Fellow Workers (of whatever genders),

I have accepted nomination to the General Executive Board (GEB) of the IWW
for the year of 1995, and hereby stand before you for election. I guess
it's traditional to list one's contributions to the Union in a nomination
statement. I'll try to keep this brief. (No, really!)

I joined the IWW on Haloween Day 1991, initiated by Melissa Roberts at 
GHQ. I have been a member in continuous good standing for three years 
now, with roots in the punk rock and radical Queer activist communities. 
I was the first wobbly at the End-Up, a queer bar at which I was a 
janitor. Before this, I was a dishwasher, prep cook, telemarketer, manual 
labor temp worker, thrift store worker, vagrant, AIDS survey worker, 
canvasser, activist, zine publisher, and singer in a punk rock band 
called Comrades In Arms. I was one of several wobblies fired from the 
End-Up for union organizing with the IWW, and years later that case is 
still pending against the bosses at the NLRB. Not that that represents 
our struggle against them-- we picketed for months, our line was 
recognized by the Teamsters, endorsed by the SEIU, ACT-UP, Queer Nation, 
the WSA and a local (Queer) politician, amongst others, and our 
barricades was more of a call to class consciousness issued to queer 
workers everywhere. This was, and is, our real and ongoing success.

In the course of this struggle, I was made a delegate-at-large by 
then-GST Jess Grant, and remain so to this day. I have not added up the 
statistics as to how many Fellow Workers I've signed up, tables I've 
(wo)manned, lit I've handed out, assessment stamps I've sold, picket 
lines I've walked in solidarity, for such numbers games in this context 
are tacky. But that's the sort of thing I've been doing as a delegate, 
and writing letters, and causing trouble, and always remembering in the 
course to remain responsible to my duties and accountable to my Union. I 
believe that my record speaks abundantly to this assertion.

Also, I was a founding member of the current incarnation of the Santa Cruz
GMB. There, in addition to being a delegate and relentless agitator for
the One Big Union, I also served in the capacities of mail coordinator,
GDC delegate, branch zine producer, branch secretary, e-mail demigoddess,
coffee night hostess and cultural bridge. There I helped organize
nonviolent direct-action defense of reproductive health service clinics
against physical assault by Operation "Rescue," a far-right,
fascist-theocratic gang of terrorists.  I was a cookie maker and seller,
coffee slave, Queer community center volunteer, and unemployed. I played a
crucial part, but only a part, of uniting the wage-slave and homeless
populations there in a common understanding of our common interests, in
the face of a most vehement assault from our most common enemy-- not each
other, but the ruling class. I was also one of several core organizers of
this year's assembly. 

In all of this, I was re-affirmed in one of the primary things that drew 
me to the Wobblies-- our belief in nonviolent *direct action* at the 
point of production (or simply of oppression, as the case may be) as the 
safest, surest tool of Social Revolution. This Precious Thought of ours 
shines its guidance as surely as the day we first articulated our desire 
and intention to form the new society within the shell of the old. What 
can I say-- I'm all about that!

Now I'm back in San Francisco where I work at a relatively cutting-edge
Internet connectivity service provider. I have continued organizing in
permutations of the strains of activities I've listed above, but am in the
process of refocusing my most primary organizing energies at the point of
production, as ever, like a goddam wobbly! I have set up an online
wobs-only mailing list, distributing information and networking with
fellow workers and shirkers in cyberspace, never forgetting my roots. One
of my major goals for the impending future is to set up what's called a
"domain" in netspeak that is primarily (if not specifically) that of the
IWW. I haven't broadcast this too much, as the possibility is still rather
embryonic-- but imagine if online access (like an e-mail account and oh,
so much more) were a standard benefit of IWW membership. This will happen
(or not) whether or not you elect me-- the point is, rather, that whatever
else I'm doing, it's always with an eye and a hand and a comrade or two
(or more) towards worker control of the point of production. This I
believe to be the heart (if not soul) of our Union, it's promise and hope,
and nothing less than my duty and calling in life, whatever come what may.
By extension, it's why Every Worker Is An Organizer, and thank-you UFW for
carrying that slogan on. 

ANYway. That's that in brief (No, Rrrreally!), aside from the two ballot 
committees and the audit committee and the office work at GHQ and, and, 
well, you get the point. Most friction I've felt in performing various 
duties I've taken on has, I believe, come from holding true to our 
Constitution where it's articulate, and direct action in its spirit 
(through my own, subjective filters). Also, as our spirit and direct 
action span almost 90 years at this point, I feel that I've contributed 
to as I've drawn on this awesome legacy, as does every fellow worker who 
chooses and pursues the life and the paths of a gawddamn IWW. The 
pilosophy that will guide me, if elected, springs from this deep and 
respectful, mutual (if subjectively-rendered) understanding.

My belief and understanding of power-- not only in our Union, but 
generally-- is that the ultimate authority and pentultimate power 
resides truly and rightly in the rank and file of the people 
constituting the body itself. Strictly speaking, I'm not really an 
anarchist (ooooh-- dish the dirt with Deke time!!)-- I'm an 
Omniarchist. In other words, I believe that we're all in charge, to 
the point that that's my guiding principle. I think what's gone wrong in 
the past with "activists" (like we all aren't) in our Union taking on 
Roles of Authority has been the presumption that individual well-meaning 
can be a substitute (or at least a proxy) for what will be best for all 
of us. That doesn't mean I'm not biased towards the organizers-- my 
Goddess, that's all of what I am!!-- but I also happen to be an ardent 
member of the Joe Hill Memorial Society, to say nothing of a being a 
founding (re)member of the Ben Flethcher Living History Collective. And 
how about that Arturo Giovanniti afer all? To say nothing of Flynn...

The point of all this is that we all owe everything we've remembered to 
do to people who are dead-- and that's a heavy responsibility, indeed. 
But if we don't do for ourselves, the Union will die, for the Union is no 
more or less than all of us together. I plan to do what I do despite 
taking my turn on the GEB. I am the enemy of neither Lit nor GA. I belong 
to both a GMB and an IU. I am an anarchist organizer as well as a queer 
wobbly, and am emboldened as I'm humbled by the very same convergences. I 
will see anything my fellow workers have put themselves on the line for 
through to the next place at which the entire membership can decide how 
far onto that line the rest of us can or will go. Think about that-- 
that's what you can expect of me on the GEB. That doesn't mean I won't 
have particular opinions one way or another, nor that I won't pursue the 
persuasion of others in the ways that I call it. But, my will plus three 
votes does not substitute for the will of the majority of the Union. As 
sketchy as the Constitution can be (everything's so, well, General), it 
seeks to leave power in the hands of the many, and I exactly agree. When 
ignored or interpreted for individual purposes, the result is the kinds 
of Secret Government of Dirty Tricks that Nixon or Reagan so well 
represent (above the rest of us, they *were* the Law. Yeah, right.)

That doesn't make the Union as it's constituted infallible. But if it's
making bad decisions, it's up to YOU, fellow worker, to bring more people,
with more clues, into it. 

You can rest assured that in that, you'll always have my support, whether 
I'm on the GEB or Just Another Queer Janitor. Take care, stay aware and 
in Solidarity as I remain

Yours for the Revolution,
Deke Motif Nihilson, x341697
S.F. GMB, I.U. 560, Delegate 94-33
Industrial Workers of the World