We haven't seen anything like OWS since the 1930's

[PETRUS]

The labor protests of that era were sudden, decentralized, widespread, and characterized more by general rage than by detailed policy suggestions. Where did they lead? The New Deal.

[flamingdem]

1. Interesting, I'd like to learn more about that

thanks

[PETRUS]

5. D'oh!

It's been 24 years since I studied that and I don't remember the syllabus! If I find time to backtrack and identify one or two of the better books, I'll suggest them. My memory is that the reading was pretty dry, though. Maybe there have been more fun things published since. Zinn covers it a bit in People's History.

On edit: PS. The timing is spooky, too. The crash was in 1929, people didn't strike and demonstrate until three or four years later. "Our" crash was in 2008. Hmm...

[flamingdem]

15. Looks like someone could write a book on this

... somewhere someone is thinking about it!

[Odin2005]

25. "the timing is spooky, too" Read the book "The Fourth Turning".

The book calls it "regeneracy".

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. Protests in that era were also world wide, didja know?

Best site for a general guide and suggestions to learn more is here:
http://www3.niu.edu/~td0raf1/history498/index.htm

It was called "populism" back then, and has a long glorious history, from Haymarket, to Wobblies,
( in the area I was from, the West Coast) to Huey Long, even in the South.


Indian women and the Salt Protests of 1930..little know history.

And we did not invent university walk outs and sit ins:

"Student organizing was one of the American Left's most successful areas of political activity during the Great Depression. Under the leadership of Communist and Socialist undergraduates, the campus activists of the 1930s built the first mass student protest movement in American history. During its peak years, from spring 1936 to spring 1939, the movement mobilized at least 500,000 collegians (about half of the American student body) in annual one-hour strikes against war. The movement also organized students on behalf of an extensive reform agenda, which included federal aid to education, government job programs for youth, abolition of the compulsory Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), academic freedom, racial equality, and collective bargaining rights."
from:
Encyclopedia of the American Left
which I found on:
Student Activism in the 1930s
http://newdeal.feri.org/students/move.htm

Here, look at this: 1930's unemployment protest in New Zealand ( notice the hats and suits)

[Harmony Blue]

2. But but but

it can't work...they don't have a central message, and they will not make a difference.

:sarcasm:

Most people do not know American history, which is why, we are fighting an uphill battle to try to educate these doubters every single day.

Kick and Recommended!



:dem:

[Edweird]

3. The New Deal hating DLC'ers here are getting their panties in wad....

[Remember Me]

40. Ooooo, if theyre not careful

that could strangle them.


:rofl:

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Made that exact point the other day

:thumbsup:

[Harmony Blue]

9. I must commend you

as you indeed did bring up this point that when this all started, it would start the ball rolling for something greater.

:bounce:

[PETRUS]

13. Nice

Don't be afraid to repeat yourself! People need to know...

[bemildred]

7. Actually, we had this in the 60s too.

I well remember the Diggers (look it up) and the slogan "Fuck Leaders".

[PETRUS]

10. Cool, thanks.

I didn't study that era. I confess my ignorance on the 1960s - I was too busy being conceived, born, etc.

[bemildred]

12. No problem, we did not invent it in the 60s either, it's very American.

And I sure don't want to take any credit away from the currrent movement.

[Remember Me]

39. Excuses, excuses

LOL.

[reACTIONary]

16. Exactly my thought... Did you skip the '60s?

Look up the story of the first Earth Day for an example of spontaneous combustion. (Actually early 70's, but it was just an extension of the 60s.)

[PETRUS]

18. Born in 1968

And largely uninformed about those years. Read up on the 1930s, but don't know the details of the 1960s. Always eager to learn...

On edit: PS. My impression, apparently wrong, was that the big sixties protests were more focused and issue-oriented (civil rights, anti-war).

[reACTIONary]

22. I think they were pretty focused and issue oriented...

...earth day was. But it was pretty spontaneous, growing out of a publicly made suggestion that was taken up by a lot of folks without much prompting. It wasn't a protest, it was a nation-wide, distributed teach-in. I was in high school and we (the "ecology club") got the school to bus us to the university where the events were taking place. Mind blowing.

Notice that our high school had an "ecology club". That didn't happen by accident, so the spontaneity actually had a lot of organizational effort as its precursor.

I'm not a history buff, so I'm not prepared to make a case, but from what I've read and learned in school, the labor movement of the early 20th century and into the 1930's was anything but disorganized and spontaneous; it was very issue oriented, with concrete objectives, and ideologically sophisticated. There weren't any bongo playing hippies back in the '30s. Not that there is anything wrong with bongo playing hippies!

[dixiegrrrrl]

30. Yes, but they had come out of earlier movements and had spawned later movments

so one can see it as a larger picture of one issue protest leading to another issue protest.

Fer instance, I was 18 in 1963 and had NO clue about Women's issues: abortion rights, Equal rights,
or even birth control rights ( birth control was barely legal in 1963).
First thing I was aware of was Civil Rights and that was only because I was living in the South while my new husband had just joined the military ( the draft was in effect, he signed up to have some options)
and we were at Ft. Rucker, in 1963, where he was going to be sent to Viet Nam, as an "adviser".

This was just after the death of Kennedy, I was very young, we were all still in shock, and had NO thoughts about the war.
For me that changed in 1964 as tv brought the civil rights and then the anti-war movement into our living rooms.
By 1968 I was VERY anti war, by 1970 I was VERY anti war, and totally into Women's rights.

One thing had almost "naturally" led to another, for almost 15 years.

This might be helpful to those want more detailed info on those decades:

WWW.History by Topic and Time Period
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/browse/wwwhistory/

[bemildred]

35. +1. nt

[PETRUS]

36. Awesome, thanks for all the info. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

47. You are same age as my older son, poor guy.

I talked his ear off since he was age 2 about my "causes"
then used to have nightmares that he would grown up to become a Republican!
Fortunately, he and his brother both are avid readers and love to read history, they are both always educating themselves.
They think I am cool because I was born "before the Beatles".!!!

[lunatica]

48. Civil Rights was a huge issue encompassing all the others

The most basic fundamental rights are a prerequisite to true equality. I'm sure you've noticed how hard it's been for the LGBT community to wrest their rights inch by insane inch. That's the way it's been historically for everyone who wasn't a white male in this country. In its own way it was a large encompassing issue - just like right now the economy is the overarching issue. There is a forest and there are trees. The Civil Rights movements were the forest, just like the economy is now.

[socialist_n_TN]

8. And the Communists and socialists were especially

prominent in the leadership of the labor struggles of the 30s.

[Harmony Blue]

11. Most Americans do not know this

because public education has been assaulted on all sides the last few decades.

[socialist_n_TN]

14. True. And that's a damn shame

But it's already happening with some of the "supporters" of the OWS movement. They're trying to marginalize the people who've fought this battle the longest and the hardest.

The true left is NOT all in with OWS because they know that this is a nascent movement that has potential, but has to make a true declaration of whose side they're on AND come up with some goals and a programe to reach those goals. If they can do this and keep from being co-opted by the system, there are probably areas that can be worked with.

[flamingdem]

17. I agree.

It's not like the sentiments of OWS have not been here all along. It's not like I wasn't reading anarchist books way back just like they are .. and sure I still believe but the rhythm of a movement, the sacrifice and the work it takes ... we shall see.

I've yet to buy the idea that it can work to keep the goals nebulous as a way to attract a larger following. Yes, in the beginning, but not so sure about the long run.

For some it's amazing that there is an educational component to this !intellectuals!!1 but it has been there from the start. The Vietnam Peace Parade committee, the Quakers, the educational forums during Vietnam at schools around the country, forums around Central America ... Iraq ... this kind of thing wasn't invented overnight.

Um, we were pretty organized back then. We had newspapers, news services and many free services within the movement.

Collectives were around before as well. It's wonderful but my experience was that it ends up being a hierarchy due to human nature... who has the strongest voice etc.

[white_wolf]

23. As I've pointed out, even in as conservative a place as Knoxville, TN there is a decent leftist

involvement. There were about 7 socialists there the other night, one was an anarchist though and one was wearing an I.W.W. shirt and I've heard they have anarchist tendencies.

[socialist_n_TN]

31. IWW has always been anarcho-syndicalist

I believe. That still doesn't take away my hero worship of them. :)

[white_wolf]

37. Wasn't Debbs one of their founders?

He wasn't an anarchist was he? I'll be honestly I can't really figure out what branch of socialism the Debbs's socialist party falls into, and the current one is even more confusing.

[socialist_n_TN]

42. Big Bill Haywood was the one I always think about

when I think of the founders of the IWW. I'm not sure Debs was with the IWW or not.

[Major Hogwash]

45. Big Bill was one of the miners who resorted to violence and fled to the USSR

Where he died in 1928.

He's sorta famous here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Haywood#Murder_trial

[socialist_n_TN]

52. YEah I'm sure Big Bill resorted to violence

When Pinkerton thugs (or to update-Xe thugs) are clubbing you, you'll probably resort to violence too. I know I will. I believe in self defense.

[socialist_n_TN]

53. Hey wolf, according to the wiki link below

Debs was at the founding congress of the IWW. So you were right. :)

[reACTIONary]

19. Best teacher I ever had gave us the history...

...still remember pictures of John L Lewis - "Mr. Eyebrows"

[Cal Carpenter]

26. And are currently prominent in the leadership

of labor struggles globally.

The US has a particularly absurd relationship with the words 'communism' and 'socialism', and very little understanding of what they mean. And in turn, very little understanding of class consciousness.

This movement has the potential to increase class consciousness, but our brains are so warped by lifelong propaganda as to make it seem way more complicated than it is.

[socialist_n_TN]

33. I agree with all of this.........

The post war red scare threw out the communists and socialists from the unions and started the downward spiral of unionism IMO. Only people who know what they're actually fighting for and fighting against are worth a damn in a fight. Once you took it out of class struggle, you took it out of it's primary milieu and gave the game away to the bosses.

All that was left in the leadership were capitalist toadies.

[jwirr]

21. Absolutely. Now all we need is a new FDR who has enough brains

to see that it needs to be done.

[Davis_X_Machina]

27. Left-Boulangism...

...is not the answer.

[eShirl]

28. Is that really how you define the New Deal?

How revealing.

[white_wolf]

38. That's what it was.

FDR was a member of the capitalist class. Everything he did was to save capitalism, he tried to do it as humanely as possible and I greatly respect him for that, but he was a capitalist through and through. Ignoring that, the great flaw of reformism is that the reforms never last.

[Odin2005]

24. According to the book "The Forth Turning" us Millennials are similar to...

...that young generation of the 30s and 40s that unionized America and defeated Fascism abroad. They were and we are a "civic" generation that builds a new society out of the ashes of the old.

[socialist_n_TN]

32. Geez, I hope so Odin........

:) This old boomer will be right there with you.

[white_wolf]

41. I have to ask who defines generations?

I was born in 1989 so I consider myself a child of the 90s, but I don't know if that makes me a Millennial or not.

[krabigirl]

44. seriously, I think its all kinda bs.

[Odin2005]

50. it depends. The souces I'm using for generations are sociological, not marketing BS.

According to the book I mentioned there is a 4-generation long social cycle and each generation of the cycle expresses a particular archetype. Millennials are a "Civic" generation much like those who came of age during the Depression and WW2. The Boomers are a "Prophet" Generation like the generation of Muckrakers and labor activists of the 1890s.

[Odin2005]

49. Millenials are people born between 1982 and 2005.

[monicamonix32]

29. Amen.

[Fire Walk With Me]

34. Recommended earlier, kicking now!

[leftstreet]

43. But were those protests partisan?

That seems to be a big difference here, conditions leading up to unrest notwithstanding

[joshcryer]

46. It also lead to the neutering of labor (see Norris-LaGuardia Act, NLRA, and Taft-Hartly).

Each new law (and these were early laws) was increasingly anti-direct democracy. Norris-Laquardia made it so that the government wouldn't get involved in non-violent strikes and effectively banned wildcat strikes, NLRA mandated that labor be represented by a hierarchy, Taft-Hartly limited the recourses that labor could take.

All of this in a time frame between 1932-1947.

If we didn't have WWII we might've had a chance, but we were fucked from the get-go.

[sweetapogee]

51. a little perspective

There are some similarities between 1930 and today, true. But there are some big differences, In Oct 1929 the stock market crashed which caused an economic downturn and high unemployment (25+%), a declining national GDP, a global depression.

Most of the actual large scale mass 1930's protests were employed union strikers looking for better wages and conditions and unhappy military veteran's, not what we have today, unemployed persons looking for work. Also, it took FDR about 3 years after the New Deal was passed congress before the actual jobs started to materialize. We haven't had a New Deal law passed yet so if one were passed today it will be mid 2014 before jobs are available. Another observation, in the 1930's there were "Hoovervilles" set up in many urban areas. Do we really want wide spread modern day Hoovervilles going up in our cities? A question for serious discussion, who gets the blame for these shanty towns once they take on an appearance of permanency?

Finally, the thing that no one is saying is that after the economic upheaval of the early 1930s and the New Deal of the mid 1930s, historically speaking we progressed to a large scale global conflict that no one wants now so I hope there is a limit to the comparisons between the 1930's and now or we are in for a world of hurt a few years down the line.

Still, the OP makes some good points.