way back to the "work in" summer

By Owen Paine on Sunday January 15, 2012 11:14 AM

recall the red hot STUDENTS FOR A DMOCRATIC SOCIETY (SDS)

that childrens crusade wildly fragmented into three mutually hostile hunks
at its climactic ' 69 convention

the hunk i supported at the time
emerged under the tutlege of the progressive labor party
--- a rather odd but then florishing early 60's vanguard figment --

my fragment was known to itself as THE WORKER STUDENT ALLIANCE (WSA )

(its two rivals were of course the far more famous weathermen or RYM I

and the baby maoists or RYMII)

now the trumpetteers of WSA called on us college kids
to rally round a student to the job site "work in "


man o man did the hardened cadre at the top
ever bally hoo this "work in " gig big time!

and it was received
at least at first
with all the usual dogmatical hopes
and stridently intoxicated expectations
customary to any batch
of still unfledged pinko born agains

and in the event ??

yup sure enough
despite a chorus of great bells and whistles at the commencement ...
"the work in " actions..... didn't work out


okay so why drag it up then ???


well OCC has a shot at getting it right for once
.getting a real OCCer / worker hook up going

and yes most OCCers are youth
as often as not carelessly labeled "students" by the fully job shackled

it seems to me this time encouraging signs abound

the harbingers the straws in the wind and such
are out there in reality for once
not just among campus pipe dreamers

the biggest concrete example i think
is the on going combined actions
of the dock workers out on the west coast
and the OCCs of that region

ups and downs so far ???

of course!

but the duo plow ahead anyway
apparently so far facing no irreconcilable differences

the contrast to 1970-71 couldn't be clearer

and its not just out on the left coast but else where too

partricularly in manhattan
---recall the pace college hard hat riot of 71 ?--

in the city that never sleeps
union pie ops actually showed solidarity
as a reciprocation for earlier OCCer acts of mass support
for the pies' own local union job site struggles


ya paine but what about "work ins" ???


well i think OCCers can play a role as shock troops
in the great effort to mobilize a self organizing movement
on amerika's tens of thousands of organizable and yet completely unorganized job sites

working not against the pies
but in co ordinated parallel

more later

Comments (3)

Al Schumann:
the biggest concrete example i think is the on going combined actions of the dock workers out on the west coast and the occs of that region

They've been blocking scabs too. Gutsy stuff.

Op:

Once again I fail to strike a living cord here

My viable topics continue to contract

Some one else needs to discuss these matters to prompt
The serious attention they no doubt deserve

I only post to keep the site from ghost town status

Fortunately Al seems well oiled for posting recently
That reduces my exposure to the sound of silence

Ahh bitterness is sweet for the morose elder

Al Schumann:

Well oiled? Me?!

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