From organizing an Amazon.com shop to be being arrested on an aid ship bound for Gaza, Chris Smalls has become a dynamic political figure speaking for a new generation of American dissidence.
Chris Smalls catapulted to prominence as the first successful organizer of an Amazon.com shop on Staten Island, N.Y. His political evolution, which has included travel outside the U.S., has turned him into a trenchant spokesman for American workers.
His next project is to revive the U.S. Labor Party. Earlier this month he was a member of the Gaza flotilla and was arrested by Israel on the high seas and was roughed up in an Israeli jail. Last Thursday he addressed an audience at Busboys and Poets in Washington. Consortium News was there for this video report by Cathy Vogan.
Re: reviving the U.S. Labor Party. Several entities have had that name, mostly abstract theory based wanna-bes. I was involved in the last effort that actually came out of the labor movement itself, the one organized in 1996 mostly through the effort of Tony Mazzocchi from the OCAW. It eventually fizzled for several reasons, including Tony’s death in 2002.
But IMHO a big contributing factor was how dogmatic far leftists came early and stayed late. They had their talking points down and often outmaneuvered rank and file workers who weren’t seasoned political activists or debate savvy. Disappointing to people who wanted something really for us, by us, the U.S. working class majority. We get the stale old left ‘vanguard of the working class’ implies that a self-appointed elite thinks we’re too stupid to manage ourselves.
In contrast, Eugene V. Debs, who urged us to realize we can use our heads as well as our hands. Or the original Populists (farmer-labor coalition ca. 1890s-1916) who faced the power of the Robber Barons, both major political parties, and strident media opposition yet won. They won because they did real grassroots organizing, formed coalitions, and when elected, did what they said they would.
Currently, Inequality.org and The Center for Working-Class Politics are both investigating how “A Return to Economic Populism Can Reunite America’s Working People.” In addition, The Center and The Labor Institute are finishing a Rust Belt survey to be released in Sept. The Labor Institute is headed by Les Leopold, author of //Wall Street’s War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It.) 2024.// Mass layoffs provide $$$ for stock buy-backs benefitting only banksters and CEOs; of course the Dem Party is silent on this egregious wrong. BTW, The Labor Institute has for years run very successful training programs for union rank and file members. These orgs are great examples of how to help us workers to help ourselves with useful research and advice.
Chris Smalls has a lot of allies.