[stop-imf] Tribute to Trim Bissell

[Robert Weissman]

The Movement Loses a Visionary Leader
By Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua
Network

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Trim Bissell, founder and National Co-Coordinator of the
Campaign for Labor Rights, succumbed after a 20-month
battle with a brain tumor and left the ranks of those who
struggle for justice and peace.

Trim died on June 15, 2002 in the home he shared with his
wife, Ruth Evan. He was surrounded by his art, vividly
colored paintings and sculpture that were his third
passion in life following Ruth and the Campaign for Labor
Rights.  His art can be viewed and purchased online at
www.trimbissell.com <http://www.trimbissell.com>.

Trim decided that he did not want a funeral or memorial
service.  He has asked that those who would honor his
memory make a contribution to Campaign for Labor Rights,
1247 E St., SE, Washington, DC 20003 or to CISCAP the
Eugene Committee in Solidarity with the Central American
People, 458 Blair Blvd., Eugene, OR 97402.

He was diagnosed with terminal cancer in October 2000,
less than two months after he and I had spent eight days
backpacking in the beautiful Wallowa Mountains of Eastern
Oregon.  In March of 2001 he was paralyzed on the left
side of his body as a side effect from experimental "blood
brain barrier" chemotherapy.  Trim was left handed, but
immediately began to teach himself sculpt with his right
hand to lessen the financial burden of his illness on Ruth
and the Campaign for Labor Rights.

Trim marked his 60th birthday in April.  He grew up in
Grand Rapids, MI and held a masters degree in Creative
Writing.  He was deeply influenced by his mother, who was
a lifelong activist for racial justice and, late in life,
for gay and lesbian rights.

Trim taught college level creative writing for three years
and was becoming a nationally noted poet when, in 1968,
his outrage at the US slaughter of Vietnamese peasants
caused him to give up his academic life and move with his
first wife to Seattle, WA to, as he described it, "join
the armed resistance to the Vietnam War."  After his first
arrest, his mother told him, "It's about time. I was
afraid you would never be arrested." He and his wife
joined the Weathermen, a more radical off-shoot of the
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). One of Trim's
regrets is that the Weathermen takeover of SDS destroyed a
mass movement organization with over 100,000 members.

His activities in the Weathermen resulted in his arrest on
federal charges of attempting to set off a bomb late at
night at the University of Washington ROTC building
(Reserve Officer Training Corp).  With the willing
agreement of his parents, who had put up their house as
bail, Trim went underground where he remained a fugitive
for 17 years.  For a time he was on the FBI's "Most
Wanted" list.

Contrary to many press reports, Trim was never in the
Weather Underground. His fugitive life was built alone
after the stress of life on the run caused his wife and he
to separate and divorce after a few months. Ironically,
the reason the Weather Underground wouldn't take Trim was
because he refused to stop being monogamous.

He took a new name, Terrance Jackson, went back to college
where he earned a B.S. in Biology and a Masters in
Physical Therapy and rooted himself deeply in the Eugene,
OR community working as a physical therapist and,
beginning in 1980, as a painter and sculptor.  In 1981 he
and fellow artist Rich Klopfer formed an art partnership
that lasted until the end of Trim's life.

In 1987 the FBI finally caught up with him.  He was
quickly released on bail thanks to four friends putting
their houses up as guarantee.  There was widespread
support from friends, former patients, the local
newspaper, and even the FBI agent who arrested him, for
the argument that his 17 years as a productive citizen
paid his "debt to society" and he should not be sentenced
to jail.  But, a jury in Seattle sentenced him to two
years in a minimum security prison. (In 1970 he would
likely have gotten 25 years.)

While in prison he received a letter from Ruth Evan, a
woman he had known slightly in high school back in
Michigan.  That letter, and the fact that she volunteered
to take care of his dog while he was in prison, began a
romance that resulted in a prison chapel wedding in
January 1988.

When he was released in 1989 Trim returned to Eugene where
he and Ruth have lived since.  He resumed his physical
therapy and art.  But, in 1993 when many in the press
sought him out for comment when another high-profile
Eugene fugitive, Katherine Powers, was arrested, Trim
decided to return to human rights activism.

I first heard of Trim when the Nicaragua Network received
a letter proposing that we hire him as our Northwest
Coordinator.  He was already doing that work for the
Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala
(NISGUA), and wanted the Nicaragua Network, and the
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
(CISPES) to unite our efforts.  I dismissed the proposal
as being from some guy who was just looking to create a
job for himself.  Nicanet was still struggling financially
as a result of the Sandinista electoral defeat of 1990.
I'm not even sure I answered his letter.

But, Trim came to the next National Leadership Meeting,
and his impassioned plea for unity in the Central America
solidarity movement convinced the assembled Nicaragua
Network committee representatives who endorsed that goal
as an organization priority.  We began talks with CISPES
and NISGUA and eventually agreed to work together on an
anti-sweatshop campaign. Ultimately CISPES and NISGUA were
unable to prioritize sweatshop work because they were
focused on the peace accords in their respective
countries.

However, the Nicaragua Network decided that the concept
was simply too important to let die so in late 1995 we
created the Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR) with Trim as
its unpaid coordinator.  Eventually Soren Ambrose, who was
working on 50 Years is Enough issues as a Nicanet staff
member, and I, went on unemployment for a few months to
make funds available to pay Trim and build financial
stability for Campaign for Labor Rights.  CLR grew quickly
due to Trim's indefatigable energy and incisive analysis
and soon became know as the "grassroots organizing
department of the anti-sweatshop movement."  CLR became
its own organization in 1998 when we formed the Alliance
for Global Justice as an umbrella organization to house a
number of grassroots progressive groups.

Even as his illness progressed, Trim continued to offer
valuable advice and to stay as much in the loop of CLR
planning as his illness would allow.  He also continued to
sculpt until about a month before his death, determined to
help ease the financial burden of his passing on his wife
and on CLR.

I last visited Trim and Ruth in Eugene in early May.  At
that point Trim was in home hospice care, but he still
determinedly exercised his paralyzed leg every day.  He
was no longer able to read or write, but I would read him
the newspaper and we would discuss the latest US military
atrocities and Israeli war crimes as well as how to build
a movement that could stop Bush's plans for "endless war."
He had lost much of his vocabulary to the advancing
tumor, but he hadn't lost his analysis and his passion,
and for that and his steadfast friendship, I honor him.

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CLR Labor Alert posted June 17, 2002