Month: February 2007

The Champions of “Democracy”

The changed political landscape affords the labor movement opportunities to change laws that make us weaker. These opportunities afford right-wing politicians and management consultants new opportunities to couch their attacks on workers’ collective rights to organize in terms of “democracy.” We have to counter this rhetoric before it becomes standard Newspeak. First up, Maryland’s House Republican leader Anthony O’Donnell attacking a bill for agency fee for state employee unions: “Forcing people to fund a service that they don’t desire to have is patently undemocratic.” To Mr. O’Donnell, I say, I don’t support the war in Iraq – or indeed any military spending – as a “service.” Am I free, in the name of democracy, to evade my taxes? Employees who are covered by a collective bargaining agreement benefit from the wages, benefits and protections that the union has won, and have available to them a grievance machinery in which the […]

Is Fair Housing Flying the Co-op?

The curiosity of a socialist owning real estate inspires much teasing from my friends. But why shouldn’t I own my own home? As our comrade, Barbara Garson has proven in her book, "Money Makes the World Go Around”, unless you stuff your cash in the mattress, you are inevitably invested in evil deeds. So why not invest in an evil that you control, your home? Taking a step further, I’ve been serving on my apartment co-op’s board of directors for about a year now. For a rickety, yet charming, old building our charge is a series of uncomfortable decisions. Should we delay refurbishing the elevator, or raise the monthly maintenance charge? Paint the lobby, or give the Super a raise? I sidestepped our controversial decision to begin eviction proceedings against one of our rent controlled tenants by not having been elected to the board by that time, but I have […]

Goodbye, Socialist Party

Today I resigned from the Socialist Party after eleven years of membership. This decision has been a long time coming. Indeed, it was made some months ago but I had been waiting to sever my remaining fiduciary responsibilities to the party to announce it. I have given the party tremendous amounts of time and energy as an officer, an editor, a speaker, a fundraiser and a campaign manager and it was a formative learning experience for me. Truthfully, I should moved on a long time ago – back when the crippling faction fights first arose about five years ago – but I was biding my time, hoping that all that negative energy would expend itself. I have come to the sorry conclusion that such fruitless bickering will never go away. I leave a Socialist Party that is irrationally bureaucratic, where misleaders place a premium on formal charges of sedition, investigation […]

Year Three

It is with no small amount of pride that I note today’s second anniversary of this Blarg. When I started writing, I kept it a secret because I was unsure how long I would keep at it, for there are few things sadder than a failed blogger. To a certain extent, I still keep this blarg a secret. I don’t publicize it much. I’ve even stopped pressuring my friends to read it. Perhaps my only readers are the eager salesmen of “herbal Viagra” who post so many comments, and misguided fans of Natalie Portman’s butt. I recently overhauled this website, with completely new software that requires registration in order to post comments. I used to get an occasional comment from a friend or a colleague or a complete stranger, in the midst of the tens of thousands of spam messages that ultimately crashed the site and necessitated the switch. I […]

The Two Barbaras

What kind of readers find Barbara Ehrenreich’s recent books remotely edifying? How far up their own asses are these people? I have to admit that I’ve yet to read the book in which she passes for working poor, although I did read her earlier piece in Harper’s magazine that served as a teaser. The fact that some of the lowest-paid service workers have to live in motels because they can’t afford a full month’s rent on an apartment was the only revelation for me (in New York, even our motels are too expensive, so people cram dozens of bodies in small apartments). Do you want to know how the poor live? Talk to your janitor, waitress or telemarketer. The paucity of actual interviews in Ehrenreich’s books saps the story of emotional resonance and dulls her political points. This tendency is exacerbated in “Bait and Switch,” in which our supposed heroine […]