Santa Barbara "living wage" article criticized

The event included a number or oppressed (Latino) nation 
groups and individuals, including migrant workers and low 
income tenants rights activists, plus the speaker from KIWA 
[Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates]. The article should 
have said something about this that stresses the following.
 
(1) The failure of the event to really talk about race at 
all (probably because it would alienate the white 
participants) or to make even liberal distinctions between 
the struggles of oppressed nation peoples ("people of 
color") and those white middle class "struggles." 

(2) The well known truism to anyone who has studied US history, that 
in coalitions with bourgeois/petty-bourgeois leadership, the 
more oppressed/exploited groups will always be the first to 
have their demands sold out in the name of practicality, 
etc. Look at the living wage campaign: clearly it means 
virtually nothing to undocumented workers, much less 
documented domestics, field workers, etc. What do we see if 
we break down the demographics of who benefits from the 
living wage ordinances. Why did living wage [for municipal 
workers] campaign get raised instead of raise the minimum 
wage for all workers [in Santa Barbara]? While still not a 
necessarily a truly internationalist campaign (unless it 
included undocumented, e.g.), it at least will be more 
likely to affect those at the bottom in the u.$., including 
oppressed nation workers. Also, there were some signs and 
speeches that mentioned international issues, struggles, etc 
(the protest at Vandenburg against missle testing, e.g.). 
These should have been mentioned and it should be pointed 
out that absent concrete internationalist leadership, these 
struggles, slogans, groups, etc get used by the labor 
aristocracy, liberals, social democrats for symbolic 
reasons, but never become the core demands/struggles. This 
is something we need to teach activists coming up, not 
something we should expect them to already know. [I]gnoring 
internationalist demands is more an outgrowth of unconscious 
or semi-conscious class/nation shortsightedness and bad 
theory than any conscious rejection of internationalism. The 
important thing, of course, is that the outcome is the same, 
but it makes no sense to overemphasize intent when there 
isn't a concrete reason to. [Another writer added:] As a 
critique of the non-internationalist approach to the march, 
the article will helpfully provide organizers here with a 
better perspective in case they decide to organize another 
march for next year. the point about whether or not the 
organizers consciously excluded the international 
proletariat I think made an unsafe assumption. It was 
unclear when the article quoted the organizer about the 
"third world disease." I think that many organizers on this 
campus think they are internationalist, but don't really 
understand what it means. If we tell them they are 
consciously excluding the international proletariat we run 
the risk of alienating them. But if we persistently offer 
our criticism to the whole "think global, act local" 
simplicity of the Amerikan movement, I think there are many 
intelligent people in Santa Barbara who will agree with us. 
Perhaps next year we can have some RAIL events stressing the 
need for a truly international perspective. I was thinking 
of reading "Settlers" for the RAIL study in the fall. 
There's a lot of new energy for RAIL going on, so I think 
that that would be a really good foundation for these kids 
to really understand what it means to be anti-imperialist 
and internationalist in Amerika. 

MIM responds: We thank these comrades for their insights and 
comments -- we agree with most of them. On the question of 
whether or not the organizers "consciously excluded" the 
demands of the international proletariat, however, we still 
disagree. Certainly, we do not think that the majority of 
the march participants bear the international proletariat 
ill will. Indeed, as we noted in the original article, many 
of the participants and organizers have actively supported 
righteous struggles (against sweatshops for example) in the 
past. Many are already sympathetic with the demands of the 
international proletariat. But exactly because the 
organizers were so aware of the demands of international 
proletariat their absence was striking. To not have one 
official mention of sweatshop labor or labor rights on the 
promotional materials for a march "for economic justice" 
cannot be a coincidence, especially when the group which 
initiated the march had previously focused on "global 
issues."(1) The author of the first letter puts h finger on 
part of it when s/he says the internationalist perspective 
often gets left behind in favor of "practicality" or 
"respectability." As we discussed in the original article 
and in the articles about the "living wage" struggle at 
Harvard,(2) people may drop international issues out of the 
naïve view that there is a one-to-one correspondence between 
issues in oppressed nations and here in Amerika -- "if the 
majority of people in the Third World are exploited by 
imperialism, then the majority here in Amerika must be as 
well." MIM has argued throughout most of its 17-year history 
that this is not the case, and pretending that it is only 
sets back the movement to end exploitation globally.(3) 
Still, as we mentioned in the original article, once our 
movement seizes state power, many of the demands raised at 
the rally will be met. "Under socialism, everybody will be 
guaranteed a job, housing, free heath care and education --
not to mention an end to the threat of environmental or 
nuclear catastrophe. ... But we cannot allow imperialist-
country middle classes' backwards ideas about 'economic 
justice' -- which amount to redistributing stolen booty more 
'fairly' -- to take precedence over the struggle against 
imperialist exploitation worldwide." Finally, we note that 
the march's website (4) has added the right of undocumented 
workers to organize unions to its list of demands. In the 
original article on the march we wrote that the median 
household income in Santa Barbara county -- the slight 
decline in which march organizers cited as a reason to march 
-- was $34,000. We were wrong. The median household income 
in Santa Barbara was $49,000 (compared to a median household 
income of $40,816 for the united $tates as a whole).(5)


Notes: 1. http://www.peoplesmarch.org/nexusmarch.html 2. See 
article in this issue; MIM Notes 234, 15 May 2001; MIM Notes 
235, 1 Jun 2001. 3. E.g. MIM Theory 1; MIM Theory 10; 
Imperialism and its class structure, 1997, 
www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mt/imp97/ 4. 
http://www.peoplesmarch.org 5. The Statistical Abstract of 
the United States, 
http://www.census.gov/statab/www/part4.html 

Another prisoner signs Du Bois statement

Revolutionary greetings to all of you comrades at MIM, and 
salutations of a clenched Black fist. Your communications 
have been received, and as always it is wonderful and very 
reassuring to know that there is someone out there who feels 
as I do, and wishes to make this world a better place to 
live in.

First I want to say that the January issues of MIM Notes 
were very enlightening. I had not one iota that WEB DuBois 
had socialist principles. I was misled to believe that those 
ideals that he shared when he encouraged those Black 
brothers and sisters to join the U$ Army were the same 
throughout his life. In light of my newfound knowledge of 
Brother WEB DuBois, I would proudly ask that my signature be 
added to the rest of those who have signed showing 
solidarity regarding the birthday of Bro. DuBois 
[signature]. Also, attached to this letter is a copy of the 
letter which I mailed to that warden in Wisconsin who is 
censoring MIM Notes. I hope it is sufficient.

A Texas Prisoner, February 2001