This month is the anniversary of a long-forgotten landmark in American history, the “Great Upheaval” of July, 1877.  It may be surprisingly relevant today.

The Great Upheaval was a movement widely portrayed as a violent rebellion.  In the midst of a national depression, and with unions decimated, railroad workers struck and closed most of the nation’s railroads; crowds battled or won over police, state militias, and Federal troops; roving crowds and general strikes halted work in a dozen major cities.

In a few cities, notably St. Louis, the Great Upheaval became a general strike.  The British consul in St. Louis wrote home:

“The city was practically in the hands of a mob . . .  Parades of the discontented were permitted on all principal streets without a show of countervailing force, and nightly mass meetings were held in the most public places, where thousands of the most ignorant and depraved in the community were made riotous by the incendiary speeches of their orators.”

(His description was perhaps a bit overblown; the St. Louis Globe-Democrat said of one protest march “A more orderly procession has seldom been seen.”)

An informal “executive committee” with delegates from many groups of workers ordered most work stopped and freight trains put in their roundhouses.  But they allowed passenger trains to run and permitted grain mills to operate so that people could have bread.  Workers controlled the life of the city as employers petitioned the executive committee for permission to operate their shops. (more…)

The meeting you probably heard about: At the end of June, leaders from the world’s richest and largest countries met in Toronto, Canada.  As the global economy festered in its worst crisis since the 1930s, as poverty and unemployment tormented growing millions, as climate change devastated more and more people and places, world leaders did nothing to meet human and environmental needs but instead agreed to slash spending for those needs.  They were protected by a police state mobilization that beat and jailed thousands of protestors – at an estimated cost of nearly one billion dollars.

The meeting you probably didn’t hear about: In Vancouver, Canada, on the other side of the North American continent, representatives of 176 million workers in 156 countries and territories met for the Second World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation.  They put forward a visionary but practical program to address the world crisis through a “global new deal.”

World political leaders can think of nothing but trying to put the world back the way it was before the Great Recession.  The ITUC program, in contrast, starts by recognizing that today’s energy, food, jobs, and climate crises are the consequence of that world’s faulty economic model. (more…)

[Cross-posted with HuffingtonPost]

Rising greenhouse gases. Climate change. Rising energy costs. Declining fossil fuels reserves. Now the BP disaster. With the arguments against fossil fuels continuing to pile up it’s no wonder people have latched onto nuclear power as an attractive solution.

Here are eight questions that we should answer before, not after, we head down the nuclear path:

1. Are nuclear hazards any different from other hazards we accept every day?
However unlikely, the potential damage that something goes wrong with nuclear power is way out of proportion to the other risks we choose to take as a society. The Chernobyl disaster continues to teach that lesson: the radiation cloud spread over 27 countries; 500,000 people are estimated to have died from radiation exposure over the last two decades; 1,100 square miles surrounding the reactor remain uninhabitable; 5-8 million people continue to live in the contamination zone causing a surge in infant mortality and children born with deformities. The scale, deadliness, and unstoppability of radiation after leakage or an accident at a mine or power plant make nuclear energy unique. Dare we create an energy system where one mistake could turn an entire American region into another Chernobyl? (more…)

[By Brendan Smith, original posted on HuffingtonPost]

With gallows humor, my fellow oystermen around the country have been passing around a Youtube clip of a 1960 educational film produced by the oil industry entitled “Lifeline to an Oyster.”

This reel explains how in the late 1950’s Louisiana oystermen began sounding the alarm that oil production in the Gulf was killing their oysters. The American Petroleum Institute came to the rescue, donating $2 million to researchers at Texas A&M University to “figure out the problem” by studying the effects of oil on oysters. Any guesses on the results?

Turns out oysters love oil.

According to the narrator, after six months of living in a simulated oil spill “The test oysters showed no ill effects from oil. As a matter of fact the test oysters were so happy they brought forth new generations to share their lot. They never had it so good!” Scientists are shown explaining to eager oystermen why oil is a friend not foe of the oyster industry.

Fast forward 50 years and oil companies like BP remain dedicated to “helping” oystermen. Within days after the initial spill BP, set up employment centers where oystermen and other fishermen had the opportunity to wait in line for temporary jobs “cleaning” the Gulf. Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO soothed fears by explaining amount of oil in the Gulf is “tiny” compared with all that seawater and that the environmental impact will be “very, very modest.” BP even donated $2 million to the Louisiana Seafood Council to figure out how to respond to worried customers asking: “Are these oysters from the Gulf?” (more…)