A call to labor organizers and youth considering being labor organizers: common arguments for building war-mongering, national chauvinist unions defeated It's time to quit any of the old war-mongering unions supporting this war. Most Amerikan unions today do not have a track record of opposing chauvinist wars and have supported them for a long time. Common arguments for organizing war-mongering, national-chauvinist unions 1. "The workers don't know." This excuse comes naturally to the intellectuals and those derivative of Marxism. It's also not true. In Amerika we are not talking about a temporary situation brought about by a lack of political interest and communications. The September 11th events brought intense and widespread interest. The Amerikan "workers" know that their government is killing civilians, have seen the photos of dead Afghani civilians on TV and the Internet and speak for it in polls and union conversations. It may be uncomfortable to think about, but many of the same people willing to defend welfare and unemployment compensation in the united $tates love their country and its reforms to the point of hating other countries' workers. The "false consciousness" idea has been over-used for decades now and has become an excuse for national chauvinism and racism. National chauvinist middle-class "workers" do not need their wages and benefits increased by us internationalist organizers just so they can be smug racists and national chauvinists. 2. "I work to bring workers health benefits, pensions, fixing bureaucratic and legal problems." The u.$. war against the people of Afghanistan proves that the majority of amerikans do not value the lives of other countries' peoples equally to their own. Amerikan people with internationalist views should realize that their internationalism is priceless, because it is in such rare supply. An organizer's internationalism should not be sold to give Amerikan workers pensions or unemployment compensation. In fact, it could be the very success of Amerikan unions that provides the material basis for Amerikan nationalism and believing Amerikan workers are so much superior to other countries' workers. In the united $tates, it may be true "that things have to get worse before they get better" when it comes to economic conditions for the people who have become a war-mongering middle- class. 3. "My union newsletter reaches thousands of workers." As independent organizers, you could work with MIM or even other organizations to spread a newspaper without watering down your views. MIM Notes promises to give big coverage to any labor organizers who quit their jobs on account of the war or national chauvinism or racism. Write to us here. To get your statement put on the web page immediately, write to mim3@mim.org. You can contact the same people without building a union that supports imperialism. 4. "I have influence with the workers by being there." The success of your work is what makes these workers love this country and stay with its rulers no matter what. If you truly have influence with the "workers," when you quit, that influence will carry over to independent organizing. If it does not, you never had any independent influence to begin with. You were simply a cog (perhaps unwitting) in the machine, reflecting the needs of the imperialists and labor aristocracy that truly own your union. In most countries, workers are badly exploited and they can be organized without persistent and war- mongering national chauvinism and racism. The question of bombing some other country does not come up every other day in oppressed nations. The united $tates is not one of those places. Check the track record of your union. Only a small minority have internationalist credentials, because Amerikan "workers" do not see themselves as linked to the workers of the world. 5. "What will I do to support myself? Where will money come from to support my organizing work if I go independent? Aren't all sources of money also contaminated politically?" Organizers everywhere work for a living and do their political work on the side. It is true that whatever you do for a living, you will be part of an imperialist economy, so you ask why is union money any more corrupt than any other money. First of all most corporations do not openly endorse the war. Amerikan unions with their public opinion building aspects often do and their support for imperialist wars is most damaging propaganda. Secondly, would you want the most talented physicists to work building nuclear weapons? Do you want to see the best chemists and biologists building chemical and biological weapons? Do you hope the brightest youth join the CIA? Then why do you want people with above average speaking, writing and organizing skills and energy to work for war-mongering unions? Those unions will find someone to do your job or maybe they will collapse without you, but they need to know that they are going to pay a price if they are going to be war- mongers. The pool of talent they draw from has to be cut drastically for this sort of war-mongering. If these unions and their "workers" want the internationalists back, they can always start supporting the international working class in action or replace their leaders to start doing so. Even strictly from a wages and employment point of view, what good does bombing countries and creating refugees do? The economies in those countries are ruined by u.$. war and refugees become a source of labor garnering even lower wages than before. Destroying economic conditions in the Third World and then aiding local death squads to kill labor organizers--that is the substance of u.$. imperialism in foreign affairs. An Amerikan union that is not targeting u.$. imperialism on this concrete point is not a union truly belonging in the ranks of the international working class. Rather it is a union consciously trying to profit at the expense of workers in other countries. 6. "My union lets me speak as an individual." Some of you are coming under increasing pressure not to speak even as individuals. You need to draw the implications of that. Perhaps the class owning your union is not what you think. Turn around a situation of defeat by quitting bitterly and going on the offensive. We will help. Some of you continue to speak out as before. We see your names on flyers with the union you are from used "for identifying purposes only." Nonetheless, what you are doing is perfuming these war-mongering unions by creating a misleading image of the Amerikan "labor" movement. It only raises again the question of why you would stay with such unions. 7. "Like you say, I belong to one of those old unions that supports the war and national chauvinism, but I'm too old myself to think of doing anything else myself." The least you should do is write to MIM openly or anonymously and call on youth not to become labor organizers for such unions. Explain your life experience. There is no failure in life if the internationalist movement can learn from experience. Explain how it is that once you get sucked in, it's difficult to get out. You have an office, maybe even a pension coming, so how can your energies go to what you yourself believe is right? Explain to the talented and energetic youth that there are better ways to build the international working class movement.