Today in Labor History June 27, 1905: The Industrial Workers of the World (AKA IWW or the Wobblies) was founded at Brand's Hall, in Chicago, Illinois. The IWW was a radical syndicalist labor union, that advocated industrial unionism, with all workers in a particular industry organized in the same union, as opposed by the trade unions typical today. Founding members included Big Bill Haywood, James Connolly, Eugene V. Debs, Lucy Parsons, and Mother Jones. The IWW was and is a revolutionary union that sought not only better working conditions in the here and now, but the complete abolition of capitalism. The preamble to their constitution states: The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. It also states: Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."
They advocate the General Strike and sabotage as two of many means to these ends. However, sabotage to the Wobblies does not necessarily mean bombs and destruction. According to Big Bill Haywood, sabotage is any action that gums up the works, slowing down profits for the bosses. Thus, working to rule and sit-down strikes are forms of sabotage. The IWW is the first union known to have utilized the sit-down strike. They were one of the first and only unions of the early 20th century to organize all workers, regardless of ethnicity, gender, nationality, language or type of work (e.g., they organized both skilled and unskilled workers). They also were subjected to extreme persecution by the state and by vigilantes working for the corporations. Hundreds were imprisoned or deported. Dozens were assassinated or executed, including Joe Hill, Frank Little, Wessley Everest and Carlo Tresca. And scores were slaughtered in massacres, like in McKees Rock railway strike, PA (1909); Lawrence Textile Strike, MA (1912); San Diego Free Speech Fight, CA (1912); Grabow, LA Lumber Strike (1912); New Orleans, LA banana strike (1913); Patterson, NJ textile strike (1913); Mesabi Range Strike, MN (1916); Everett, WA massacre (1916); Centralia, WA Armistice Day riot (1919) and the Columbine, CO massacre (1921). There was also the Hopland, CA riot (1913), in which the police killed each other, accidentally, and framed Wobblies for it.
There are lots of great books about the IWW artwork and music. The Little Red Songbook. The IWW, Its First 50 Years, by Fred Thompson. Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology, by Joyce Kornbluth. But there are also tons of fictional accounts of the Wobblies, too. Lots of references in Dos Passos’, USA Trilogy. Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett, was influenced by his experience working as a Pinkerton infiltrator of the Wobblies. The recent novel, The Cold Millions, by Jess Walter, has a wonderful portrayal of Elizabeth Gurly Flynn, during the Spokane free speech fight. And tons of classic folk and protest music composed by Wobbly Bards, like Joe Hill, Ralph Chaplin, Haywire Mac and T-Bone Slim.
Way back in the 1980s, when I was in college, we had a tent city on the UC Berkeley campus to protest the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Lots of parallels to what's been happening on campuses recently with the Palestinian solidarity protests, including violent police crack downs.
During this time, author Kurt Vonnegut came to speak in support of the movement, and against Apartheid. I don't remember what he said then. But here's an amusing clip of him talking about the writing process, explaining the different types of character arcs a story can have.
“I’m the eighth deadly sin, Willful Insanity! Pride isn’t the root of all sin, because that’s me! All of you demons are weak-a**, pale reflections of me, because humans would have to be crazy to sin!”
--The Hunter's inner demon as she faced the invading legions of Hell, in my novel Demon for President!
Today in Labor History June 26, 1975: Two FBI agents and one member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Undercover FBI agents framed AIM activist Leonard Peltier for the two FBI deaths. During the trial, some of the government’s own witnesses testified that Peltier wasn’t even present at the scene of the killings. Nevertheless, a judge him to two consecutive life terms. Peltier is still in prison and his health has been deteriorating. Peltier admitted to participating in the shoot-out in his memoir, “Prison Writings, My Life in the Sundance.” However, he denied killing the FBI agents. He became eligible for parole in 1993. Amnesty International, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama, all campaigned for his clemency. President Obama denied his request for clemency in 2017.
Today in Writing History June 24, 1842: Ambrose Bierce, American short story writer, essayist, and journalist was born. The American Revolution Bicentennial Administration named his book, “The Devil’s Dictionary,” one of the top 100 masterpieces of American literature. Many consider his horror writing on par with Poe and Lovecraft. As a satirist, he has been compared with Voltaire and Swift. His war stories influenced Hemingway. In 1913, at age 71, he traveled to Mexico to cover the revolution. He joined Pancho Villa’s army and witnessed the Battle of Tierra Blanca. He never returned from Mexico. No one knows what happened to him and his body was never found. However, a priest named James Lienert, claimed that Bierce was executed by firing squad in the town cemetery there.
Today in Labor History June 24, 1525: The Church reconquered the Anabaptist free state of Munster. The Anabaptists had created a sectarian, communal government in Munster, Germany, during the Reformation. They controlled the city from February until June 24, 1525. They were heavily persecuted for their beliefs, which included opposition to participation in the military and civil government. They saw themselves as citizens of the Kingdom of God, and not citizens of any political state. Their beliefs helped radicalize people during Germany’s Peasant War, a revolt against feudalism and for material equality among all people. Some of the early Anabaptists practiced polygamy and polyamory, as well as the collective ownership of property. The more conservative decedents of the Anabaptists include the Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites.
The Munster rebellion has been portrayed in several works of fiction. My all-time favorite is “Q,” (1999) by the autonomist-Marxist Italian writing collective known as Luther Blissett. They currently write under the pen name Wu Ming. Giacomo Meyerbeer wrote an opera about it 1849, Le prophète.
Ashen Blades centers on the life of a half-demon girl with a serious bone to pick with demon-kind, because they murdered her parents. Read her story as she protects the human race, just like a shepherd defending their flock from a pack of ravening wolves.
When a snake demon in an expensive, tailored suit takes an irreverent stab at American Presidential politics, the Hunter takes a literal a stab at him, to save the nation!
However, with both parties back a demon, does it matter which one wins?
Careful, or we might get a Demon for President!
Uncle Sam said, “I want you!”
Uncle Sam wanted men for the Vietnam War.
We rarely get the things we ask for.
Uncle Sam got a small half-demon witch girl with a talent for demon extermination.
In exchange, she got a chance to follow the trail of an old enemy.
"Sugar and spice and everything nice?" Perhaps the standard, off-the-shelf girl may be made from such things, but this half-demon girl?
She isn't sweet, she isn't nice and you really shouldn't call her spicy, because she's got a magic hat full of weapons, a bad attitude and a mischievous sense of humor.
The Wizard's Scion centers on the life of a great wizard's son as he grows from a teen with barely any control over his magic to a powerful wizard that's master of arcane secrets all his own. Follow his adventures as he grows to maturity, both in magic and in life experience.
Today in Labor History June 20, 1912: Voltairine de Cleyre, one of the earliest feminist anarchists, died at the age 45, following a long illness. Two thousand supporters attended her funeral at Waldheim cemetery, in Chicago, where she was buried next to the Haymarket Martyrs. De Cleyre opposed capitalism and marriage and the domination of religion over sexuality and women’s lives. Her father, a radical abolitionist, named her after the Enlightenment writer and satirist, Voltaire. Her biographer Paul Avrich said that she was "a greater literary talent than any other American anarchist." The Haymarket affair, and the wrongful execution of anarchists in Chicago, radicalized her against the state and capitalism. She was also a prolific writer, and poet, publishing dozens of essays and poems in her short life.
Levi mourns the recent loss of his parents, but old enemies of his father refuse to give him the time to grieve.
A deposed price with a time machine seeks the throne of a vast, star-spanning empire, scouring history for allies to strike at Levi's father in the past, when he's vulnerable.
Born of human heart and mind,
The Gods thought man blind:
Science stole man’s heart,
Forcing Gods to depart.
A refuge built, a new home made,
Which man did invade!
The Four Horsemen rise,
For man’s action wasn’t wise!
The Gods may be forgotten,
But a war has man begotten!
Pick up your free copy of Troll Song with the code 'P6YFQ' at the Smashwords store!
Troll Song is the story of a teenage troll that touches the mind of a dwarf, coming to realize her family is evil. Follow her journey from darkness to light as her sister continually chases her, for the sake of revenge!
Today in Labor History June 18, 1923: A nationwide General Strike took place in Argentina in protest of the assassination of the anarchist Kurt Wilckens in his prison cell. Two workers were killed in the strike as police tried to raid the offices of the anarchist union FORA.
Wilckens was born in Germany. He moved to the U.S. in the 1910s, where he joined the IWW and was exposed to anarchist ideas. He worked as a copper miner in Arizona and was one of hundreds arrested and expelled from the region during the Bisbee Deportation, July 12, 1917. During the Bisbee strike, authorities sealed off the county and seized the local Western Union telegraph office to cut off outside communication, while several thousand armed vigilantes rounded up 1,186 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The workers were herded into manure-laden boxcars and dumped in the New Mexico desert. After that, Wilckens was arrested for making antiwar statements and deported to Germany in 1920 under the Espionage Act.
However, Wilckens moved to Argentina that same year, at the height of the Libertarian Workers’ Movement. Workers in Patagonia rebelled in 1920-1922 and were violently suppressed by the military, led by Lieutenant Colonel Héctor Benigno Varela. They slaughtered 1,500 workers. While the British landowners cheered Varela with rounds of “He’s a jolly good fellow,” the local prostitutes all shouted “Assassins! Pigs! We won’t go with killers” when any soldiers entered their brothels. Many of the sex workers were jailed for “insulting men in uniform.” To avenge the workers massacred by the military, Wilckens, who was a Tolstoyan pacifist, bombed and shot Varela. At his trial, Wilckens stated that he had shot Varela so that he could never kill again.
Hector Olivera’s film about these events, “La Patagonia Rebelde,” came out in 1974. “Bisbee ‘17,” (1999) by Robert Houston, is a historical novel based on the Bisbee deportations. There was also a really interesting film of the same name that came out in 2018. In the film, the town’s inhabitants reenact the events 100 years later. It also includes interviews with current residents.
Today in Labor History June 17, 1911: Federal troops, led by Madero, recaptured Tijuana from the Magonista anarchist rebels. Among those surviving and escaping was the famous Wobbly (IWW) songwriter, Joe Hill. Another Wobbly bard, Haywire Mac (compose of The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Hallelujah, I’m a Bum), also participated in the occupation of Tijuana. The Magonistas had captured the Baja California border town of Mexicali on January 29, and Tijuana on May 8, as well as Ensenada, San Tomas, and many other northern Baja California towns. The rebels encouraged the people to take collective possession of the lands. They also supported the creation of cooperatives and opposed the establishment of any new government. Many U.S. members of the IWW participated in the revolution. Lowell Blaisdell writes about it in his now hard to find book, “The Desert Revolution,” (1962). The IWW had been active in nearby San Diego since 1906, sight of an infamous Free Speech fight in 1912. During that struggle, in which many veterans of the Desert Revolution fought, police killed 2 workers. Vigilantes kidnapped Emma Goldman and her companion Ben Reitman, who had come to show their support. However, before deporting them, they tarred and feathered Reitman and raped him with a cane.
Today in Labor History June 16, 1869: In the small mining town of Ricamarie, France, troops opened fire on miners who were protesting the arrest of 40 workers. As a result, troops killed 14 people, including a 17-month-old girl in her mother’s arms. Furthermore, they wounded 60 others, including 10 children. This strike, and another in Aubin, along with the Paris Commune, were major inspirations for Emile Zola’s seminal work, “Germinal,” and the reason he chose to focus on revolutionary worker actions in that novel.
Review of “Tales of an Inland Empire Girl,” by Juanita E. Mantz Pelaez
“Tales of an Inland Empire Girl” is a beautifully written, edgy memoir by Juanita E. Mantz Pelaez. It’s the story of good girl’s downward spiral, from a studious bookworm into an angry, drinking, trouble-making punk rock teen, and her redemption that follows. It’s the story of a working-class family, struggling to make ends meet. Of a Mexican-American mother, stressed-out and emotionally volatile, working two jobs to support her family. And an alcoholic father (el gringo boracho, as her mother’s family refers to him), disabled from years of demanding physical labor, with a head full of unfulfilled and broken dreams. It’s the story of Juanita’s life, unraveling as she and her two sisters navigate growing up amidst the trauma of their parents’ constant fighting, and their mother’s frightening outbursts.
The book opens with a scene of their father dying on the crapper, after almost choking to death on fried fish that Juanita buys him on her way home from the airport. It sounds horrifying and sad, and it is. But it is written with so much humor, tenderness, and love, that I can’t stop reading. In fact, the only thing that keeps me from finishing the entire book in one sitting is my need to get some sleep before I have to proctor final exams to my high school students the next day. Yes, this scene is an ending of sorts, but it is also a masterful opening to Mantz’s story, written from her perspective as an adult who has become a successful lawyer in spite of her troubled childhood. It lets us know there’s a happy ending for the author, and it sets up perfectly the rest of the story, portrayed through her eyes as a child.
One of the things I love about this book is how, in spite of her parents constant fighting, she still sees their beauty, like her mom's bee hive hairdo, or her dad pulling out his false teeth to make the kids smile. And how, in spite of her mother’s explosive rage, she knows there is a “nice mom” in there who comes out from time to time. I remember having feelings just like this from my own childhood, my fear of my father’s explosive rage and how, like with Mantz’s mom, it was like walking on eggshells trying to avoid the numerous triggers that could set him off, but also knowing that underneath it all there was a loving, sweet, and even nurturing parent who cared deeply for me. This comes out brilliantly when her mother rips the principal a new orifice for allowing one of her teachers to use corporal punishment on her. And it leads to my favorite line from the book: “I may not be the good girl anymore, but at least I'm the bad girl with a bad ass mom."
The scene from the book that resonated most with me was when Juanita arrives at her Honors English class after a sleepless night listening to her parents fight with each other. She arrives too late to get a front row seat, like she prefers, and is forced to sit in the back, with her poor vision and ratty back pack, and an illicit copy of Judy Blume to distract her. So many times, as a high school teacher, I’ve had the quiet kid who hid in the back and tried to become invisible because the horrors at home were too overwhelming and they were too tired, stressed, and traumatized to be able to interact with me or their classmates. How many times I wondered what those horrors were. If there was something I could do to help. Or, if the most helpful and merciful thing I could do was to let that student continue to be invisible and at least have an hour of peace. Sadly, Mantz does not even get to enjoy peace in this scene, but you'll have to read the book to find out why.
“Tales of an Inland Empire Girl” is about much more than growing up with an abusive parent. It’s also about sibling rivalries and jealousies. It’s about class, and race, from the point of view of kids, who feel it, even if they don't have the precise words to describe it. Her youngest sister, Annie, for example, is light-skinned, with straight hair, like their dad. Strangers think she's a white girl. And her parents treat her as if she is the “good” daughter. Juanita is dark-skinned and curly-haired, clearly Chicana, and she regularly feels the disdain and racism of neighbors, strangers, and even teachers.
The book is also about Mantz’s close relationships with her twin sister, Jacky. I really enjoy how they always fist-bump and say “Wonder Twin powers, activate!” like Zan and Jayna, from the Hanna-Barbera television show, “The All-New Super Friends.” I had completely forgotten about this show until I read this book, which was filled with so much other nostalgia from my own 1970s-80s Southern California childhood, like Shasta cola, the notorious D.J. Wolfman Jack, and the oh-so-trendy dittos pants the girls liked to wear in those days. Her close friendship with Jacky, and with her girlfriends, help her make it through the difficult times. So does reading. There are always piles of books on her floor, and constant references to her favorite childhood stories.
As she gets older, and finds herself spiraling into ever more rebellious and risky behavior, music becomes another savior. Her favorite bands are The Smiths and The Cure and she writes beautifully of what they mean to her growing up. I was fortunate enough to be able to share the stage with Mantz at the Punks With Books book-reading event at Avantpop Books in Las Vegas on Memorial Day Weekend this year (along with Michelle Cruz-Gonzales, James Tracy, Jason Lamb, Paul Prescott, and Billy Bragg), and hang out with her at the Punk Rock Bowling music festival. I asked her why The Smiths were so popular among Mexican teens of our generation. She thought it was because Morrissey’s brooding ballads seem so familiar to them, like Mexican corridos, a connection that makes perfect sense to me, but that I doubt I would have been able to identify on my own.
I highly recommend “Tales of an Inland Empire Girl.” It is funny, clever, sad, and full of insight. And the poems at the end are really good, too. “Father O' Mine” (parts I and II) and “Dad's Eulogy” really struck a chord with me, in part because I lost my own father recently. But mostly because Mantz does such a great job portraying her father in this book that I really felt like I knew him, missed him, and needed the closure these poems provided.
Facebook actually tried to censor one of my books! Can you believe that? Has this happened to anyone else?
In my case, it seems to come down to their software being unable to tell the difference between political satire and pushing a fake political candidate.
Facebook actually tried to censor one of my books! Can you believe that? Has this happened to anyone else?
In my case, it seems to come down to their software being unable to tell the difference between political satire and pushing a fake political candidate.