Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Originally published in The Rag Blog on April 16, 2010; reprinted with the author's permission.

[See also Mine War on Blackberry Creek, the 30-minute 1986 documentary by Anne Lewis about the 1984 United Mine Workers of America strike against A.T. Massey -- including her interview with now CEO Don Blankenship -- here.]

Who is this porcine man (all apologies to the noble pig) wrapped in our country’s flag saying that federal regulation of mine safety is as “silly as global warming?” Why it’s Don Blankenship, CEO of A.T. Massey, the fourth largest coal extractor in the United States and now the source of the worst killings in a U.S. mine in 40 years.

An article posted in last Friday’s New York Times is certainly getting a lot of attention by left folks around the labor movement and beyond. Reaction has varied, but for folks who’ve managed to miss the flurry of tweets, facebook status updates and email forwards, one line of argument goes like this: “ConservaDems are leading a charge to water down the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and eliminate the card-check provision that many in the labor movement have elevated to the point where the bill itself has become the “card-check bill” – yet another example of why any work with the Dems is futile.”

For folks who take the view that the left has nothing to gain by working with Democrats the chance to roll out the “I told you so” after last fall’s Obama-fest has been too great to pass up. But before we jump on the Democrat-bashing bandwagon this go-around, let’s take a second to assess the situation and let facts more than knee-jerk sloganeering guide our response. Taking a moment to flip through the story a couple of key points jump out.

In 1968, Henri LeFebrvre coined the term in his essay, “La droit a la ville.” He proposed that, “urban life, to renewed centrality, to places of encounter and exchange, to life rhythms and time uses, enabling the full and complete usage of … moments and places.” In other words, cities should not be owned by capital but by the people.  Those of us who make our homes and our livings in these urban centers deserve a hand in their shaping.  This is also to say that the battlefront of the working class is not just within our worksites or factories, but within the social space of our cities to include the struggles of public transportation, education, public space, public city resources, housing etc.

Historical and Contemporary Practices in Implementing Right to the City

For examples of these land use rights we can look to the communal land use also know as ejidos, established after the Mexican Revolution.  In Western history we can look at the enclosure of the commons.  What had been commonly owned peasant land in Europe became private noble enclosures in the 14th century.  People who had once been in control of their own means of production suddenly had nothing but their labor power to exchange.  Centuries later, capitalism's trajectory has brought us to neo-liberalism, which strips away whatever social safety nets and public access to resources the capitalists have left and puts the power to create, change and destroy cities in the hands of the elite.

The call for this deepening practice of true democracy is happening everywhere.  Possibly the most advanced practice and experimentation is happening in the global south with the establishment of participatory budgeting and participatory planning.  Participatory budgeting began in 1989 in the municipality of Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul state after the Workers’ Party won the election for the mayor.  The new adminstration was faced with a bankrupt municipality and a disorganized bureaucracy.  Faced with a budget crisis and a disorganized bureaucrazy for the government experimented with way to deal with their limited resource and to find a system that would give citizens a direct roles in the decision making of the local government.  Through this process, participatory budgeting was developed and has spread throughout Brazil.

Demanding a Right to the City in the U.S.

In the U.S. neck of the woods, a grassroots organization, Right to the City, has united communities around a desire to halt gentrification.  They're operating under the philosophy that urban landscapes should be shaped by the people, and not some speculative profit machine.  “Right to the City was born out of desire and need by organizers and allies around the country to have a stronger movement for urban justice,” says the website.  “But it was also born out of the power of an idea of a new kind of urban politics that asserts that everyone, particularly the disenfranchised, not only has a right to the city, but as inhabitants, have a right to shape it, design it, and operationalize an urban human rights agenda.”

Right to the City is involved in struggles in cities all across the country.  Earlier this month, a group of homeless organizers took over a vacant building in East Harlem.  For hours they chanted, “Which side are you on?” Watching the videos of their demonstration, it's easy to answer.  Other actions RTTC has been involved in include demonstrations against ICE raids, struggles for NOLA reconstruction, tenant protections, and public and subsidized housing.  A particularly memorable action that took place in L.A. involved a gaggle of trick-or-treating Latino children and their parents, who were fed up with the slummy conditions of their apartments.  They paid a visit to their landlord's doorstep, complete with posters of rats and cockroaches, and a giant invoice for wishful repair work on their ailing houses.  If you're wondering why every organization in the Left can't be that creative, you are not alone.

In barely two years, Right to the City has really grown into its grassroots power.  Similar to Critical Resistance and other urban justice national organizations, RTTC is centered around the people most impacted by city policy.  It's led by working class communities of color, the homeless, queer youth, and women – in other words, the people who intimately know the potential and challenge of cityscapes.  These are the people that have lived gentrification.  They know that when their neighborhood gets “revitalized,” it's really just code for neo-liberal expansion.  For every quaint main street boutique that opens its doors, an asphalt basketball court for the neighborhood kids gets razed. For every tourist dollar that lines the city's coffers, more funds are sucked out of public housing and healthcare projects. People involved in RTTC have had enough with that.  They're reclaiming their cities.

  Art by Eric Drooker

Cities as Battlefields of Race and Class Struggles

Now is an especially important time to protect urban culture.  Cities are often the hub of social transformation because they house diverse populations.  Urban centers rife with such contradictions, such pushing towards and pulling against capitalist hegemony, often spiral into real social change faster than their rural counterparts.  This usually makes cities, and the people who live there, targets of capitalist-led class warfare.  Just look at the tactics employed by John McCain and Sarah Palin in the 2008 election.  Scoffing at big cities as a so-called “false America” has almost always been motivated by a thinly veiled racism, and a need to divide the white working class from its brothers and sisters of color.  Anyone with half a brain can see through this.  Combating it is a different story.

We have already seen that economic recession only renders capitalist leaders more ruthless.  Their capital-saving strategies are hitting poor people of color the hardest.  The ruling class is grasping to maintain their dominance over cities and neighborhoods of which they have run amok.  At this time their legitimacy is being called into question and we must collectively put forward a new, sustainable, equitable ways for our cities to function.  People, whether through Right to the City, through people’s assemblies or simply neighbors fighting foreclosure, must come together to take a hold of this strategic moment.

Read More on Right to the City Theory and Practice:

Writings On Cities, by Henri Lefebvre

The Urban Roots of the Fiscal Crisis (Movie File) , lecture by David Harvey. (Apr 17th, 2009)

Root Shock, by Mindy Fullilove

Space Place and Gender, by Doreen Massey

Right to the City Alliance

Saoirse Bell is a Central Coastal California activist, poet, zinester, blogger and constant facebook lurker who loves both the city and the country.  At night she dreams of flourishing metropolitan epicenters of justice that co-exist with the natural world.

Every activist and organization that knows and cares about May Day continues to acknowledge the role of the immigrant rights movement in reviving the Workers holiday in the U.S.  The May 2006 demonstrations that brought millions into the streets in defense of immigrants were the first of the May Day actions that have taken place every year since.

Immigrants and their allies stood up to condemn the racist attacks on immigrants of color, especially those from Latin America, who were and continue to be on the receiving end of white supremacist scorn.  This disdain has led to the mobilization of right wing opinion and violent action against immigrants at the border and in communities throughout the country.

Racial and national hatred are the social and political expressions, but the issue of workers rights is the fundamental question.  The migration from many countries in the global south to the U.S. is driven solely by the search for jobs.  Economic devastation (due mainly to free trade agreements) and political repression have created a situation which most migrants describe as desperation.  People will do whatever they have to, no matter how dangerous and difficult, to provide for their families.  Millions have been forced to cross US borders to find work that is often dirty, low paying and unsafe.  The quality of the jobs in terms of wages, benefits and protection from arbitrary firings is a critical question for both U.S.-born and immigrant workers. 

On March 5, more than 25,000 New Yorkers—mainly union members joined by a good sized contingent of college and even high school students—massed at City Hall in NYC to protest threatened cutbacks in city schools and colleges, and in other services. Even though we were kept immobile and separated in the NYPD's trademark metal pens, the turn-out was striking, and not only for its size.

Though the rumor mill in the United Federation of Teachers had it that the administration's stimulus package would avert any layoffs, folks weren't necessarily buying. Many were scared about what the future holds and even more were ripshit mad at the Wall Street types and bankers who drove the economy down so far and so fast, stuffing their pockets all the while.

This leaflet, by members of the NY/NJ District of FRSO/OSCL doing work around the economic meltdown, was well received. We could have handed out another case of them.