I’m off!
I leave tonight for the socialism conference in NYC, then to Hartford CT for a few days, returning Tuesday. My blogging can be done from anywhere, so barring technical glitches, I’ll be posting regularly.
I will be going from LA, 76 degrees and nice, to New York City, which will be about 26 degrees and snowing heavily – assuming the plane can land that is. It’s a non-stop flight from LA and I’ll betcha some passengers will be wearing sandals and t-shirts and be utterly unprepared for the Nor’easter that awaits them.
Nor’easters can occur in the eastern United States any time between October and April, when moisture and cold air are plentiful. They are known for dumping heavy amounts of rain and snow, producing hurricane-force winds.
The conference is sponsored by Workers World, and is open to all. The plenaries and workshops will be a mix of theory and practicality with, I think, a major emphasis on organizing – building coalitions, keeping the antiwar movement pumping, linking up with similar struggles elsewhere, etc.
It looks to be fascinating and fun. Hmmm, I wonder if I’ll be able to spot the undercover police. Oh silly me, I must be paranoid; after all, under John Ashcroft, I’m sure law enforcement will have no interest in a legal peaceful assembly of dissidents. That only happens in Bad Scary Countries, right?
PS In case you think anti-Free Trade protests are a new idea…
<Capitalism> has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade.
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.
And we still hear that cry today, that business must be allowed to do whatever it wants, anywhere it wants, without interference from government or law. To which I respond with one word – Enron.