Christianity, Immorality/Sin, Theology and Atheism

 

(Selected indignation, insight, witticism and commentary from me, an ex-Catholic atheist.)

 

Say It Loud and Clear!

 

The question professed Christians cannot answer: "Why do you Christians sin so much?" Isn't the God you believe in, once you embrace him (or is it her, or it?), supposed to infuse you with the Divine Grace to make you stop sinning?! I had a Catholic priest tell me, as a lame apologetic, "We're all sinners." To which we "immoral" atheists can reply, "We may have 'sinned' by masturbating, or having sexual intercourse outside of marriage, but none of us sinned by—

Catholic priest-pedophilia (or by Protestant pedophilia), nor by its deliberate cover-up by Catholic bishops and cardinals!"

 

Christian Liars

 

Of the Ten Commandments, both the Protestant Ninth Commandment, and the Catholic Eighth Commandment, forbid bearing false witness against one’s neighbor, i.e., lying.  Yet Christians, notably both Protestant and Catholic, lie all the time, especially when 1.) it’s to their advantage to do so; 2.) to get back at someone; or 3.) to curry favor with a third party; or of course, for any combination of the above.  They’ll even lie under oath, perjure themselves, if they think they can get away with it.  They’ll lie shamelessly, banking on God’s forgiveness.  What hypocrites!

 

So Many Moral Pieces of Shit…

 

…believe in God and the Savior Jesus, and look forward to Divine Forgiveness for their transgressions when they die, or even before, even as they freely commit moral atrocities against others, in direct contravention of Christ’s own admonition to “Love thy neighbor as thyself”!

 

Had a Chat with Satan Today

 

He affirmed that he likes me, and thinks I’m really worthwhile.  He also gave me a number of good things over the years:  metal music, “playing with myself,” recreational sex, just to name a few.  But Jesus Christ, meh.  While he says he loves me unconditionally, he also says I’m going to burn in hell forever for being an ex-Catholic atheist!  As for Jesus’ Christian followers, they were notable for consistently treating me like shit.  They are the analogues of the “good Jews” Jesus himself called “hypocrites,” “Pharisees,” "whited sepulchers."

 

Heretical

 

Did Satan create Catholic priest-pedophiles, deliberately covering-up Catholic bishops and Cardinals, indifferent-to-priest-pedophilia Popes, and in my case personally, booze-soaked unctuous hypocrite Catholic priests such as my high school principal?  No, theologically speaking!  According to Christian (not just Catholic, but including Catholic) theology, all these and even more nefarious evils were created by omniscient, omnipotent, infallible and benevolent God himself, not only out of his unconditional love for all humanity (even as he sends many humans to the torment of burning in hell forever!), but also, as part of his—Perfect Divine Plan.

 

The Gospel According to Johnny B. Goode

(No, Chuck Berry, I do not apologize!)

 

To paraphrase the Gospel of John—

 

“For God so loved the world he gave it Catholic priest-pedophiles and deliberately covering-up bishops, Cardinals, and even Popes; Prosperity Gospel hucksters such as Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar; Antichrist Christians such as Donald ‘I’m proud to be a Christian’ Trump; Popes Francis-and- Leo XIV-bashing Catholics such as JD Vance, and much more.  Further, in his Yahweh incarnation, God gave us Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and those nasty West Bank Jewish settlers; in his Allah incarnation gave us Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, and Islamism; and in his Catholic incarnation, gave us the Inquisition, the persecution of Galileo, the ecclesiastical murder of Giordano Bruno for teaching modern science, and the burning alive of tens of thousands during the Middle Ages for alleged witchcraft, for homosexuality, and for heresy!”

 

On the Problem of Evil

 

I would remind you that it wasn't Satan who created Catholic priest-pedophiles and their covering-up bishops and cardinals, Prosperity Gospel hucksters such as Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar, Christians such as "I'm proud to be a Christian" Donald Trump, or white Christian Nationalists—he turned all this creation over to God, who did it as part of his Divine Love manifested in his Perfect Plan!

 

Have to Hand It to the Catholic Church

 

It certainly knows how to provide expertise on moral and behavioral issues.  For example, its experts on sexuality, sexual and romantic love, and child rearing are all—ordained celibate old men who read about all such matters in Latin while in the seminary!

 

Response to a Christian Door-to-Door Missionary

 

In answer to the question, “Will you allow Jesus Christ to enter your life today as your personal Savior?”:

 

“No, thank you.  I’ve already allowed Satan to enter my life as my personal Savior.”

 

 

It’s Hard Being an “Immoral” Atheist!

 

It’s really hard being an “immoral” atheist!  And Christians should be more charitable, and realize that.  Consider this.  We spend our days in very busy, hectic, activity raping, robbing,  pillaging, and murdering.  Our days are so busy and hectic doing all this that we don’t even have time to take a decent lunch break.  All we can do is grab a baby to eat on the run.  Then, after our hard, hectic days, the only way we “immoral” atheists are able to relax in the evening is through wild sex-and-drug orgies, after which we finally get some sleep by passing out in a drug-and-alcohol-induced stupor.  That’s a hard life we “immoral” atheists have!

 

Aside from Being an Atheist, What Am I?

 

I’m a victim of overwhelmingly Christian maliciousness, cruelty, abuse, and insensitivity, primarily Catholic, but also Protestant, upscale alleged “freethinkers” who didn’t want to confront the religious abuse I suffered, and one nefarious Jewish person I thought was a good friend until he betrayed me, then had the chutzpah to insist I “forgive” him for his alleged “egregious stupidity”!  (In reality, though, his actions were all deliberate; the “egregious stupidity” on his part was getting caught and being held to account!)  I was bullied and socially ostracized in the Catholic grade and high schools I was forced to attend; my Catholic siblings (my four younger sisters who grew up with me, all pretty, pert, all of them sorority girls in college, and all of them—vapid) regarded me as an ugly, unpopular nerd they wanted nothing to do with.  My Catholic parents, when they weren’t screaming at me at the top of their lungs in 15-minute-long tirades, utterly ignored me; and as a young adult in Indianapolis, the “peaceable religious progressives,” with whom I agreed with on a good 90 percent of the political issues of the day, responded to me with maliciousness, bigotry, and dismissiveness.  All that, too, is what I am.

 

 

 

 

 

Deep Irony Alert! (lest the "woke" left get offended"): Slavery Was Fun!

 In "honor" of Trump and his minions' "whitewashing" (apt term) of American history, museum exhibits, and just plain grousing, as the MAGA loyalist complained about the Smithsonian "overemphasizing" slavery:

1.)   The newly enslaved got to leave their constricted African villages and travel, move, to new and exotic lands across the Atlantic Ocean.

 

2.)   The newly enslaved went there by way of a leisurely sea cruise on well apportioned ships.

 

3.)   The newly enslaved had the opportunity to learn new job skills.

 

4.)   The newly enslaved got exposure to Christianity, and thus became “saved,” instead of being damned to hell for their indigenous pagan religions.

 

5.)   The newly enslaved males had lots of opportunities to have sex with slave women (to reproduce more slaves, of course), and newly enslaved females often had sexual opportunities as well, especially with interracial sex.

 

and last,

 

6.)   The newly enslaved got to meet new people, usually people of a different race and ethnicity, thus diversifying their social circles.

 

So, who says slavery wasn’t fun?

 

 

A Most Inauspicious Sixtieth Anniversary

 

The year I graduated from high school, 1965, was also the year in which average SAT scores peaked.  From then on, they declined.  Not coincidentally, I believe, it was also when the “dumbing down” craze was inaugurated among educators and academics, in order to make a college education more “accessible” to minorities, women, and other groups considered disadvantaged.  By lowering the bar, it was argued, more deserving people could get in, could enter the hallowed Halls of Ivy, and move up socially and economically in US society—thereby ending decades of deliberate discrimination that kept especially generations of African Americans locked into poverty and low-paying, dead-end jobs.  This was also a time when automation was eliminating many low-skill factory jobs, thereby creating new technological unemployment.  Last, the seemingly triumphant final success of the Civil Rights Movement in breaking down the legal barriers of segregation and discrimination, along with the rise of the New Left, meant that there was fertile social ground, especially among the young white and well-educated, to at last seriously address the “race problem” in American life.  Militant demonstrations occurred on college campuses demanding Open Admissions for anyone who wanted to attend, a demanded echoed by black nationalist groups on campus from newly admitted African American students.  Academic standards were seen as barriers to social and racial justice, not as necessary linchpins and gates to ensure a quality education.

 

Looking back sixty years later, we see that what was also inaugurated was a horrible naïveté along with white masochistic guilt, particularly among newly radicalized students and academics.  This meant that, far from opening up academia, “dumbing down” only debased the quality of education colleges offered, and brought in large numbers of students not at all prepared for college academic expectations.  This, coupled with a supposedly “hard-headed” businesslike “transactional” approach to education, where education was valued not as an end in itself, but only as a means for being credentialed to get a good-paying job, made it join naïvely with this “transactional” approach, both of which in tandem played key roles in debasing the quality of education, made education as an end in itself seem “worthless,” and fueled a deeper anti-intellectualism and distrust of “educated elites” that debased the whole of American society, especially when Trump came into prominence, or ever since at least 2015.  A debasement that haunts us horribly today.  Further, while I don’t relish at all quoting or acknowledging conservative commentators, I admit that sometimes they get it right more than does the left—a case of even a blind squirrel finding an acorn sometimes!  (As a former co-worker of mine once put it.)  So, I do have to acknowledge far right commentator Joseph Starobin when he pointedly noted that US society had degenerated from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching remedial English in college today.  The same point was made very recently (as I write, late July 2025) by Boston Globe’s conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby in his column “Arguable,” where he noted that a Massachusetts high school graduate in 1895 was expected to know more, and did, in fact, know more, than a Massachusetts high school graduate today.  He pointedly notes that back then an education was considered both a right (hence, public schools) and a valuable end in itself, against both the onslaughts of the business-transactional right and the anti-discriminatory left against such a supposed mere “nostrum.”

 

And yet—educational equality seems further away today than it did sixty years ago, with many critics, and even rival racial and ethnic minorities, claiming that “affirmative action” and “DEI” only brought a bunch of unqualified African Americans onto college campuses, to the detriment of both more “meritorious” racial and ethnic groups (notably Asians), and even merit itself.  This has even fueled overt racism, such as Trump supporter Charlie Kirk’s comment that if he were on an airplane, the only way he could ensure the pilot was competent was if he was a (presumably straight) white male!  Thus, were “he” gay, transgender, female, African American, Latino, other dark-skinned racial minority, “he” might be “unqualified” to pilot an aircraft, owing “his” piloting to “his” being a DEI hire instead!  

 

Thus has “dumbing down” backfired.  Rather than creating a more racially inclusive society, it’s created a more racially divided society, as even the whole concept of African American “merit” is under question.

 

As my old academic advisor Scott Gordon, late Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Indiana University-Bloomington, pointed out in his 1980 book, Welfare, Justice, and Freedom, there’s an unavoidable contradiction between equality of opportunity and equality as such, or as we and many African American militants put it, equal results.  For equality of opportunity means there are winners and losers, winners and also-rans, some who make it to the top and some who don’t.  It’s like the Super Bowl:  no matter how evenly matched the two teams are, at the end of the game there is only one winner, and the other team is the loser.  While equality of opportunity is a prerequisite for equal results, equality of opportunity does not mean equal results, certainly not in the short one—and no amount of “revolutionary impatience” can change that.  Certainly I, who wishes to eventually see equal results, must concede, in terms of reality, they are still quite a ways away, and that the ability of African Americans to attend college does not ensure their success when they do.  Social, cultural, educational, economic, and other obstacles are still in the way.  (Which does not in any way justify Trump’s open attack on the very notion of even trying to achieve racial equality or even rough parity.)  Further, we are living in a society today that has grown tired of even trying to achieve racial justice, to address even minimally the vast injustices done to black Americans all the way back into slavery.  While I do not know what the solution is, I do know that the naïve left’s “dumbing down” agenda it’s eagerly promoted sixty years ago and since only created another problem, not any kind of solution whatsoever.         

The "Letter to the Editor:" In These Times Refused to Print

 I wrote a highly critical "Letter to the Editor" of the left newsmagazine In These Times on an article it published in its November 2024 issue, Shane Burley's "Jewish Institutions Are Purging Their Staffs of Anti-Zionists and Cease-Fire Activists," which can be found here:  https://inthesetimes.com/article/anti-zionist-israel-gaza-jewish-institutions.  In These Times refused to publish my "Letter," which is not surprising, since In These Times does not publish, it seems, anything critical of its magazine.

Here is my "Letter to the Editor":

To the Editor:

 

Shane Burley’s article in the November 2024 In These Times, “Jewish Institutions Are Purging Their Staffs of Anti-Zionists and Cease-Fire Activists,” elicits the following reaction as a longtime democratic socialist subscriber and contributor to ITT:

 

First, I think that these “pro-Palestine” former staffers at mainstream Jewish institutions are trying to have their proverbial cake and eat it too.  They want to work there as anti-Zionists and pro-Palestinian activists when much of the other staff, the leadership, and even much of the clientele of these mainstream Jewish institutions are going to see them as hostile pro-Hamas infiltrators into these very Jewish spaces, not as genuine, if critical, Jews.  I think a good example of this is the person Burley first documents in his article, Dan Fischer, who was fired for attending an “All Out for Palestine” rally on October11, 2023, a mere four days after Hamas’s violent killings, mutilations, rapes, and taking of hostages in Israel, and well before the Israeli government launched its campaign against Hamas in Gaza.  The leadership of the synagogue where Fischer worked rightly saw this participation as hostile and pro-Hamas, and said so openly to Fischer.  Also, Fischer stated at the rally he attended that he was “proud to be in solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestine,” not even mentioning Hamas, and in fact, de facto conflating the civilian people of Gaza and Palestine with blood-stained Islamist Hamas!  Being “in solidarity with” the murderers, mutilators, and rapists of Jews is hardly a “Jewish value” that commends itself to employment in a Jewish synagogue!

 

Second, it’s the same with all these people who were fired, all of them, tellingly, after October 7, 2023, a “day in infamy” that ranks with Pearl Harbor and 9/11.  All of them will protest, no doubt, that they stand for “inclusiveness,” yet they deliberately “other” all those Jews and Israelis who were murdered, raped, or taken hostage, along with their families, friends, and those who cared deeply about people being victims of such atrocities—be they either Israelis or Jews of the Diaspora.

 

As for wearing the keffiyeh, it, too, changed its meaning after October 7, 2023, and became not just a symbol of solidarity with Palestine, but, since the Hamas butchers themselves wore the keffiyeh while committing their atrocities in Israel, it became as well as a symbol of support for Hamas.  But none of those fired have even one word to say against Hamas!  Not one!  No, they all implicitly conflate support for Palestinians with support for Hamas—and their silence on this very important issue speaks loudly and in volumes!  Keeping on staff those who cannot even condemn Hamas would indeed be difficult for any mainstream Jewish institution—it would be akin to employing someone who cannot condemn the Holocaust!

 

As for a ceasefire, I’m all for it; but it cannot be, as so many pro-Palestinian activists want it to be—a unilateral move on the Israeli side, with no reciprocity from Hamas.  While Netanyahu certainly deserves much blame for there not being a ceasefire, much more blame goes to Hamas, in my opinion.  Hamas’s intransigence in the face of every ceasefire offer proffered is what has prevented a ceasefire to date.  And when there was one, a brief ceasefire and hostage exchange in November 2023, Hamas unilaterally broke it.

 

Last, almost all states have Work at Will labor laws—in the absence of a labor contract, an employee can be fired for any reason, or no reason at all.  Similarly, many employers also have dress codes, which one is expected to conform to as part of employment.  A ban on wearing a keffiyeh would fall under such a code.  Same as, where I work, I was formerly banned from wearing jeans, and had to wear only a company shirt and either black or tan slacks.  One may not like such rules, but they’re there.  And no, wearing a Magen David, or Star of David, necklace around one’s neck is not “political clothing.”  It’s cultural clothing, indicating solely that one is proudly Jewish.  The Magen David existed long before the state of Israel, and was also used by the—Nazis—as a mandatory badge to be worn to mark oneself as Jewish!  If the Magen David means Zionism, then why doesn’t it also mean Nazism?

 

Those are some of my thoughts on Burley’s article from the vantage point of a socialist internationalist upholding the socialist values of secularism and humanism, opposing all right-wing religious fanaticism such as that which animates Hamas, and a democratic, as opposed to an authoritarian, socialist.

 

George Fish,

ITT long-time

subscriber and

several times

published ITT

contributor,

Indianapolis, IN 

 

   

 

 

Yet Another Significant Event for Me This Year: My Well-Regarded August 2024 Leaflet to my Fellow Kroger Employees on Our Upcoming Contract Negotiations, May 2025

 Here's the text.  Two 8 1/2" X 11" pages.

(Updated to reflect the abrupt resignation of Kroger's CEO on March 3, 2025.)

To my fellow Central Indiana Kroger workers and union members

by George Fish, Produce Department Stocker, Kroger J-100, Indianapolis,

and proud member of UFCW Local 700

 

I’m writing you on my own initiative as a fellow Kroger worker and member of UFCW Local 700, a rank-and-file worker like you with some things on my mind concerning our upcoming contract renewal in May 2025. 

 

·     Back in 2000, a minimally “livable wage” was defined by the Indiana Economic Development Commission to be $10.00 an hour.  Today, because of the increase in the cost of living, especially the inflation we’ve experienced since COVID, that minimally “livable wage” would be $18.22 an hour—more than the top of the non-department-supervisor wage set in our last contract of $17.60 an hour!

 

·     In fact, our $17.60 an hour tops causes us to lose money—because the purchasing power of that $17.60 an hour is only $9.66, or as you can plainly see, noticeably less in purchasing power than $10.00 was in 2000! 

 

·     But more.  As union members, we certainly want more than a minimally “livable wage”:  we want, say, 30% over such a minimum, which would bring the wage we justly require to—$23.69 an hour!

 

·     Wages under the 2022 contract increased by only 10%, while inflation of prices reached 25%!  Yes, fellow workers, we’re losing money under our present contract, which is why we must demand much more of the union and Kroger in our upcoming 2025 contract!

 

·     As you can see, fellow workers, we can justifiably demand $24 an hour or even more, so that we’re not losing money at Kroger by working!

 

I’ve informally surveyed as many of my fellow union workers at the store I work at as I could, and they’re all in agreement:  in our next contract we definitely need more money!  Other things they (and I) agree we could use would be a COLA (annual cost-of-living-adjustment, so that our wages don’t fall behind increases in the cost of living), paid sick days (as you know, right now we have none, so that if we’re sick we’re SOL).  Other good suggestions from our fellow workers were Kroger matching 100% our 401(k) pension contributions, more time off and vacation time, speeding up the seniority requirements to get more leave time, part-time workers having the same benefits as full-time ones, so that Kroger can’t play part-timers off of full-timers, a defined path to full-time status for part-timers, an end to contract givebacks to Kroger, and a demand that really resonated with my African American fellow workers, Martin Luther King’s Birthday and Juneteenth as designated paid holidays!  All these things I personally think are good demands we should be insisting on in our next contract, and of course, there may be others.  So, I urge all of you, fellow workers, dialogue among yourselves on what you want to see in our upcoming May 2025 contract.  Remember, May 2025 is not all that far away.  And yes, maybe we should think about, and dialogue about, using the strike option if we must.

(OVER)

Last, I’d like to say, even insist, brothers and sisters, we are the union!  We, the rank-and-file are UFCW Local 700, and also, the whole of the International UFCW!  It’s not just our union reps, or the officers, or the shop stewards, it’s all of us.  And whatever we can gain, we can gain best by dialoguing among ourselves and determinedly standing together!  Yes, despite what it will say, Kroger can afford it, can afford to do much better.  After all, in its proposed merger with Albertson’s, it’s buying out Albertson’s with cash!  Also, former (abruptly resigned, March 3, 2025) Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen made a whopping 502 times in pay alone what the average Kroger worker makes!  Kroger has done very well under the inflation, we ourselves feel it when we buy our groceries at Kroger,

even with employee discounts, so it can definitely do better by us, the backbone of the Kroger system—and its profitability! 

 

We should also change, I think, that provision in our union contracts that states that we, the union workers, will not interfere in the “ordinary business decisions” of Kroger—because so many of those “ordinary business decisions” affect us directly and adversely!  From obnoxious managers to massive shortages of workers in all our departments, to no provisions made when workers are off sick or on vacation so that the rest of us have to double up on the work, to using only part-timers when full-time workers are needed—these are “ordinary business decisions” that affect us vitally in our work at Kroger!  And yes, our say in such should be recognized in contract!  We aren’t just flunkies to be ordered around by the managers! 

 

That’s what I have to say to all of you, brothers and sisters.  So, in ending, I urge you do not only dialogue with me, but with all our fellow Kroger workers and union members as well, dialogue among ourselves, and let’s get a decent contract this time around!  My fellow workers, feel free to e-mail me at georgefish666@yahoo.com.  Put “Union Contract” in the subject matter bar, so it won’t get lost in my Spam filter.  Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, my fellow union brothers and sisters!

   

 

 

Another Significant Event for Me This Year: My Interview as a Working-Class Poet by Real News Network, September 18, 2024

 Here's the link:

https://therealnews.com/when-work-inspires-art-labor-poet-george-fish

Please check it out, give it a listen!  I'm very proud of this interview.

The Most Significant Event for Me this Year: The 2024 Labor Notes Conference Showed that Left Labor Is No Longer Fringe

 

I attended the 2024 Labor Notes Conference Friday, April 19-Sunday, April 21 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in the village of Rosemont, Illinois, just outside Chicago near O’Hare Airport, and was exhilarated.  As was announced at the first Main Session that Friday evening, over 4,600 labor militants attended.  I saw the crowds throughout the Conference, and it was obvious those numbers were right.  Moreover, most of the attendees appeared to be 30 or under, though there was a good mixture of ages among all attendees—people between 30 and 40, as well as middle-aged and even older people, activists in their 40s, 50s, 60s and even older.  (I’m 77, and while I might have been the oldest attendee, I wasn’t sure, as I wasn’t the only hoary movement veteran there!)  Overwhelmingly, attendees wore T-shirts advertising their union or union caucus affiliation, with several unions and caucuses quite prevalent:  UAW and the rank-and-file caucus of that union, United Auto Workers for Democracy (UAWD); Teamsters and Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU); UFCW and Essential Workers for Democracy (EW4D); Machinists; UE and ILWU; National Nurses United; AFSCME; CWA; unions of academics and academic workers, professors, grad students, student employees; Starbucks United; and others.  There were also workers and unionists from outside the US present as well—activists from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Japan, Korea, New Zealand (I had a marvelous discussion at the Conference with a New Zealand activist), Canada, and elsewhere.  (A flight attendant from Thailand related at one of the workshops the successful struggle her union had waged and won—in Thai, ably translated by an interpreter.)  A real cross-section of the union membership.  There were also workshops galore, on a myriad of topics—something for everyone attending, and, from my experience, all the workshops were masterfully led and presented.  Certainly, all the workshops I attended were helpful in giving me the ideas and skills I need for my own workplace organizing.  It certainly was exciting to be there and see what could well be the future of the US labor movement—where the left wing of labor is no longer fringe, but is an integral part of the “mainstream”!

 

The Labor Notes staff did an excellent job of organizing the Conference and providing support for the Conference attendees, while the Hyatt Regency’s unionized staff’s service was marvelous throughout.  It’s quite a chore handling and event of thousands wanting service, meals, and drinks, and the staff more than rose to the occasion.  The staff was highly comprised of immigrants, mostly Hispanic, and I’m sure, a lot of them originally from Mexico—Trump’s “rapists,” “murderers,” and “not their best people”!  But tell that to us, who were so ably served!

 

While the Labor Notes staff encouraged people to wear masks due to Covid, it was voluntary, and many attendees were maskless, or only wore masks some of the time.  Labor Notes also admonished attendees to be civil toward each other, not to name call, etc., but that turned out to be superfluous, as attendees were civil and polite to one another throughout.   After all, more united than divided us, and disagreements with one another were addressed amicably.  A few attendees work keffiyehs to express their support of Palestine, and overwhelmingly, the attendees supported a Gazan ceasefire.  (Parenthetically, I should add here that, while I also support a ceasefire, I support only a ceasefire that is honored by both sides—Hamas as well as Israel, and pointedly note that the last ceasefire and hostage exchange was unilaterally broken by Hamas.  In some discussions on this, I was always addressed civilly and politely by those who disagreed with me, and always expressed my disagreement in a civil and polite way.  Yes, more indeed unites than divides us!)

 

Labor Notes was also present as a vendor, along with several others.  It has a wide variety of merchandise available, of course, including many helpful books for union organizers and activists.  Other vendors included many leading left-wing book publishers and booksellers,  and many leading left magazines, along with the Illinois Labor History Society, and the Labor Studies program at the University of  Massachusetts-Amherst.  The usual left groups and parties were tellingly absent, except for DSA, which had many of its members attending, and Leninist-Trotskyist Solidarity, which was there mostly to promote its magazine Against the Current.  Australian longshoreman/artist Sam Wallman had an exhibit of his labor art, and there was a wall display of left and labor buttons.  The left sectarians were decidedly not in attendance, although hawkers of a magazine called Bolshevik were, along with the Spartacist League, which is urging a vote in Chicago’s Mayoral race for the Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate.  Their presence was confined to the hotel entrance outside, and they were overwhelmingly ignored by Conference attendees.  However, a raucous Spartacist League-led disruption occurred at Friday’s Main Session.  More on that below.

 

TDU held a reception that Friday night, and I attended, getting the chance to hear Teamster President Shaun O’Brien give a rousing speech.  Flight Attendant union leader and militant Sara Nelson was also in attendance, although she did not speak.  (She was present for a workshop.  O’Brien also spoke at a workshop, as did the UAW’s Shawn Fain, all of them as relevant “ordinary” contributors, not as union celebrities).  Friday was a momentous day for the labor movement, and the news was widely shared that night.  The UAW won the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee by a 3-1 margin, Starbucks finally agreed to negotiate with its union, and Trader Joes in certain locations agreed to recognize the independent union organized by its employees.  (Tellingly, these workers had first approached my union, the UFCW, about organizing Trader Joes, but the UFCW told them it wasn’t interested.  A good reason why my union needs EW4D!)

 

At Sunday’s Main Session I heard another rousing speech from labor’s other Shawn, Shawn Fain of the UAW.  Also at the Main Sessions, activists and leaders from unions in Canada, Italy, and Mexico spoke, and all the Main Sessions provided entertainment as part of the program.  Integral to the presentation at the Conference was the Great Labor Arts Exchange, which sponsored workshops on using the arts and writing for building the movement, presented concerts, films, arts contests, and open mics over the length of the Conference—showing that the arts are also integral to the labor movement.  Labor Notes magazine editor Alexandra (Al) Bradbury was awarded the Joe Hill Award by the Great Labor Arts Exchange for her role in encouraging the arts’ presence.  When Labor Notes resumed its every-two-year Conferences following Covid, in 2022, the hotel in Washington D.C. it wanted wasn’t available, as it was booked by the Exchange.  So, Bradbury contacted the Great Labor Arts Exchange and asked it to be part of the Conference.  2024 marks the second time the Great Labor Arts Exchange has had a presence at the Labor Notes Conference, and it will be an enduring presence.  At the Exchanges’ Open Mic, and the next day, Saturday, at an Exchange workshop on poetry, I had opportunities to read two of my pro-labor poems.  I am a published poet and writer as well as an Essential Worker grocery store worker, and so, it is indeed nice to be able to be both a worker and an artist at the same time!

 

At the TDU reception it was announced that TDU, founded in 1975, is now forty-nine years old.  Labor Notes was founded in 1979, forty-five years ago.  It has taken a long time for both to build momentum and to realize results, but those positive results are what we are seeing now.  Consider that Shawn Fain, for example, is now the new face of the national labor leader, so decidedly not the face of the old-style George Meany, Lane Kirkland labor leader!  The Conference was also addressed by the Mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, who himself came out of the Chicago Teachers Union and defeated “Mr. 1%,” Rahm Emmanuel, in the Democratic primary to then become Mayor.  Whatever one might think of the Democratic Party (and there is much about it to still look askance at), a Chicago Democratic Party with a Brandon Johnson at the helm is a far cry form the older Democratic party of Rahm Emmanuel, Jane Byrne, Richie Daley, and his infamous father, Richard Daley.  As Bob Dylan sang, “The times, they are a-changin’.”

                                                                                                                                          

The Conference was overwhelmingly peaceful, except for, as noted above, a raucous “pro-Palestinian” demonstration outside Friday’s Main Session when Mayor Johnson spoke.  Security ably prevented the demonstrators from entering, except for two of the Spartacist League organizers, who were allowed in to display their signs.  The demonstration petered out after Mayor Johnson spoke.  Earlier in the day four people had been detained and arrested by the Rosemont police for allegedly blocking a fire lane, in which there was a gathering of demonstrators; but they were all released without charges later that evening, to the roaring cheers of the Main Session crowd.

 

To end with a little philosophical musing, perhaps all this shows that reality is more “Bukharinist” than “Trotskyist,” i.e., meaningful change, much to the chagrin of our left “revolutionary impatience,” proceeds more “at a snail’s pace” rather than as “permanent revolution.”  In any case, snail’s pace or not, the 2024 Labor Notes Conference showed most  well that positive change is definitely happening.

 

The Conference ended appropriately with the singing of “Solidarity Forever.”  Indeed.