You are here
My Social Credo
By Arthur J. Miller - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, December 12, 2014
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.
1. ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED: There are many needed struggles, but they are all connected because in one way or another, we all struggle against the same oppressors and the same abusive system. In the natural world all life is connected.
2. LIFE IN BALANCE: Life out of balance with all is the greatest threat we face to our survival. Life out of balance, a violent world of pursuit of greed and power for some at the expense of the many is leaving our world a wasteland of human folly and suffering. Life in balance with all around us is our only means of survival.
3. HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL: The right to exist, the right to food, shelter and medical care, the right to dwell upon the land, the right of free speech, free assembly and the right to organizing for better conditions, the right to live without oppression, should be the rights of all of humankind.
4. DIVERSITY AWARENESSS AND RESPECT: Humankind is a great diversity of cultures. When we treat that diversity with acknowledgment and respect, that diversity becomes our strength and not our weakness.
5. INCLUSION: The oppressed and exploited are a great mass of people. But they are not all the same. Seeking to include all people and their concerns makes real social change possible. Seeking to exclude people makes real social change impossible. For in that you only change things for the better of some at the expense of the many.
6. SELF-DETERMINATION: The oppressed organizing against our oppressions and struggling to control our own fate.
7. SPEAKING FOR OURSELVES: The oppressed and exploited people need to be able to speak for ourselves by means of writing, speaking, art, music and so on, because we are the only ones that are truly able to understand what we are going through. And that understanding is necessary in order to free ourselves from the way things were not meant to be.
8. GENERATIONS IN BALANCE: Creating balance between the old and the new. What came before lays the foundation, the new adds to it and passes it on to the future generations.
9. THE 7TH GENERATION: Instant gratification of greed is a suicidal direction. In all things, look to the 7th Generation to come as to what we do now will effect the future, many Indigenous cultures teach us this.
10. WORKING FOLKS: We live in a class society where those that do the useful work are of a lower class while those that oppress and exploit us exist as a higher privileged class. There is great dignity in the labor of working people, for we do all that is needed for our needs and wants. No society can exist without us. There is no dignity or usefulness in the class that oppresses and exploits us, they do nothing useful, they are unneeded and they stand in the way of the well-being of all.
11. FOR A CLASSLESS SOCIETY: The idle rich on top living off the labor of the classes below them, and thus creating endless class conflict. Organize for a classless society for the peace and well-being of all humanity.
12. REPLACING EUROCENTICISM WITH MULTI-ETHNIC INTERNATIONALISM: Eurocenticism seeks conquest of the world by the domination of a few imperialists, and to impose their cultural/political/economic system on all, which they view as superior to all else. Eurocentic supremacy needs to be replaced with multi-ethnic internationalism. True multi-ethnic internationalism is open to all the knowledge and cultures of the people of the world.
13. ENDING THE GENOCIDE: The Western lands are built upon genocidal policies against the Original People. It is important to understand this so that we can put an end to those policies that started with Columbus and continue to this day. FREE LEONARD PELTIER!
14. BANISHING WHITE DOVES AND MISSIONARIES: Even with movements that may seem different you will find similarities. Both Native folks and Wobblies are continuously faced with the scourge of culture robbers, those parasites who steal our culture, and those that seek to lead us from the outside, as if they are essential and we are incapable children. Some Native activists call these parasites, who serve no useful purpose, white doves and missionaries.
15. RELIGION: Organized religion has become a marriage between spirituality and politicians with the politicians in control. It should be proclaimed to all, by all, that killing in the name of God is blasphemy.
16. THE PEOPLE'S CULTURE: A culture of violence and greed only creates a society of violence and greed. A culture of the creativeness of the people creates a creative society.
17. FREEDOM OF EDUCATION: Free our education of the deceptions of the ruling class. If you know then teach, if you don't know then learn.
18. STOP ABUSING OUR CHILDREN AND ELDERS IN THE MADNESS OF DOMUNATION AND POWER:
19. REJECT! HIERARCHICAL CULTIRAL SUPREMACY, WHITE SUPREMACY, SEXUAL DOMUNATION, SOCIAL PRIVILEGE, and POLITICAL DOMUNATION. REJECT that which oppresses and exploits us all for the benefit of a few.
20. ORGANIZE SISTERS AND BROTHERS!: Only by our direct organizing, in our communities, in our workplaces, around our oppressions and concerns, will we find solutions to our real problems. As we organize at any level we are organizing, not only for what we can gain now, but also we are organizing our means of real social change and the organizational means of a better world.
21. MY TWO Ps: In everything I do my two Ps guide my actions. PREPARATION and PERSISTENCE. Knowledge is power in organization and action. Persistence is the means, for we call what we do a struggle because nothing comes to us easy.
22. GRASSROOTS ORGANIZERS : Organizers, not as leaders but rather as creating opportunities for resistance and rebellion. The goal being, not the recruitment of followers, but rather as organizers seeking to organize ourselves out of a job.
23. USE YOUR IMAGINATION: Learn from the past but use your imagination to create the future.
24. PROGRESSIVE ORGANIZING: Organize based upon where we are at in any given situation and allow for a process where we grow into our organizational forms as we can, rather than trying to create all things at the same time where we spend more time trying to get that to work than we spend organizing around our real needs of struggle.
25. HORIZONTAL ORGANIZATION: Organization in the hands of the people rather than top down organization where the few control the many.
26. DECENTRALIZATION; To develop organization on the grassroots level without centralized bureaucracies.
27. ORGANIZATION BASED UPON NEEDS: Organization of people's needs, by those that are in need and controlled directly by those in need.
28. ORGANIZATION OF PURPOSE: Though we may have amazing dreams of how things could be, those who oppress and exploit us do not play by our rules. We must be able to organize and act in the real world as a power for change while not giving up our pursuit to find better ways to live.
29. ACTION WITH REAL PURPOSE: Action should be based upon tactics that advance our struggles and not be acts of symbolism based upon our fantasies.
30. SELF-MANAGEMENT: Organizational control over labor by those who do the work. Community control by those who live in the community.
31. SELF-SUFFICIENCY: To develop the resources of an area to fulfill the needs of that area as much as possible.
32. BIO-CULTURAL REGIONALISM: To develop autonomous regions rather than massive nation states.
33. FREE ASSOCIATION: The right to create your own associations or disassociation.
34. MUTUAL AID: Aiding each other rather than competing with each other.
35. RESISTANCE: The system and its culture controls us in every moment of life. Thus the resistance to that needs to be a daily affair.
36. SOCIAL SYNDICALISM: Organizing at the source of oppression and exploitation, by the oppressed and exploited themselves and under their control.
37. DIRECT ACTION: Those in need acting directly themselves at the point of where the need is, rather than delegating to others that which we should do for ourselves.
38. SOLIDARITY: Understanding that we all are in struggles together and acting when needed in ways to help is what solidarity is all about. Solidarity is a two-way street and needs to become a way of life.
39. EARTH HEALING: To heal the wounds humanity has inflicted upon Mother Earth for the wealth of a few, and redirecting humanity to live in balance with Mother Earth.
40. PEACE; Putting an end to all wars and eliminating violent conflict from human society.
41. NO LONGER SHALL WE BE COLLATERAL DAMAGE!: The politicians, of all types, use working folks as their collateral damage in their violent pursuits of their agendas. Be it wars, 9-11, or tree spiking, they all believe that the lives of working people are expendable in their great causes. Together, where ever we maybe, we working people need to stand together and proclaim for all to hear: WE WILL NOT BE YOUR COLLATERAL DAMAGE ANY LONGER! And we workers do have the right of self-defense.
42. NO SEPARATE PEACE: Let no oppression or exploitation have to wait at the back of the bus, for no one is free unless we all are free.
43. ANTI-BIGOTRY: Standing up to bigotry and removing it from human society. Such as racism, sexism and all other forms of prejudice based upon who people are unless they are the rulers and lackeys of the dirty rotten system and for that reason alone we outcast them.
44. CREATE SAFE PLACES: Creating safe places for all in our homes, our communities, our workplaces and even within our own organizations.
45. GENERAL STRIKE FOR SAFETY: From the smallest act to the largest act, at all points act directly for our safety at all times.
46. THE STRUGGLE WITHIN: We are all indoctrinated by the dominate culture of those that rule over us. None of us are completely free of all that yet. We must struggle against that culture in every thing we do and think.
47. THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: That which oppresses and exploits us does so beyond mare philosophical theory. It reaches down to every aspect of our lives and it is very personal, that is why we resist.
48. SOCIAL RESPONSIBILY: Taking responsibility for what we produce, how it is produced, how we interact with our communities, workplaces, families and how we treat each other.
49. THE CREATIVE SPIRIT: The creative spirit of the people to face all hardships in our struggles to be free is the same creative spirit that will create a new society.
50. THE ORGANIZED POWER OF THE PEOPLE: When the organized power of the people, in our work places, and in our communities, is greater than the organized power of capitalist class and the state, then we can change the old world by refusing to feed it any longer. We can exist better without them, they cannot exist for a moment without us.
51. THE WELL-BEING OF ALL: Creating a human society that exists for the Well-Being of All rather than the benefit of a few.
52. THIS AIN'T NO GARDEN PARTY: This that we do is called a struggle because it ain't easy! It takes hardships to overcome hardships.
53. DON'T MAKE LISTS: If you make lists of oppressions you will be known more for those that you do not include than those that you do include. Thus I have done just that with this writing and I do apologize to any who feel left out.
54. THIS AIN'T NO MANIFESTO!: My purpose in writing is to create open minds and free discussion of ideas. I do not seek followers of some plan. I am not a leader or social philosopher. I am just an old shipyard worker and solidarity organizer who writes about the world I see around me.
The Fine Print I:
Disclaimer: The views expressed on this site are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) unless otherwise indicated and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s, nor should it be assumed that any of these authors automatically support the IWW or endorse any of its positions.
Further: the inclusion of a link on our site (other than the link to the main IWW site) does not imply endorsement by or an alliance with the IWW. These sites have been chosen by our members due to their perceived relevance to the IWW EUC and are included here for informational purposes only. If you have any suggestions or comments on any of the links included (or not included) above, please contact us.
The Fine Print II:
Fair Use Notice: The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of scientific, environmental, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc.
It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal or technical advice.