Hello , my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z . This is the 340th consecutive episode and my guest is Jeff Crosby . Jeff is a Lynn Massachusetts resident who worked at GE as a grinder for 33 years .
He is a past president of IUE , cwa , local 201 and of the North Shore Labor Council and , until last year , served for 10 years as the executive director of the New Lynn Coalition , a faith labor community independent political organization . He has written for Labor and other journals , such as Working USA , labor Notes and the Nation .
He has been a political activist since he and his now-wife , margie , used to stuff envelopes in a church basement for SNCC in the 1960s . He holds a BA and MA in Labor Studies and he taught for five years at UMass Boston . So , jeff , welcome to Revolution Z .
Thanks for having me . Michael Glad to be here .
First I have to ask pardon my ignorance what is a grinder ?
Oh , it's one of the realms of metalworking and , as you do , you have a grinding wheel and you press it against metal and measure it . We made aircraft engines , so we were making parts that might be plus or minus two or three ten thousandths of an inch . It was really precise . We'd be cutting titanium and it's skilled work and I really didn't know much .
I went to Boston Trade , paid one dollar , which doesn't exist anymore . The dollar barely exists , but I mean Boston Trade doesn't exist anymore . The dollar barely exists , but I mean Boston Trade doesn't exist .
And I learned a tiny bit , worked in a little sweatshop and then talked my way into GE and the older guys kind of took care of me , as long as you show you care about the work and you show up and you try . And I gradually learned how to do it pretty well .
But now let me get this straight For 33 years you worked with the same equipment .
No Well 33 years the equipment changed quite a bit . First of all , when I was there the lathes had already become automated . They were numerically controlled , some of them they still have a manual to fix things with . The grinders were just becoming computerized . The ones I had were not . They had digital readouts but they weren't run by a computer tape program .
So the equipment changed quite a bit . Very little of the equipment that I started working on is still there . Plus , my job remained with GE . But after about eight or nine years I was elected to union office . So I wasn't actually working in the factory anymore . But for the first eight or nine years I was a grinder and I retained that classification .
I was first shift , second shift , third shift , you know , doing wherever they sent me .
All right , so on to our main focus , which will be , I think , immigration , deportations and resistance , and beyond that , who knows what we'll get into . But how about if we start at the beginning ? What constitutes , in your view , immigration , deportation and resistance to them ? Just almost , what's the definition of each ?
Well , I would say immigration or migration sometimes people call it is when , due to either economic or political reasons , for the most part , people move from one country to the other , something that's gone on forever .
It's become , you know , increasingly common these days because of the poverty and violence and a lot of what we might call developing countries we used to call it third world countries so that has , you know , literally millions of people .
Also , because of climate , that's another thing People just leaving parts of the world that it was very hard to support life in their sustained life . So millions of people are trying to survive and they move the resistance there's a variety of forms of it . I would say . Well , I would say resistance to mass deportations .
What we're looking at right now , as you know , is a policy of the federal government under President Trump , to deport literally millions of migrants , and I think there was a pretty good sell job , a lie that he indicated , or that people believed , even when he was more explicit , that he was going to go after crime and that as a residence for people who , if
you're in a city as Chicago , maybe , which has a lot of crime and some violent crime , then you would like to see that end , nobody . I also think it had some residents with , even with immigrants themselves . A lot of them had had fled countries where there was a lot of violence . You know , a friend of mine in Chicago said he was going door to door .
He was a Latino and practically every Latino family he talked to said we need a bukele . You know , we need somebody like the current president of El Salvador to put an end to crime . So even those folks didn't have an interest in having criminals whom they had fled come across the border after them . The reality is it has nothing whatsoever to do with crime .
It's actually a policy being perpetrated by criminals convicted criminals like Trump and it's been aimed very , very broadly at people who have no criminal records . People who had nothing have no criminal records . If anything , they have a civil violation in some cases because they may have come across the border , presented themselves to be received as a refugee .
No-transcript .
There's a part of it that seems to me to be not obviously understandable . It's a part of the element of it that's not even true , and yet still one wonders what it means . What does it mean to say we're going to deport immigrants who are criminals ? That is to say ?
The first image I got when I first heard that , obviously some time ago , was what are they talking about ? They're going to take people out of jail and send them away . Right , because if they're not in jail , they're not .
You know , either they're inaccessible because they managed to avoid , or they haven't been accused of , or certainly not convicted of , any crime , right ? So , what does it even mean ?
I think it means a lot of things to different things to different people . I think what Trump sold was that , as I mentioned , that he was going to track down violent criminals who were doing violent crimes against people who were roaming the streets of this country and causing mayhem .
So he just made up stuff about Haitians in Springfield , ohio , about Venezuelans in Aurora , colorado , and the reality is for crime itself . That's a whole discussion , but how is it that they sell this horror show of life which isn't happening . Boston , as you probably know , has the lowest number of homicides since 1957 .
So you know it's and that's a blue city led by a Democratic mayor . So a lot of that was not . Some of it's real , you know there are obviously there was no kernel of truth that wouldn't sell at all . So I think that was what people , what he sold .
But the reality is he's talking about people who have no record , sometimes US citizens themselves who have no record and if anything , it's a civil violation of their status . And sometimes people are showing up at court for their hearings and they're getting snatched .
I mean , I don't want to spend long on this , but it has bothered me that people don't have the problem . They seem to hear I'm going to deport criminals . Yeah , that doesn't mean anything .
It either means he's going to take people out of jail or he's going to take people who he's decided are criminals who haven't been prosecuted , people who he's decided are criminals who haven't been prosecuted . Well , the former he's not doing , and the latter is grotesque and doesn't involve somebody who's actually a criminal . They're innocent until proven guilty .
I mean , the whole thing is a joke . Yeah , I think that's correct , and particularly when you consider the criminals who are implementing this .
But I think the good thing , the contradiction and the good thing in the contradiction you just identified , as they keep expanding fairly desperately their scope and their raids to try to reach the numbers that somebody is giving them that they have to find to deport , they inevitably attack people and grab people who are rooted in their communities , who everybody knows
are not in any threat to anybody , people that they like destroying whole neighborhoods , you know , shutting down businesses and disrupting churches and all of that . So I do think you need to be careful to say look , you know , we're not saying that personally . I don't care if they're here legally or not , you know if they're not here with anybody .
let's find a way , and I'll say that to anybody .
But so I think you need to be . You know you do need to be careful . We're not saying , well , let's round up all those bad ones . The fact is , there aren't that many bad ones . You know so-called bad ones and you know , if they were really only grabbing violent criminals , I don't think there'd be a lot of protests , um , but the fact is that can't right .
If that was the goal , I don't know . Sanders is president . He says we should deport violent criminals . Now what ? Unless you , unless you demonstrate that the person is a violent criminal , which means you try them and they're ready to go to jail . Now the choice is only jail or deportation .
Right , I see what you're saying . Right , see Right . And there is that little problem of you know , small problem . Possible cause Proof Right Trial , you know . Right and they're actually , I mean , they're forced to . And one thing I you know , they don't . They never step back from anything .
It's like Roy Kahn , you know never apologize , you're talking about Trump and his folks . You know so . So , and now they're being very explicit who needs trials , what for ? all these people . We want to get rid of 11 million , as you said , so-called criminals . We can't try all those people , let's just get rid of them .
They're being very explicit that they don't believe in habeas corpus . They don't believe in any of that stuff and and more than anything else , though , I think it's ripping out high school kids um families . I think that's causing it to turn on them , and this was the issue that trump was counting on .
This is what steve bannon and you know the really more dangerous people in it and were in his circle . Worse than you know somebody like um the uh , you know the techno brothers , the silicon psychos , I call them , but worse than somebody like the Techno Brothers , the Silicon Psychos , I call them , but they thought they had this issue .
There was their 80-20 issue , and they're going to sell everything on it . They had 80% of the population , but I think it will unravel if there's the right kind of resistance .
Let's talk about that in a minute . But before we start in the big component , I guess , of this episode , there's another issue which is half answered so far . That is why do people get upset about immigration ? What is it that one can appeal to , if one is Trump , to try and rally support for deportations ?
So one thing is this mythology of of deporting criminals , but is that all there is to it ? That is , and I have no idea .
You know , I'm asking you sincerely , trying to understand in rural communities , maybe even in Lynn it's not exactly ultra-rural , but it's not a big city there's a certain amount of significant , even a significant amount of concern about immigration and about immigrants and of feeling that , you know , okay , maybe Trump is a lunatic , but at least he's trying to do
something about something that I want something done about .
Right .
So what is it that bothers people About immigration ?
do you think so ? You know we mentioned crime but , as you said , that's one thing . I think the other part , a big part of it , is something that's existed in this country for a long time , which is the notion that this is really , should be and is , and some in mythical world in the past actually was a white Christian country .
So that's why I like the term the new confederacy , because it kind of points to the roots in the old confederacy around white supremacy . And when there's a massive dislocation or economic problems or a change in demographics , that's something that demagogues can point to and as the fault of anything . I mean Lynn , for example .
I've been in and around Lynn for worked here for about 40 years Not very long ago . It was at a thriving downtown . It was always an immigrant city but the immigrants were mostly white . They were Poles and Italians and Irish and Greeks and neoliberalism hit , free trade hit . I punched in in 1979 at General Electric . We had 8,700 hourly workers .
It's now about , I think about 1,200 . And we're lucky to be standing . You know , general Dynamics is gone , general Motors is gone . All the other big factories maybe Raytheon don't even exist anymore . Gone , all the other big factories that maybe Raytheon don't even exist anymore .
So as that happens , every single indicator health , mental , everything , economics , wages , everything collapses and at the same time you start to see the same impact neoliberalism pushing and drawing immigrants . So other folks come in . Now downtown Union Street is a good example . It was a thriving district in Lynn in the 60s . By the 80s it was semi-abandoned .
It was a place of crime into the early 90s and a place people were scared to go at night and empty storefronts . Now it's actually been totally rebuilt , and by small Latino , cambodian and other businesses .
So that kind of change is jarring and so people point back to a world that was threatened by immigrants and make that claim and on the surface it seems to resonate with people and it's very deep . I mean , I worked in a factory for a long time . So there's an earlier article I wrote for the Liberation Road Substack about manufacturing .
It's called Manufactured Dreams and you know there was an idea that a man , for example , could support his family , and so now that's , you can't live on one job . Haven't been there Always . Women who worked , lots of women who work , especially poor women , black women , other folks . But I think this thing of natalism , which totally came out of the blue .
For me I'd never heard that term , but they're building on that mythology to go back to when women were in their proper place and men could support the family . You know that men got respected and their men's wages weren't stagnant , and so all those things kind of mix together .
So people look for a reason , and there's also a history of , you know , christian nationalism that goes way back . So what happens is , you see , you know , now , with Trump especially , you see major sections of capital moving towards that , and we're in , I think , a period of what you know . I'm no big Gramsci scholar , but you know what he called interregnum .
You know we've left the kind of neoliberalism . I mean people from the World Bank who were big proponents are now saying , oh , maybe we made a mistake here , you know . And now ? So then the question of what comes out of it . And people are thrashing around and immigrants become the fall guy .
And of course , when in Lynn , for example , they also really play up . When there is a crime committed by an immigrant and undocumented , in which of course there are people who commit crimes , we know that immigrants commit fewer actual crimes than people who were born here . I said to my ward counselor . You know we really need to lower the crime rate .
Let's bring in some more immigrants , you know .
Yeah , I thought that was in the article that I read . Yeah , I thought that was very clever .
There was a really dangerous moment when we had a demonstration against mass deportations and it was over the first really outrageous seizure arrest that was publicized in Atlanta . An 18-year-old young woman pushed her brother and they were fighting , arguing over a cell phone and whose turn it was to use it .
Somebody called the police phone and whose turn it was to use it . Somebody called the police . Police came and arrested the girl as a domestic violence incident . They have some leeway on that is my understanding . But I guess they're a little concerned with domestic violence .
If they don't arrest somebody and then something worse happens , it's not an easy spot for them . But they could have used their discretion . As I understand the law , they didn't . So they picked her up , they brought her down to court . The DA quite properly dismissed the charges and sent her for counseling .
Like you know , you're going to have disputes with your little brother . Don't push him next time . But while they were there ICE grabbed her and before anybody knew what was happening , she was in a cell in Maine and people did rally the mayor , I give them a lot of credit the city council , the folks and they got her out . But that's the kind of thing .
At the same time we were organizing a protest over her , an undocumented Dominican person was charged I don't know if they did it or not with a pretty grisly murder in Lynn and it was tense enough . You know people were saying the mayor all this .
You know the internet warriors who are gutless pukes who never show up , but they're badasses on the you know and posting all these threats . They said that the mayor has blood in his hands . You know he's been too lenient with all these crazy immigrants .
And then Donald Trump Jr tweeted about it and the head of ICE Homeland Security tweeted about it Look what's happening . And , lynn , it was a day before we were having this protest and the police actually called us and said look , can you just postpone until after the funeral ? There's going to be trouble . And we thought about it and decided we couldn't do that .
It was too late . For one thing , people were going to be trouble and we thought about it and decided we couldn't do that . It was too late . For one thing , people were going to show up anyways , and also , every time Donald Trump tweets , you know we back off , we might as well quit . So we went ahead with it .
The police did a good job of securing the demonstration and you know , went off without a hitch . But that's the kind of thing they just bang and bang on some incident . You know that in half of it's made up like the stuff in Aurora , colorado or in Springfield . So you know , all those things feed on moments of uncertainty .
A history of white supremacy , a history of knowing of , you know , believing that this is somehow supposed to be a white country . You know , we know that obviously has a material history and it's not just ideas . So those things immigrants , become the scapegoats . You know , I wouldn't surprise me . I mean , I hope this is outrageous thought .
But you know , at some point they may say you know , immigrants , undocumented immigrants , really should wear something on their clothes , you know , so they can be identified . It's really hard to find these people . We want to do it efficiently . We don't want to harm anybody . Let's just have them identify themselves and grab them and not grab the wrong people .
Maybe yellow stars , you know , would be a good way to do it . You know that kind of thing is . It's . I think what may happen is really crazy and considerably potentially worse than what we're seeing , considerably worse than what we're seeing .
A lot of people who I know horrified by Trump , but don't realize .
I think just how far this is headed . I'm afraid it's going to get a lot worse .
It's a race now . Will the resistance get big enough or will he get entrenched His whole effort ?
get entrenched .
Yeah , his whole effort get entrenched .
Yeah , which is going to happen first ? Well , I think you know , I do think it's not a period where they've consolidated power . I think that there's space to move . I think elections still matter at this point , but I do think it's going to get worse still matter at this point , but I do think it's going to get worse .
For example , my understanding is Eric Prince has offered with his he's no longer Blackwater , I think it's Constellus or something like that he's got a security firm . He's offered to train a hundred thousand armed agents to help Trump grab people . That's not unthinkable that that could happen . You know , grab people that's not unthinkable that that could happen .
You know Peter Thiel is now operating and offering and apparently working with some of the data that Dodge or Doge collected to make a database , so they know everything about everybody .
So , and as you said and as we just talked about , the resistance is growing too , and so I think it's likely the repression to get worse , and I think , if there's enough , the question is which will be stronger , as you said , and I think we need to act on that .
I mean , I'm all for hoping the courts save us , and every time we get a good decision , I'm all for it . I hope the legislators figure out how to operate when they sort of become irrelevant and intimidated . Figure out how to operate when they've sort of become irrelevant and intimidated .
But I think a lot of it is going to be , you know , direct base building , kind of organizing to build enough resistance to kind of stop this thing .
Okay Now , in talking about resistance and deportations , what constitutes it ? On the one hand , you know there's complaining , there's calling representatives , there's all that kind of activity . Maybe at the other end I guess you could go further .
But there's sanctuaries , there's blocking deportations and I'm wondering you know , as somebody who's so deeply involved in that kind of activity , how you see all this , what you see people should be doing . I mean , what do you urge , what do you make a case for when you talk to somebody ?
So I would say do in simple answers , do anything and everything . I had a discussion with our mayor about what can we do about this and he said well , we've issued statements and that matters . It matters that elected officials come out with very firm statements . It matters that Maura Healey , finally , is saying more and being more outspoken than she was .
So I think that matters , I think elections matter , I think all of that matters and people are . What we're seeing right now is a fairly incoherent kind of united front and that's not , you know , super well organized or anything . But if Indivisible or somebody is out there doing something , I'm for it .
If more working class based movement needs to develop and is developing , amongst migrants , for example , I think that's important . What I would argue is of the three forms of resistance that I mentioned , of the courts and congressional or legislative action at different levels . They're all important , different levels , they're all important .
There's a bill being proposed , I think in Massachusetts , for example , to put aside $10 million for legal support for migrants who are being arrested by ICE . But I think the direct action is most important and I think that's what's going to change people . So , for example and I'm describing L-U-C-E , it's a movement .
That was my next question .
Yeah , okay , so go ahead . No , go right ahead and they're very clear . First of all , I'm not , I don't speak for it . You know , if they call me and ask me to do something , I will , but I'm not even a vetted verifier , for example , as a part of their organization . But what my understanding of what they've done and what I've seen is ?
They go to , they have , uh , first of all , verifiers . They vet and train people to and they , they're very clear . They train people to be non-violent , they train people not to obstruct directly any ICE folks , because they're not trying to provoke confrontations or physical confrontations .
But what they do do is they've trained over a thousand verifiers who are on call and who will . When they go out and look , actually , more than on call , they go out and look for ICE or some of these other agencies .
Massachusetts I don't know who's protecting the rest of the country , but it seems like the entire federal law enforcement of every conceivable agency is in Massachusetts right now because they're everywhere .
So they go out , they identify them , they call in or they get a report to a hub or to a line where people can call in and say , hey , I think I saw ice on Union Street . They send out verifiers and the verifiers go to them , they film them , they tap on the window of the car and they say excuse me , I just wanted to know .
I'm trying to understand what's happening here . Are you with ice or I see your plate is from Arizona , are you visiting ? And they film the license plate , they ask for their badge number , they ask for their name and , in the limited experience that I've seen around Lynn , they leave and they really they don't want to be identified .
I don't know if they're under orders to do that or if they're , it's just you know they don't want their face in the camera , that's just you know , they don't want their face in the camera . Among other things , this has allowed them , the verifiers , to film some of the things that you've seen and I think I mentioned in the column I wrote .
I was with my brother on vacation and all of our families in Italy , in Palermo , and I turned on that AP News and saw a video of ice action and resistance in Worcester , massachusetts , and that's what happened . Now they so . I think that's really effective .
And then you see the pictures , the videos on the internet and social media , which are important , and that encourages more resistance , more opposition . You know , the danger is that it's going to happen and people are . These people always wonder like where's Doge when we need them ?
Like how does it take five heavily armed agents to arrest one sweet little , mild-mannered Turkish grad student ? You know , couldn't they just call her and say , hey , would you come down ? So I mean , but people get angry when they see that it increases resistance . That's a good thing .
We're not used to seeing armed , masked police snatch people off the street without an explanation , so that's good . The danger is , I think , that as people become angrier over the summer , you'll see more direct resistance and even violent resistance , and it may even be provoked , um , you know , by the proud boy types or some of these folks .
And and then then we got another , you know a more challenging problem . But you know , I can understand it , but I don't think it's a tactic of the moment . So I I think so far it's been effective and we're kind of piercing this nonsense about . Somehow trump is trying to keep us safe .
Right . So it's raising consciousness and it probably is raising morale and commitment energy among the people doing it . But I have two questions . One is where are they getting all these people who they're training ? And two is a different question . You may remember sanctuaries during the war in Vietnam . That was very effective in my experience .
The idea was a GI would go AWOL , which is against the law , and would then be given sanctuary , sometimes on college campuses there was a lot of it in the Boston area and sometimes in churches , and that too had the effect of making it all very visible and of resisting it , of raising the ante a little bit .
It wasn't violent , it was nonviolent , but it was nonviolent very actively . And I'm wondering why the same thing can't be done . There's making deporting people visible and they're saying , no , you can't deport people . Two different things , right , that's correct , yeah , and the second one , I think , needs to become a lot more significant .
It raises the ante , yes , but it shows the other side also that the resistance isn't fooling around , that the resistance isn't just for show . The resistance is getting more aggressive , more militant . Where is it going to go ? That's the threat that we wield . Where ?
is it going to go ? That's the threat that we wield .
You know , it's hard to challenge basic institutions , which is , you know , that's more troubling to Trump than any of this other stuff . So I don't know , do you think there's the possibility of that occurring ? Yeah , I do .
I would say two things before that I would say , you know , breaking through the fear and the despair is really important in and of itself .
And the first event we did recently in Lynn was , after this stuff came out , about Vance talking about Haitians eating cats and dogs in Springfield , we just did an event just to welcome the Haitian community and we asked them to people get up and talk about Haiti and what a beautiful country it was , and to let people know .
I thought of it as sort of giving a hug to Haiti , you know , and that , um , you just you don't have to live with this thing of that everybody hates me because I'm from a so-called shithole country and stuff , so , um , so I think that matters , you know , giving people the sense that somebody has their back , somebody cares , and that it's worth it to speak up
. And second , as I said , that it is actually working . Right now , it's actually stopping ICE from doing deportations . They may change their policy Wouldn't surprise me , but that's tremendous . It certainly raises morale and that's really , really critical at this point . So it breaks down some of the fear .
And then , finally , and before I get to your point , the other things elections do matter . They are not about getting majority . I think they could care less anymore than Hitler ever had a majority . You know . I think they're about figuring out how to implement minority rule as long as they can , and they have a core of people .
I mean there are people who are not moved by , you know , who believe , as I think Vance said , as somebody that you know , empathy is a crime . You know there's a whole document that empathy is a bad thing . I'm still trying to sort that one out , but you know . And so I think there's a core of people who are going to be very hard to move .
But elections matter , and I think Michael Potteritz , if I'm saying his name correctly , did some really good research . I think that demonstrated that there hasn't been any massive shift to the right . It's really nip and tuck . I mean , that's what interregnum means at this point . So elections matter , the midterms matter .
I think people need to get out of their heads amongst left and progressives that they don't , or there's something dirty about being involved in electoral politics .
But finally , yes , I do think it's very likely to lead to that and I think it's going to be a very dangerous time because the you know there is this fear I hope it's overblown of Trump using an incident to institute the Insurrection Act . We're clearly we're already really in a constitutional crisis .
You know , when Holman is the head of 10 on security , he says I don't care what the courts say and people are saying why do we have to put people on trial ? Who needs that ? I mean , we're already at a constitutional crisis , so I think we're headed into it .
The way it concerns me the most is we're headed into a period of what Gramsci might have called a war of position , but there's only one side that has an army and it's not us . So that's pretty concerning . But I do think what you said will happen .
I think people will start doing blockades and there's going to be a very , very fierce reaction and then we'll see what happens and others to be creative .
You know , for example , my impression after I went down to the courthouse and tried to find out what was happening , made my presence known , knocked on the door of the DA's office about when they took somebody from the courthouse , I got a call back from the assistant DA and I also got a call back from the mayor and my sense is actually they were kind of
thrashing around to figure out what to do . I don't think they're happy with this at all , legitimately . I think they're trying to find space within what they think is possible and I think we have to rethink that . You know we need leaders more than legislators right now .
So stuff that even the Cory Booker's thing of doing a 24-hour marathon speed hunt that was a good idea . A number of elected officials Ross Baraka has got arrested . I suggested to the mayor . I understand that they broke a window in a car to drag somebody out . That's happened a few times . It's deliberate intimidation . There's no other reason for it .
That's also a property crime . Can we file charges about that ? I mean , there's a lot of things I think we can do . We have to ask our leaders and our own activists at every level to start really thinking creatively about what we can do soon , and all of it will help .
Yeah , it all helps , because it all sort of synergistically moves people a little bit . So I agree with you , but it is striking the extent to which we're witnessing profiles and cowardice , basically .
To be honest about it .
I mean , the whole Republican Party is mind-boggling and I don't believe that they all like it . I just think that they're cowards . You know that they are cowering and giving in . I doubt it that they all . It's just far-fetched that they're all Trump . I mean , they're just not . I don't even think Trump is Trump . That is half of what he's doing .
He does , I think , as strategy , not as belief , you know , not as desire .
Who knows ?
But the site of the , you know , of Columbia folding , Columbia University or the law firms folding , you know . It's an astounding degree of cowardice , fealty , maybe paranoia , I don't know what . Of course it breeds the other side going further and further Right .
But I have to admit that I also wonder why it's not just that the law partners give in or that the trustees of the university gives in , it's that the population there , so in the law firm , maybe 1,000 lawyers , maybe 500 of whom are young , right , don't do anything .
They don't the thought doesn't cross people's head that we can just say no , right , we can just refuse , and the students , we can just take over the university and say no , it's you know , it doesn't .
It feels to me like and this is the question that I want to ask you like there's a missing strain of thought in people's minds , and I wonder if this isn't also true in unions and in labor .
That is , people understand what it means to pursue their own well-being , maybe their family's well-being , and they understand what it means to defend against attack , but it just doesn't occur to people that you can collectively fight for something better . It's just it's like it doesn't enter people's mind .
So a couple of things I would say . First of all , I agree with you , even though it's not all people , of course . you know Of course you know , skeptical of elites .
You know we had a program in Lynn that some local people organized , which was very prescient , which last fall was called Defending Democracy , and I was one of the people who spoke at it and I said , look , we can see what's coming and don't count on the elites , because don't count on you know the normal procedures .
And the example I used was that General Electric was actually convicted during the early , just prior , I think , to World War II , of collaborating economically with Nazi Germany in order to sell stuff and very little publicity . That , I think , was all the way after the war , before they got convicted .
Nobody covered it except for the union and um , so that that was just an example , shocked me , shouldn't have . So it's been almost uh , well , I wouldn't say that it's been a large , largely uh , collapsed resistance in the , the elites of the elites . So you would see the , the tech brothers who were supposed to be these flaming liberals .
You know the silicon valley idiots . So so that's . And you know , uh , columbia , like you said .
So that I think is um , but the student body right , so I'm not surprised at all by the elites right by the partners in the law firms and the trustees of the university .
What I'm surprised by is that the constituency that's right there , right Young lawyers , right , who may be , lots of them even aren't even that long out of law school and they're sort of you know , idealistic Right they fold .
Well , let me say there's two things on that . First of all , I would say the consequences are pretty severe . They potentially and I'll give you an example a an immigrant counselor in Lynn . I had a long discussion with him early on in this and he said Look , we got to be careful . You know , I have a $3 million federal program in my ward .
It's a poor ward , I don't want to lose those funds . This is a federal issue . We got to be careful . Now , about 10 days later , he came out and marched right at the front . He took a chances and he did the right thing , which I really appreciate . But he was looking at real consequences and I would say , even for me I hadn't realized myself .
You know the power of the federal government . We haven't seen it used this way in my lifetime . So you know Harvard's going to lose maybe hundreds of billions of whatever dollars of stuff that I don't even know anything about . So you know there are real consequences . People are afraid . And then at what point ? And they're afraid .
You know those lawyers don't want to end their careers , so and they see the corporations fading . They see the DEI has gone up in smoke like that . You know that was a fad . That wasn't serious for most of them not all of them . So I think the consequences are serious .
And when things go over to resistance is something that you know scholars have tried to figure out for a long time . You know what are the where's , the kindling that leads to resistance at the right moment . And I don't know that and I can't predict that at all , so I don't know the answer to that .
But I will say I do think on this particular issue the resistance is starting to spread pretty quickly . I mean , since I wrote that article , maybe 10 days ago or something , you have the incident down in Missouri . We're down in the boot , which is the most conservative part of the state .
Probably I have family that you know from that state and you see the resistance there . You saw what happened in Worcester . You saw just recently Milford , where they picked up a kid on his way to . Was it not soccer , some kind of sports event , you know , volleyball , I think it was and the whole school walked out .
So you're going to see more and more of that . That's what you need to see . Yeah , and I do think it's going to happen . I think it is happening . I think we fight in multiple ways and we have to contend with people who are our allies . I mean , liz Cheney is my ally at the moment . You know , I'll take anybody , you know , uh .
So uh , ally might be too strong a work , but you know , if she's up against trump , I'm with her at the moment . So , and then you have to contend what's the way forward ? What are we really fighting for ? Are we trying to just go go back to free trade ?
you couldn't sell that to the people in my plant seems like appears or is , or still um , about getting back to the equivalent of Biden and getting back to the equivalent of business as usual before Trump ?
Uh , I don't think it's going to inspire much less um , sustain involvement , particularly from working people , right , and so that's a feature of what's going on . That needs to be augmented . It needs to .
What we do , whether it be sanctuaries or lesser activities around lesser is the wrong word less confrontational activities around deportations , or it's about tariffs , or it's about anything else , somehow , it seems to me and tell me if you think this is true it has to convey , in particular to unions and broader scope of working people , that it's not about getting
back to what you hate , what you can't stand , what provoked you into supporting Trump . If that's what we are , he wins , and I'm not exactly sure how you do that I mean , you know how you communicate that intent , but it needs to happen .
I agree with that . You know , the years that I worked at GE were the years when we saw buildings coming down around our ears and we had a slogan for one of our contracts our jobs to Mexico , our kids to Iraq , justice for GE workers .
It was like every third person had someone in the 10th Mountain Division , and you know , and meanwhile they turn around and our own this is defense work . I mean , the government was shipping our jobs overseas .
So in a way , I'm surprised they didn't know Everybody did not being fascist , you know , because they're so frustrated and they just couldn't figure out what was happening to us . So , yeah , I agree , fascists , you know , because they're so frustrated and they just couldn't figure out what was happening to us . So , yeah , I agree .
Just going back to that , I mean , and that's a problem with some of the hands-off stuff , in my view , um , you know there's hands-off nato , but there's no hands-off yemen , you know there's no . It's like a laundry list of things that don't mostly speak directly to working class people . Uh , and you can tell by the demonstrations .
Now , like I said , I really disagree with people . I would think a sectarian or ultra left who would say , like we don't want to get dirty and get involved with those people . I'm all for it . I appreciate what they're doing , for example , it's also decentralized , indivisible .
In Worcester is one of the folks , I think , that organized the demonstration against the deportations , for example . But we need a contingent within that that says what are we for ? We want to go forward , we want rent control , we want housing for all and I think that the term you know , we want police reform . We want , you know , we want abolition of ICE .
You know . We want , you know , to make migrants safe . You know , we want all you knowie speaks to some of that stuff pretty well . I was just gonna say you can't avoid things like immigration . You know , if we're only talking immigrate for only talking um , economic stuff which I'm , you know , I'm a union guy , I'm 100 for that , love bernie .
But um , I think you can't duck the race issues , you can't duck police , you can't duck immigration . You got to be straight up on that and and take on .
And so I think basically what I remember a little bit is the anti-war movement and you probably do too where you had people , broadly speaking , just saying stop the war 100% , for that of like , hey , this is actually not just a bad policy , this is actually imperialism .
And you know , once you understand that , you get a little more committed over the long haul and you start figuring out some different tactics . So I think the challenge in front of us is I like the term third reconstruction , because it's probably not a great mass term , because it's whatever . But , you would agree with that .
But you know , the idea is like we had the reconstruction governments , which were extremely democratic and came very close to getting the right to vote for women . You know , 50 years before they did , in some States , for example , extended the right to vote and then , and then we lost that .
We got Jim Crow , and then we had the , in the sixties , the second reconstruction , civil Act rights to vote for black people in the South , for example and that's been rolled back to a large degree not entirely and so now we need a third move to extend democracy in all spheres of life , and that's actually a very radical program .
So we need to build contingents within the movement , you know , supporting the broadest resistance we can that says we want to go past that . So , and which ?
gets heard , which reaches to . In other words , it's not enough that I reach you and you reach me with the fact that we don't want to go back to business as usual . Right , big deal . Somehow the people who won't relate strongly , won't relate in a committed fashion , need to imbibe that . I actually think .
When you describe that we're headed toward a time that's going to be more confrontational and involve more repression , and so on and so forth , more repression and so on and so forth , I also think we're headed toward a time in which the resistance is far more militant because it starts to attract working people , and you can see how upset they are just by looking
at MAGA , and I actually think we can reach some of them and need to . So we'll see . I mean it's .
I mean that's one thing about the labor movement . You know , first of all there's a core of people that are going to be hard to reach , obviously . Sure , there's a core of that , but also in a union you've got to deal with everybody . I mean you don't get to pick and choose . You know , the 10 left-wingers in your union .
You've got to , like , represent everybody , and so you kind of get trained to that . You learn how to talk to everybody and how to be respectful of everybody . You know everybody gets to vote in a union election and if they don't like me then I'm gone . So you get used to that and you've got to talk to people you don't agree with .
And you know , hear people . There's a certain amount of the stuff about . Well , we got to listen to white people and we got to listen to men and we got to listen to the center of the country . There's some truth to that . You know I was born in Iowa , most of my family's in the Midwest , and it doesn't sit well that everybody's .
You know , looking down on you from the coast , lynn , a friend of mine called Lynn , the easternmost point of the Rust Belt , you know it's kind of like .
You know it feels like you're in the Midwest sometimes , but it's also , you know , sometimes that's an excuse for saying , well , can we just not talk about these tough things like , you know , throwing trans people under the bus and you know , do we really need black people to be so uppity ? You know , can't we just go back to the good old days ?
So you can't duck that and can't avoid that . But I do think that , yeah , creating a vision of what we're for , we use this logo when we're fighting mass deportation . We had our May Day rally . We also talked about housing for all , you know . We talked about , you know , federal workers . You know losing their rights .
So we did a bunch of things like that , and we tried to merge those things together and try to have a view of it . And I wonder why or what it's going to take for and let's take one where it's even already plausible for the UAW to say , no , you can't do that , you can't treat workers that way , we're going to protect them . That's when something changes .
Right , that's when something changes . That's a step where people are not just protecting themselves , but they start to be part of something much larger . And I had hopes that Sean Fain would see that and would act on that kind of thing . Maybe he can't , maybe he's not that close with the bulk of the UAW , I don't know , but that kind of thing is needed .
You know , that kind of mutual aid , not just for your friend and your family . I remember Sanders actually had an advertisement when he was running .
That blew my mind when I saw it on TV , because it's just him , you know , and he's talking and he says and during the course of this particular ad , if we can get to the point , or if you can get to the point talking to the audience that's listening to him through the TV , if you can get to the point where you can feel for the person across town , the
way you feel for your neighbor and the way you feel for your family , we win . And it's not a widespread understanding , you know , it's yeah the point you just made is one of the reasons .
I'll get back to sean fain , as best I understand that . But um , that's actually why I think faith organizing is really important . I mean , I was , uh , uh , when I lived . I lived in pakistan and it was a long story , but at one point I was at a boarding school running by really devout missionaries .
My father was in the service there and he became a born-again Christian . And I got back to the US and it was 1963 and 4 and 5 , and I saw black people being blasted off the steps of white churches with fire hoses and I said you know what ? There's something else going on here .
Something's wrong here .
I hope God is paying attention , but maybe he's missing something , I don't know . But so , you know , I got more involved in sort of practical what am I going to do here ? How do I understand what's really going on in the world ? But I think it's really important to spread , for example , like that's why I quoted Leviticus , you know .
I was surprised when I saw that , yeah , there's , you know there's . Take care of the stranger in your midst , because you too are a stranger in Egypt , you know .
I like the sentiment . I'm not sure I like quoting , but the sentiment's good , you know .
I do worry about being a hypocrite and I try to be upfront with that too , because that's one of the things . But I think there is polling that shows , particularly amongst young evangelicals , they're more concerned about the environment , they're less harsh on immigration , they're less harsh on less homophobic and all those things .
So I think in the mainstream churches , if you want to call them , that mainstream kind of gets misused . Like if the Associated Press is holding bake sales . You know how is Fox News , you know the radical insurrectionists . It's like something's wrong here . They keep claiming that revolutionary spirit , even when they're in the establishment .
But you know the mainstream churches , they do things , they're helping out , they're doing stuff to help people and a lot of them . And so I think that , and when I actually came across this notion that there's some sort of theological interpretation of the Bible that says empathy is a sin , it's like , okay , we've really gone a long ways here .
I don't quite get this , you know , but I think that's important . And I think you know in other periods of US history abolitionist movement , for example , civil rights movement you know , religions played a really important role and I think it will again . And I say that as someone who's respectfully not a believer but respects those who do . And I've seen that .
I see it all the time . I see it at land .
I expect to see , not too long from now , a sanctuary and a church that becomes a focal point for the whole country .
I think that's very possible With Sean Fain , I would say , first of all , I don't have any inside info on that . You know I was a factory worker . You know I used to live in the Midwest and all that . So I have some understanding , but nothing , no inside dope on the thing . I have some understanding but nothing , no inside dope on the thing .
But you know , I think he went pretty far on things like Palestine . I mean , he was actually involved in a sit-in at the convention and the Democratic Party utterly blew that by not even allowing a token voice at their convention . It was just incredibly disrespectful and horrible .
So I think he went pretty far and I think at a certain point he's trying to figure out .
He also has a union now that is pretty divided and he has a section of the left in his union , largely , but not exclusively , based on the grad students who have come into the organization , particularly in the Northeast , who are constantly pushing him to the left , and so I think he's you know , I think he's kind of , you know , caught with that and he needs
to . I mean , I had this . I was a union official . I was more left than most of my folks . You know I got voted down on some things . That was okay . You know democracy means you lose sometimes . You know you got to . You got to really respect the people who don't see things the way you do .
And there was one time I brought up , I was the president of the union and I wanted to take a position against the first Iraq war and we went around the room and there was absolutely nobody that believed the government . Vietnam vets nobody . They're all blue-collar guys like fuck them , there's no weapons of mass destruction .
But they also didn't want to divide the union over it and a lot of them had some experience over the Vietnam War when it was so divisive . So I couldn't get any support at all so I dropped it . You know . I mean I found ways to participate myself , but not in the name of the union , and it's just some things you have to live with .
The democracy doesn't mean the right thing wins all the time . So I think he's probably in that spot and he's playing a bit longer game and he didn't win his election by a lot .
I don't know what happened here . I have to apologize . When I went to edit this , it cut off right where you heard , and there's nothing much I can do about it . There's the only existing recording cuts off . At that point I probably did something wrong , but I really don't know what . So I apologize to Jeff .
It wasn't that much longer that we went , but it didn't cut off like that . Anyway , that's it . This is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z .