Wednesday, December 6, 2006

news bites

Today I was reading Delano, California’s Philippine-Bataan Herald (from 1945). The paper announced the dissolution of the Washington (State) Commonwealth Federation – an organization that I decided needs to be revived. The WCF began in the early 1930s and its goals were:
1. to help the hungry and unemployed;
2. to initiate and influence legislation “for the benefit of the common people;”
3. to coordinate with labor organizations and other progressive organizations;
4. to elect representatives sympathetic to labor and social legislation.

The WCF was, reportedly, one of the first to oppose:
-U.S. international trade with totalitarian states,
-the appeasement of totalitarian states (in for form of the 1938 Munich Pact)
-and, perhaps most importantly, the spread of fascism in the US.

Interestingly, the WCF dissolved because the members decided that their goals had been accomplished. How unfortunate. This organization’s time has come again.

3 comments:

Cabiria said...

Seriously -- we need to restart a lot of these groups. The frameworks are there!

Matto said...

I wonder how they came to the conclusion that their mission had been accomplished?

Dolce Vita said...

Good question. They decided that since Washington had just elected a governor who was sympathetic to their cuase and because the organization's president had just been elected to Congress that they were solid. This was somewhat short-sighted of them.