<<Prev

Several years ago when I still considered myself a democratic socialist (and a strong supporter of independent labor unions), I wrote an article in support of strikers at GM during Independence Day.

The first comment I received about the article was, "This sounds like an anarcho-syndicalist treatise." That was the first time I ever heard of the term. I looked it up. I had never seriously read much about anarchism before that point. It made me wonder if the American revolutionaries were anarcho-syndicalists without knowing it - or if the early anarcho-syndicalists had taken their inspiration from the American Revolution.

Today I wonder just how many of us have truly read the contents of the original Declaration of Independence and understood the implications of what the document was proposing. The article below will hopefully help illustrate just how "radical" those same ideas would sound to many of us today.


When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the economic bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women and men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Corporations are instituted among Women and Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the employed. That whenever any Form of Corporation becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Corporation, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Corporations long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Corporation, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Unions; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Corporation. The history of the present Chief Executive Officer is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Unions. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Unions to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in a Union, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Unions repeatedly, for opposing with righteous firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Union powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the Company remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of dissolution from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these Unions; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Organization of Unemployed; refusing to pass others to encourage their employment hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Companies.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their campaign finances.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our unions.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

  • For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Terminations which they should commit on the Workers of these Unions:
  • For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
  • For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
  • For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Peer Jury:
  • For transporting us beyond States to be tried for pretended offences:
  • For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Unions:
  • For suspending our own Unions, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Corporation here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our forests, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of paramilitary Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized company.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Union, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited internal insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to co-opt and bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Scab Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, faiths, races and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our deunionized brethren.

  • We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
  • We have reminded them of the circumstances of our organization and assembly here.
  • We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United Unions of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these Assemblies, solemnly publish and declare.

That these United Assemblies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Companies; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Wall Street Crown,

and that all corporate connection between them and the State of the CEO is and ought to be totally dissolved;

and that as Free and Independent Companies, they have full Power to levy Security, conclude Mergers, contract Alliances, establish Employment,

and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Companies may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.


Related news in the past year:

Productive Takeovers
Argentina: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1875/1/
Indonesia: http://www.marxist.com/pt-istana-factory-occupied.htm
Nepal: http://neilsnepal.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/somewhere-lenin-is-smiling/

Occupation without Production
Britain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUXFyoLgmRE
Canada: http://www.marxist.com/canadian-workers-occupy-auto-factory.htm
China: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Violent_unrest_rocks_China_as_crisis_hits/articleshow/4059496.cms
Scotland: http://swindonanarchistgroup.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/workers-launch-co-operative-to-run-business-without-bosses/
USA: http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1506/1/
USA: http://www.workersunitedunion.org/content/hartmarx-workers-vote-sit-save-their-jobs-tarp-recipient-wells-fargo-threatens-close-obama-s
USA: http://www.workersunitedunion.org/content/rochester-hickey-freeman-workers-vote-stage-sit-if-bailed-out-bank-attempts-close-company

Resistance to Security Forces
Greece: http://libcom.org/news/bosses-attack-militant-cleaners-syndicalist-vitriolic-acid-athens-protest-march-occupation-
South Korea: http://libcom.org/news/pyeongtaek-strike-continues-south-korea-21062009

The last week for me has been a total bloody nightmare. Everything possible has seemed to go wrong, no matter how hard I've tried to make a reasonable shambles of it.

One of the guests who was staying a few days ago rang the head officeand complained of food poisoning, allegedly from the food that came from my kitchen. This is, excuse my language, complete and utter bollocks. Not only do I probe every single item of food that leaves the kitchen, but not one other person who also ate here felt any sort of bug, infection, or general illness of any sort after eating the shame meal. But still, the head of the food and beverage department has seen fit to place me on 'holiday' until it's been 'investigated' fully.

Personally, I think the guy got sunstroke...


On the upside, I has given me lots of free time to perfect my vegan burger recipe...


2) My mother has M.S, or more specifically 'Secondary Progressive M.S, to give it its full name. She has had it for coming on 9 years, and to have lasted this long is nothing short of a miracle in my eyes.
However, within the last couple of days, she has slumped badly..


I'm worried

The bong is cold to touch, frosted slightly after being in the freezer for so long. The hit is long and smooth, completely painless. A cloud of smoke surrounds us, the hookah is burning and a movie is on. I pass to my left.

She's sitting there, watching me as I exhale. She is quiet, probably lost in her head. Crazy girl. I can't help smiling a bit as she bites her lip, deciding whether or not to take another hit. I tear my eyes away from her and watch the movie. She puts the bong on the floor and inches closer. Angelo is rolling a blunt on the table, Chris is passed out in the reclining chair. Jackie is opposite Angelo. Her friends left a while ago. The fan creaks as it slowly turns, its speed turned down intentionally. Bottles of beer and red cups litter the floor and various side tables of my living room. The entire first floor is filled with smoke.

"Take another hit," I tell her. "It's your birthday and we got this stuff for you." She blushes slightly and politely declines. Angelo finishes rolling his blunt and sparks it. It eventually makes its way over to us.

I take a long drag before offering it to her. Again, she declines. She leans back into the couch and stares at the TV. I exhale.

I turn to face her and move closer. "Come on," I whisper, "One more hit..." Her eyes are wide and I can see my reflection in her glasses. She doesn't move away. I take a long drag and go for broke. Our lips touch, her mouth opens and I breathe out. Our tongues meet for a second before I move away. She closes her eyes and holds the hit.

I watch intently as thick gray smoke pours out of her nostrils and lingers above the couch. Surprised I got away with that, I lean into the couch and relax. "See? One more hit never hu-" Her hand is on my face, turning it towards her own.

Her lips are on mine before I know what to expect.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.