Herb Mills, 1979
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... At this moment in the historical development of a capitalistic civilization in America -- including under "civilization" not only the economy, but politics, state organization, technology, and organized or "big science" - the critical challenge to radical democracy is to be as zealous in preventing things of great value to democracy from passing into oblivion as in bringing into the world new political forms of action, participation, and being toghether in the world. Radicals need to cultivate a rememberance of things past for in the capitalist civilization, which Schumpeter saw as based upon the principle of "creative destruction," memory is a subversive weapon. The ideology of progress fostered by science and capitalism depends upon the steady elimination of historical consciousness and of the customs, sensibilities, and textures of every day life nourished by that consciousness; just as it depends upon the emasculation of the critical function of theory. What is at stake simultaneously is the past and the future. Radicals cannot leave the past to conservatives; they need to remind themselves that they, too, have a rich past with democratic experience and wisdom, and that the arts of conservation have as much to do with learning how to live with the past as with learning how to live within nature and with other human beings. The subtitle of democracy states our highest aim: renewal and radical change.
Sheldon S. Wolin
Democracy, vol. 1, no. 1, January, 1981
Editorial, pp. 4 - 5.
... As noted in my resume which will follow here, I was the teaching assistant for a UC - Berkeley course on the history of political theory in the academic year of 1958 - 59 and the year thereafter. That course was taught by Sheldon S. Wolin - a Professor of Political Science at UC - B from 1954 to 1970. From 1973 to 1987 "Prof" Wolin was also so engaged at Princeton University. And over more than fifty years, he had like appointments at Oberlin College, UC - Santa Cruz, Cornell University, and Oxford University. And with this site now starting off with this arresting statement from his many writings, a word about it is also in order. It happened, then, that I had already published what later became article one to article eight on this website when I got in the mail a copy of above cited publication and thus read it, too, in very short order. And with that, I copied and filed it and to this day will often reread it because it so very well sets out what I still so fondly hope my writings may help to accomplish. And thus in its language - and despite the engulfing and very rapid changes made by the "progress" of new technologies in the ever more global transportation industries - I still hope my writings will help to save from oblivion - if no longer destruction, of course - something of the complex and vibrant warp and woof of what for me and a great many West Coast dockers was a remarkably democratic and profoundly satisfying way to collectively make a living.
WELCOME!
About Herb Mills and ILWU 10
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Herb Mills began to longshore in 1963. He retired in 1991 as a result of an on-the-job accident. Since he often served San Francisco’s Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union as an elected officer, he frequently had a front-line role in the great many struggles occasioned by the ever-unfolding and still unfolding "container revolution."
After several officer terms, he began to publish the articles which can here be downloaded in pdf format. He also now appears in a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute. That exhibit focuses on American transportation from c. 1875. It may also be found on the internet:Smithsonian, National Museum of American History, America on the Move.
For the US introduction and now global use of containers, go to Explore Transportation, Work and Industry, and Container Back Story.
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