Chapter 16: Sunflowers & Umbrellas

16: Sunflowers & Umbrellas

2012-2014

 “Emerson, I need you to take down your Facebook post. I am NOT public as an IWW member in China and it endangers me and others to post about my involvement in the IWW in this way. Please take down or make the post private now!” Mr. Ferric Mole, a man of twenty-five, younger than he thought himself to be, had blond streaks of hair swept to a side in his Facebook picture, a quizzical pose, slightly drunk-looking, slightly weary about a world he thought he knew but really did know not much about, outside of his inflamed imagination. He would have been a great model for ‘office yuppie’ in another lifetime; the guy at the water cooler sharing negative gossip about his office competitor to his clique. His e-mails were full of flagrant bullshit. To say he meant nothing to any government was a gross exaggeration. Emerson had run into his kind of inflated self-importance many times in the IWW.
     A month later, Fellow Worker Ferric Mole had a softening of heart; he saw what Emerson had accomplished in Taiwan. He wrote back: “Hi Fellow Worker, I saw things are coming together with the IWW in Taiwan! That's great news! I wanted to get in touch to see if you would be up for having a conference call with other Wobblies in East Asia. If so, I can try to get one together. I am hoping we can have some kind of meeting next year; the energy of one group can encourage the others. I don’t know what I can do here in Mainland China. I can’t mention any names but I am connected to labor activists here. I want to see if I could invite a few from your group to visit and meet me and activists here. I live in Guangzhou, which is close to Hong Kong, like anyone in Taiwan wouldn’t know. “Would you be interested in coming to visit and meet activists here?” Sure, Emerson thought, if you paid me and you weren’t so full of crap.
     I'd like to make it to Taiwan this fall if you're up for it.” Emerson was trembling with excitement. “I would have stopped there on my way to China, but I thought it would be more politically sensitive to stop in Taiwan afterwards,” like anyone in China would care, thought Emerson. This young fool was making him nauseous. Solidarity, Ferric.”

“Hi Chum: I finally meet Calcutta, He-Haw, and Pee-Wee, two of them Wobblies. We made up to meet again soon after the rigging from GHQ finally arrives.” Emerson had to hold himself down to contain his enthusiasm.

      “We spent over three hours in Dante’s coffee shop discussing the IWW. I ended up doing most of the talking as I answered their questions about organizing in Taiwan. They talked about how they had been active pushing for recognition of workers' rights for workers who seemed to resent their help. I pointed out that we should let the workers come to us who want to organize their work place but we should agitate workers and show solidarity to them in demonstrations. The first step was organizing in our own work places. He-Haw, who works in a small crew for a documentary producer, shouldn’t consider him a friend since he is a boss with power to hire, fire, and pay. He-Haw should ask for an increase in salary. I was just making a point.”

      “We touched on all subjects. Someone had asked if I was affiliated with the NYC branch anymore.” After Henchman read this, he questioned what Emerson had said. What he told them was, “I wasn’t because a Dante ‘Union’ job-shop was eating up GMB funds.” He told Henchman he left because he was moving to Taiwan; no sense in making the fool angry, Emerson thought. In fact he explained how Ry Grossinger jumped the gun by filing with the NLRB for recognition before getting a super majority at Dante’s. Emerson knew it would make the union lose the election. He wrote on to Chum, “I told my three fellow workers in Taiwan that we shouldn’t look for stardom as Grossinger had because of the conditions of no government union protection.” They had to be clandestine there, he emphasized. “There is apathy from workers and gangster-ism from bosses,” he concluded. “We really must let the workers come to us.”.

      “I gave Calcutta and He-Haw some gifts on behalf of the IWW and lent them the Kerr IWW Anthology I brought from Brooklyn. I gave them my signed copy of Wobblies, the graphic history. I also gave them a print out of Henry’s 25 page Mandarin (with Taiwanese characteristics, I learned) translation of IWW history and goals and one of three Wobbly pennants I brought. Calcutta was interested in the Wobbly City I brought as I discussed how B.F. Gerber had come to our GMB meeting in 2005 when he was fired from Yale and now was a good author; we should be that for disgruntled Taiwanese workers. I will copy the newsletter and send it as an attachment to her.”

     He also brought up his desire to keep localism as their focus even as they were international. He pointed out how Jacob Zhu of China Wash was a spy for China who came to the Chrysanthemum Tea House talk he did about the IWW and grass-root unionism. He distracting Taiwan University student with his ulterior motive of promoting unification with China even while he was anti-WTO, mainly to be anti-American, not pro-worker. He-Haw looked him up on his smart phone and knew who he was referring to. He also showed He-Haw and Calcutta the list of students he’d met ten years ago in Taipei and they recognized at least one former student as still being an activist.

In trying to start a Regional Organizing Committee for the IWW family in Taiwan, Emerson felt like a papa; he didn’t understand the kids. For example, the two native Taiwanese 22 year old members here who signed up in Melbourne, Australia didn't bring their red cards to the first two meetings they had. He fought with GHQ to get one of them delegate rigging. Finally, Calcutta received her delegate rigging from GHQ so she could pay her own dues. Then, she didn’t want the rigging! Emerson told her that they would have to give quarterly report to GHQ by the end of January 2014. 
     Jagger, a 32 year old Emerson met ten years ago, didn’t sign up, yet. Emerson gave him a booklet of a Mandarin IWW translation he put together. Without Jagger signing up, and without proof Calcutta and He-Haw were in good standing, they couldn’t have a quorum for an official meeting. He gave everyone but Jagger a Referendum Ballot. No one completed Referendum ballots.

Robert Abraham, a 40 year old Canadian, hunkered into Taiwan with a wife and child for twelve years, paid initiation fees and dues (400 + 400NT) when Emerson signed him up; he’d been a Wobbly fan for years. GHQ hadn’t mailed him applications in his rigging but Sham and/or Yarn mailed them to Calcutta. Emerson took one from her for Abraham’s application and an extra copy for himself. Abraham wants to study the ballot questions again. Emerson sent an e-mail when he got home to them and Dusty Shu in Kaohsiung with his mailing address if he wanted to vote and if they want him to mail back their ballots together, otherwise he would mail his back alone.

As far as Emerson knew, Calcutta and He-Haw hadn’t paid dues since they were signed up in Melbourne, Australia in June. He had never seen their red cards. At sub-minimum rate, they owed 50NT a month each or 600NT together for six months. The IWW doesn’t care if you stop paying dues and go back later, Emerson reasoned. They kept your number and continue sending you junk mail, anyway. He-Haw was working so his income was higher than Calcutta’s. They should pay something to show good faith, Emerson reasoned. Maybe they didn’t want to pay dues; this was why they didn’t bring red cards to the two meetings they had, Emerson suspected

Emerson wanted to be a catalyst and motivator for the IWW organizing in Taiwan but Calcutta and He-Haw, or someone who spoke Mandarin well, had to be the main ingredients; without their dedication they were losing a beat, Emerson feared. He thought they had to be getting two labor organizations, Cooloud and Youth Labor, to sign up and help organize the union there but they, admittedly so, didn’t know much about the IWW. Only the translation Emerson gave them had guided them. They all spoke English well. He openly suggested someone translate the Agenda into Mandarin but they didn’t take the request. Maybe Jagger, he hoped, was mature at 32 years old to take more responsibility than the twenty-two year olds. Emerson thought Michael Stern was great, well-committed and responsible, even a half hour early. Calcutta and He-Haw were fifteen minutes late and Jagger didn’t show up until an hour later, after Calcutta text-messaged him. Emerson was becoming frustrated. He stayed up late at night wondering why he was bothering with young fools like that anymore.

At the meeting He-Haw agonized over how the IWW could become relevant to workers in Taiwan. He kept talking about the Taiwanese character of conciliation with their employers and acceptance of top-down management. He was really getting on Emerson’s nerve. Emerson suggested they take Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s tact of agitating workers who had been displaced by mismanagement. For example, workers from the Chang-Chi Foodstuff Factory Co. who made substandard food products would be on furlough and possibly lose their jobs. The IWW could suggest to them that they take over the factory after the owner files for bankruptcy, as the boss probably would. The same was true of the workers from Chuan-Shun Food Enterprise Co that were found mixing cheaper Vietnamese rice with Taiwanese rice and selling the mixture as domestic rice in August 2013 or Top Pot Bakery management that lied about not using artificial flavorings. Emerson thought that would affect workers who could lose their jobs. Those workers needed agitators and organizers and might be prone to listen to IWW ideas of self-management and organizing.

      Abraham seemed to understand what Emerson was talking about. He mentioned how Sun Yat-Sen, a socialist, perhaps an anarchist, could be a thread with which to agitate Taiwanese workers and move them from acquiescing to employers. Emerson agreed. At any rate, the IWW had to become known in Taiwan to labor groups and organizations and fellow workers. Abraham’s idea of a business card was a good idea. Emerson explained how adding articles and endorsing workers organizations to their blog, Facebook, and the main IWW website could be used to put us on the page in the Taiwan labor movement.

Emerson thought they were well on their way to having ten members needed for an R.O.C. He could almost smell it. He could count six or seven, but only two he was sure of. Who knew how many would have them verified within two weeks; he could attach the applications in e-mail back to Chicago by November.

Emerson got the e-mail from He-Haw .It was in Mandarin so he asked Phoenix to translate; as usual, she put him straight. In the e-mail Emerson got, He-Haw called Emerson an “old fart” that should stay out of Taiwan politics. “You should spend your time learning Mandarin so you can speak with us on our level instead of bothering us.” Emerson’s old Taiwanese activist friend was an fart, too, according to He-Haw. He-Haw and Calcutta had no time for and nothing to learn from either of them. The letter hit Emerson like a bomb. He scratched his head in wonder; what had he said to so inflame He-Haw? Emerson knew he was wasting time associating with them.

He contacted Robert on an Instant Messenger call to get it off his chest:

E: Hi Robert. Are you there? Let me know when you're available to IM.

R: I'm available right now (8 pm). Please don't try to contact me between 10 pm and 11:30--I'll be exercising then.

E: Hi Robert, Em here.

R: Hi Em.

E: Glad we can chat

R: How was the meeting?

E: It didn't happen

E: You mean today’s?

R: No. The Skype conference? How about the Kaohsiung meeting?

E: The meeting last weekend with Dusty Hsu was nice. He brought his girlfriend, Sooty. Today I tried to Skype him but his father answered and told me to call back later.

R: I got up today at noon to be ready to chat with you, as we are now; but we didn't, of course.

Anyway, what was discussed at the Kaohsiung meeting?

E: I discussed that I have run into a dead end with the Taipei Wobs and Lin It-Hong's youthful followers

R: Who is Lin It-Hong? I talked to one of my students about the taIWWan website, and she checked it out. I'd like to give some of the IWW cards to my co-workers in the two schools I have part-time work in, but I'm worried they'll show 'solidarity' with the bosses, and I'll get canned.

E: That's great. Dusty H. said a friend signed up for regular taIWWan updates. Lin It-Hong is an activist I met ten years ago. He is at the heart of the land rights battle in Miaoli. I'm not sure where we can find more members.

R: Do you want to do the next meeting here in Keelung?

E: Why not. I was hoping it might be at Lit It-Hong's cafe in Miaoli but it doesn't look like that will happen.

R: There's a Dante Coffee shop on Chung-Shan Road, which isn't far from the railway. I'll have to check if there's Wi-Fi; if there is, I can bring my computer,

E: We are all computer idiots. Okay so where were we. Oh yes, right now it is you, me and Dusty H. in Taiwan. Calcutta and He-Haw are assholes

M: Well, we have to deal with the language barrier, or else we won't get anyone on board. The locals will naturally want lots of Chinese spoken at the meetings.

E: I asked but she plays dumb when I ask her to do it.  I asked her or He-Haw to translate the agenda but they played dumb

R: I'm sure she can translate, but doing so is a long and laborious process. It probably wears her out.

E: okay. Did you see the e-mail He-Haw sent me? I'm never writing to him again

R: I don't mean to take sides here, but we have to deal with the fact that English isn't easy for the locals here. I read some of the correspondence, and I know there was some friction; but I thought you worked it all out.

E: He-Haw said I don't understand 'how' Taiwanese people think, and he wrote it in Mandarin. He dissed Lin-It-Hong, too even though he is Taiwanese.

I think he, Calcutta, and Jagger are in this unification mindset and don't like 'independence' thinkers

R: Do you mean that they have a 'Taiwan nationalism' mindset? I ask that because, unfortunately, there's a lot of that here, as I'm sure you know.

E: Their group Youth 95 and Cooloud support unification with China

Why else would they did Lim It-Hong?

R: Whereas we have a more internationalist way of thinking. Is Lin more pro-Taiwan independence?

E: Yes. They know him well. He was on the news again tonight.

R: For my part, I have no use for nationalism in any country, be it China, Taiwan, Canada, Germany, etc.

E: Exactly

R: Lin was on the news? What happened?

E: A professor who supports their groups protest against the Miaoli mayor's knocking down buildings there was seriously injured in a car accident yesterday and the police are refusing to release the CCTV tapes. A few months ago, his cafe's window was smashed in the middle of the night

He's been on the news a lot and Calcutta, He-Haw and especially Jagger know him.

R: And Calcutta et al have no sympathy for him?

E: It doesn't look like it. He-Haw called him an “old fart” like me and said he should retire, too.

R: So you mean this is a 'young vs. old' thing?

E: Maybe. The bottom line is, Calcutta and He-Haw haven't shown their red cards and refused to vote in the referendum

R: Well, whatever their attitude is, I think that--in order to get as many locals on board as possible--we'll have to cater to their need for as much Mandarin as we can give. Otherwise, they'll feel alienated.

E: I agree but they're blaming me and not helping. I want to have the meetings in Mandarin, too!

R: Yeah. Well, if Calcutta et al don't want to be involved, then I guess it's goodbye to them, and we'll have to find other locals elsewhere.

E: You were at that second meeting. They could have changed the language to Mandarin in a second and just translated for you and me. I wouldn't have minded and I told them so, bilingually.

R: It's sad to lose them, but I guess it's a case of 'c'est la vie'.

I would have been willing to let them speak in Chinese, and would have had a tough time through it. After all, it's only fair.

E: That's why I'm upset. I was hoping we'd be on the way with six or seven members in good standing towards the Taiwan ROC and instead we have three, three solid members, but only three nevertheless. I hope we can get more, though there is plenty of time until Sept.'14 when our provisional ROC expires and we have to send the funds we raise to GHQ

R: When we get some more Taiwanese members in future meetings, I think it would be a good idea to volunteer speaking in Chinese a lot, in order to show good faith to them.

E: I agree, starting with the meeting near you. At the meeting in Miaoli with Lin-It-Hong my wife, Leona, translated.

R: It will make the locals feel more at ease.

E: Ok Robert, it's been grand. Stay well and keep in touch

R: Good to chat with you, too.

E: OK Fellow worker for OBU

R: Solidarity! Ta-ta! :)

A few weeks after that, the representative on the General Executive Board of The Industrial Workers of the World, Paul Belbukis, asked for an update on the Taiwan:

Hi FW Paul: Welcome to be our GEB contact for 2014. When last I was in touch with FW June Slattery, our last GEB contact, I sent a report about the status of the Taiwan GMB in December 2013; that it was in reverse-motion due to the non-participation of two members not in good standing since June 2013, Calcutta and He-Haw. Calcutta, who is a delegate, has returned her rigging to me. There are two members in good standing here, myself and Dusty Hsu. A third member, Robert Abraham joined and paid dues and initiation to me in November 2014. I have sent e-mails to him and Dusty Hsu but they haven't responded. I will try to contact them again. I continue to add information about the labor situation in Taiwan to the blog and to monitor our Facebook. I have initiated and attended three monthly around the island (two in Taipei and one in Kaohsiung) meetings to meet new members and have visited an activist group's meeting in Miaoli to no avail. I have started a local book/video lending library, and made name cards available on-line. The prospects of us attaining ROC status by September 2014 is in limbo at the moment. I remain optimistic and will continue to keep my lines open for new membership.

Since March 20, 2014, activists and students had been barricaded in the legislature in Taipei, Taiwan. The fascist Kuomintang (KMT) reared its head and called in the S.W.A.T. team to violently remove protesters from the Administration building. The crowd was swelling into a nationwide anti-Chinese economic approach movement. President Ma held a one hour press conference that evening trying to de-fuse the situation. They expect the largest rally so far on March 30, 2014.

Most common people in Taiwan were alarmed at what would happen to their companies and jobs if China business people and workers were given full access to the market there but Emerson believed they didn’t understand that the ruling classes (the Dutch, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and then the Kuomintang Chinese under the auspices of the United States) had been calling the shots and oppressing Taiwanese and indigenous workers for hundreds of years, in earnest since 1895. 

Taiwanese were treated as second class citizens under the imperial Japan, and then intellectually massacred on Feb. 28, 1947 by the Kuomintang Chinese with United States cover. The farmers and working people endured 38 years of Marshall Law, then abruptly, a switch to a more palatable two-party neo-liberalism system and a veneer of democracy. There was never a peoples' revolution in Taiwan. There has never been real democracy in Taiwan. 

Emerson felt the ruling class and anti-unionism had prevailed in Taiwan for the benefit of corporate American sweatshop production; American business came to Taiwan with the military-industrial complex to supply South Korea and Vietnam war machines and then American consumers with clothing and goods made with underpaid, under-aged, overworked, endangered, cheap, union-free labor. The Kuomintang, and their neo-liberal partners, the Democratic Progressive Party, had learned well how to franchise poor working conditions through the service industry. The income level in Taiwan was the same as it was sixteen years ago. There was major under-employment and a ban on unionizing work places with under thirty workers. Unions had to be recognized by the ruling class. Suffice to say, Emerson realized,The Industrial Workers of the World was not an approved union in Taiwan.

By rejecting Chinese trade pacts and closer economic ties with China, the people of Taiwan were, in effect, merely supporting corporate American and local ruling class domination of the Taiwan market and workplace. The Kuomintang had more to fear from China than it did from America. Their grip on power there would be doomed without a favorable agreement with China's rulers. That being said, The People’s Republic of China didn’t have a history of supporting almost every undemocratic fascist state of the twentieth century, as the U.S. has; the United States continued to support fascism in the world like the Fascists in Ukraine, while destabilizing socialism in Venezuela for the sake of world dominance of economic imperialism. 

Yes, Taiwan workers had to reject Kuomintang/Chinese collaboration but they also had to reject Corporate American influence. Emerson knew they had to allow unionism to flourish in Taiwan, demand a living wage for all workers, compensation for overtime work, and, ultimately, eradicate the wage system.

Emerson met Chen Wei-ting at a café in Dapu in November 2013. He had gone there to visit the fellow activist he'd met in 2003, Lim It-Hong. Lim said he opened his café after he moved to Miaoli from Taichung to get away from the city and a failed marriage. Emerson wondered which came first: the chicken or the egg, because Dapu was where Youth Alliance, young Taiwan independence-supporting activist students from Taipei, had come to protest the demolition of four farmers homes bulldozed by the Dapu Borough government to widen a road. They said proper hearings were not held before their land was confiscated. Lim It-Fang let Youth Alliance use his café for meetings. He said he received threats from local gangsters and his café did have windows broken twice, though it might have been agent provocateurs
     Chen Wei-ting got into trouble when Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung attempted to visit the family of Chang Sen-wen on Sept. 18 after the farmer had committed suicide. Chang’s family and friends blocked his entrance. Liu was hit by a sneaker during the confrontation. Chen Wei-ting later admitted he threw the sneaker and Liu filed a lawsuit against him.

Chen Wei-Ting, one of the designated leaders of the student activists that took over the Taiwan legislature, swaggered into the café that day, proud of the sneaker on display in a plastic box there on the shelf. The young man was basking in the limelight and brazen about being sued for throwing the sneaker.

      Emerson stayed in his café until 8pm talking with Lim and his protégées Fu Wei-Chi, Chen Wei-ting and others about joining the union. As a delegate, he described Rusty's Rules of Order and the IWW. He gave them a CD of a Taichung radio interview He had done ten years ago and a Mandarin Chinese IWW introduction booklet. They weren’t interested in workers unions, they said; only property rights. He retorted that if the bulldozer drivers that raised the house in Miaoli were union, they wouldn’t have crossed the picket line. They couldn’t disagree. Emerson was offered dinner and told that there would be a meeting that evening that I was welcome to attend.

      Lim It-Fang claimed that Youth Alliance was independent and not politically aligned with the Democratic Progressive Party. Lim himself claimed to be non-aligned even though Emerson had met him eleven years earlier on introduction from FAPA (Formosan Association for Public Affairs) members in Flushing, New York. FAPA is a lobbyist group for American interests in Taiwan. Some members, like David Chou and David Chu, even proposed Taiwan become the 51^st State in a 1999 New York Times article!

Despite claims of being non-political, into the café that day walked DPP Deputy Director for the Department of Hakka Affairs, Fi Chen Liu. She was there to attend the meeting, too. Why was she there to support those non-political student activists? Emerson smelled a fish and it wasn’t coming from his plate on the table.

      The on-going student protest in Taiwan's legislature building was about a trade pact between Taiwan and China being pushed by the Kuomintang. The secret pact would affect workers rights, not property rights, unless the property in question is Taiwan itself. Nothing had been said about the how the property of Taiwan has been corralled by the influence of United States of America since the puppet Kuomintang took power from the indigenous Taiwanese in 1947 after Japan’s defeat in WW II. The U.S. corporate government has used Taiwan as a listening post, an R&R for American soldiers fighting in South Korea and Vietnam, and as a sweatshop for military industry and consumers. They'd hate to let it become independent or lose it to China.

      Emerson smelled that fish again.

      It was the twenty-fifth day of the student occupation of the legislature. The ruling KMT and President Ma Ying-Jeou had refused to talk with the protesters or back down from their goal to pass the trade pact with China. Tens of thousands of supporters wait outside while Chen Wei-ting with two-hundred Black Island Youth Alliance and other student activists had sweltered in the un-air-conditioned chamber and piss into bottles because of shut-down plumbing. Their only protection from violence is untouchable elected DPP members who stand guard at the chamber doors; thousand of police and S.W.A.T. teams wait outside getting ready to storm in on a signal from the ruling party. Finally, they left the building and went home.

Whoever would win the battle in the tug-of-war for Taiwan, the Chinese leaning Kuomintang or the American leaning Democratic Progressive Party, the workers of Taiwan were the forgotten losers in the political battle. Until all workers are allowed to form workers unions and there is collective bargaining agreement, until there is a living wage, work-place safety, compensation, and pension for all workers, until there is job security and overtime pay for hours worked over forty a week, until there are full-time jobs for all who wish to work, until that happens, it doesn’t matter if the fish is black or white. Workers are suffering on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. It stinks either way.

Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou held a news conference one morning. As expected, he said that an open-door policy towards China was good for Taiwan; he would make sure the trade pact was put through despite the demonstrations against it, and that was that. The demonstrators were having none of it.  The students had taken over the administrative building. The Kuomintang was sending out water cannon. The students had to be very careful. There was no return to complacency. Emerson sat at home and watched it on TV, amazed.

     Ma used McDonald's in an analogy to touch the hearts of his young detractors; if it weren't for the open door policy, McDonald's wouldn't be in Taiwan. He was only referring to the taste buds of hamburger consumers and not the Fast Food Nation's under-paid, uninsured part-timers who drudge through tedious hours at future-less jobs. He could have used the many American and Japanese franchises that fill every corner of Taiwan as examples. Should Chinese businesses be allowed to exploit Taiwanese workers like American corporations do? Two wrongs don't make it right.

     The TV station he was watching switched to split-screen the last ten minutes of Ma Yong-Jeou's press conference. On the right side of the screen, the viewer could see, but not hear, the President behind his podium. On the left side of the screen, the viewer could see and hear the muffled sound of a student leader talking into a microphone on the legislative hall floor. Behind him, banners, many in English, were being moved about and re-positioned. A rift had developed among the protest leaders; some wanted to stay and demand the trade pact be scrapped, others considered leaving the hall to make their stand outside with tens of thousands of protesters. 

     As a student leader, Lin Fei-Fan spoke, the camera shifted to a corner of the legislature hall to view a private conversation between Chen Wei-ting, the sneaker-throwing hero, and another activist.  Emerson felt like he knew him. Both were putting on good faces but neither bothered to cover their mouths; a lip-reader could have read what they were saying to each other but one didn't have to understand Taiwanese lips to figure it out: "What the heck do we do now?" There is only one thing to do.

     In his news conference, Ma Ying-Jeou had called the occupation of the legislative hall illegal and undemocratic. To this day, the people have not seen the secret party-to-party agreement between the Kuomintang and Communist Party of China. Undemocratic, yes, but the people of Taiwan weren't allowed to see the WTO agreement Taiwan signed, either. The price of food in Taiwan continues to rise as the quality declines. Only Taiwanese farmers who sold their land to developers made out well. 

     The U.S. military-industrial sweatshop didn't export unionism to Taiwan; it exported exploitation when it said it was here to protect "Free China" from the Communists in 1947. The U.S.A. was in Taiwan to stifle workers rights as it would do with Eugene McCarthy in the U.S.A. using the Communist menace as an excuse. Through thirty-eight years of Marshall Law and thirty years of neo-liberalism, the oppressive white horror and propaganda has done its job; most Taiwanese think they have democracy. They were only then coming out to say that they realize they never did. An under-the-table deal with China will only make matters worse; there is no free speech or independent unionism in China. The Taiwanese have free speech; unionism will only come when speech is free. 

     Taiwanese workers, Emerson thought, had to have freedom of speech and the right to join independent unions. Without both, Taiwan would either be exploited by Chinese or continually exploited by U.S. and western corporations.  The U.S. recognized China's claim that Taiwan was their territory but they hated to let Taiwan go. The clandestine manipulation of Taiwan through the Democratic Progressive Party, Emerson felt, was intolerable. Both outcomes were unacceptable. Emerson believed, with all his heart, the union was a worker's only true friend. Emerson would believe that until the day he died.

The youth of a nation would lead the people to decide, thought Emerson, through the destabilization from both super powers, how to thread a needle for their future happiness and fulfillment. They had to act according to their lights.

The Kuomintang was meeting ‘People Power’ face to face but they had the weapons. The protesters were peaceful but fed up about the prospective of being second class citizens to China or Chinese Kuomintang. The light is on their side.

 Emerson had seen it all before. He had to accept his retirement. The struggle would go on without him. There was good luck to all who followed.