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MY LAI VET SAYS: HERE IT
COMES AGAIN IN IRAQ
Tony Swindell
recalls "Butcher's Brigade" in '69; says "gooks"
have now become "ragheads", every adult male is an
"insurgent" ... atrocities against Iraqi civilians
are soon going to explode in America's face; US Government's courtroom jihads against terror
stumble. Alexander Cockburn on Lodi case where Feds paid $250,000
to man who "saw" world's three top terrorists at mosque.
As neocons
and Israel lobby howl for US to bomb Teheran, an Iranian outlines
simple path to peace. CounterPunch
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In 1906, Upton Sinclair's The
Jungle was published. Almost immediately, it had an impact
on U.S. society that no other book since Uncle Tom's Cabin,
published in 1852, had.
A few short months after its
publication, The Jungle arrived in the halls of power
in Washington and at the dinner tables of the middle class. In
the history of the U.S., few books have achieved the social and
political impact that The Jungle had.
In the novel, the protagonist
Jurgis arrives in Chicago, works in the Packington district and
lives in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. At the dawn of the
20th century, and before Jurgis departs for the U.S., he has
the choice of emigrating to Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina,
Uruguay and other countries in the Americas where there is strong
demand for labor.
He could just as well have
emigrated to Buenos Aires, working in the meat-processing plants
in the El Matador district and lived in a rooming house in a
working- class suburb. What would have connected the Jurgis living
in El Matador to the Jurgis of Packingtown is that both would
have worked for Swift-Armour, the meat packer headquartered in
Chicago.
Let's use the story to envision
this character's life. The Chicago Jurgis comes into contact
with workers of other nationalities, including Mexican workers
and Blacks who have migrated from the South. The Buenos Aires
Jurgis would also have met workers of other nationalities, as
well as cowboys (gauchos) who had moved to the city from the
plains.
Both characters would have
found themselves involved in the workers' movements of 1919 that
shook both Chicago and Buenos Aires. It's very likely that they
would have joined the massive campaigns for unionization that
took place during the 1930s and 1940s, decades in which unions
in both countries attained a certain level of power.
Thanks to that power, the workers
of both countries enjoyed 25 years of prosperity and social welfare
(1945-1970) before entering a long period of unemployment, falling
salaries and decaying social services. It's very possible that
both would have suffered repression against the workers' movement
and rifts with their communities and families. In that way, they
would have lost all that they had gained.
This most recent period has
lasted to the present day. There's no sign that it is nearing
an end. What has changed is that today Jurgis doesn't come from
Europe, but rather from Latin America. His only destination is
the United States, and his name isn't Jurgis, but José
and Maria (Joseph and Mary).
José and Maria belong
to a swelling army: "Globalization's losers." And they
are losers by virtue of the legal status that today's economic
model assigns them: Neoliberalism, the economic system that allows
the market to select the winners and losers.
In their attempt to survive
in the jungle of neoliberalism, José and Maria work under
conditions that are very similar to those that Sinclair described
exactly a century ago.
In this New Jungle, José
and Maria understand clearly that they are needed to work, but
at the same time, they are rejected as neighbors. Moreover, they
have discovered that politicians, journalists and nationalist
groups like the Minutemen use them to sow fear in the rest of
U.S. society, accusing them of "tropicalizing the United
States."
However, José and Maria
begin to realize what their labor represents and what it would
mean if this society had "a day without Latinos."
Throughout the month of March,
immigrants took to the streets: a half million in Los Angeles,
300,000 in Chicago, 40,000 in Milwaukee and New Mexico staged
the biggest mobilizations ever.
Although the nationalists attacked
immigration and immigrants, above all through the English-language
media, José and Maria acted with great dignity during
all the marches. They didn't stay quiet and now they're part
of a new social movement that has spread rapidly around the country.
It began last July when more than 50,000 marched in the Back
of the Yards, the neighborhood Sinclair made famous 100 years
ago.
A century after the publication
of The Jungle, it would seem that history is repeating
itself. It's yet another time when the poorest and most oppressed
offer a way out of the jungle: demanding dignity, equality and
justice for all.
CONTRATIEMPO, A monthly Spanish-language review
of political and cultural issues published in Chicago, printed
this editorial in its April issue, noting the 100th anniversary
of Upton Sinclair's classic novel exposing the meatpacking industry,
The Jungle.
Translation by Lance Selfa.
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