Inside This Issue

IWW Jimmy Johns Campaign Makes Headway..2 Debate to Reauthorize A Most Fundamental Policy...2 Peabody Energy.....3 Interview with Lewis Shiner.....3 State Function of Discipline .4 Left Wing School.5 Labor Belongs to the Working Class.6

Winter 2012

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IWW Jimmy Johns Campaign Makes Headway

By David Feldmann
For several years, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) has had an active organizing drive in Jimmy Johns sandwich shops, most notably in the Twin Cities. Earlier this year, six Jimmy Johns workers were fired, ostensibly for violating the companys attendance policy regarding sick days. The JJ employees were all IWW members who had been involved in attempts to publicize the food safety concerns of JJ sandwich makers in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area. The union members contend that they were targeted because of their involvement with the IWW and not because of their attempts to call in sick without finding someone to cover their shift (the contentious policy in question). On November 4, 20??, Erik Forman, longtime IWW member and JJ employee, announced that the NLRB (National Labor Relation Board) is going to file a complaint against Jimmy Johns on every single charge we filed against them. The Jimmy Johns campaign went public in 2010 after a long period of clandestine organizing activity. In October of that year, the first fast food workers union in the US lost a union election (85 in favor / 87 against) after franchise owner Mike Mulligan spent, according to the Department of Labor, over $84,000 on union-busting. IWW members argued that Mulligan, who owns ten JJ stores in Twin Cities, broke labor laws in trying to stifle the unions presence and influence. This position was reinforced by the NLRB, who threw out the election results in January of 2011 after declaring Mulligan had, among other things, lied to employees about the union and unlawfully retaliated against IWW members. To date, the IWW hasnt called for another election but has rather focused on exposing alleged health code violations at JJ locations and getting the fired workers reinstated at the fast food chain. After the results of the NLRB investigation were announced, the Jimmy John Union proclaimed that all six fired organizers will go back to work, with back pay. Hopefully within the next few months." For a labor union that has historically eschewed legal recognition, the IWW has been surprisingly successful at convincing the NLRB that they are in the right, not just in regards to Jimmy Johns but also in the more established campaign to organize baristas at Starbucks (the IWW has won even more legal victories in that struggle). Time will tell whether the IWW can withstand the onslaught of anti-union tactics employed by Mulligan and the rest of Jimmy Johns management in the Twin Cities, and continue to expand the union. Now that the NLRB decision has strengthened their resolve, this prospect seems very likely indeed.
David Feldmann is a member of Autonomy Alliance, as well as a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He can be contacted at stlwobbly@gmail.com.

Debate to Reauthorize A Most Fundamental Policy

By Andy Lucker
The Violence Against Women Act is up for reauthorization, again. The law began in 1994, allowing cases of domestic violence to be reported second-hand. In other words, if somebody knows violence is ongoing between partners, the violence can be reported, instead of traditional criminal reports, where victims would come forth. For obvious reasons, the VAW Act allowed domestic violence to be stopped in cases some women would otherwise stay silent; domestic violence reporting has increased 51% since 1994. By removing these people (generally women) from these violent relationships, further medical and psychological damage is not inflicted, and the violence does not further escalate. The percentage of women killed by domestic violence partnership has gone down 34%.* The VAW Act was renewed in 1999, 2005, and has again, expired. The Reauthorization Act, proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy (DVT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID), has been introduced with a 19% cut to the VAW Act. The cut comes at the budgetary demands to cut back in crisis. However, economic crisis puts more pressure and stress on family, arguably increasing domestic violence; instead, more money should be poured into ending and preventing domestic violence. This renewal attempt came as a new survey was conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (supported by the National Institute of Justice and the Department of Defense)National Intimate Partner Sexual Violence Survey. The survey found that one in four women reported experiencing severe physical violence by an intimate partner; men reported one in seven. One in three women had experienced sexual assault, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. The CDCs new survey strengthens the chances for the Reauthorization Act, but its conclusions are about as inconclusive and weak as the bipartisan Reauthorization. Linda Degutis, Director of National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (CDC), said, The solution is the same for both sexes, to develop relationships that are strong, that are stable and do not allow violence to be a part of the relationships or of resolving conflict in a relationship. She mentioned the disproportionately female-felt impact of the surveys results, and discussed the psychological implications for womens violent conditions post-traumatic stress disorder, fear, nightmares, and more. While all of this is factualand even her understanding of mens fear to report violence against themselves is more thorough than most politically-minded bureaucratsit does little to fix why women are disproportionately victims, why men are disproportionately aggressors, and why male victims are afraid to admit abuse. Manhood and womanhood must go plain and simple as that. Degutis was correct, For a number of reasons in our society, its really difficult to believe that this happens to men Its difficult for a man to be able to say that this has happened to him because our culture doesnt accept male vulnerability. Our culture really puts a lot of pressure on men to be able to protect themselves. Socialized as men, they are also prone to see any femininity as a weak sign for shame, inclining him to even deny existing abuse to himself. But this deniability is only sustained as long as manhood is sustained. The same is true for the disproportionate rates of violence (physical and sexual) between men and women. If males and females were socialized similarly to be humannot man or woman, but a healthy androgynyintimate relationships would be less dichotomous; domestic violence would still be a secluded form of all other social violence, but not one targeted (and even glorified, among some misogynistic circles) against one sex. Culturally and politically, the question of binding agreements is also an important point to explore. While non-marital domestic violence is not extraordinarily lower, it is slightly less common than that among married couples. This is partially due to the shame that comes with divorce and admitting one chose the wrong husband/wife. (Until the last few decades, it was also the result of marital rape being legal in many states.) There is moral shame and legal bureaucracy that comes with divorce; so much, that staying together with an abusive partner is also seen as a short -term acceptable solution. Non-married partners still experience substantial violence, though, and still disproportionate between genders. Thus, redefining gender is probably the most primary prerequisite to prevent domestic violence. While binary gender exists, though, ending measures must be in place. This would be where the VAW and Reauthorization Act come in. However, the RA is a gutted form of the VAWA, and it sets itself up for another expiration. Awareness on reporting and access to shelters for victims of domestic violence must be higher. While it is true that laws typically have expiration dates and need renewed, there are basic parts of the VAWA that should never be removed (for example, allowing second-hand domestic violence reporting to be acted upon by police). The fundamentals of public policy regarding domestic violence should not have to be whimsically renewed every few terms by Congress. Victims should not be expected to have to report the abuse first-hand. This violence extends to every form of rape, including marital rape, which was legal into the 1980s throughout most of the United Statesin North Carolina until 1994and defended by many civil libertarian men. Violence is not a question of compromise or context, but one of human principle. As Autonomy Alliance states in our Kinship Program:
The Violence Against Women Act cannot be a political tool of politicians (mostly men) for their re-election. We need policy that acknowledges that domestic violence is intolerable, whether Congress decides its renewal is important for their re-election or not. We must increase funding for shelters, and teach children in schools about how to handle such problems. By not teaching ourselves to end domestic violence, we teach our society to be silent about it.

In Fall 1983, in St. Paul, Minnesota, An-

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Andrea Dworkin

drea Dworkin (see left photo) spoke at the Midwest Regional Conference of the National Organization for Changing Men. This famous speech was called, I want a twenty-four hour truce during which there is no rape. Her thesis was blunt. She concluded her address to these men who sought to

Peabody Energy:
Busting the Union...One Mine at a Time By David Feldmann
On December 5, 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled against the Peabody Energy Corporation, who were contesting the results of a union election at a mine in Saline County, Illinois, one of the poorest counties in the state, located about 125 miles southeast of St. Louis. Peabody Energy, which posted $7 billion in revenue last year, began a ruthless anti-union campaign earlier this year after a vast majority (90%) of workers at the Willow Lake mine signed authorization cards (a process which legally must precede a formal union election). Once the prospect of union recognition and representation was on the horizon, Peabody proceeded to engage in anti-union activity which, the NLRB concluded, resulted in one illegal firing and a substantial drop-off in rank-and-file support for the union (presumably due to threats and intimidation from the company). The final vote was 219-206 against: a slight victory for union supporters at the mine. This lengthy organizing process, which the Employee Free Choice Act sought to reform by simplifying and reducing the number of steps involved, has been criticized by unions and labor activists as a hindrance to labor organizing. Generally, management will initiate anti-union campaigns following the authorization card step and attempt to single out organizers and union supporters for retaliation before the union election takes place. It often works, but not in this instance. It appears that the Willow Lake mine will become one of a small handful of Peabody coal mines in the U.S. to be represented by the United Mine Workers of America. According to the official Peabody Energy website, the company operates "28 surface and underground" mines in the U.S. and Australia and is "the largest private sector coal company in the world." Peabody has also begun "commercialization projects" with China, Mongolia and Indonesia. The company has, in the past, made a habit out of closing union mines and reopening non-union ones elsewhere.
David Feldmann is a member of Autonomy Alliance, as well as a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He can be contacted at stlwobbly@gmail.com.

improve womens conditions:

...I want one day of respite, one day off... I am asking you to give it to me. And how could I ask you for lessit is so little. And how could you offer me less: it is so little. Even in wars, there are days of truce. Go and organize a truce. Stop your side for one day. I want a twenty-four hour truce during which there is no rape. *This may also be partially due to the decrease in marriage among young people. In 1960, 72% of all adults in the US were married, but today that is only 51%. Many young people today grew up when divorce was more legal and accepted, allowing the institution to lose its glitter. Not marrying while co-habitating is increasingly common among young adults. While not a great indicating factor, the lack of marriage offers an easier escape for individuals in relationships, than if the couple was already married.
Andy Lucker is a member of Autonomy Alliance and is a member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Local 660 (writing at personal capacitynot speaking on behalf of IAMAW, Local 660). Andy can be reached at andrewlucker@gmail.com.

ASQ Asks Lewis Shiner

Interview Conducted by David Feldmann
Lewis Shiner is a writers writer. His novels and short fiction have received critical acclaim and glowing approval from fans for nearly three decades, during which time he's made a name for himself in both the science fiction and mainstream literary worlds. Increasingly, his work has exhibited a strong sense of socially conscious and politically motivated themes. In the early 1980's, Shiner played a small but significant part in popularizing science fiction during the "cyberpunk" era (along with William Gibson and Bruce Sterling). Following his well received debut novel, Frontera (1984), the tale of an abandoned Mars colony, Shiner continued to release a great deal of short stories to the reading masses. His follow up novel, Deserted Cities of the Heart (1988), came at the end of a decade that saw a quick rise-and-fall popularity in sophisticated science and speculative fiction. Since then, Shiner has gradually gravitated away from the ghetto of SF with Slam (1990), the story of an ex-con living amongst social outcasts, and Black & White (2008), a crime novel of sorts which touches upon America's longstanding racial tensions, along with several other novels and many other short stories (all of which are available for free on his website www.fictionliberationfront.net). His most recent novel, Dark Tangos, is the redemptive story of a computer programmer, Rob Cavenaugh, who falls in with militant Leftists in Buenos Aires while working for a multi-national software conglomerate. Cavenaugh is, within a short period, dumped by his wife and informed by the company he works for that he must take a substantial cut in pay and transfer to Argentina if he wants to keep his job. Somewhat reluctantly, he jumps at the opportunity to distance himself from his estranged wife and takes the position. Not long after arriving in Buenos Aires, he becomes interested in Tango dancing, learning the techniques and falling in love with another student, a mysterious younger woman, at the same time. Soon, the woman's past comes back to haunt her, drawing Rob and their circle of friends into a violent confrontation between leftist urban guerillas and the anti-communist thugs of the old military junta. Dark Tangos handles the history of Latin American political strife in a mature and intelligent way. By virtue of the protagonist (who is far from the stereotypical "ugly American" often found in popular fiction), the reader gets a glimpse of what so many citizens of the Third World have had to endure at the hands of U.S. supported dictators and tyrants. Lewis Shiner has given us another perceptive and sophisticated piece of fiction which deserves the appreciation and popularity that independently published books rarely receive.
Lewis Shiner

Subterranean Press recently reissued your novels and short story collections in a uniform set of very handsome trade paperback editions. Do you prefer working with independent publishers like Subterranean over publishing giants like Doubleday and St. Martins Press? More generally, how has the proliferation of the Internet affected the marketing of your own work and the ability of small publishers to survive or even thrive? With the big New York houses there was always the dream that the book would take offif not to the bestseller list, at least get national media coverage and prominent reviews. The odds of that happening go way, way down with a small press. Other than that, I would have to say things are better in every way. Bill Schafer, the publisher at Subterranean, cares about books as works of art, not as commodities. He treats me like family (in the best possible interpretation of the word), not like somebody he's reluctantly doing this huge favor for. I get complete control over my covers and typeset, and I don't have to worry about the political content of what I write. Just the fact that my entire backlist is in printthat's something you don't get from the big houses unless you're Don DeLillo. Dark Tangos, your newest novel, deals with the ongoing conflict between the Latin American Left and the supporters of the military juntas and dictatorships. Did you set your story in Argentina because you think this country has the richest (non-totalitarian) socialist tradition or is there a more prosaic explanation? There were a number of reasons for setting it in Argentina. The most immediate is that my girlfriend and I had traveled there several times because of our interest in tango, so I felt like I knew my way around. But also, Argentina's so-called Dirty War of the 1970s was about as ugly as it gets in terms of right-wing police-state repression. Thirty thousand people "disappeared," the vast majority of them for no

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other reason than that they were academics or intellectuals or unionists or knew somebody who was suspected of leaning to the left. Plus there was the angle of the US support for the dictatorshipHenry Kissinger was a big fan, for example. One of the goals of the book was to help people in this country understand why the US is so hated and feared throughout Latin America. Finally, there was a news hook trials of some of the henchmen from the junta were just starting during the period when the book is set, 2006-7. I don't know that socialism is stronger in Argentina than in, say, Chile, where Allende was actually elected as a socialist, but certainly there's a strong, proud leftist tradition throughout Latin America. I have a short story called "The Death of Che Guevara," an alternate history where the entirety of Latin America votes in socialist governments in the early '70s. It all starts with Che bringing the revolution to Argentina, where he was born. How much of yourself is in the protagonist of Dark Tangos, Rob Cavenaugh? A lot of the details are differenthe's younger than me, has a kid, is not an artistic or particularly political person. He's a better tango dancer than I am. But I think he reacts to the events of the novel the way I would, so I would say our personalities are similar. To many people, the 60s and 70s were the golden age of science / speculative fiction (exemplified by New Wave writers like Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. LeGuin, Samuel Delany, etc.). Do you think that the cyberpunk trend was the last great literary movement within SF or are you more hopeful about the future of imaginative fiction? I can't really speak to that. I haven't kept up with SF since the '80s and I don't really know what's happening there. I think it's always dangerous to say that X, whatever X is, will never happen again. Conventional publishing is dying fast, and conventional notions of literacy are also changing. The next great SF literary movement may happen in comics or homemade YouTube videos or iPad apps. In the early 90's, you worked on a comic book series for DC Comics called The Hacker Files. To my knowledge, this has never been collected as a trade paperback. Is there any likelihood of this happening in the future? For those of us who have never been able to read this (due to lack of availability) will you explain what is was about and how you came to work with DC? The Hacker Files is not likely to be reprinted, as it wasn't a big financial success. But you never know. The lead character made it into the recent DC Comics Encyclopedia, so he's a part of the continuity now. At least he was, until they rebooted everything again a couple of months ago. I've always been a comics fan. I got involved in writing them when a fellow fan, a friend of mine since my early 20s named Bob Wayne, went to work for DC in the 1980s. He pitched them a revival of the old RIP Hunter, Time Master series, which they went for and he and I co-wrote. Our editor then asked me to pitch a series that would bring computers into the DC universe. This was the late 80s, when the Internet was still DARPANET and the IBM PC was still the state of

the art. I was working as a programmer at the time, so with the help of some SF fans who were on the bleeding edge of technology, we came up with a fantasy computer that of course is now overshadowed by any average laptop. Actually we got a lot of things right in terms of watching TV and movies on computers, HD TV aspect ratios, spyware, etc. The basic storyline involved a giant multinational corporation called Digitronics World Industries. They had subverted the work of their lead programmer, a guy named Jack Marshall, who was usually portrayed wearing a circle-A Tshirt under his sport coat. They'd pushed Marshall out of the company, but because he was the only one who really understood the operating system, he would get called in by customers with unusual problems. In the course of the mini-series, he uncovers the insidious data-mining scheme that Digitronics is up to and confronts the executives in virtual reality. So it's your basic anarchist vs. big business plot, with some skatepunk edgehe has a bunch of young hackers who function as his Baker Street Irregulars. Over the years, youve come to be identified as a radical fiction writer. Indeed, quite a few of your characters are, to varying degrees, left wing individuals. Please explain your own relationship with radical politics and how this has affected your writings. Do you feel compelled to raise class consciousness through your work? I think this has become more and more of a goal for me over the years. Especially since I first began working on Black & White in the late 1990s, I've felt strongly that I want to deal with social issues in my fiction. I don't think we'll get real political change in this country until we get cultural changewe have to move away from the current culture of greed and narcissism. There is no virtue in selfishnessthe virtue is in helping others, especially those who can't help themselves. So yes, raising class consciousness and dealing with issues of violence and greed are all part of my mission. At the same time, it's important to me not to oversimplify, and to get these ideas across in terms of complex stories and not sermons. In the book, Mythmakers and Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction (AK Press: edited by Margaret Killjoy/ 2009) you state that after reading the 2005 graphic history, Wobblies! (Verso: edited by Paul Buhle and Nicole Shulman) you joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Are you still a Wobbly? I've been a member in good standing for six years now. I've been reading a lot of the classic early 20th century social novels latelystuff like Frank Norris's The Octopus and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which I'd never read. And I recently read John Dos Passos's USA trilogy, where all through the book the heroes are called upon to show their IWW red cards as proof that they're on the right side. That made me really proud. Thanks so much for your time. Any final remarks or plugs for our readers? Sure. Support the IWW! It's a simple fact that in order for the much-touted 99% to accomplish anything against the rich and powerful 1%, we have to organize. What better way to do that than to have one big union?

The State Function of Discipline By Sarah Rose

There are many ways to define and understand what a government or a state actually is. Through behaviors, functions, roles, clearly defined structures, or even just acknowledgement of power, a state can be realized. Emma Goldman described the state as a function. She argued that the role of the state is to repress the individual and the working class as a whole in the interests of the capitalist class and in its own interests. [It is]the force to which minorities resorted for establishing and organizing their power over the masses. On the other hand, Errico Malastesta (Anarchy) defined state as government, or to put it another way, it is the impersonal abstract expression of that state of affairs, personified by government Though this is not in contrast with Goldmans definition, Malastestas definition explains state through bureaucracy, rather than as a function. Theory about the state and its role vary immensely. Theories are dependent on the authors experience, political ideology, and aims of representation. Michael Bakunin (Rousseaus Theory of the State) stated that "any logical and straightforward theory of the State is essentially founded upon the principle of authority, that is the eminently theological, metaphysical, and political idea that the masses, always incapable of governing themselves, must at all times submit to the beneficent yoke of a wisdom and a justice imposed upon them, in some way or other, from above." When individuals revolt against the state, the state imposes punishments to make sure of two consequences. The first is that the state remains in power, and can exist in the way that those in power want it. The second is to keep people in line, or in whatever standing the state can best handle them. In order to keep the status quo, criminals are dealt with in a variety of ways based on cultural and social issues. If a robbery occurs in an all white and wealthy neighborhood, the thief will probably be convicted of a higher crime and more quickly than a banker who targets low income people of color in a massive mortgage scam that leads to huge numbers of foreclosures in poor neighborhoods across America. Emma Goldman stated that crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. Those who are convicted of crimes are disciplined in varying degrees by the state. Fines and imprisonment are the two main types of punishments the state utilizes for convicts. But what is discipline itself, and why does the state use it so often? In Discipline and Punish, social theorist Michael Foucault understands discipline in two major ways. First, he calls discipline a body of knowledge. The second meaning is a technique applied to physical bodies, what he calls disciplinary power. This term describes the way in which a bodys actions func-

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tion as objects of power. Disciplines goal is to produce what Foucault called a docile productive body. This docile body is important because it creates the ability for the ideal new economics, politics, and violence of the modern industrial age. The beginning disciplinary power is operations on the body itself. The body is understood as something to be analyzed, separated into parts, and manipulated to further efficiency and control. Discipline develops a new economy and politic for bodies. Modern institutions require that bodies must be individuated according to their tasks, as well as for training, observation, and control. Therefore, Foucault argues, discipline creates a whole new form of individuality for bodies, which enables them to perform their duty within the new forms of economic, political, and military organizations emerging in the modern age and continuing through today. Foucault states that the individuality constructed by disciplinary power has four characteristics. These include cellular, organic, genetic and combinatory. The cellular category includes the determination of the spatial distribution of the bodies. The organic piece ensures that activities required of the body are natural. The genetic part controls the evolution of activities over time. The combinatory section allows for the combination of the force of many bodies into a single larger force. Basically, Foucault states that when bodies are punished, or feel pain, they become more docile, more obedient citizens. Therefore, the bodies, or citizens are more easily controlled. An alternative to discipline is pain. Foucault utilizes a metaphor about the Western educational system to help his readers understand pain. He states that disciplines such as sitting up straight in school, or the use of corporal punishment (widespread until recently) are painful. The educational systems are therefore creating docile bodies by utilizing a form of education that is disciplined through body techniques. Many scholars examine school and compare educational structures to the prison industrial complex. These scholars can examine how the same cultural constructions are used to further the status quo, helping further theories on discipline, pain, and knowledge. Not only are the same constructions about race, sex, gender, and class utilized, both systems rely on the same government and its processes for monetary and social furtherance. Additionally, both the prison system in America and its public schools rely on the same major corporations to feed its inhabitants, create contracts and agreements with workers, and do similar jobs to exist. Finally, both systems utilize the same types of administrative hierarchies for power relationships regarding prisoners or students and those that hold power and knowledge to dole out when necessary. Torture is a punitive use of pain. Prison industrial complexes sometimes use torture to obtain knowledge from prisoners. According to Foucault, power produces knowledge and confession produces truth. Knowledge is not necessarily truth, and confessions do not always hold honesty. For torturers utilizing punishment to obtain political knowledge, or power, the victim must confess to achieve any truth. Fumiko Kaneko is an excellent example of how the state utilizes Foulcaults understanding of punishment to achieve a more docile population, and ways that individuals can react to state repression. Kaneko lived from 1903 to 1926, during the Meiji Period in Japan. She was an anarcha-feminist who selfdescribed herself as a nihilistic egoist. Kanekos partner was Pak Yeol, the leader of the Futeisha, which was a predominantly Korean group of nihilists and anarchists. She was eventually given the death sentence for aiding in the conspiracy to transport bombs that were to be used to murder the imperial family. Instead of allowing the state to dictate her life however, Kaneko decided to take her own life. She said that the government would have no say over her life or death, so she hung herself in her cell. Her outcry against state oppression became one of violent means, and though heroic, her tactic eventually led to her death. Kanekos early life consisted of much educational struggle. She was

born musekisha, or unregistered. Based on her inability to attend classes (because she was not in the family register) her mother begged for her to be able to audit classes. This is an example of the state disallowing education for classist and nationalist reasons. At the time, many Koreans were entering Japan illegally, and the government had a strong sense of nationalism. The state did not want to allow immigrants the education they wanted for their children, so any unregistered member of society was not allowed entrance into Japanese schools. Although Kaneko did go to these classes, it unfortunately did not change her social status. When she was nine years old, Kaneko moved to Korea to live with her paternal grandmother so that she could achieve the education she and her mother hoped for. She had an incredibly high ability, but she was unhappy with the lack of equality within the classroom. Kaneko wanted to be treated equally to her male classmates. This caused her grandmother much strife, and led to Kanekos abuse. As soon as her parents found out about the abuse, Kaneko went back to Japan. Kanekos political ideology of an anti-class, anti-state, pro-equity anarchism and nihilism are directly related to her childhood experiences in education. Anarchism is a highly organized, horizontal power structure that focuses on liberty, autonomy, solidarity, and freedom for all individuals. Nihilistic-egoism is another way to describe individualist anarchy. It is the assertion of the individual will but still ascribing to other anarchist principles. Kanekos anti-state attitude led her to engage in violent tactics to change the social and political structures within Japan. Based on her tactics she was arrested and convicted of conspiracy against the state and was given the death sentence. The government decided to take a step back and give Kaneko some leeway and instead chose to change her sentence to life imprisonment. This is the point when Kaneko decided to take her own life. Kaneko encountered many gender issues in her treatment within the educational system, and also in prison. The only equality between women and men seemed she experienced was the states punishment of both. Her treatment in prison showed that those in power felt that women could be a political threat, even with the essentialist constructs of the good wife, wise mother, and women had no other political power through voting, representation in political realms, and other basic democratic rights. Kaneko is an icon because she took her life into her own hands, even when she was in prison for life. She was a political hero, even though many consider her extreme. Her commitment to equality for all existed in a time when women were expected to be passive and timid and she was anything but. She was also violent, which was in direct violation of what a good woman should have been. Her empowerment came from her ideas, not her role in life, and she utilized it for what she believed in. She also controlled her image, by being the host of most of the information available about her life, which is another way she empowered herself. Some of the aims of her representation included distorting the nationalist ideology to cross boundaries between Korea and Japan. She also hoped that her strive for justice would not die with her. She urged people to resist the government and be autonomous. She hoped that people would not allow the government or other social constraints to dictate their lives. The state tried to silence Fumiko Kaneko. Through punishment, Kanekos hand was forced, and she took her own life. She took the power over her body back from the government, but the end result was the same, she was silenced. Kanekos example of state repression and punishment examines how the states function is to uphold the state. The role of those who work for the state becomes to keep the status quo stagnant, no matter what repression these individuals must use. Obviously, not all workers become foot soldiers, as many of them are ignorant of the states true function, but the inevitability of the roles of these individuals remains as such based on the structure of the state and its bureaucracy. Emma Goldman said every society has the criminals it deserves. Who then, are the true criminals? Are they those who construct, or those who deconstruct the state?

Left Wing School

The third annual Left Wing School happened on Sunday, December 4, 2011. This even was an opportunity for people to learn about a variety of ideas, presented by various organizations. This was also a chance for organizations to come together to exchange their ideas and learn from each other. At this years Left Wing School over twenty organizations attended and several presented. Autonomy Alliance presented Direct Action: From the Workplace to the Streets and appeared on a panel, Labor and the Left Today. Our workshop presentation is available on YouTube, titled Autonomy Alliance: Direct Action: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCMwap43Y6A>. Also, check out our YouTube page to see other videos from Autonomy Alliance. <http://www.youtube.com/ user/autonomyalliance>

Autonomy & Solidarity Quarterly is collectively and democratically edited by Autonomy Alliance. Autonomy Alliance exists for general educational purposes, to expose all oppressive institutions and propose non-oppressive solutions, to ally in solidarity with other agreed upon events, struggles, organizations, or coalitions, and to network with oppressed peoples to act and discuss in an open, safe, and shared forum, despite disagreements.

Keep up to date on local events and issues on our website: www.autonomyalliance.org Contact us to get involved, if you have questions, or if you would like to voice an opinion to be published:
autonomyalliance@gmail.com

Labor Belongs to the Working Class

By Andy Lucker
Recent budgetary cuts have resulted in social services being slashed. Among those cutbacks, though, was that of the military. And while it was not drastically cut, it has many on the Right in an outrage. Oddly enough, some within labor are even upset. The St. Louis Labor Tribune (November 3, 2011, Vol. 75, No. 14, IAM president warns against deep cuts in American defense, p. 15) published an article by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, denouncing the almost $1 trillion cut to the federal budget at the National Press Club meeting. IAM International President Tom Buffenbarger said, Cutting a trillion dollars from defense spending does more than kill off 1 million jobs. While the general opposition among organized labor to the federal, state, and local budget cuts has been progressive (like the IAMAWs opposition to the cutting of NASA), the IAMAWs leadership boasts a position so short-sighted, it is counterintuitive. Slashing the defense budget potentially frees up finances for other social programs, and although the current government is not promoting social services, slashing defense reframes the debate about the federal budget. All of this requires seeing labor organizing as part of a class-based strategy. This is probably the worst impediment of the AFL-CIOs leadership. When victories are perceived as merely won in shops, locals, maybe internationals, and elections, resources are divided and solidarity is decreased. This impeding strategy also results in trying to improve labor-management relations to improve shops, often through contracts that compromise by attempting to improve company efficiency. However, workers have nothing politically in common with the interest of their business owner. Demanding that defense companies make no layoffs would be a more principled, class-based stance of labor leadership. They could be pressuring the government to nationalize these sections of production, allowing for planning over long periods to prevent fluctuations in labor that decrease worker security and drive down wages. Surplus that was previously paid to the private companies of defense industries could then be saved by the government, potentially spent elsewhere. Failure to see these issues as class issues has resulted in the failure of labor to successfully fight the war on the workers has failed the working class. As a member of the IAMAW, I am ashamed by the fact our union resources are being used so inefficiently. Tom Buffenbarger and his IAMAW cronies are stumbling over their compromised delusions to fit into the discussions about an economic crisis. It is not our crisis! Working people did not have billions of dollars invested on Wall Street. We did not deregulate the mortgage market. We did not ask for bank bailouts. We should not be on our knees begging for our jobs to stay in place. We should be demanding they be publicly regulated. We should be demanding that workers have more rights, not begging for a holiday-time halt to foreclosures. As long as labor continually sees their relationship to capitalism as one in which labor-management relations are won together, by shops, businesses, competition, strength, and other market whims, labor will always be on the defense. No side of any fight ever defeated their opposition with defense alone.

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones lived from August 1, 1837, to November 30, 1930. She became a famous labor and community organizer in the United States, specifically in Central and Southern Illinois. Jones helped coordinate major strikes and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World, in 1905. Jones experienced early labor organizing in the Knights of Labor and the Chicago Working Women's Union, which involved many interactions with the radical socialists that came to be the famous Haymarket Martyr anarchists. Jones, unlike the anarchists, did not provoke violent confrontation with the state. Instead, she was known for her Children's March against child labor, from Philadelphia, to President Theodore Roosevelt's home in New York. This doesn't mean that Jones never saw violence, though. "Her boys" (as they are called, otherwise known as the United Mine Workers of Virden, Illinois) fought Thiel Detective Service Company security guards, killing four guards, when they brought in (mostly unaware) scabs from Birmingham, Alabama. Seven striking workers died. Thirty people were injured. In the end, the UMW won the strike and the Battle of Virden, but the mines were segregated for years to come. Bosses used events like this to pit black and white workers against each other, contributing to racism for over a century. Generally, Jones had a progressive and militant labor outlook, but her perspective on other social questions were not as progressive. Approaching entrance to labor as a question of worker security among existing UMW workers, Jones regarded women's role in labor struggle as one of supporting their men. Women becoming miners was compatible to scabbing, for Jones. Altogether, though, Jones was a courageous militant labor organizer that never stood down from a boss or militia. Today, she is buried with "her boys" in the only all union cemetery in the United States, at the United Miners Cemetery, in Mount Olive, Illinois. Every Fall, Mount Olive holds a Mother Jones Festival, organized by the United Mine Workers, other unions, and University academicians. It is our job to remember and carry on her courage for our own and the next generation.