DOCSLIB.ORG

John Dos Passos NEWSLETTER

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
John Dos Passos NEWSLETTER John Dos Passos NEWSLETTER No. 2 June 1998 AN ELEGY FOR THE Admission to the amphitheater at Arlington was by ticket only. Perhaps five thousand people were admitted, UNKNOWN SOLDIER and tens of thousands of others gathered outside. From the by main entrance to the amphitheater, body bearers carried the coffin to the stage and placed it on a catafalque there. Seated Melvin Landsberg on the stage were many notables, including Marshal Foch of France, General Jacques of Belgium, General Diaz of Italy, Arthur James Balfour of Great Britain, Premier Briand Ninety thousand people filed past the body of the of France, and U.S. Secretary of State Hughes. Still other American Unknown Soldier as it lay in the Rotunda of notables occupied boxes. Three sections of the amphithe- the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on November 10,1921. ater direcdy fronting the stage were filled with U.S. Sena- First, in Europe, a soldier's body had been chosen from tors and Representatives and their families, and other sec- each of the four permanent U.S. cemeteries there, taken tions held wounded soldiers, Congressional Medal of Honor to Ch&lons-sur Marne, and brought to a small room in the 2 City Hall. An American sergeant then went into that room winners, and Gold Star mothers. and placed flowers on one of the four coffins.1 Amid cer- We turn to the ceremonies at the amphitheater, rely- emony, that coffin was then brought to the United States ing, as above, on the Washington Post and the New York on the Olympia, flagship of the late Admiral George Times for our material. The Post, the only newspaper that Dewey. Dos Passos mentions in his piece on the Unknown Soldier, At 8:30 A.M. on November 11 the coffin was carried "The Body of an American," had on its front page a long to a caisson in the Capitol Plaza. Huge crowds watched feature article by George Rothwell Brown, apolitical jour- as a military funeral procession accompanying the body nalist, who wrote of the Soldier's being honored by "the passed down Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue to mighty country for which he gladly gave his life." When the White House. Immediately behind the caisson Harding came up to the flag-covered casket, Brown wrote, marched President Harding, with General Pershing at a noteworthy event transpired: "A light, thin haze had hung his left. Behind these two marched Vice President in the sky nearly all morning, but now, as the President Coolidge and a ranking admiral, then Chief Justice Taft began speaking, the sun for the first time scattered away and another ranking admiral. Following them came the the clouds and fell full upon his face, softly illuminating it, associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, more mili- a very happy omen, it seemed."3 tary, governors of the States, members of the Cabinet, The Washington Post's lead article made similar use the U.S. Senators, eight abreast, then the U.S. House of of the sun: "Just as the cortege reached the tomb," it re- Representatives. Former President Woodrow Wilson, who ported, "the clouds that had hung low all day, parted and had suffered a stroke, was unable to march. He rode with the feeble rays of an autumnal sun filtered down on the his wife in an open victoria, wearing a poppy on the left casket. It was as if the heavens had opened to receive the lapel of his coat. spirit of the dead hero."4 Behind the military and the civilian notables from the government, representatives of many organizations— from the Grand Army of the Republic, the Confederate Also in this issue ... Veterans, the Colored Veterans of the War, the Red Cross through the Rotary Club and the Georgetown Cadets— Calder M. Pickett on marched in columns. When the funeral procession, after Radio Broadcasting with U.S.A. going seventeen blocks, passed the White House, the en- feebled Wilson returned to his residence, and the U.S. Death of Elizabeth Dos Passos government officials left to ride by automobile to Arling- ton National Cemetery. But the military escorting the Changes at Dos Passos Archives at caisson proceeded on foot to the cemetery, as did thou- sands of members of the patriotic societies. University of Virginia 2 Reading "The Body of an American" in Nineteen- butthetruth?" It is Dos Passos' introduction to what is be- nineteen (1932) one is fascinated by Dos Passos' effron- ing played out as an outpouring of national emotion. tery in satirizing the august commemoration of Novem- Without transition we are in a "tarpaper morgue" in ber 11, 1921. Actually, he was in Baghdad on November Chalons-sur-Marne, where several American soldiers en- 11, having sailed for Europe in March and, after a stay dure the stench to choose a corpse. The soldier directing there, gone on a writer's journey to Turkey, the Soviet the operation is saying: Caucasus, Iran, and some of the Arab lands. Make sure he ain't a dinge, boys, However his novel Three Soldiers appeared in 1921 make sure he ain't a guinea or a kike... and was being reviewed in October of that year.5 Although But, asks the author's voice in mimicry, how can the the novel's close antecedence to the November 11 ceremo- soldiers tell? There is so little left of these dead. nies was coincidental, it struck a note of opposition to of- Without transition again, we are reading a newspaper ficially sustained versions of wartime service. In his elegy account of the ceremony: "The Body of an American" Dos Passos struck that note The day withal was too meaningful and tragic for again but now more specifically. He placed the elegy, stra- applause. Silence, tears, songs, and prayer, muffled tegically, at the very end of Nineteen-nineteen, the second drums and soft music were the instrumentalities to- volume of U.S.A., which deals with the war years. day of national approbation. "The Body of an American" is a brilliantly written We go on to some of Dos Passos' biography of the modernist elegy, with some of its roots in the traditional Unknown Soldier. The narrating voice is tough and clipped, pastoral elegy—e.g., Milton's "Lycidas" and Shelley's and his account is made up entirely of specifics, in con- "Adonais," in English literature. As we shall see, it fic- trast to the syrupy abstractions found in the newspaper tionalizes details, and should not be read as factual his- account: "meaningful," "tragic," "national approbation." tory. The narrator's list of the Soldier's possible identities The work is a montage, juxtaposing and interweav- may remind us of sections 15 and 16 of Walt Whitman's ing four voices: "Song of Myself."7 It is interrupted by the newspaper ac- 1. An initial voice giving a slurring, perfunctory ren- count: dition of President Harding's proclamation on bringing the though this was a time of mourning, such an as- body of an American back for burial in the memorial am- semblage necessarily has about it a touch of color. In phitheater of Arlington National Cemetery.6 the boxes are seen the court uniforms of foreign dip- 2. The author's narrative voice. lomats, the gold braid of our own and foreign fleets 3. A newspaper account of the memorial service, al- and armies, the black of the conventional mourning ternating glib patriotism with pleasure in the pageantry. dress of American statesmen, the varicolored furs and 4. The imagined voice of the Unknown Soldier, shortly outdoor wrappings of mothers and sisters come to before his death. mourn... The voice reciting Harding's proclamation has all the The list of the Soldier's possible identities then is taken concern of a courtroom clerk asking: "Doyou solemnly up again, and then again followed by the newspaper ac- swearto tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing count. Then Dos Passos' narration continues with the Un- known Soldier's life: Naked he went into the army; THE JOHN DOS PASSOS NEWSLETTER they weighed you, measured you.. .charted your urine and your intelligence... The Newsletter seeks to promote scholarship on and interest in Dos Passos* writings and biography, In the same clipped language the narrator proceeds to and will publish short articles on these subjects. It recount typical experiences in a U.S. soldier's basic train- will also publish news items, notes, letters, and ing and typical phrases to which the Unknown Soldier queries on these and other relevant matters. Among would have been subjected during his brief life. These are these matters are work in progress, manuscript contrasted with the primary biological sensations of a hu- locations and accessions, bibliographies, and textual man being. Narrator's voice and Soldier's voice merge as scholarship. Dos Passos gives us likely and possible circumstances of For return of manuscripts, contributors should send, along with their submissions, stamped enve- the Soldier's death. The account is interrupted three times lopes addressed to themselves. They should address by a refrain in the Soldier's voice, the first instance being: all queries and manuscripts to the editor, Melvin "Say feller tell me how I can get back to my outfit," and Landsberg, Department of English, University of the third a frightened: "Say soldier for chrissake can't you Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-2115. tell me how I can get back to my outfit?" The Soldier's primal animal sensations (e.g., heart pumping blood) are matched by his experiences in nature COPYRIGHT © 1998 by Melvin Landsberg ("tiny striped snails hung on the underside of the blades").
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Manhattan Transference: Reader Itineraries in Modernist New York
    Oberlin Digital Commons at Oberlin Honors Papers Student Work 2013 Manhattan Transference: Reader Itineraries in Modernist New York Sophia Bamert Oberlin College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Repository Citation Bamert, Sophia, "Manhattan Transference: Reader Itineraries in Modernist New York" (2013). Honors Papers. 308. https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors/308 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Digital Commons at Oberlin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Papers by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons at Oberlin. For more information, please contact megan.mitchell@oberlin.edu. 1 Sophia Bamert April 19, 2013 Oberlin College English Honors Paper Advisor: T.S. McMillin Manhattan Transference: Reader Itineraries in Modernist New York The development of transportation technologies played a vital role in New York City’s transformation into a modern metropolis. Between 1884 and 1893, travel by rapid transit in New York increased by 250 percent,1 and “by 1920 there were 2,365,000,000 riders annually on all city transit lines . twice as many as all the steam railroads in the country carried” (Michael W. Brooks 90). The Elevated trains, which were completed by 1880,2 and the subways, opened in 1904, fueled construction and crowding in the booming city,3 and they fundamentally altered the everyday experience of living in New York. These modern transit technologies were novel in and of themselves, but, moreover, they offered passengers previously unaccessible views of the urban landscape through which they moved: from above the streets on an Elevated track, from underground in a subway tunnel, and so on.
    [Show full text]
  • A Humble Protest a Literary Generation's Quest for The
    A HUMBLE PROTEST A LITERARY GENERATION’S QUEST FOR THE HEROIC SELF, 1917 – 1930 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jason A. Powell, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2008 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Steven Conn, Adviser Professor Paula Baker Professor David Steigerwald _____________________ Adviser Professor George Cotkin History Graduate Program Copyright by Jason Powell 2008 ABSTRACT Through the life and works of novelist John Dos Passos this project reexamines the inter-war cultural phenomenon that we call the Lost Generation. The Great War had destroyed traditional models of heroism for twenties intellectuals such as Ernest Hemingway, Edmund Wilson, Malcolm Cowley, E. E. Cummings, Hart Crane, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and John Dos Passos, compelling them to create a new understanding of what I call the “heroic self.” Through a modernist, experience based, epistemology these writers deemed that the relationship between the heroic individual and the world consisted of a dialectical tension between irony and romance. The ironic interpretation, the view that the world is an antagonistic force out to suppress individual vitality, drove these intellectuals to adopt the Freudian conception of heroism as a revolt against social oppression. The Lost Generation rebelled against these pernicious forces which they believed existed in the forms of militarism, patriotism, progressivism, and absolutism. The
    [Show full text]
  • Socialistic Vision of John Steinbeck and Dos Passos: Foucauldian Analysis of the Grapes of Wrath and Manhattan Transfer
    International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE) ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-7, Issue-6S5, April 2019 Socialistic Vision of John Steinbeck and Dos Passos: Foucauldian Analysis of the Grapes of Wrath and Manhattan Transfer Neha Puri, Aruna Bhat I. INTRODUCTION Abstract:America emerged as a super power after the World War I but people also witnessed the suffering and severe John Steinbeck and Dos Passos were greatly impacted by degradation of American life. The Wall Street Crash, the the revolutionary atmosphere of 1930s. No wonder, Depression and the growth of Capitalism brought untold Manhattan Transfer (1925) of Dos Passos and The Grapes miseries to the fruit pickers and the farmers in America. John of Wrath (1939)[35],[5],[17] of John Steinbeck explore Steinbeck was inspired by the radical philosophy of Karl Marx individual freedom in socialistic collectivism; both the who propounded the theory of class less society giving a novels describe their nostalgic search for individualism in dialectical relationship between the haves and haves not. John Steinbeck is seriously concerned with the struggle of the “free enterprise.” proletariat. Steinbeck’s novels written during the 1930’s and 1940’s display his strong understanding of the common Dos Passos expressed his concern for the loss of liberty of Communist principles. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is the the individuals in his article “America and the Pursuit of heartrending tale of how “farming became industry” (298), Happiness” published in Nation thus: “We must stop the depicting the sufferings of the farmers trapped in the Dust Bowl economic war, the war for the existence of man against of the twenties.
    [Show full text]
  • Carol Inskeep's Book List on Labor History
    Women and Labor Issues j305.42 / KEN Failure is Impossible! The History of American Women’s Rights by Martha E. Kendall. 2001. 96p. (MJS) From School Library Journal “A well-organized, well-documented resource. Kendall frames her discussion of women's suffrage with an account of the struggles of women throughout the centuries beginning with early colonists such as Anne Hutchinson. In addition to the battles and achievements of the women's movement, the author addresses property and child-custody rights and the fight for fair wages. She includes information on what life was like for mill girls, women in slavery, and on women in the media. Many black-and-white photos and other illustrations add dimension to the text. Four pages of brief biographies of remarkable women complete this thorough, multifaceted history.” j331.38 / GOU Good Girl Work: Factories, Sweatshops, and How Women Changed Their Role in the American Workforce by Catherine Gourley. 1999. 96p. (EMJ) From School Library Journal: “A carefully researched look at female labor in the early 19th and 20th centuries in this country when the workforce of the textile mills, shoe factories, and sweatshops was comprised of unskilled "girls" of all ages. Grossly overworked and underpaid, they slowly realized the truth of their exploitation, organized, and eventually changed the workplace. Gourley uses letters, diaries, and other primary sources to give personal glimpses into the feelings and thoughts of these heroines.” 331.4 / COL Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II by Penny Colman. 1995. 120p. (MJS) From School Library Journal: “Colman chronicles the drive to get women to enter wartime industries, providing insight into the federal government's propaganda campaign and incentives.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Streets of San Francisco for Justice PAGE 8
    THE VOICE OF THE UNION April b May 2016 California Volume 69, Number 4 CALIFORNIA TeacherFEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFT, AFL-CIO STRIKE! On the streets of San Francisco for justice PAGE 8 Extend benefits Vote June 7! A century of of Prop. 30 Primary Election workers’ rights Fall ballot measure opportunity Kamala Harris for U.S. Senate Snapshot: 100 years of the AFT PAGE 3 PAGE 5 PAGE 7 California In this issue All-Union News 03 Community College 14 Teacher Pre-K/K-12 12 University 15 Classified 13 Local Wire 16 UpFront Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President Election 2016: Americans have shown they that are ready for populist change here is a lot at stake in this com- But we must not confuse our elec- message calling out the irresponsibil- Ting November election. Not only toral work with our community build- ity of corporate America. If we build will we elect a president and therefore ing work. The social movements that a real progressive movement in this shape the Supreme Court for years to emerged in the 1930s and 1960s weren’t country, we could attract many of the Ultimately, our job come, but we also have a key U.S. sen- tied to mainstream electoral efforts. Trump supporters. ate race, a vital state ballot measure to Rather, they shaped them and gave In California, we have changed is to build the social extend Proposition 30, and important rise to new initiatives that changed the the political narrative by recharging state and local legislative races. political landscape. Ultimately, our job the labor movement, building ties movements that keep While I have been and continue is to build the social movements that to community organizations, and elected leaders to be a Bernie supporter, I believe keep elected leaders moving in a more expanding the electorate.
    [Show full text]
  • John Dos Passos Newsletter 1 John Dos Passos NEWSLETTER
    Winter 2000 John Dos Passos Newsletter 1 John Dos Passos NEWSLETTER No. 5 Winter 2000 Special Issue on STUDENT RESPONSE TO DOS PASSOS Articles by Seth Moglen Lisa Nanney Claudia Matherly Stolz Melvin Landsberg Also in this issue . Melvin Landsberg Discusses Richard Ellsworth Savage Letter: Bernardin–Dos Passos Correspondence Now in Alderman Library List of Libraries Subscribing to John Dos Passos Newsletter 2 John Dos Passos Newsletter Winter 2000 RICHARD ELLSWORTH SAVAGE: Savage a memorable figure in U.S.A. And a significant one too, for Dos Passos, like Walt Whitman in Democratic A CHARACTER WITH A PRONOUNCED LACK OF Vistas, saw a widespread lack of character among the CHARACTER American middle class of his time, and blamed it for many public and private evils.2 by We follow Savage through a week in New York and Washington, D.C. Now probably in his early thirties, he Melvin Landsberg is earning $15,000 a year (quite a sum in the 1920s) as one of two chief assistants to the public relations tycoon Moorehouse. He and the other assistant, Ed Griscolm, are The final Richard Ellsworth Savage section (The Big competing in working up a campaign to get Moorehouse’s Money, pp. 477–519)1 gives us our last glimpse of the firm the lucrative account for E.R. Bingham’s patent trio of major characters in U.S.A.—J. Ward Moorehouse, medicine empire. By the end of the section, Savage has Eleanor Stoddard, and Savage—who become and remain triumphed over Griscolm, Moorehouse has become ill genuine business “successes” in a capitalist society that with heart disease, and Savage—now earning $25,000—is John Dos Passos scorned in the 1930s.
    [Show full text]
  • Joe Hill Film Buff
    BO WIDERBERG’s LOST MASTERPIECE JOE HILL VICTORIAN TRADES HALL 54 VICTORIA ST CARLTON (CNR OF LYGON ST) CENTENARY THURSDAY 19 NOVEMBER AT 5.15 PM JOE HILL 1915-2015 CENTENARY CELEBRATION The critically acclaimed 1971 film Joe Hill, by renowned Swedish director Bo Widerberg (Elvira Madigan), won the Cannes Jury Prize in 1971. Lost and unavailable for many decades, it has now been restored and digitally remastered by the National Library of Sweden. We are offering you a unique opportunity to see this long-lost masterpiece. Joe Hill was a Swedish-American immigrant and itinerant labourer who fought for the rights and unity of workers. He was executed by firing squad in Utah on 19 November 1915, after being convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence. A poet, songwriter and IWW activist, he was commemorated by Joan Baez in the song ’I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill JOE HILL Last Night’. Bo Widerberg’s film dramatises Joe Hill’s life and impoverished, unorganised immigrant labour in the US during the early 20th century. His story is still relevant to workers today. The Victorian Trades Hall Choir will perform ‘I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night’, and Phil CENTENARY Cleary will speak about Joe Hill and his significance to workers today. THE EVENT WHERE WHEN 5:15pm Victorian Trades Hall Thursday 19 Drinks and snacks 54 Victoria st Carlton November at Bella Union Bar (corner Lygon Street) 6:00pm Film screening in New Council Chamber Enquiries: Teresa Pitt at t.pitt@live.com.au, ph 0419 438 221 Graham Hardy at grahammelbourne1@hotmail.com, ph 0447 126 471 We are grateful for generous sponsorship from Victorian Trades Hall Council and The Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Victorian Branch Design by Atticus Silverson Joe Hill photograph (between c.
    [Show full text]
  • One Big Union—One Big Strike: the Story of the Wobblies
    One Big Union—One Big Strike: The Story of the Wobblies Early in the 20th century, the Industrial Workers of the World, called the "Wobblies," organized thousands of immigrant and unskilled workers in the United States. The union eventually failed, but it helped shape the modern American labor movement. In 1900, only about 5 percent of American industrial workers belonged to labor unions. Most unions were organized for skilled craft workers like carpenters and machinists. Membership in these craft unions was almost always restricted to American-born white men. The American Federation of Labor (AFL), led by Samuel Gompers, dominated the labor movement. Gompers wanted to assemble the independent craft unions into one organization, which would work to improve the pay and working conditions of the union members. Gompers and the AFL believed that unskilled factory and other industrial workers could not be organized into unions. Therefore, the vast majority of American workers, including immigrants, racial minorities, and women, remained outside the labor union movement. In 1905, a new radical union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), began to organize workers excluded from the AFL. Known as the "Wobblies," these unionists wanted to form "One Big Union." Their ultimate goal was to call "One Big Strike," which would overthrow the capitalist system. Big Bill Haywood and One Big Union One of the main organizers for the IWW was "Big Bill" Haywood. William Dudley Haywood grew up on the rough and violent Western frontier. At age 9, he began working in copper mines. Haywood eventually married and took up homesteading in Nevada.
    [Show full text]
  • The Universite of Oklahoma Graduate College M
    THE UNIVERSITE OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE M ANALYSIS OF JOHN DOS PASSOS’ U.S.A. A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHE BE F. UILLIAIl NELSON Norman, Oklahoma 1957 All ANALÏSIS OF JOHN DOS PASSOS' U.S.A. APPROVED 3Ï ijl^4 DISSERTATION COmTTEE TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE CRITICS....................................... 1 II. THE CAST .......................................... III. CLOSE-UP .......................................... ho IV. DOCUMENTARY ....................................... 63 V. MONTAGE........................................... 91 VI. CROSS-CUTTING ...................................... Il4 VII. SPECIAL EFFECTS .................................... 13o VIII. WIDE ANGLE LENS .................................... l66 IX. CRITIQUE .......................................... 185 APPENDK ................................................. 194 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................. 245 111 ACKNOWLEDGEI'IENT Mjr thanks are due all those members of the Graduate Faculty of the Department of English who, knowingly and unknowingly, had a part in this work. My especial thanks to Professor Victor Elconin for his criticism and continued interest in this dissertation are long overdue. Alf ANALYSIS OF JOHN DOS PASSOS' U.S.A. CHAPTER I THE CRITICS The 42nd Parallel, the first volume of the trilogy, U.S.A., was first published on February 19, 1930- It was followed by 1919 on March 10, 1932, and The Big Money on August 1, 1936. U.S.A., which combines these three novels, was issued on January 27, 1938. There is as yet no full-length critical and biographical study of Dos Passes, although one is now in the process of being edited for publication.^ His work has, however, attracted the notice of the leading reviewers and is discussed in those treatises dealing with the American novel of the twentieth cen­ tury.
    [Show full text]
  • America's Biggest Mass Trial, the Rise of the Justice Department, and the Fall of the IWW
    H-HOAC Review: Shapiro on Strang, Keep the Wretches in Order: America's Biggest Mass Trial, the Rise of the Justice Department, and the Fall of the IWW Discussion published by John Haynes on Monday, August 9, 2021 Dean A. Strang. Keep the Wretches in Order: America's Biggest Mass Trial, the Rise of the Justice Department, and the Fall of the IWW. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2019. 344 pp. $36.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-299-32330-1. Reviewed by Shelby Shapiro (Independent Scholar)Published on H-Socialisms (August, 2021) Commissioned by Gary Roth (Rutgers University - Newark) Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=56024 Destroying the IWW Interest in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or Wobblies, seems to come in waves: the 1950s saw Fred Thompson’s The I.W.W.: Its First Fifty Years (1955) while the 1960s brought Joyce Kornbluh’s Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology (1964), Robert Tyler’s Rebels of the Woods: The I.W.W. in the Pacific Northwest (1967), Patrick Renshaw’s The Wobblies: The Story of the IWW and Syndicalism in the United States (1967), Ian Turner’s Sydneys’s Burning (1967), and Melvyn Dubofsky’s We Shall Be All (1969), to cite but a few. Entries for the twenty-first century include Lucien van der Walt’s PhD dissertation, “Anarchism and Syndicalism in South Africa, 1904-1921: Rethinking the History of Labour and the Left” (2007); Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW, edited by Peter Cole, David Struthers, and Kenyon Zimmer (2017), and Peter Cole’sBen Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly(2021).
    [Show full text]
  • Organizing in the 'New Normal'
    Worker Centers • Electronic Solidarity • Open-Shop States the magazine of the Democratic Socialists of America Vol. XLIII, No. 2, Labor Day/Fall 2015 www.dsausa.org Organizing in the ‘New Normal’ From the National Director Walking with Vision By Maria Svart union is a group of indi- Governor Scott Walker’s successful rampage in viduals who get togeth- pro-union Wisconsin demonstrates that when big A er with their co-workers money backs the most extreme version of capital- and approach their boss about ist ideology, we are unprepared. We have to fi nd conditions at work—together. new ways to fi ght back. These individuals are practic- How do we organize in the age of the “new nor- ing freedom of association. Yet mal”? In this issue of Democratic Left, you’ll read in the capitalist mind, they’re about glimmers of hope in very dark times. engaged in economic extortion. In the last issue, I talked about the need for That’s not a completely wrong analogy, because solidarity, about acknowledging and building on workers who form a strong union are capable of our differences in order to create a powerful and forcing the boss to share the results of their col- democratic movement. Even as we come together lective labor more equitably than are non-union- in solidarity, we need to walk with vision. Capi- ized workers. That’s one thing I learned in my talists have a vision of endless accumulation for years as a union organizer before joining the staff themselves. They either do not know or do not of DSA: it’s all about power.
    [Show full text]
  • Modern Nonfiction Reading Selection by Barbara Ehrenreich Family
    Untitled Document Mr. Claro -- Modern Nonfiction Reading Selection by Barbara Ehrenreich Family Values The writer, feminist, and Socialist Party leader Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941) wrote some of her first articles and books on the inefficiency and inhumanity of the American health care system. In Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness (coauthored with Deirdre English, 1973) she critiques the unjust and unequal treatment women receive in the medical system. She has written over a dozen books, among them The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment (1983), The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed (1990), from which "Family Values" is taken, and Kipper's Game (1993). Ehrenreich is a contributing editor at the Progressive and the Nation, and her essays also appear regularly in magazines as varied as Radical America, Time, Vogue, and the New York Times Magazine. Her most recent books are The Snarling Citizen: Essays (1995), Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997), and Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001). Asked whether she writes in a different voice for the alternative and the mainstream press, Ehrenreich replied, "I don't think it's really a different voice.... Obviously I assume more political sympathy for my views if I'm writing for Z or the Guardian in England or the Nation than Time, but it might be the exact basic argument." She added, "An essay is like a little story, a short story, and I will obsess about what is the real point, what are the real connections, a long time before I ever put finger to keyboard." Sometime in the eighties, Americans had a new set of "traditional values" installed.
    [Show full text]