USA

Strike! - Jeremy Brecher

Submitted by Anonymous on Apr 22 2013 09:51

In possibly the best book on the American working class movement ever written, Jeremy Brecher narrates the hidden history of mass strikes from 1877 to 1970 from the point of view of the workers themselves.

Attached in PDF format is the 1972 version of this book. We heartily recommend readers buy this book - a revised version was published in 1999.

Manituana - Wu Ming

Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant

Fantastically researched historical fiction about the Iroquois, a group of native American tribes who side with the British during the American war in independence.

Spokes on a Wheel: Some Labor Notes on Intersecting Struggles

Submitted by Eviction Free Zone on Apr 20 2013 20:14

With the recent Labor Notes Troublemaker's School in mind, how can labor begin to further tie into the housing struggle? Voices from We Are Oregon, Labor Notes, and elsewhere say that this may be from finding an "intersection" in struggle.

Neighborhood organizing, maybe because it is currently En Vogue for many radicals, is usually not thought of within the context of America's history of social movements.

Direct action, Occupy Wallstreet, and the future of housing justice: an interview with Noam Chomsky

Submitted by Eviction Free Zone on Apr 17 2013 22:45

Check out this interview with Noam Chomsky about the growing housing justice movement, the future of Occupy, and how direct action can play into all of this.

As a commentator, educator, public intellectual, and one of the best-known anarchist voices in the U.S., Noam Chomsky has become a defining perspective as social movements develop. His analysis of the shift in global capitalism, and our own role in its flux, has seen a recharge of importance as we entered the “new normal” of the post-2008 economy.

Fighting for the future: The necessity and possibility of national political organization for our time

This essay is an argument for moving towards national organization in the United States. It explores the limitations of political organization today, recent positive experiences, and possible ways to build on the present to push forward.

In the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades, the left stands at a crossroads. Despite widespread anxiety, restructuring, stirrings, and disruptions, the left has been unable to respond or develop bases for movements and revolutionary organization in any meaningful sense.

“Ironies of the saint” Malcolm X, black women, and the price of protection - Farah Griffin

Submitted by wojtek on Apr 16 2013 17:20

Farah Griffin's black feminist critique of Malcolm X and the "promise of protection".

As seen in Chapter Twelve of Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement by Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin, pages 214-229.

A moving story: with afterword - Jocelyn Cohn and James Frey

In 2012, workers at a small moving company in New York City rose up against bad pay and dangerous work conditions. In the course of the struggle, much was revealed about how exploitation operates; how the enticements of 'self-expression' and a 'laid back' atmosphere serve to weaken consciousness and collective action. At the same time, this history reveals the opportunities and limits that workers face within self-organized struggles in a small business format. This is an updated version with a new 2013 afterward by the original author.

In the Summer of 2012 the exploited workers at Rabbit Movers autonomously organized our shop and began the fight for control over the conditions of our lives. This is one worker’s account of how it all went down.

“They Just Run Us Into The Ground...”

Poor people's movements : why they succeed, how they fail - Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward

Examinations of four different periods of struggles in the US, from the depression to the civil rights movement, suggesting formal organisationalism led them to fail.

The Problematic of the Union in the U.S. – What is to be Done? (Part 2)

Second part of the debate on revolutionaries intervention and relation to unions from members of Advance the Struggle.

Revolutionaries, Unions and emerging Class Struggle.

The Problematic of the Union in the U.S. – What is to Be Done? (Part 1)

First article submitted with the intention of sparking a debate on left and anti-state revolutionaries intervention and relation to the unions, by Advance the Struggle a Bay Area, CA group in the USA.

[i]The Advance the Struggle Collective is currently engaged in high level discussion around the central political question of the unions and how revolutionaries interpret its history, its present, and how communist intervention can help develop a much-needed revitalized labor movement.