It was a beautiful event commemorating Jonestown on November 18. If you click on the picture above, it should take you to the video. I’ve already characterized Jonestown in a previous blog entry as among the worst incidences of white supremacist genocide in our country’s blood history, perhaps comparable only to the Trail of Tears which killed 4000 Cherokees. This conclusion is based on the results of the Jonestown tragedy, 918 killed, 70% of them black. Results reflect intentions. But this understanding doesn’t explain what happened. Calling People’s Temple a cult as People Magazine did recently doesn’t explain anything either. […]
Do you have a story of rank-and-file union organizing? Clearly the union movement needs some revitalizing. My friend Ken Epstein and I are compiling an anthology of labor organizing stories, breezy enough to appeal to young people who need to pick up the torch. Please PM me or leave a comment if you have a story you’d like to tell. Not just successes. We can learn from failures too. I went into teaching in order to forge a parent-teacher alliance as part of the movement for revolution. In the process I got involved with the teacher’s union, where with a […]
Can the tech nerds lead us? The most uplifting event of the last week wasn’t the election, which was a wash, some good, some bad. Government will be slightly less evil for it. But the strike by Google workers was thrilling. Supporting the Marriott workers? Not wanting the military to use their creations? Against sexual harassment? Pro immigration? These tech workers may be the autoworkers of today, the ones whose sit-down strikes gave us the weekend and much much more. They are in a position to shut this country down. They can taste their power. You like disruptive paradigms? We […]
It’s the 40th anniversary of Jonestown. I’ve read most of what’s been written about this unspeakable tragedy and wrote of it in my novel White Knight (or how one man came to believe that he was the one who caused the San Francisco City Hall killings and the Jonestown Massacre). I’ve come to conclude that essence of the mass killings of Jonestown was white supremacist genocide. 70% (691) of the victims were black, and most tragically, 303 were minors. Yes, Jones was a paranoid, narcissistic, drug-addled demagogue, but there are a lot of those in the world and they don’t […]