Time to start blogging again...

Hello pilsenprole readers - if any of you still exist. Yes, it has been a long damn time since I have been maintaining this blog. It has been increasingly difficult, first with my intensified job search in the final months of my nearly two years of unemployment, and than as I started my new job as the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization's (PERRO) organizer to spend anytime composing new material. The really shame is that so much has happened in the past year locally and globally, that should have received more of my attention. So today I am making an extremely tardy new years pledge of sorts and committing myself to make at least a couple posts every month, from now on. Hopefully you may find my posts worthy of a few minutes of your time, and hopefully I can start my self back on the track of my original mission, to inform those who do find their way to my blog about important issues affecting my community, my city and my world.

I will start with posting a piece I wrote a little over a year ago for a special publication by Area Chicago. The publication, entitled Haymarket: 1886-2011 was meant to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the events of Haymarket and the first May Day. The publication included reflections on Haymarket, May Day and the struggle for the 8 hour day from a variety of perspectives. I was asked to write on Pilsen's connections to the events of Haymarket. What I wrote in the end, was an attempt to encapsulate Pilsen's century and a half at the forefront of social struggle.

Unfortunately the publication was released too late to really be featured at any of the many Haymarket commemorations held last year and as a result did not receive much circulation. The published version of my essay was a substantially shortened version with the understanding that the longer version would eventually be published on the web. To my knowledge, this never did happen. So my very next post will be the final unveiling of "1877-2011: 134 Years of Social Struggle in Pilsen", in its entirety, roughly a year from its planned initial release date.

Comments

Best Films of 2023...

Best Films of 2023 Well, it's already early February somehow and award season for the 2023 film year is well underway. 2023 was the first year post-pandemic I was able to see the volume of new films to warrant a top 10 list - a practice I started in 2017 but abandoned after 2020 when like the rest of the world I was mostly forced to watch releases from years past on streaming services. Last year, despite my ongoing poverty, through a host of tricks, streaming services, tight budgets, and the generosity of friends, I was able to see around 40 new releases. For most of 2023, I considered it the YEAR OF DISAPPIONTMENTS . That's still my primary description of the year in film. Long anticipated and ballyhooed new films by Nolan, Scorsese, Fincher, and Wes Anderson to name a few all left me dissatisfied. Not because I am an adoring fan of these directors, but given the high regard with which they are held and given the rich subject matter on which ...

Urgent call for solidarity with Mexican miners...

Reprinted from ILC International Newsletter No. 316, Dec. 17, 2008 The National Union of Mineworkers, Steelworkers, Steelmakers and Allied Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSSRM) is being subjected to fierce repression by the fraudulent government of Felipe Calderon and by the Grupo México, the mining monopoly that seeks to destroy the union. What is the mineworkers" crime? It"s defending the right of workers to decide who their leaders should be without government interference; it"s defending their collective-bargaining agreement. On December 4, Carlos Pavon Campos, Secretary for Political Affairs of the mineworkers" union, was arrested in Mexico City. He was immediately transferred to the city of Monclova in the state of Coahuila (in the north), on charges of alleged fraud. The day before, Juan Linares Montufar, president of the union"s Main Committee of Vigilance, was transferred to Mexico City. Linares Montufar had been arrested in the city of Morelia i...

Financial Crisis Brings Historic Opportunity…

www.whatnowtoons.com Wow, what a difference a few weeks can make. Less than a month ago, every mainstream mass media outlet, U.S. politician, economic analyst, and probably the majority of average citizens would still have been singing the praises of the unfettered free market. Regulation was still a dirty word and privatization was still equated with efficiency and prosperity. Granted, the sand had already begun to shift under this ideological edifice of 30+ years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble had seriously shaken the confidence of some in the system. I had mentioned repeatedly on Labor Express Radio over the Summer the glaring contrast between the soaring gas prices we experienced here in the laissez-faire fuel market of the U.S. as compared to the low and stable prices maintained by the state oil company of our neighbor to the south. But none of that seemed to really change the mainstream belief in this country that free markets solve all prob...

Search This Blog