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occupied-retirement · 1 year

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It’s Been A Long Time Coming to write this blog (2018)

I started this blog back in 2012, not too long after I retired from what I thought was my last paid organizing job and before a trip I was about to take to Spain. Since then, I’ve managed to contribute absolutely no blog posts to this page and life sure has taken me in a lot of directions I couldn’t have predicted when I wrote that post about Spain and the Spanish Civil War back in 2012.

So to catch up a little on my retirement life, I’ll start with 2018 and then work backwards a bit later to share in this blog what has led up to this year of my participation in a bunch of iconic happenings in a number of countries I visited. I’m going to write about organizing work, politics and the difficulties of living in the USA under Trump in a separate post. This one is going to focus on the lighter side of life and the serendipitous set of iconic events I was excited to participate in this year.

I’ve been living in between San Salvador, El Salvador more than half of each year and Salem, OR since the summer of 2012, and this year I left El Salvador in March after volunteering for the fourth time to help out with a delegation of international observers to watch the disastrous congressional and municipal elections with the right regaining power in the National Assembly and many of the departments and municipalities, following somewhat in the same path as the 2016 election of our president in the USA.

Earlier in the year I agreed to accept a 16 month long, three quarter time job coordinating a new organizing fellowship program with the Rural Organizing Project in Oregon. More on this later as it is partly in response to the DJT election and other political events taking place in the USA.

But, I had already planned a big two-month long journey/vacation before I accepted the job and so on April 13th, I flew to Miami, met up with my friend and former co-worker Ann, and we boarded a cruise ship for a trans-Atlantic crossing which would take us to Southampton, England, then for a short round trip over to Le Havre, France, then for another week-long round trip up to the Fjords in Norway – linking a 15 day cruise, a short 3 day party cruise, and a 7 day scenic Fjords cruise together for us on one ship. After that, I’d leave Ann and walk over to the train station in Southampton and take a train to Cardiff to join my brother at an apartment we rented for six weeks in Cardiff Centre across the street from the Millennium Stadium and the Cardiff Arms Park – my second time spending extended time in Cardiff since my retirement and my fourth visit to Wales. The plan was to spend time in Wales, visit with my cousin and her husband who live in Carmarthenshire, enjoy hanging out in the city and countryside , and after Bob’s partner Jan joined us, fly up to Iceland to meet up with friends Lorene and Jess from Oregon and spend another week there – partly in Reykjavik and partly out in western Iceland at the home of lifelong Icelandic friends of Lorene. And all of that happened. But along the way all of this did too:

When the ship docked in Portugal on the route to Southampton it was Independence Day – a chance to celebrate the fall of the fascist dictatorship called the Carnation Revolution on April 25, 1975 and to talk about it with the locals and wander the city on a festive day. It was also an opportunity to reflect on how long it takes to break the chains after a country is taken over by right-wing dictatorial regime.

In Cardiff – the Cardiff Bluebirds, the city’s football club (AKA soccer), had recently been moved up into the premier league. Many people were sporting their Visit Malaysia shirts (who knew what that meant? Not me. Found out the owner of the team is Malaysian and the shirts were a premium at a game). We were in town for the big parade to celebrate the team – and the rally in front of Cardiff Castle.

Then – what else was happening in the UK while we were there? Well – the royal wedding of course. Wedding mania – the BBC and the BBC Wales were solid wedding coverage and there were a lot of other weddings going on in that month too – so many hen and stag parties in Cardiff Centre! Beyonce and Jay Z showed up while we were there too for a big stadium concert that brought a huge crowd to the city too.

And then…..the 100th Anniversary of the first women (and working class men) getting the right to vote in England in 1918 (not all women I have to add here – a lot of misinformation about the facts of this) – but it was a significant breakthrough. So – in all four of the capital cities of the UK (London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast) there were huge women’s marches sporting the colors of the original suffragettes – purple, green and white – and Jan and I marched with 10,000 Welsh women while Bob took photos. Men were not allowed in the march.

And then….off to the Republic of Ireland. This was not part of my original plan but through my friend Brooke who I am connected to through election work in El Salvador, I was connected to a Canadian woman organizing an observation of the vote to liberalize abortion laws in Ireland. Since I was already in Cardiff and she knew the travel costs would be minimal she asked me if I’d like to participate and since I have worked on abortion rights in the USA of course I was interested. She connected me with Sherrida, amazing new Welsh friend, who picked me up in Cardiff and drove us to Pembrokeshire to take the ferry to Ireland and introduced me to several historic sites there – a short vacation ahead of the delegation that included Glendalough and the fabulous Newgrange. I then got to spend some time in downtown Dublin, several days with a retired teacher in South Dublin and a day observing the vote in 10 schools in her area (8 Catholic, one Muslim, one denominational – all publicly funded) and then observing the count in South Dublin as well. It was a historic vote – 65-35 countrywide to approve legalization of abortion! After our debrief session and a bit of a tour of downtown Dublin with Margaret, we took the ferry back from Dublin to Holyhead and I had a chance to see even more of the northern part of Wales and the mountainous areas of Snowdonia National Park. The abortion vote in Ireland, and their previous votes on approving divorce and gay marriage, were thought-provoking as well. It is much harder for the right-wing to continue to fight back against a resounding democratic vote than a court decision like we have had in the USA on both gay marriage and abortion. It was also interesting to hear that the majority of the anti-abortion funding came from USA sources.

Then on to Iceland for the last of the iconic happenings I experienced across the pond. Our third day in Iceland was the day of Iceland’s first game ever in the World Cup of Football (AKA soccer) and the entire country (or so it seemed) turned out to watch it on big screen TVs outside in rainy downtown Reykjavik. Since Iceland has only about 350,000 people and Argentina has about 55 million, it hardly seemed like a fair match up but Iceland held their own and it ended in a tie which definitely felt like a victory!

Since returning from that trip, we’ve had midterm elections in the USA and in Oregon we beat back four bad ballot initiatives including anti-immigrant, anti-choice and anti-tax ones and gained seats in our State House and Senate, re-elected our female Governor, elected the first African-American woman to the Portland City Council and had some other local victories so there is hope that changes can take place in the nation too.

I don’t expect 2019 to be quite as exciting for me personally as 2018 was – at least for someone who loves traveling as much as I do, but I am going to travel across one major threshold in 2019 – I’m going to reach the age of 70. Ojala!

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occupied-retirement · 1 year

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“Maybe one day it might become a criminal offense to allow someone to go hungry.”

I plan to visit Spain for the first time later this year and I just ordered novels and non-fiction about Spain from my local library after I reviewed lists and links my cousin Marty, a retired Spanish teacher and traveler, sent to me. I added a few films to my list after I did a quick search of Netflix. I was a bit surprised to find “The Good Fight” there – a 1984 documentary about US citizens who went to Spain to fight for the Republic against Franco in the 1930’s prior to the US entry into WWII. I had seen it years ago and I watched it again last week to refresh my memory about Spain’s peasants and workers struggles against the Franco dictatorship. It is a film that is well worth watching if you haven’t seen it.

Before I went to college I had never even heard of the Spanish Civil War. Luckily I took a class from Dr. Robert Colodny, a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who had almost been drummed out of the University of Pittsburgh during the McCarthy era. He managed to survive redbaiting attacks and taught history there until his retirement. He wrote a moving short memoir about his time in Spain and he taught us about the failures of US policy in preventing Hitler and Franco from defeating a democracy and installing Franco as dictator of Spain where he ruled until the 1970’s. My dad was a somewhat Archie Bunker kind of conservative. Like a lot of parents and right-wing politicians in those days he blamed my activism on those “radical professors” and I guess he was at least partially correct.

What is really moving about the film are the stories of several veterans of the Brigade – male and female, African-American and white, Christian, Jew and atheist – who risked death, loss of citizenship, and extreme hardship in Spain to step in and fight against Fascism because they identified with the working class of Spain. The US government refused to intervene or send supplies and arms to the Republican army that defended the democracy in Spain. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade was the USA’s first truly racially integrated army. Half of the American citizens in the brigade died in Spain.

Many Americans worked in the United States to support the Republicans. They petitioned the government to lift the embargo on Republican Spain to send arms to the Republic. Union workers held fundraising events, collected goods – food, clothing, ambulances – as did Harvard students and workers. Cab Calloway and Fats Waller entertained at a Dance for Spain and A. Philip Randolph, Helen Keller, John Houseman, Albert Einstein, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, Paul Robeson and Lillian Hellman all spoke out against Hitler and Franco. In 1938 “Blockade,” a film starring Henry Fonda as a Spanish peasant, highlighted the struggles against Fascism. Eventually 75% of Americans who knew enough to have an opinion supported lifting the blockade, but it was never lifted – and US oil companies sold oil to the Fascists and the government allowed Germany and Italy to arm them – up until we were attacked at Pearl Harbor. Sounds familiar huh?

The American Lincoln Brigade was forced to leave Spain as the Republic fell to Franco and the forces backed by Hitler. Bill Bailey, a worker featured in the film, was – along with many of the returning volunteers- branded as a “premature anti-Fascist.” In other words, since they opposed Hitler before our government and corporations did, they were blocked from work, threatened with loss of their citizenship and faced with other reprisals. But Bill said as he left Spain, “You didn’t think in terms of defeat because the people were there cheering for us. We felt we were going to carry on in another front – even if it wasn’t in Spain.”

Despite the defeat of the Republic of Spain, the loss of so many volunteers from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and the failure of the United States government to defend the people who identified Hitler as a threat and worked to defeat his armies prior to our country’s entry into World War II, Bill tried to hold on to his optimism throughout his life. In his interview, he said that he keeps on fighting because “maybe one day it might become a criminal offense to allow someone to go hungry.”

And isn’t that what many of us who are engaged in our own versions of “the good fight” hope for? That one day, it will be more of a crime to deny the humanity and survival of other human beings and our planet than to rob a bank?

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occupied-retirement · 1 year

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Introducing Me and My Blog (2012)

I retired from full-time movement work in July of 2011 when I left my job as Leadership Development Coordinator for the AFL-CIO. I took a few months off from work and traveled, caught up on personal business, hosted some friends from the south, renewed connections with some Oregon friends, and enjoyed the Oregon summer and early fall. Currently I’m doing part-time work with the Alliance for a Just Society and I serve on the boards of Western States Center and the Rural Organizing Project.

Now I am figuring out what it means to be “retired” when so much of my life is tied to activism. I’ll be reflecting more on that topic in my upcoming blog posts.

I love travel, my local library (novels, history, biography and autobiography), independent and documentary films, and going out to hear music. I live near downtown Salem and I’m committed to getting to the pool several times each week and doing as many of my errands on foot as possible. I’m learning to cook new recipes and rely as much as possible on locally grown foods. I have a network of friends around the country who I enjoy spending time with. Last year I took a month-long trip with my brother to Paris and the UK and connected with our Welsh cousins. This year I’m traveling to El Salvador with CAUSA, Oregon’s immigrant rights organization, and to Spain with a couple of friends.

My roots are in western Pennsylvania and each of my parents had a Welsh and an English parent. My grandfathers both worked in the steel mills in Homestead and my maternal grandmother was a seamstress in a baby clothes factory and later worked in a hospital laundry doing mending. My paternal great-grandfather was killed in the Homestead mill in an industrial accident and my grandfather Howell went to work there at age 12 to help support his mother and 4 other children. My mom was a secretary for our local school board and my dad worked on-site at big construction projects doing payroll, purchasing, and managing the trailer office and moved around from place to place where the company he worked for was building roads and bridges. I like looking at bridges because my dad got me interested in them.

I started my organizing career in 1973 with ACORN in Ft. Smith Arkansas. I worked with Oregon Fair Share (now Oregon Action), Oregon NARAL and national NARAL (now NARAL Pro-Choice America) in the late 1970′s and early 1980′s. In 1982 I moved to North Carolina and directed the Carolina Community Project, founded NC Fair Share, and then worked regionally in the south with Grassroots Leadership and South Carolina United Action. During that time I had the opportunity to be connected to programs led by the Center for Third World Organizing and the Applied Research Center based in Oakland, CA. I returned to Oregon in the mid-90′s to work as a trainer with Western States Center. In 1997 I moved back to NC to work for the AFL-CIO as a field representative and later became the Deputy Director for the Southern Region and then coordinator of national leadership development programs for staff and elected leaders of our local and state organizations.

Starting with my time at Grassroots Leadership I committed myself to embedding an anti-racist perspective into organizing and training work I am involved in. I am one of the founding members of the National Organizers Alliance and NOA has been an important place of connection and support for me. Through my regional work in the south and northwest, I have met and worked with many amazing organizers and organizations around the country. I am very excited to see the growth of the Occupy movement.

I’m looking forward to writing more in this blog about my retirement plans and questions, my reflections on my work as an organizer and current events, and the travel I’ll be doing over the next couple of years. I’m also including links to organizations I mention on the side bar on my blog page. I hope my readers will comment and both challenge and add to what I have to say.

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