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Gandalf Grey
Guest
The South Carolina You Won't See on CNN
By Greg Palast
Created Jan 26 2008 - 11:12am
South Carolina Primary Colors: Black and White?
South Carolina 2000: Six hundred police in riot gear facing a few dozen
angry-as-hell workers on the docks of Charleston. In the darkness, rocks,
clubs and blood fly. The cops beat the crap out of the protesters. Of
course, it's the union men who are arrested for conspiracy to riot. And of
course, of the five men handcuffed, four are Black. The prosecutor: a White,
Bible-thumping Attorney General running for Governor. The result: a state
ripped in half - White versus Black.
South Carolina 2008: On Saturday, the Palmetto State may well choose our
President, or at least the Democrat's idea of a President. According to CNN
and the pundit-ocracy, the only question is, Will the large Black population
vote their pride (for Obama) or for "experience" (Hillary)? In other words,
the election comes down to a matter of racial vanity.
The story of the dockworkers charged with rioting in 2000 suggest there's an
awfully good reason for Black folk to vote for one of their own. This is the
chance to even the historic score in this land of lingering Jim Crow where
the Confederate Flag flew over the capital while the longshoreman faced
Southern justice.
But maybe there's more to South Carolina's story than Black and White.
Let's re-wind the tape of the 2000 battle between cops and Black men. It was
early that morning on the 19th of January when members of International
Longshoremen's Association Local 1422 "shaped up" to unload a container ship
which had just pulled into port. It was hard work for good pay. An
experienced union man could earn above $60,000 a year.
In this last hold-out of the Confederacy, it was one of the few places a
Black man could get decent pay. Or any man.
That day, the stevedoring contractor handling the unloading decided it would
hire the beggars down the dock, without experience or skills - and without
union cards - willing to work for just one-third of union scale.
That night, union workers - Black, White, Whatever - fought for their lives
and livelihoods.
At the heart of the turmoil in South Carolina in 2000 then, was not so much
Black versus White, but union versus non-union. It was a battle between
those looking for a good day's pay versus those looking for a way not to pay
it. The issue was - and is - class war, the conflict between the movers and
the shakers and the moved and shaken.
The dockworkers of Charleston could see the future of America right down the
road. Literally. Because right down the highway, they could see their
cousins and brothers who worked in the Carolina textile mills kiss their
jobs goodbye as they loaded the mill looms onto trains for Mexico.
The President, Bill Clinton, had signed NAFTA, made China a "most favored
nation" in trade and urged us, with a flirtatious grin, to "make change our
friend."
But "change," apparently, wasn't in a friendly mood. In 2000, Guilford Mills
shuttered its Greensboro, Carolina, fabric plant and reopened it in Tampico,
Mexico. Four-hundred jobs went south. Springs Mills of Rock Hill, SC, closed
down and abandoned 480 workers. Fieldcrest-Cannon pulled out of York, SC,
and Great America Mills simply went bust.
South Carolina, then, is the story of globalization left out of Thomas
Friedman's wonders-of-the-free-market fantasies.
This week, while US media broadcasts cute-sy photo-ops from Black churches
and replay the forgettable spats between candidates, the real issues of
South Carolina are, thankfully, laid out in a book released today: On the
Global Waterfront, by Suzan Erem and E. Paul Durrenberger.
Erem and Durrenberger portray the case of the Charleston Five dockworkers as
an exemplary, desperate act of economic resistance.
Thomas Friedman's bestseller, The World is Flat, begins with his uplifting
game of golf with a tycoon in India. Erem and Durrenberger never put on golf
shoes: their book is globalization stripped down to its dirty underpants.
While Friedman made the point that he flew business class to Bangalore on
his way to the greens to meet his millionaire, Global Waterfront's authors
go steerage class. And the people they write about don't go anywhere at all.
These are the stevedores who move the containers of Wal-Mart T-shirts from
Guatemala to sell to customers in Virginia who can't afford health insurance
because they lost their job in the textile mill.
And the book talks about (cover the children's ears!) - labor unions.
South Carolina is union country. And union-busting country. But who gives a
flying fart about labor unions today? Only 7%, one in fourteen US workers
belongs to one. That's less than the number of Americans who believe that
Elvis killed John Kennedy.
Think "longshoremen" and what comes to mind is On the Waterfront with Marlon
Brando, the good guy, beating up the evil union boss. The union bosses were
the thugs, mobbed-up bullies, the dockworkers' enemies. The movie's
director, Stanley Kramer, perfectly picked up the anti-union red-baiting Joe
McCarthy zeitgeist of that era of - which could go down well today.
Elected labor leaders are, in our media, always "union bosses." But the real
bosses, the CEOs, the guys who shutter factories and ship them to China .
they're never "bosses," they're "entrepreneurs."
Indeed, the late and lionized King of Union Busters, Sam Walton, would be
proud today, were he alive, to learn that the woman he called, "my little
lady," Hillary Clinton, whom he placed on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors, is
front-runner for the presidency. She could well become America's "Greeter,"
posted at our nation's door, to welcome the Saudis and Chinese who are
buying America at a guaranteed low price.
So what happened those five union men charged felonious reioting in 2000?
Through an international union campaign, they won back their freedom - and
their union jobs - after the dockworkers of Spain, the true heroes of
globalization, refused to unload the South Carolina scab cargoes.
Erem and Durrenberger ask themselves why they were so drawn to a story of
five Carolina cargo-handlers put in prison a decade ago. Maybe it's because
the Charleston Five show how courage and heart and solidarity can lead to
victory in the midst of a mad march into globalization that threatens to
turn us all into the Wal-Mart Five Billion.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Greg Palast
Created Jan 26 2008 - 11:12am
South Carolina Primary Colors: Black and White?
South Carolina 2000: Six hundred police in riot gear facing a few dozen
angry-as-hell workers on the docks of Charleston. In the darkness, rocks,
clubs and blood fly. The cops beat the crap out of the protesters. Of
course, it's the union men who are arrested for conspiracy to riot. And of
course, of the five men handcuffed, four are Black. The prosecutor: a White,
Bible-thumping Attorney General running for Governor. The result: a state
ripped in half - White versus Black.
South Carolina 2008: On Saturday, the Palmetto State may well choose our
President, or at least the Democrat's idea of a President. According to CNN
and the pundit-ocracy, the only question is, Will the large Black population
vote their pride (for Obama) or for "experience" (Hillary)? In other words,
the election comes down to a matter of racial vanity.
The story of the dockworkers charged with rioting in 2000 suggest there's an
awfully good reason for Black folk to vote for one of their own. This is the
chance to even the historic score in this land of lingering Jim Crow where
the Confederate Flag flew over the capital while the longshoreman faced
Southern justice.
But maybe there's more to South Carolina's story than Black and White.
Let's re-wind the tape of the 2000 battle between cops and Black men. It was
early that morning on the 19th of January when members of International
Longshoremen's Association Local 1422 "shaped up" to unload a container ship
which had just pulled into port. It was hard work for good pay. An
experienced union man could earn above $60,000 a year.
In this last hold-out of the Confederacy, it was one of the few places a
Black man could get decent pay. Or any man.
That day, the stevedoring contractor handling the unloading decided it would
hire the beggars down the dock, without experience or skills - and without
union cards - willing to work for just one-third of union scale.
That night, union workers - Black, White, Whatever - fought for their lives
and livelihoods.
At the heart of the turmoil in South Carolina in 2000 then, was not so much
Black versus White, but union versus non-union. It was a battle between
those looking for a good day's pay versus those looking for a way not to pay
it. The issue was - and is - class war, the conflict between the movers and
the shakers and the moved and shaken.
The dockworkers of Charleston could see the future of America right down the
road. Literally. Because right down the highway, they could see their
cousins and brothers who worked in the Carolina textile mills kiss their
jobs goodbye as they loaded the mill looms onto trains for Mexico.
The President, Bill Clinton, had signed NAFTA, made China a "most favored
nation" in trade and urged us, with a flirtatious grin, to "make change our
friend."
But "change," apparently, wasn't in a friendly mood. In 2000, Guilford Mills
shuttered its Greensboro, Carolina, fabric plant and reopened it in Tampico,
Mexico. Four-hundred jobs went south. Springs Mills of Rock Hill, SC, closed
down and abandoned 480 workers. Fieldcrest-Cannon pulled out of York, SC,
and Great America Mills simply went bust.
South Carolina, then, is the story of globalization left out of Thomas
Friedman's wonders-of-the-free-market fantasies.
This week, while US media broadcasts cute-sy photo-ops from Black churches
and replay the forgettable spats between candidates, the real issues of
South Carolina are, thankfully, laid out in a book released today: On the
Global Waterfront, by Suzan Erem and E. Paul Durrenberger.
Erem and Durrenberger portray the case of the Charleston Five dockworkers as
an exemplary, desperate act of economic resistance.
Thomas Friedman's bestseller, The World is Flat, begins with his uplifting
game of golf with a tycoon in India. Erem and Durrenberger never put on golf
shoes: their book is globalization stripped down to its dirty underpants.
While Friedman made the point that he flew business class to Bangalore on
his way to the greens to meet his millionaire, Global Waterfront's authors
go steerage class. And the people they write about don't go anywhere at all.
These are the stevedores who move the containers of Wal-Mart T-shirts from
Guatemala to sell to customers in Virginia who can't afford health insurance
because they lost their job in the textile mill.
And the book talks about (cover the children's ears!) - labor unions.
South Carolina is union country. And union-busting country. But who gives a
flying fart about labor unions today? Only 7%, one in fourteen US workers
belongs to one. That's less than the number of Americans who believe that
Elvis killed John Kennedy.
Think "longshoremen" and what comes to mind is On the Waterfront with Marlon
Brando, the good guy, beating up the evil union boss. The union bosses were
the thugs, mobbed-up bullies, the dockworkers' enemies. The movie's
director, Stanley Kramer, perfectly picked up the anti-union red-baiting Joe
McCarthy zeitgeist of that era of - which could go down well today.
Elected labor leaders are, in our media, always "union bosses." But the real
bosses, the CEOs, the guys who shutter factories and ship them to China .
they're never "bosses," they're "entrepreneurs."
Indeed, the late and lionized King of Union Busters, Sam Walton, would be
proud today, were he alive, to learn that the woman he called, "my little
lady," Hillary Clinton, whom he placed on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors, is
front-runner for the presidency. She could well become America's "Greeter,"
posted at our nation's door, to welcome the Saudis and Chinese who are
buying America at a guaranteed low price.
So what happened those five union men charged felonious reioting in 2000?
Through an international union campaign, they won back their freedom - and
their union jobs - after the dockworkers of Spain, the true heroes of
globalization, refused to unload the South Carolina scab cargoes.
Erem and Durrenberger ask themselves why they were so drawn to a story of
five Carolina cargo-handlers put in prison a decade ago. Maybe it's because
the Charleston Five show how courage and heart and solidarity can lead to
victory in the midst of a mad march into globalization that threatens to
turn us all into the Wal-Mart Five Billion.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
