered, “You’ll have to if they call you up.” It was left at that.

I inquired, “How long will the war last? How long do you think it will go on for?” Many answered “Forever.” Others nodded in agreement.

As we pulled into the HQ, the officer gave the order to unload their weapons.

“All Weapons are cleared.”

I asked how long they would be deployed in Louisiana? A soldier replied, “no Idea. Until they tell us to go home.”

* David Van Deusen is a member of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981. He recently spent five days in the New Orleans area. He is a resident of Moretown, Vermont.

The Other Campaign: Zapatistas Seek United Left (2006)

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Subcommandante Marcos, Chiapas Mexico, circa 2006

San Cristobal, Mexico, January 1st 2006 -Deep in the Mountains and jungles of Chiapas, populated primarily with indigenous peasants, stirs a force which is seeking to upstage the high financed drama of the 2006 Mexican presidential election.[157] The force grows out of rebel occupied territory held by the EZLN, commonly known as the Zapatistas. The Zapatistas control five regions in Chiapas. Each of these regions includes many small villages, containing a total population in the tens of thousands. Since an armed uprising launched on January 1st, 1994 (the day NAFTA went into effect) these communities have been administered autonomously, guided by humanitarian principles, and utilizing directly democratic decision-making structures at a local level. Their autonomy stems from a shaky cease fire agreement with the Mexican government which has more or less been in effect since the mid-nineties, and is guarded by a standing rebel army estimated to be in the thousands. However, over the course of the last five years the EZLN, who have political aspirations far beyond Chiapas, has found itself more and more isolated from the larger, but fragmented, Mexican left. This isolation has greatly hampered Zapatista attempts to expand their practical influence beyond their few rural strongholds.

In a bold attempt to break free of their current limitations, the General Command of the EZLN issued in June a communiqué known as the Sixth Declaration From The Laconda Jungle announcing a national initiative aimed at uniting the entirety of the non-electoral Mexican left. The initiative, which will consist of Subcommandante Marcos (the most prominent EZLN figure) and other Zapatista leaders traveling throughout the nation in order to speak with and listen to hundreds of grassroots organizations and thousands of working people, is being called the Other Campaign. According to EZLN spokespeople, the basic goal of the campaign is to begin to foment a united left platform, strategy, and bottom up organization based on the opinions, experiences, and needs of the majority of the Mexican people. For the EZLN such an effort is necessary if the needs of the estimated 80% of Mexicans who are currently living in poverty are to be fundamentally addressed.

In addition, the declaration entailed a condemnation of the left leaning Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), which they equated with the other electoral parties as essentially working against the common interest of the Mexican people. The document, in reference to an indigenous rights law passed in congress which failed to deliver upon negotiated EZLN demands, stated, “The day that the politicians of the PRI, PAN, and PRD approved a law that does not serve, they killed dialogue, and they clearly said that it does not matter what they agree to or sign because they will not keep their word.”

The announcement of the Other Campaign, timed to coincide with the 2006 Mexican presidential race and set to begin with a march and mass rally in San Cristobal on January 1st, has been met with both excitement and trepidation throughout the country. Although the EZLN has stopped short of calling for a boycott of the national elections, many liberals fear that their condemnation of the PRD will tip the polls in favor of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), or the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) –which is also on the right. At present, Andres Manuel Lopez, former Mayor of Mexico City, of the PRD, maintains an eleven-point lead in the polls over his closest rival, Roberto Madrazo of the PRI.

In addition to the debate about the EZLN’s potential effects on the presidential race, speculation has surfaced that Subcommandante Marcos and the EZLN are trying to transition away from their role as armed revolutionaries, and are setting themselves up for an electoral campaign of their own in 2012. These are charges that the EZLN deny.

On the night of December 31st I made my way, by truck into Zapatista held territory. Seven hours outside of San Cristobal (including two hours on rugged dirt roads) I reached the remote mountain town of La Garrucha. There I sat down with Lieutenant Colonel Moises of the EZLN. Moises reaffirmed that the EZLN, “is not looking for electoral power.”

The Colonel, like other Zapatista leaders, did not call for a nationwide electoral boycott, but did reiterate the EZLN’s lack of faith in the official electoral process. He went on to clarify that “the Zapatistas do not vote [in sanctioned Mexican elections].”

As for the charge that the EZLN is unequivocally turning away from armed struggle, or that they are exerting pressure on other Mexican groups to forego such activities, Moises asserted that the EZLN fully intends on retaining their armed formations even when engaging in nonviolent social organizing beyond Chiapas. He continued saying, “the Zapatistas began with armed struggle. Therefore it is not the Zapatistas’ business to tell anyone else how to struggle.”

On the Other Campaign, the Colonel expressed a guarded optimism stating, “The Other Campaign is just beginning and there is no way to tell what civil society will think about it… It will affect civil society in some way. A lot of people may not understand, a lot will. The campaign is just beginning, so we will see.”

Moises concluded the interview by saying, “the small farmers in Mexico have been forgotten and that is a focus of this campaign… This Campaign is part of their struggle.”

The following day, an estimated one thousand masked Zapatistas embarked from La Garrucha to San Cristobal (a city which was briefly held by the EZLN in 1994) where the Other Campaign would be officially launched. Leading the caravan was Subcommandante Marcos, riding a motorcycle. Thousands more Zapatistas made their way from other EZLN communities. Along the route whole indigenous towns, men, woman, and children, turned out along the roads to wave, cheer, and sing songs of support for the Zapatistas and their cause.

The caravans converged on San Cristobal just as night set in. There, over 15,000 Zapatistas marched in four lines through the streets of the city. Chants of “Viva Zapata! Viva La Zapatista! Viva La Revolution! Long Live Zapata, The Struggle Continues!” rang through the cool night air.

The march emptied into the city’s main square. The crowd grew to an estimated 20,000. Taking the stage were a number of Zapatista leaders. One after another called for all of Mexico’s working people and farmers to unite against their common enemies and build a new kind of power outside the confines of traditional politics.

One Zapatista speaker bellowed, “We will reach out to workers in the cities because we [the indigenous farmers] are already organized… The Other Campaign will bring the struggle we deal with in our day-to-day life [across all of Mexico]. The rich cannot continue to put the oppression down onto the small farmers and further down onto the earth, because the earth cannot stand it anymore… The workers and farmers will bring justice, liberation, and freedom to Mexico this year, starting January first, 2006!”

The following speaker, Comandante Keli, asserted, “This struggle is not just for men [but also for women]… We all must work together for all of our freedoms… The new junta [must] encompass everyone, and at its center it [must be] anti-capitalist.”

One demonstrator, Ugel, a student from Mexico City who came to Chiapas to show his support for the EZLN and the Other Campaign told me, “I support the organizing of all the people. [The Other Campaign] is about the people making their own organization so they can decide [things] for themselves instead of one person [the president] deciding for all. I think this movement is going to make a new political structure for the participation of farmers, students, and workers. That is what the political class has not allowed for eighty or ninety years.”

The final speaker to take the stage was Subcommandante Marcos. Addressing the crowd Marcos said, “You are our partners… The left organizations, the anarchists, the groups that are not defined… man or woman… We want you to help us talk with the workers in the city and in the world!”

He continued, “Everyone will have a place in the Other Campaign. Like Zapatistas we will defend our base [areas]… [Yet] we are prepared to talk and listen to that person who is in the back. They are very important… For the first time we finish January First not yelling EZLN, instead we yell that we are partners! Viva! Long live the revolution!”

The crowd roared in applause. For the moment an unmistakable feeling of optimism filled the air of this old Mexican city. However, it will be a long road before the Zapatistas can claim victory over the traditional political forces that are entrenched in Mexican society. That road will take EZLN leaders to all corners of the nation over the course of the coming year. What will come from this campaign is yet to be written.

The French Connection: An Interview With Xavier Massot On The Growing Unrest In France (2006)

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Scenes from the 2006 riots, Paris, France

Paris, France & Brattleboro, Vermont March 31, 2006 –Over the course of the last 30 days France has been rocked by a series of escalating demonstrations and mass labor strikes.[158] The unrest is by and large a reaction to a new law passed by the center-right government that repeals job security guarantees for young workers. Where previously all French workers were protected against unjust firings, now many people, mainly those 28 and younger, can be fired at any time during a two year probationary period. The French working class and student population has outright rejected the new measures and have demanded their immediate repeal. While the government has thus far refused to rescind the law, millions of students and workers have repeatedly marched in the streets of every major French city and have crippled capitalist institutions by walking off their jobs by the hundreds of thousands. Many of these demonstrations have turned violent, with workers and students fighting police with stones and makeshift batons. As of writing, no compromise is in sight. While the government has offered to negotiate with the unions, organized labor has refused to come to the table until the law is first repealed.

Catamount Tavern News interviewed Xavier Massot, who currently resides in Paris, about the situation. Mr. Massot, 29, a longtime Brattleboro resident and former Mike’s bartender (on Elliot Street) is an artist and coauthor of the Black Bloc Papers. He is also a self-described anarchist and former guitar player for the Putnigs (a southern Vermont rock & roll band). He holds dual citizenship in France (where he was born0 and the U.S. He is an ethnic Breton. Xavier has been living in Paris for the last six months and is due to return to the Green Mountains later this spring. We talked to him by phone.

David Van Deusen: Mr. Massot, what can you tell us about the situation on the ground in Paris?

Xavier Massot: There are thousands of demonstrators in the streets nearly every day. Most are students and workers. A few hundred [a very small minority] appear to be fascists who are not out to protest the law, but to physically attack the left. They [the fascists] are also being counter attacked by the anarchists… But mostly people are angry about the government…

While I am generally in agreement with the students and striking workers… it should be understood that the law itself is not necessarily all that bad. It is just what has been picked up as the topic. The greater thing [motivating people] is a general sense of being a pissed off society.

Van Deusen: Workers and students are by far the largest segment of protesters. Besides the obvious issue of ‘workers rights’ what is bringing these people in the streets by the millions?

Xavier Massot: Young people in France, much like in America, are realizing that for the first time in a long time that they are in the frontline of a new generation that is not going to do as well as the generations before them. This tends to motivate people… [Also] France has a culture of protest. It’s not as alien or as shocking for people to go out in the street and complain out loud about what they are pissed about as it is in the U.S. [Protest] is a custom, you know? In fact, when you are trying to get somewhere by subway in Paris, depending on the day and if you didn’t see the news the night before, there is a good chance the trains aren’t going to be running [because of a strike].

Van Deusen: What can you tell us about the law itself?

Xavier Massot: The thing that stinks about it is that it amounts to a two year contract, so you basically are on a two year probation with your employer [during which you can be fired at any time and for any reason]… If you switch to another company during those two years then you have to start all over again… [the law is also] misleading. In its official title it includes the term “First Employment” in the name, but it has nothing to do with whether or not you’re at your first job because you could be 26 and by the time you get out from under it your 28… or even older… The thing is [the law] was poorly delivered, it was hastily written, and nobody important was first consulted… It was a totally botched, hurried job.

Van Deusen: In the face of growing public pressure, will the government repeal the law?

Xavier Massot: I’m not sure. If I had to guess I would say either the Prime Minister will resign and the law will stay, or the law will go and the Prime Minister will stay.

Van Deusen: Right now France provides people with many social benefits such as universal healthcare, 6 week paid vacations, subsidized higher education, a thirty-five hour work week, etc.. Do you see this law as the first step in an attempt to dismantle the French social system? Are their parallels between what is going on in France today, and Margaret Thatcher’s dismantling of the British welfare state in the 1980s?

Xavier Massot: No. No I don’t think that [the French social system] is something anyone wants to lose.

Van Deusen: What was the government’s intention with the law? What did they hope to get out of it?

Xavier Massot: The notion was, I think, that it was going to be a quick fix –a way to satisfy the immigrant underclass which is mostly North African and Arabs. [As far as the government was concerned] the thought was that if you make it easier to fire people, then employers would be quicker to hire people, especially those from the immigrant minority who suffer high unemployment. But [the law] was poorly written, and ultimately a waste of time… It was a clumsy attempt at something, and it shows the bad faith of the politicians who put it together.

Van Deusen: So the government’s idea was that they would create more jobs, especially for minorities, by allowing the bosses to fire people more freely, and now, of course, the young people and workers (immigrants included) are rejecting the plan as no more than a weakening of workers’ rights. With that being said, could you elaborate on the situation regarding the Arabs and North African population in France?

Xavier Massot: [in the 1980s] French President Francois Mitterrand [a Socialist] said that ‘France is a land of asylum’, which is true but… [that statement] brought a lot more immigrants than I think he was arguing for. [Eds: The North African and Arab population in France accounts for 10% of the total population.] That has become a problem because on the one hand a lot of French people are resentful of the immigrants when they really shouldn’t be. On the other hand a lot of immigrants are angry because they think they got sold onto the wrong deal. So that is going to have to be figured out… Everybody is pissed off. That is the problem.

Van Deusen: Of course late last year much of France was ablaze with riots emanating from immigrant ghettos. The rioters claimed that they were reacting to institutional racism of the French State. How deep does racism against Arabs and North Africans go in France? Have your personally witness such racism?

Xavier Massot: In certain housing projects, in some of the newer nicer ones, there is a quota on apartments based on last names. So if you have a foreign sounding last name there will be something like only three slots open. So they will only have something like two Arabs out of every fifty people… Speaking personally, my sister and her fiancé were trying to get an apartment, and his last name is a Greek name… And if my parents [who are from France and have French sounding names] hadn’t interceded on his behalf they wouldn’t have been allowed to move in because the owner didn’t want a foreigner in the building.

Van Deusen: I would like to get back to the current situation with the strikes and demonstrations. What do you see being the short and long term effects of this upheaval?

Xavier Massot: The one group who may experience a lasting change from all this is the unions. They are really pissed and they’ve been waiting for something like this for a while now. The [center-right] Prime Minister slapped them around for a little but when they’ve wanted to talk to him, so they are pretty outranged… [The unions] have handled these protests really well. They’ve gone out and really talked to people. They’re the once who have made the politicians move the most… I think a lot of people who are protesting students right now will have more of an affinity for the unions when they get into the workplace.

As far as the electoral tide goes [in the upcoming national elections], I’d say of the young vote… maybe 70%... will go overwhelmingly to the left [Socialist Party] but not the hard left… [However] the syndrome of the [moderate] left and [moderate] right seeming very much the same, as in the U.S., is very much a tendency in France… Therefore, I think French politics will begin to change… In the next couple of years someone may get elected who is not from the middle-left or middle-right [i.e. someone from the neo-Trotskyite Parties or the far right National Front]. That is very possible.

Van Deusen: Is the popular uprising dynamic enough to affect change in the short term which transcends electoral politics? Can a socialist direct democracy emerge from this struggle?

Xavier Massot: The protests have created a sense of unity among a large chuck of society, but at the same time there is not going to be a French Revolution over this… I think France is going to remain a parliamentary system for a long time. But I think that increasingly the people who are in the parliament are going to become a lot more representative of the people who would want a direct democracy. Either that or the shit is going to hit the fan more and more… [Already] the country is averaging two major riots a year… If the government does not become more responsive, the nature of the strikes and protests are definitely going to become more still. I think people are going to get to the point where they are really willing to let society grind to a halt.

Fighting with cops [alone] isn’t going to do that much. The politicians are still going to be behind their walls. But when their wallets really start hurting, that is when decisions are going to be made… That is already happening. A lot of [politicians] are pretty worried right now about the reaction of foreign investors because at the moment most of these politicians are ruled by the economy, and that is what they base their decisions on… If the people take back their economy, then those who are presently keeping them from it will definitely be out the window.

Van Deusen: What lessons could groups in Vermont, such as the Vermont Workers’ Center and/or the AFL-CIO learn from the streets of France?

Xavier Massot: Number one, that there is no harm in getting out there and telling people that you’re displeased about shit. Although compared to most of America I’d say Vermont is pretty good as far as that goes… Having been to enough states in the union, as far as the political consciousness of the average worker, its higher [in Vermont] then a lot of the rest of the country… As far as attitude goes… Vermonters have quite a bit in common with French workers.

Van Deusen: Could you expand upon these commonalities?

Xavier Massot: They both share a sense of solidarity. Of course other people have this too, but with Vermonters it goes very deep because they tend to know each other personally… Maybe it’s because of the small population.

You know I was just in Brittany [a rural ethnically Gaelic province in the northwest], and Brittany is a lot like Vermont, both good and bad. It’s a place where many of the age-old industries, things like farming, are dying. The region is surviving because of its reputation… Like other small rural regions in France, Brittany is increasingly getting by, in part, through a growing tourism industry. But unlike Vermont, this industry is owned by local people. What Vermont can take from France is that they should be careful to not have out-of-staters run [or own] its tourism for its profit and take the profits from it. The people who live there should reap the benefits.

Van Deusen: In France many aspects of different industries are owned by the state. Do you advocate that portions of Vermont’s economy, such as ski resorts, be owned by the state and/or be run cooperatively by the workers?

Xavier Massot: Ideally [the tourist industry in Vermont] should be owned by Vermonters… Seeing the way the state is economically set up it would be really sane and a nice thing if a large part of the revenue of the industry was something that went back to all Vermonters.

Van Deusen: Finally, to get back on point, so you have any last thoughts on the situation in France?

Xavier Massot: Again, if France needs anything right now it is not more laws. There is already such a bureaucracy here and this law is just adding to it, which is exactly what people don’t want… If [the Prime Minister] had made a law that was a blank piece of paper it couldn’t have been any stupider.

Van Deusen: Mr. Massot, thank you for your time, and good luck in the streets.

RESOLUTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLE IN ROJAVA – GREEN MOUNTAIN CENTRAL LABOR COUNCIL-AFL-CIO (2018)

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February, 2018 Whereas: Organized Labor must stand in solidarity with working people in all parts of the world when they rise up to defend their rights and when they struggle to build a better, more democratic and more socialist world; [159]

The People of Rojava, northern Syria, have risen up in order to combat ISIS and the dictatorship;

The People of Rojava, through their armed forces known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) & the Woman’s Protection Units (YPJ) and allied militias, have liberated large sections of northern Syria from ISIS and the dictatorship;

The People of Rojava are presently defending themselves bravely against ISIS and Turkish aggression;

The People of Rojava seek to establish a libertarian-socialist, anti-fascist, secular, multi-ethnic society, with equal rights for men and woman;

The People of Rojava’s struggle for true freedom is a beacon of light in the Middle East and across the globe;

The People of Rojava are politically influenced by the libertarian and socialist writings of Vermonter Murray Bookchin and strive towards a political system similar to our own Town Meeting form of democracy;

Thousands of non-natives to Syria, including citizens of the United States of America, have seen the justice of the struggle in Rojava and, like with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, have taken it upon themselves to travel to Rojava in order to become international volunteers within the YPG/YPJ;

Therefore, let it be resolved that: The Green Mountain Central Labor Council of the Vermont AFL-CIO recognizes the struggle in Rojava to be THE liberation struggle of our day on par with Spain in 1936, and the Paris Commune of 1871;

The Green Mountain Central Labor Council of the Vermont AFL-CIO stands in solidarity with the people of Rojava, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and the Woman’s Protection Units (YPJ) in their historic struggle to establish a free society in what is presently northern Syria;

The Green Mountain Central Labor Council of the Vermont AFL-CIO encourages Vermont Union members to lend support to the people of Rojava, the YPG, and the YPJ;

The Green Mountain Central Labor Council of the Vermont AFL-CIO (upon request from a returning international volunteer as made to the President of this Central Labor Council) shall seek to provide three months of housing and sustenance and shall assist them in finding Union employment;

The Green Mountain Central Labor Council of the Vermont AFL-CIO calls on the Governor of Vermont and the Legislature to declare Vermont a sanctuary State for all returning international volunteers who have fought alongside the YPG/YPJ;

The Green Mountain Central Labor Council of the Vermont AFL-CIO calls on the Governor of Vermont and the Legislature to consider legislation which would make all state based benefits available to Vermont National Guard veterans also available to returning international volunteers who served in the YPG/YPJ, who choose to make Vermont their home;

The Green Mountain Central Labor Council of the Vermont AFL-CIO shall donate the sum of $500 to Hevya Sor (the Kurdish Red Crescent), an organization which provides direct support to the People of Rojava, including the donation of medicine and medical equipment;

The Green Mountain Central Labor Council of the Vermont AFL-CIO calls on the Government of the United States of America to provide increased direct military assistance to the YPG/YPJ, to condemn Turkish aggression, and to refrain from any actions which would seek to influence or moderate the political development and trajectory of Rojava;

The Green Mountain Central Labor Council shall provide this resolution to our Governor, Lt Governor, Congressional Delegation, elected members of the General Assembly, all fifty State Labor Councils of the AFL-CIO, and shall make it available to The People of Vermont.

In Solidarity, The Green Mountain Central Labor Council AFL-CIO

TRUMP’S BETRAYAL OF ROJAVA – PARIS COMMUNE FALLS AGAIN? (2018)

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December 22, 2018, Vermont -As an American, as a Vermonter, and as a Labor leader I have marched many times against US lead wars. [160] However, I do not oppose wars and US military action because I assert war as always unjust and always unnecessary. I am not philosophically a Kantian; this is not a moral imperative for me. I am also no liberal. If truth be told it was only through war and armed conflict that Vermont and the United States became republics free from the British Empire. And like the US, Ireland would still be an exploited outpost in the same empire if it were not for the force of arms demonstrated by the IRA. Cuba, today, without their victorious 1959 revolution, likewise would remain an economic colony of America. And further, it was only through the Allied war effort that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy & their murderous ideologies were crushed for generations. But since my birth, from the Vietnam War, to armed interventions against Latin America, up through the invasion of Iraq, I am hard pressed to find a US military intervention that, by purpose or accident, carried with it an intrinsic moral clarity; rather contemporary US military action time and again has been launched to serve the interests of corporations and a tiny minority of wealthy elite.

For these reasons I was proud to serve as a Vermont AFL-CIO officer when we were aligned with US Labor Against The War, and when our Unions called for the rapid withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. I was also proud to have helped write the Vermont AFL-CIO resolution stating our solidarity with the Longshoremen when they conducted a one day strike, shutting down West Coast ports as an act of resistance against the Iraq War. And even now I am supportive of calls coming to finally end the generation-long war in Afghanistan. But again, I do not condemn such military actions because I am a pacifist or because I am rejecting the notion of war in and of itself. I do so because I judge the conflicts which the US engages in, much more often than not, as wrong and immoral based on the specific facts and specific interests being served by these imperialistic conflicts.

For some years now the United States has provided arms and limited Special Forces support (now 2000 boots on the ground) to the Kurdish lead YPG/YPJ in Syria. The YPG/YPJ has used these arms to extend their control over most of northern Syria. They have effectively engaged ISIS, driving them out of the north. They have also held the dictatorship at bay (and they have brought a relative stability to this region of Syria). But what deserves our respect is not simply their military prowess, but rather the type of society which they seek to create in liberated areas. They hold socialist tendencies, but what sets them apart is their desire to organize their world according to directly democratic means; something like a secular, decentralized, Town Meeting system where all the people have an actual voice and an unabstracted vote concerning the issues that face them as a people and as a community. Here they take political influence from the Vermont anarchist sociologist Murray Bookchin. Their vision, similar to that espoused by the EZLN & the Zapatistas (Chiapas, Mexico), is as far reaching as that which was dreamed of on CNT/FAI barricades in Spain from 1936-1939. Their fight has parallels to Mahkno and his brigades in the Ukraine in 1919. They do not fight for an ethic Kurdish state, but rather for a new social formation whereby the individual and the community collectively control the world in which they live. Their dreams, perhaps, are not dissimilar to those who manned the walls of the Paris in 1871. And to this very point in time, remarkably, they have been winning.

The historical significance of what they have been achieving in Rojava (northern Syria) has not been lost on those in other nations who also can imagine what a truly democratic and equitable society could look like. Presently hundreds, if not thousands, of regular working people (Americans included) have made the difficult journey to Syria in order stand with them, rifle in hand, to fight for this common dream. And many have died defending this dream from ISIS, from Turkey, and from those who instead seek the domination and brutality of a misguided & twisted Islamic state or the repression which a dictatorship or new form of fascism brings in its wake. And still they fight, and still they organize a direct democracy, composed of Kurds & Arabs, in the lands which they have freed.

And now, our own (so called) President Donald Trump has announced his intent to withdraw the 2000 brave American troops currently deployed in this region (and who by circumstance fight with honor alongside YPG/YPJ). And even tonight, Turkey stands in wait, sharpening their swords…

But given the long history of the US imperialism and economic subjugation, why has the US supported them? Some would argue that the very presence of US guns mark the YPG/YPJ as no more than pawns of a morally questionable US foreign policy. Some would say they are dupes of the CIA. After all, why would the US elite support a revolution which seeks to topple the exploitive American capitalism which underpins the old world order (and which continues to sell out American and foreign workers alike)? How can this be? The answer is simple… The United States has supported this revolution because YPG/YPJ are fiercely opposed to ISIS and are effective fighters. The US therefore has acted on the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend (at least for a time).

No one should be under any illusion that the US ruling class has supported the YPG/YPJ because they approve of the cooperative democratic society which they seek to create. The ruling elite of the US (Republican & Democrat) would be perfectly happy supporting an authoritarian dictator as long as such a strongman would support America’s perceived long term economic and strategic interests. But as it turns out, few in northern Syria were or are willing to engage in a protracted fight just to see the deck chairs of authoritarian politics rearranged. But the people have been willing to fight (and die) for something much more far reaching. And this has transformed the YPG/YPJ into something far more significant than a regional militia; it has made them into a multi-ethnic force capable of constantly beating back ISIS and other reactionary elements in Syria. And for America, the short term aim was always to diminish ISIS. Here, as the YPG/YPJ was compelled to face existential enemies on all fronts, they were glad to accept guns and logistical support from wherever they would come. When a man’s house is on fire he does not stop to ask the politics of the one who hands him a bucket of water. If that bucket comes from a Republican, it does not make him a Republican. Thus the US support for the YPG/YPJ was nothing more than a temporary marriage of convenience, and the YPG/YPJ are not defined by the politics (and motivations) of those that offer them material aid.

But now, after the YPG/YPJ has diminished ISIS and pushed them into more remote areas, Trump has grown tired of this marriage and his Administration’s true face has begun to look up to again reveal its twisted contours. Trump would have American troops evacuate in order to turn their attention to other more sinister projects (such as those transpiring on our southern border). And no matter that the second largest army in NATO (the increasingly Islamic-Fascist Turks) have announced their desire to launch invasions of northern Syria with the sole aim of crushing this experiment in direct democracy, the United States of America is preparing to look the other way. The reactionary government of Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, views the YPG/YPJ as a threat in that they represent an alternative not only for Syria but also for Turkey. Further driving Ankara’s genocidal ambitions, is the government’s view of the YPG/YPJ as having close links to the armed PKK (which operates within Kurdish-Turkey and which shares similar politics with their Syrian cousins). What gives Erdoğan & the Turks pause, for now, is the presence of American troops. Once this deterrent is removed, it is hard to envision a chain of events which does not include a devastating invasion of this island of hope, this city on the hill overlooking the chaos that is the Middle East. And no matter how America got there, once America leaves Trump will own the history that follows. If the Paris Commune must fall again let it be known that the invaders were enabled by a country which once called itself great.

In Solidarity with the YPG/YPJ & The Struggle in Rojava, David Van Deusen, District Vise President of the Vermont AFL-CIO

From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org

Dave was elected President of the Vermont AFL-CIO on September 15th, 2019. He is a union rep for Vermont AFSCME members, previously a VSEA Union Rep, and still a Writer, and Harley Rider. (From: AFLCIO.org.)

Chronology

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2018
Chapter 11 — Publication.

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April 19, 2020; 12:47:33 PM (UTC)
Added to http://revoltlib.com.

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January 16, 2022; 7:47:17 AM (UTC)
Updated on http://revoltlib.com.

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