Sabots and sans-culottes

When I wrote this externalized dialogue in my head, I had something almost exactly like this in mind:

"U.S. District Court Judge Ronald B. Leighton said Thursday afternoon there are legitimate issues between the union and EGT Development, owner of a $200 million superterminal in Longview. But he told the union's lawyers in a hearing that 'you are the messengers' and that they must get control of their clients.

The hearing came after the long-simmering labor dispute turned violent about 4:30 a.m. Thursday, and as Longshoremen stayed off the job in Anacortes, Tacoma, Everett and Seattle. Port spokesmen said they have no information about when Longshoremen may return to work.

At least 500 Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview and broke out windows in the guard shack, according to Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha. As men wielding baseball bats and crowbars held six guards captive, others cut brake lines on boxcars and dumped grain, according to Duscha."

I understand that cautious and temperamentally conservative people will argue that rash and intemperate actions endanger labor's position in our brutal and simultaneously complacent society. Others, especially those possessed of a need to chase the meth high of dialecticism, might insist that everything must occur at its appointed hour, when conditions have ripened and proper historic and revolutionary awareness has developed.

To which I write - labor has never been weaker. Theory has never been less likely to persuade actual workers* with actual concerns to act/wait for the right moment.

I don't know if that's a cause for celebration. Probably not. I personally don't subscribe to the school of thought predicated on the belief that if conditions continue to deteriorate, good and noble souls will rise up to right the wrongs. Then again, I think Jefferson was also wrong about the "natural aristoi," so...

Here's what I know: some longshoremen "cut brake lines...and dumped grain." They've also shut down ports in the Northwest. And that a judge hearing the time-wasting and spectacular portion of the longshoremen's dispute with ownership is pissed enough to chastise union suits for failing to keep their flanneligans under proper control:

"In court Thursday afternoon, Leighton said the violence, vandalism and threats must stop now.

'They do no good for their cause' by acting like hooligans, he said of the union members.

'This is a mature process that requires restraint,' Leighton said. 'Your clients have none of that.'..."

When a hundred hands of longshoremen can get a federal judge in such a tizzy that he demands they act with restraint and within a "mature process," they are fucking well doing something right.

And that is worth celebrating.


* - ...yes, "the proletariat" is a symbol/model which is in desperate need of revision...

(h/t I Cite)