Bulletin N°483

Women's Day 2011
Grenoble, France
 
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
The social class war against organized labor takes place on many battle fields, not the least important of which are high school classrooms and university campuses around the world. As capitalist ideological hegemony attempts to fill every nook and cranny of cerebral space, education has received a devastating hit, as has public health care, and other locations where capitalist ideology is often exposed for what it does, a murderous attempt to disarm the population living under siege and to impress them into a modern form of slavery and total dependency.

Horizontal networks in counter culture communication and public testimonies are inherently subversive. It is a tribute to feminists that they led the way in developing such communication skills. Women have much to teach the rest of humanity about such skills that are essential to democracy and which are so feared by tyrants and other supporters of illegitimate power hierarchies.
 
The 3 items below provide CEIMSA readers with many lessons on the dangers and opportunities that are likely to arrive in the coming months and years as class warfare spreads across the landscape, depriving more people of employments, health care, not to mention food and housing. What we are about to experience is not unlike the German occupation of France in the 1940s. Many of the same forms of violence, such as hunger, sickness, fear, and overexploited labor are recognizable. It is not the bang and boom of guns and bombs that make a war.The effects of war extend long beyond the battle field actions, and they also are conscious effects of strategies, tactics and logistics created by those who would defeat you.

Item A. are two interviews from the March 8 broadcast of Democracy Now! with Kavita Ramdas from the Global Fund for Women and with Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif on the significance of Women's Day and its historical association with organized labor.

Item B., sent to us by Reader Supported News, is a short article by Michael Moore recounting how he decided to join the demonstrators in Madison, Wisconsin last Saturday (March 5) and read in public his letter to the American ruling class. [See also, Jim Hightower's book, Ces truands qui nour gouvernent, translated into French by CEIMSA.]

Item C., from UCLA Professor Rhonda Hammer, is a copy of her Critical Media Newsletter for empowering students.


And finally, we extend to our CEIMSA readers the heart-felt greetings for happy International Women's Day :

 
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See Video :

(use Quick Time Player to view this video)

 

Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Director of Research
Université Stendhal Grenoble 3
http://www.ceimsa.org/


____________
A.
from Democracy Now!
Date: 8 December 2011
Subject: International Women's Day.
http://www.democracynow.org/

Thousands of events are being held worldwide to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. A handful of European countries first marked the day in 1911 following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America. The United Nations has recognized March 8th as International Women’s Day since 1975. Kavita Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women joins us to discuss the history of International Women’s Day, the most pressing issues women face today, and the connection between women’s rights and the fight for workers’ rights in Wisconsin.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/8/womens_rights_are_workers_rights_kavita

and

Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif took part in Egypt’s revolution and was in Cairo’s Tahrir Square nearly every day of the 18-day popular uprising. She joins us in our studio to discuss the revolution and its significance. “Almost overnight a civic space was created in Tahrir Square that was the ideal space, that one imagined, that everybody imagined, how the country should be or how any country should be,” Soueif says. “Everybody was finding the best in themselves and putting it forward.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/8/ahdaf_soueif_on_egypts_revolution_people

____________
B.
from : Reader Supported News:
Date: 7 March 2011
Subject: Michael Moore | How I Got to Madison, Wisconsin.


The scene in Madison is nothing like what they are showing you on TV or in the newspaper. First, you notice that the whole town is behind this. Yard signs and signs in store windows are everywhere supporting public workers. There are thousands of people out just randomly lining the streets for the six blocks leading to the Capitol building carrying signs, shouting and cheering and cajoling.


 
Filmmaker Michael Moore, surrounded by admirers and well-wishers, on the 18th day of labor protests in Madison, Wisconsin. (photo: AP)

by Michael Moore

A Letter From Michael Moore

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

riends,
Early yesterday morning, around 1:00 AM, I had finished work for the day on my current "project" (top secret for now - sorry, no spoiler alerts!). Someone had sent me a link to a discussion Bill O'Reilly had had with Sarah Palin a few hours earlier about my belief that the money the 21st Century rich have absconded with really isn't theirs - and that a vast chunk of it should be taken away from them.

They were referring to comments I had made earlier in the week on a small cable show called GRITtv (Part 1 and Part 2). I honestly didn't know this was going to air that night (I had been asked to stop by and say a few words of support for a nurses union video), but I spoke from my heart about the millions of our fellow Americans who have had their homes and jobs stolen from them by a criminal class of millionaires and billionaires. It was the morning after the Oscars, at which the winner of Best Documentary for "Inside Job" stood at the microphone and declared, "I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail. And that's wrong." And he was applauded for saying this. (When did they stop booing Oscar speeches? Damn!)

So GRITtv ran my comments - and all week the right wingopoly has been upset over what I said: That the money that the rich have stolen (or not paid taxes on) belongs to the American people. Drudge/Limbaugh/Beck and even Donald Trump went nuts, calling me names and suggesting I move to Cuba.

So in the wee hours of yesterday morning I sat down to write an answer to them. By 3:00 AM, it had turned into more of a manifesto of class war - or, I should say, a manifesto against the class war the rich have been conducting on the American people for the past 30 years. I read it aloud to myself to see how it sounded (trying not to wake anyone else in the apartment) and then - and this is why no one should be up at 3:00 AM - the crazy kicked in: I needed to get in the car and drive to Madison and give this speech.

I went online to get directions and saw that there was no official big rally planned like the one they had last Saturday and will have again next Saturday. Just the normal ongoing demonstration and occupation of the State Capitol that's been in process since February 12th (the day after Mubarak was overthrown in Egypt) to protest the Republican governor's move to kill the state's public unions.

So, it's three in the morning and I'm a thousand miles from Madison and I see that the open microphone for speakers starts at noon. Hmm. No time to drive from New York. I was off to the airport. I left a note on the kitchen table saying I'd be back at 9:00 PM. Called a friend and asked him if he wanted to meet me at the Delta counter. Called the guy who manages my website, woke him up, and asked him to track down the coordinators in Madison and tell them I'm on my way and would like to say a few words if possible - "but tell them if they've got other plans or no room for me, I'll be happy just to stand there holding a sign and singing Solidarity Forever."

So I just showed up. The firefighters, hearing I'm there, ask me to lead their protest parade through downtown Madison. I march with them, along with John Nichols (who lives in Madison and writes for the Nation). Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and the great singer Michelle Shocked have also decided to show up.

The scene in Madison is nothing like what they are showing you on TV or in the newspaper. First, you notice that the whole town is behind this. Yard signs and signs in store windows are everywhere supporting public workers. There are thousands of people out just randomly lining the streets for the six blocks leading to the Capitol building carrying signs, shouting and cheering and cajoling. Then there are stages and friendly competing demos on all sides of the building (yesterday's total estimate of people was 50,000-70,000, the smallest one yet)! A big semi truck has been sent by James Hoffa of the Teamsters and is parked like a don't-even-think-of-effing-with-us Sherman tank on the street in front of the Capitol. There is a long line - separate from these other demonstrations - of 4,000 people, waiting their turn to get through the only open door to the Capitol so they can join the occupation inside.

And inside the Rotunda is ... well, it will bring tears to your eyes if you go there. It's like a shrine to working people - to what America is and should be about - packed with families and kids and so many senior citizens that it made me happy for science and its impact on life expectancy over the past century. There were grandmas and great-grandpas who remember FDR and Wisconsin's La Follette and the long view of this struggle. Standing in that Rotunda was like a religious experience. There had been nothing like it, for me, in decades.

And so it was in this setting, out of doors now on the steps of the Capitol, with so many people in front of me that I couldn't see where they ended, that I just "showed up" and gave a speech that felt unlike any other I had ever given. As I had just written it and had no time to memorize it, I read from the pages I brought with me. I wanted to make sure that the words I had chosen were clear and exact. I knew they had the potential to drive the haters into a rabid state (not a pretty sight) but I also feared that the Right's wealthy patrons would see a need to retaliate should these words be met with citizen action across the land. I was, after all, putting them on notice: We are coming after you, we are stopping you and we are going to return the money/jobs/homes you stole from the people. You have gone too far. It's too bad you couldn't have been satisfied with making millions, you had to have billions - and now you want to strip us of our ability to talk and bargain and provide. This is your tipping point, Wall Street; your come-to-Jesus moment, Corporate America. And I'm glad I'm going to be able to be a witness to it.

You can find the written version of my speech on my website. Please read it and pass it around far and wide. You can also watch a video of me giving the spoken version from the Capitol steps by clicking here. I will be sending you a second email shortly with just the speech so you can forward a clean version of it without the above story of how I abandoned my family in the middle of the night to go to Wisconsin for the day.

I can't express enough the level of admiration I have for the people of Wisconsin who, for three weeks, have braved the brutal winter cold and taken over their state Capitol. All told, literally hundreds of thousands of people have made their way to Madison to make their voices heard. It all began with high school students cutting class and marching on the building (you can read their reports on my High School Newspaper site). Then their parents joined them. Then 14 brave Democratic state senators left the state so the governor wouldn't have his quorum.

And all this while the White House was trying to stop this movement (read this)!

But it didn't matter. The People's train had left the station. And now protests were springing up in all 50 states.

The media has done a poor job covering this (imagine a takeover of the government HQ in any other country, free or totalitarian - our media would be all over it). But this one scares them and their masters - as it should. The organizers told me this morning that my showing up got them more coverage yesterday than they would have had, "a shot in the arm that we needed to keep momentum going." Well, I'm glad I could help. But they need a lot more than just me - and they need you doing similar things in your own states and towns.

How 'bout it? I know you know this: This is our moment. Let's seize it. Everyone can do something.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. This local Madison paper/blog captured best what happened yesterday, and got what I'm really up to. Someone please send this to O'Reilly and Palin so there's no mistaking my true intentions.

P.P.S. Full disclosure: I am a proud union member of four unions: the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA (the last two have passed resolutions supporting the workers in Wisconsin). My production company has signed union contracts with five unions (and soon to be a 6th). All my full-time employees have full medical and dental insurance with NO DEDUCTIBLE. So, yes, I'm biased.

Comments

  +12 # Jon Awbrey 2011-03-07 18:34
  Re: “The scene in Madison is nothing like what they are showing you on TV or in the newspaper.”

  The Mainscream Media much prefer to cover democratic revolutions in other countries.
  It's much less dangerous for them ...

Michael Moore: People Still Have the Power
  by Michael Moore, GRITtv
  04 March 2011
 
          
________________
C.
from Rhonda Hammer :
Date: 8 March 2011
Subject: Greetings from UCLA.

Hi Francis
  Thanks so much for thinking of me on international women's day.  I so enjoy your web site and links to stories. I can't remember if I sent you a copy of the special edition of the UCLA Center for Study of Women's newsletter about the critical media literacy course I teach in which students learn theory and production skills, and produce a short progressive media project, in 10 weeks. I did a rather lengthy introduction and then a number of students wrote about their experiences and projects in the course.  Next week, the students who took the course this quarter will be presenting their final projects next week.
 
  Once again, here is the link to the student projects (two of them, Inside the Digital Closet and Are You Black Enuf were invited to be screened at UC davis feminist film festival which was amazing given that they were first-time productions. here is link again and please feel free to use any you want in classes http://women.ucla.edu/faculty/hammer/cm178. Friend Me and Spitballs at Battleships are also pretty good.

  Cut backs here are even worse this year but I did manage to pick up 2 courses, thus far and hopefully more for next year.  . . .

  Living in the belly of the beast is like being in the twilight zone,  but I am actually optimistic about social change here, given situation in Wisconsin and escalation of public demonstrations. 

  Hope all is well with you and I still hope that we can one day see each other in person. 

  warmest regards
  rhonda

  P.S. Here is the link and a pdf of the special edition of newsletter.  I thought, initially, that it would not take long but ended up being a long term project. Indeed, my respect for you has increased, as few people know how much time goes into these kinds of works.