The Wobblies Are Among Us

One of the most storied unions in American history, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), best known as the Wobblies, has moved its international headquarters to Cincinnati. The IWW has set up operation at Knowlton’s Corner, 4001 Hamilton Ave. in Northside.

Founded in 1905, the Wobblies used to cause fits for the barons of capital, organizing strikes and demonstrations in the mining, railroad and textile industries. Heavily repressed by the federal government for its opposition to U.S. participation in World War I and by local police determined to break up strikes, the Wobblies were always a tuneful bunch, their history memorialized in “They’ve Shot Joe Hill” and other classics of The Little Red Songbook.

The IWW welcomes members who don’t work in union shops. To learn more, call 513-591-1905 or visit www.iww.org.

The importance of organized labor was one of the topics of a recent online newsletter from the Hamilton County Democratic Party, pointing to the tragic deaths of coal miners in West Virginia. The Democrats are making increased use of the Internet to spread their message.

The current edition features a column by Party Chair Tim Burke on the theme of electoral reform as practiced by the Republicans who control the Ohio Statehouse. While a proposal to require voters to present identification at election polls has attracted controversy, little notice has been given an equally disturbing change, according to Burke.

Substitute House Bill 234, which becomes effective Friday, requires ID for people requesting absentee ballots. But more important is a change in how those ballots will be counted, Burke says.

Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has issued an advisory saying county boards of elections may not count absentee ballots until first ascertaining that people who received them didn’t also cast provisional ballots. Because absentee ballots make up as much as 12 percent of the total, the ruling could mean results available on Election Night will be significantly different from the final official tallies.

“If adjustments are not made to either the legislation or Secretary Blackwell’s interpretation of it, the outcry on Election Night from the media, the candidates and the public at large when they realize how truly uncertain the ‘unofficial count’ has become will be enormous,” Burke writes. “We will have created yet another reason for people to doubt the integrity of our elections system. At a time when it is critically important to remove such doubt, this is a step backwards.”

Horses’ Asses on Stage and at Funerals
It should be a diverse group that protests former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett’s speech Thursday at the University of Cincinnati. Bennett most recently angered African Americans by suggesting that aborting all black babies would reduce the crime rate; the threat of protests apparently forced him to postpone his UC visit late last year. Now that he’s rescheduled, the UC College Democrats, the International Socialist Organization and the Ohio Patients Network — a medical marijuana advocacy organization — plan to “welcome” Bennett.

He’s scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Great Hall at the Tangeman University Center on the topic “Politics, Culture and War.” Protests begin at 6 p.m.

Few right-wing religious nuts are as odious as the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., whose Web site is www.godhatesfags.com. Convinced that God has condemned the United States for letting homosexuals run riot, the church issues noxious press releases celebrating such tragedies as the West Virginia mineworkers’ deaths, Hurricane Katrina and the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year the church threatened to picket the funeral of a Fairfield soldier killed in Iraq. In an effort to prevent such outrages, State Rep. John Boccieri (D-New Middletown) is introducing legislation to restrict protests at funerals.

“My fear is that this hate group may team up with other fringe groups organizing in Ohio and begin protesting at military funerals,” Boccieri says. “These demonstrations are disruptive, inappropriate and appalling.”

The bill would require a 300-foot buffer for demonstrators around all funerals, starting 30 minutes before the funeral and continuing for 30 minutes afterward.

Boccieri is a C-130 Pilot in the Air Force Reserves and has served in the U.S. war on Iraq.

Meanwhile Art Gish of Athens, Ohio, well known to Cincinnati peace activists, hopes to soon join his wife Peggy in Iraq, where she is serving with a Christian Peacemaker team. Art is doing similar work in occupied Palestine. In a recent e-mail to supporters, he detailed some of his experiences while working in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

“Many of you already know that our apartment in Hebron has been searched by soldiers four times in about two weeks time,” Gish writes. “The last time, they found some spent bullets, tear gas canisters, etc. that we have picked up off the streets. The five people in the apartment were taken to the police station for three hours and then released. While they were gone, someone entered our apartment and stole four computers, a camera, etc. We do not know if it was the Israeli military or thieves. We lost a lot of information, some of which could be useful to Israeli intelligence.”

This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2006.