Re: [sixties-l] Re: New Left into unions

From: William Mandel (wmmmandel@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Mar 22 2002 - 15:50:43 EST

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    How many is an oodle? I thought the issue was that of blue-collar work,
    based on the notion that the proletariat would be our savior.
       There have been some negative outcomes. For example, the first wife
    of one of my sons was a truly talented sculptor. I still have a couple
    of her pieces. She became a heavy-industry worker, is no longer that,
    but her gift as an artist went to waste. This is not new. Bob Minor, a
    Texan one-time house painter, became the country's most famous political
    cartoonist some eighty years ago with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He
    then moved to the Daily Worker, and did works of tremendous force. But
    when he became part of the top political leadership of the Communist
    Party, he abandoned his crayons entirely.
        I have no particular idea to present, other than the thought that in
    the long view of human history, the number of artists who populate the
    greatest museums, or writers whose plays are performed 2,000 years after
    they were written, or whose musical work is perpetuated in recordings,
    or whose dancing may be seen in films of the past century is vastly
    greater than the number of political figures, even of heroic stature,
    who are worth remembering.
                Bill Mandel

    PNFPNF@aol.com wrote:
    >
    > There were oodles of I.S.'ers and, I believe, some YSAers on the
    > Berkeley left scene in the late 1960s who went into union
    > rank-and-file organizing. Some with the Teamsters, some with AFSCME,
    > some as librarians or teachers, etc.
    > Paula

    -- 
    

    ======================================================== My autobiography, SAYING NO TO POWER (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999), was written for the general reader. However, if you teach in the social sciences consider it for student reading. It is a history of how the American people fought to defend and expand its rights in my lifetime, employing the form of the life story of one who was involved in most serious movements: labor, student, peace with the USSR, civil rights South and North, civil liberties (I seriously damaged the Senate Internal Security Committee, the McCarthy Committee, and the House Un-American Activities Committee with spectacular testimonies that may be heard/seen on my website, http://www.billmandel.net ), the RADIO OF DISSENT (37 YEARS ON PACIFICA), with very extensive information on its history) and the feminist movement, although I am male. The book contains some fifty pages on my late wife, Tanya, appearing appropriately throughout the book. They may be found in the index under Mandel, Tanya. My activities began in 1927. I am 84. The book is available through all normal sources. If you want an autographed copy, send me $23 at 4466 View Pl., Apt. 106, Oakland, CA. 94611 ========================================================



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