cyu
2nd July 2009, 21:00
Excerpts from http://everything2.com/node/1991656
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.
--------------------------
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women and men are created equal, 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 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 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
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 abdicated Corporation here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
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
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.
--------------------------
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women and men are created equal, 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 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 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
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 abdicated Corporation here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
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