Working Class Society -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sections (TOC) : ---------------------------------- * 1 112 Words; 612 Characters * 2 49 Words; 303 Characters * 3 52 Words; 358 Characters * 4 13 Words; 83 Characters * 5 26 Words; 143 Characters * 6 39 Words; 258 Characters * 7 61 Words; 342 Characters * 8 44 Words; 254 Characters * 9 92 Words; 560 Characters * 10 27 Words; 146 Characters * 11 85 Words; 501 Characters * 12 91 Words; 544 Characters Sections (Content) : ---------------------------------- * 1 [A Westville miner speaks, discussing the saloon question...] "Tis mighty easy to preach temperance, but it's the only decent place we fellows have to go. We have a newspaper to read, another fellow to argue with, and we can put our feet on the table and eat all the free lunch we want. We have a blooming fine fiddler who plays for us-say, wot's a fellow livin' for-all work? Some of us ain't got no wives, and them that has-oh, say! Story books is all right for love stories, but I've seen enough of that sort o' lousiness among the miners, an' I know better'n blamin' the fellows wot doll's go home." * 2 [Anonymous worker participating in direct action committee] I liked those [worker-council] meetings.... I'm not sure they liked me very much, but they were exciting and lively. We made some good decisions, too. I just wish some of others had more guts. You see, I learned my politics in prison. * 3 The "humanization" of the working class, like any other section of the population, crucially depends upon the ability of workers to undo their "workerness" and advance themselves beyond class consciousness and class interest to a community consciousness -- as free citizens who alone can establish a future ethical, rational, and ecological society. * 4 ...the strength of a culture is linked to its roots in working-class life. * 5 Let us not deny our origin, and, in particular, let us not blush for it. Workers we were, workers we are, and workers we shall remain. * 6 The capitalists are perfectly willing that you shall organize, as long as you don't do a thing against them; as long as you don't do a thing for yourselves. ["Revolutionary Unionism," by Eugene V. Debs, Speech at Chicago, November 25, 1905.] * 7 The rank and file of all unions, barring their ignorance, are all right. The working class as a whole is all right. Many of them are misguided, and stand in the light of their own interest. It is sometimes necessary that we offend you and even shock you, that you may understand that we are your friends and not your enemies. * 8 ...it is certainly reasonable to form our opinion of the rank that is due to men of certain professions and stations, from the influence of their manner of life in cultivating the powers of the mind, or in preserving the sentiments of the heart. * 9 Professional activity is a source of special satisfaction if it is a freely chosen one -- if, that is to say, by means of sublimation, it makes possible the use of existing inclinations, of persisting or constitutionally reinforced instinctual impulses. And yet, as a path to happiness, work is not highly prized by men. They do not strive after it as they do after other possibilities of satisfaction. The great majority of people only work under the stress of necessity, and this natural human aversion to work raises most difficult social problems. * 10 You must have seen a sunset when returning from work. You must have been a peasant among peasants to keep the splendor of it in your eye. * 11 The Congress decided that the workers of all lands would demonstrate together for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1890. No one spoke of a repetition of the holiday for the next years. Naturally no one could predict the lightning-like way in which this idea would succeed and how quickly it would be adopted by the working classes. However, it was enough to celebrate the May Day simply one time in order that everyone understand and feel that May Day must be a yearly and continuing institution. * 12 ...the first of May is not at all a holiday for the toilers. No, the toilers should not stay in their workshops or in the fields on that date. On that date, toilers all over the world should come together in every village, every town, and organize mass rallies, not to mark that date as statist socialists and especially the Bolsheviks conceive it, but rather to gauge the measure of their strength and assess the possibilities for direct armed struggle against a rotten, cowardly, slave-holding order rooted in violence and falsehood. Events : ---------------------------------- Working Class Society -- Added : April 14, 2020 About This Textfile : ---------------------------------- Text file generated from : http://RevoltSource.com/