Dawn of the Unthinkable (15 page)

His grandfather, a quiet strong man, was
often sought out for his opinion. He would give it thoughtfully,
honored that his countrymen and the more learned citizens of the
country would value what he, a man who had only went to the second
grade at school, had to say. His countrymen always pleaded with him
to run for a position in the union, but he had declined, not quite
trusting that this group of rag-tag leaders could accomplish
anything other than getting him thrown out of a job. He later was
ashamed after he heard of the bravery of the union leaders, some of
which lost their lives over their ideals. By the 1920s, the union
was the rival in power to any around at that time, and big business
was actually losing some battles. Palma was convinced of the
union’s effectiveness but was now too old to run, and the people
who would vote for him had moved on or died. Big businesses began
to beseech the government to get involved, and it did with the
arrest of hundreds of union leaders in the 1920s. The charges
against them were mostly trumped up, but juries eager to believe
hotshot government attorneys convicted the leaders of crimes, and
they were given long sentences. The union’s back was broken and
membership declined. Palma knew that new leadership was needed, so
he pinned his hopes for helping the movement on his son,
Enrico.

Enrico was a fiery orator who could move
crowds to action with his words. He had led many actions against
the farm owners, and as a result, the Napa Valley farm workers had
some of the best conditions of any itinerants in the country. They
had housing with running water, schools for their children, and
weekends off. Eventually, the farmers found his weakness for wine
and women and sent wave after wave of attractive Mexican
prostitutes after him, effectively rendering him useless. He was
eventually shot dead by his jealous Irish wife who tired of his
philandering. She escaped back to Ireland, from where she had come
to be a nanny. She left her two children, Luis and Anna, to be
raised by their aunt, as they would never have been accepted in her
country. Luis was too young at the time to remember much of either
parent, but his aunt was kind and worked hard, and Luis prospered.
His aunt, who was a Wobbly as were most of their Philadelphia
neighbors, regaled him with stories of struggles of the past and
recalled wistfully the triumphs of his father. She sighed when he
asked them about how things were now.

“Oh Luis, things are not good, not good,”
she said. “There was a time when we were feared, when we were a
power to be reckoned with.” Her eyes shined with the memories.
“Your father was a man who could make ordinary words sing, and the
men would carry out his orders!” she recalled proudly. “But now, we
are trod on again, as these farmers join collectives to trade ideas
about how to cheat us,” she said. “If only your father hadn’t been
so taken with the
putas
and the
vino,
he would still
be here, leading us,” she said as she made the sign of the cross.
“Of course, we all told him not to marry the
gringo
in the
first place. She only lusted for him; she did not love him,” she
said, as she made an imaginary spit on the ground.

Luis could not help but smile at his aunt’s
exaggerated mannerisms; she was pretty good with a story herself.
But her words troubled him, first about his parents, and then about
the union’s decline. His parents he could do nothing about, his
father was beyond his reach, and his mom, well, who knew what
became of her. She certainly hadn’t tried to find out about him,
and he was now thirty-nine. He felt that of all the people he had
heard about or known in his family, he took after his grandfather
the most—quiet but respected. He had eventually developed a
compelling speaking ability, not being fiery like his father, but
intense and dramatic. He had decided to make the union his life’s
work and set about improving his local branch, being elected its
leader, then moving up the ranks within the International
framework. His ability to get along with people of different
nationalities was a big asset, but his looks and charm worked with
the ladies, a fact he took advantage of. He never married,
preferring to keep the allure of availability, but he was at times
thinking that maybe it was time to settle down. At other times he
enjoyed playing the field. But if the membership numbers kept
trending down, he might be forced out and lose the only job he had
ever known.

As it was, he would drive a wife nuts, he
realized. He was on the road constantly, helping organize locals in
all ends of this country and others. The frequent flier miles he
logged helped pay for his travel, as did his staying in member’s
houses when he went somewhere. He took only a small salary;
companies eager to exploit his knowledge of different countries and
cultures had offered him much more. He himself thought he would be
suited more toward something in the State Department, for even
though the union was not overly fond of the government, he did not
want to spend his whole life fighting everyone. It could actually
get a little tiring at times when the people he was organizing job
actions for were just plain lazy.

But overall most of the people he worked for
really needed help. Either unable to speak the language or able to
speak it but not having enough education to fend for themselves,
they were often the target of unscrupulous business owners. The
sweatshops he had seen employing children, or immigrants forced to
sell trinkets on subways for fifteen hours a day, those were people
who needed his union. And he had learned how to be effective,
instead of being a rabble-rouser. He knew how to maneuver in the
political arena and get things changed without resorting to
strikes, which he liked to keep as his ace in the hole.

But here, despite his best efforts, his
membership figures in all countries were declining. He needed an
issue to hang his hat on, something to really grab people’s
attention. He knew he had the overall numbers in his favor, as
there were millions of people living at or near the poverty level
in the United States and certainly throughout the rest of the
world. The problem was that these people often did not bother to
vote or join his union, so they essentially had no representation
at all. He knew from personal experience that if you were a
minority and came to “the man” with absolutely no one to recommend
you or speak up for you, you were often treated like dirt. And
instead of finding the resources they needed to better their lives,
they often turned to crime, drugs, or alcohol, and effectively
neutralized themselves. They had helped create a whole industry,
the justice system, for a mostly white ruling class. These people
became cops, judges, and prison guards and had many generations of
their family incarcerating the people he represented.
The
billions of dollars wasted on this
, he thought with disgust.
The criminals spent their time robbing or whoring to get the money
to pay other criminals for drugs, which were wholesaling from yet
other criminals outside our country. And then more money was wasted
trying to catch and incarcerate all of these people.
If only
those resources could be diverted into something more
productive,
he thought.

Well, he was trying. His union emphasized
democracy, fairness, and dignity for all. He had memorized the
preamble to the union’s constitution and would recite it to himself
or others when he was feeling down:

The working class and the employing class
have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and
want are found among millions of the working people and the few who
make up the employing class have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go
on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take
possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and
live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the centering of the management
of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions
unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class.
The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of
workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same
industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars.
Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the
workers into the belief that the working class has interests in
common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the
interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed
in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all
industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is
on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an
injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair
day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner
the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.”

It is the historic mission of the working
class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be
organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists but also
to carry on production when capitalism shall be overthrown. By
organizing industrially, we are forming the structure of the new
society within the shell of the old.

He knew these words by heart and had
examined them and the rest of the constitution and found it to be a
document he believed in. The constitution went on to emphasize
fairness and democracy in the selection of officers, term limits
for officers, and the valuation of all members’ opinions. The goals
were something a man could devote his life to, and he was proud
that he held a position that previous members had paid a heavy
sacrifice to establish. He wanted to do them the honor of expanding
their vision, winning more converts to it, and making their dream
come to realization.

If only he could find the one idea to unite
and push.

Ryan wanted to get his work-in-progress
done, so he pushed himself to finish. He was impatient to see what
people’s reaction would be, so he started collecting addresses from
magazines, Internet sites, and other sources for people who might
be interested in a new form of government and society. He got the
addresses for all the talk shows, senators, congressmen, the
President, and the Secretary of Treasury, as well as some other
organizations that had a world opinion. It came to about fifty
names, so there was some expense involved with all the copying and
postage. But if there were some sacrifices to be made, then
hopefully there would be some long-term gain.

He knew he had to deal with religion and
then summarize. His last real brush with religion was when Donna
died. He felt the familiar pain of her loss well up in him again,
and involuntarily the smell of incense the priest had waved over
her coffin came back to him. Religion was a tricky issue because
Americans had cherished the separation of church and state from
inception. But really, with religious institutions not having to
pay taxes, they were in effect already being supported by the
government. In a system of no money, there had to be some means of
supporting the many churches, synagogues, mosques, and all the
other places of worship. The state would have to support these
places but in a way that didn’t favor one over another, nor
interfere with their teaching. He figured the best way to handle it
would be to have society vote prior to the conversion as to what
percentage of society’s assets would best support these
institutions and adjust it yearly from there. He thought that the
amount that some religions tithed, ten percent, would work to
start, and it could be adjusted when it was seen if that was
enough. The way that ten percent of assets would be divided was as
a percentage of how many members each denomination had as a whole.
For instance, if the Catholics represented fifty-one percent of the
total amount of people that belonged to an organized religion, then
they would receive fifty-one percent of the ten percent. In this
way, religious organizations would get what they needed in order to
exist. Each year, the percentage of total assets devoted to
religion as a whole would be reviewed to make sure they were not
getting more than they needed. That would keep it somewhat fair to
those who did not affiliate with any organized religion.

He knew this idea would piss the agnostics
and atheists off, but he saw no other way to do it. The assets that
would be turned over would only go to support the physical plant of
each religion, its leaders and schools, and certain missionary
work. It was not in the best interest of the pooled assets to
support one group’s missionaries over another, as that would give a
particular religion an advantage in recruiting members. While it
was important to teach other cultures about each particular
religion’s beliefs, it was probably more important to try to ensure
better attendance at the United States’ churches and synagogues
first, as his plan would require heavy support from the religious
to succeed. Indeed, if he was trying to come up with a plan that
would eradicate hunger, greed, and pestilence, how could the
religions not support it? Of course, they might be queasy about
turning over control of their destiny to the masses, but he was
sure that it would work out. They had too great a stake in it
succeeding to not support the movement.

When he finished writing the religion
section, it looked like this:

6. Religion

One of the current
strongest positions of the Constitution is “separation of church
and state.” Religion and faith will be extraordinarily important to
an undertaking of this magnitude, as reliance on strangers and
trust in others has to increase greatly. As modern religions are
currently supported by the voluntary contributions of their
supporters, there will have to be a mechanism by which religious
institutions can continue to be supported. Society can do this
by: