Hieronymous's blog

Gus "Mike" Lee, an anarchist militant, passed away this week in Berkeley, California at age 64. He spent decades living on the streets and struggling with other homeless people. He was a wingnut and could be extreme, but was also the most fearless radical I've ever met in my life.

While the U.S. continues to be rocked by protests against white supremacy and police terror, some clueless Karens and Kens continue to use the police against anyone or anything they perceive as a threat. I will detail two interactions I had this week.

In response to the release Boots Riley's film Sorry to Bother You in 2018, I wrote this piece about my own experience working in a call center -- and how it took place against the backdrop of my own political radicalization. I post it today in honor of Juneteenth, where my former union, ILWU, will shut down all 29 ports on the U.S. West Coast as part of protests against racism and police violence.

Dave Dellinger, principled anarcho-pacifist revolutionary (and one of the Chicago 7 defendants in 1969), wrote this essay in response to liberals – like Martin Luther King – endorsing federal troops being called in to suppress the 1967 Detroit Riots. His position is that we support "the side of the oppressed and exploited," in this case fighters for black liberation during the uprisings in Newark, Detroit and Spanish Harlem, not the "establishment" – meaning the state's repressive forces in the form of cops and the military.

On 8 May 2019 around 300 protesters, mostly Uber and Lyft drivers, blocked Market Street in San Francisco in front of Uber's international headquarters as part of a global strike by drivers timed to coincide with Uber's IPO. This brief analysis attempts to situate these struggles against working class decomposition, with its roots in neoliberal deregulation, and the rise of so-called "gig economy" work.

Oakland Educators Association (OEA) reached a tentative agreement to settle a 7-day strike in Oakland, California last week. Jack Gerson, retired Oakland teacher and former executive board and bargaining team member, gives his account of the dynamics of the walkout.

The following is my personal, subjective account of my experiences in Chicago for two back-to-back gatherings of working class militants and activists from April 5-8, 2018. The first was the Railroad Workers United Convention and the second was the Labor Notes Conference (I apologize in advance for my stream of consciousness digressions and clunky note-taking style).

For May Day 2017 Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union invoked a contractual "stop-work" privilege and refused to work any Bay Area docks in celebration of International Workers Day for the third consecutive year. This speech, originally delivered at the 75th Anniversary of the 1934 San Francisco General Strike at the Marine Firemen’s Hall in San Francisco, was adapted for the rally preceding the May Day march on May 1, 2017.

With the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States, protests occurred in at least 370 cities around the world. The following is a subjective account of the Women's Marches that filled the streets of Oakland and San Francisco, California with hundreds of thousands on January 21, 2017.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, founded in Oakland, California. I went to the Oakland Museum of California to see the exhibit "All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50" and it got me to reflect on how the Panthers and other movements of that era affected many radical projects that continued in their legacy.

James Green, labor historian, professor at University of Massachusetts, and writer died June 23, 2016 in Boston. He was the author of the definitive work Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America in 2006. Here's the New York Times obituary.

Grace Lee Boggs, founding member of the Johnson-Forest Tendency (where her party name was Ria Stone), has died at the age of 100 in Detroit. She was born on June 27, 1915 and passed away today, October 5, 2015

I just saw Straight Outta Compton near my home, in a tiny theater that dates back to the silent era (1913) and which has miraculously survived the wrecking ball. It brought up so many vivid memories and thoughts since N.W.A.'s music was kinda the soundtrack of my life as I grew into adulthood and was politicized by events depicted in the film.