Labor Struggles

¡Hola! Everybody…

It is Labor Day -- people died so you could have this day off; for the right to bargain collectively, for the 40-hour week, and paid vacations. People died so that you could enjoy workplace safety and work while maintain at least a semblance of human dignity and living wage. The freedom to work with human dignity, and more, is what is under attack by the conservatives seeking to take us back to a time that never existed and into a neoliberal global slum.

* * *

-=[ The Ludlow Massacre ]=-

Fascism should be more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

-- Giovanni Gentile

Happy Labor Day, and I hope that you have had an opportunity to gather with friends and family to observe the many that died in order to make fair wages, the 40-hour week hour week, and vacations a reality.

Not familiar with the history of labor struggles? That’s OK, our Corporate Media and their bland whores -- the well-paid, hair-sprayed teleprompt readers -- would never focus on such a history. No, I don’t blame you for forgetting about Labor and its impact on our lives. After all, there’s much more important stuff to think about.

The history of Labor in the USA is one that is rarely ever discussed and until recently, you would be hard put to find any historical documentation on the history of Labor. There is a good reason for this: it’s not a very pretty history. For those of us of a conservative orientation mouthing empty clichés about the “good ole days,” well, Bubba, they weren’t so good.

Not unless you consider child labor, or the lack of responsible overview in the workplace, as good. One school teacher, Samuel Yellin, wanted to teach Labor history to his high school students but was unable to find a textbook, so he wrote his own, American Labor Struggles. Until Howard Zinn and others who would come after, this was the only book that documented the history of the US government’s and Big Business’ vile response to the Labor movement.

One of the more heinous of episodes in the history of Labor struggles, The Ludlow Massacre (click here for a more in-depth treatment), reads like something out of the history of a fascist state -- which is what corporatization (rule by corporations) is, in fact. When I first read this as part of a deal I made with my then high school-aged son, I was shocked that such things, with all our lip service to individual freedom and fairness, happened in the United States:

On April 20, 1914, 20 innocent men, women, and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. For some time, coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) for years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

As a result, for their striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The ensuing massacre was a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strikebreakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later, investigations would reveal that the tents were intentionally set on fire. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that the corporate-hired thugs would randomly shoot through the tent colony. The women and children were found dead, huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.

The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency had been brought in to suppress the Colorado miners. They brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun (the Death Special, they called it) that roamed the area spraying bullets. The day of the massacre (April 20^th), the miners were celebrating Greek Easter. At 10:00 AM, the militia ringed the camp and began firing into the tents upon a signal from the commander, Lt. Karl E. Lindenfelter. Not one of the perpetrators of the slaughter was ever punished, but scores of miners and their leaders were arrested and black-balled from the coal industry.

A monument erected by the UMWA stands today in Ludlow, Colorado in remembrance of the brave and innocent souls who died for freedom and human dignity.

Today, people enjoy taking potshots at Unions. Much of this is the result of a media controlled by the very forces that opposes unionization; some of it is the result of bonehead actions taken the union leaders themselves. However, the only thing standing between you (if you’re not a CEO) and complete servitude are unions, which is why conservatives abhor the Labor Movement.

I find it hard to write about individual improvement when there is so much denial going on in our country. To stay quiet during times of atrocity is to be complicit in its crimes. This is true of almost anyone who lived in Nazi Germany. Most of those people weren’t evil, they simply didn’t act. Like us today in the USA, there was too much to do, they were too busy, going about the time-consuming activities of daily living, to speak out. So after they came to get the butcher, then the teacher, and finally the neighbor, there was no one around to help when the same forces came for them because there was no one left to speak out against the evil.

In the past, people have asked me to write about actions we can take to improve things. That comes later. Before we can act, we must become aware. I write in the hopes that even one person can gain some awareness. Mass movements of social change are founded in this notion of enlightening one mind at a time. History shows us, as Margaret Meade observed many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” The fact remains that the same mindset that is the cause of the problem can never be used to bring about a solution. Solutions require a change of mind, an evolution of the individual and collective consciousness.

I will leave you with the words of someone who was a lot better at this than I will ever hope to be:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” Edward R. Murrow said in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Remember to give thanks to all those men, women, and children who had the fuckin’ cojones to lay down their lives for their convictions so that we could enjoy better lives.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Definitions for a Neo-Liberal Planet Gone Mad

¡Hola! Everybody...
Past few days, I’ve run across the following several times on the’net. Considering everything that’s happening, I thought I’d share...

* * *

-=[ New World Order Terms Glossary ]=-

by James Hannum

The economy = the corporate global economy.

Industrialization = corporate usurpation of production and destruction of the independent craftsman.

Economic development = replacement of small businesses and self-sufficient local economies with the corporate system.

Economic freedom = working for the corporations and buying from the corporations.

Growth = increased corporate profits.

Job creation =

1. (Global South) sweatshops, plantations, child labor.

2. (Global North) paper-shufflers.

Mobility of capital and ideas = rootlessness, unaccountability.

Competitive production costs = elimination of environmental, worker safety, & child labor laws.

Free trade = massive oil-burning transportation system that centralizes economic power in the corporations.

Privatization = corporate appropriation of public lands and resources.

The poor = people who live sustainably in true communities and diverse cultures, crafting their own homes, clothing, and utensils, and growing their own organic food, thus requiring little or no cash income. These millions are termed “poor” because industrial capitalism places no value on communities, culture, and the goods and services people provide for themselves.

Globalization = destruction of all cultures.

Stabilization = subjugation.

Shift to export economy = corporate agribusiness theft of peasants' land forcing migration into big city slums, sweatshops, and massive corporate mono-crop plantations.

Business-friendly environment = corporate puppet regime installed by U.S. military, CIA, Mossad, MI6, etc., and controlled by detailed and conditional World Bank loans.

European Union = elimination of local democracy and homogenization of Europe's diverse cultures.

Costs outsourcing = subsidies, bailouts, and tax breaks given to corporations in exchange for campaign contributions and cash payments.

Media = propaganda machine owned by corporations and funded by corporate advertising.

Industry consultant = corporate lobbyist.

Market creation = advertising and selling increasingly complex, costly, and unnecessary consumer products.

Automobile = an expensive, dangerous, stressful, and environmentally destructive personal isolation chamber which disrupts, disperses, and destroys compact pedestrian communities.

Infrastructure = subsidized freeway sprawl forcing reliance on the automobile.

Television = an addictive corporate advertising and “news” propaganda device, which wastes time formerly used for family, friends, community, and the reading of books.

Peace-keeping forces = occupying army.

Insurgent = local citizen resisting occupation.

Military/ industrial complex = $Trillions/year in obscene upper class profits made from thousands/year senseless lower class deaths.

American Dream = Corporate Dream.

“Fascism is the merger of state and corporation.” --Benito Mussolini

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.” -- Albert Einstein

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Labor Struggles

¡Hola! Everybody…
It is on days like today that I miss great Americans like Howard Zinn, who never failed to remind us never to forget…

* * *

-=[ The Ludlow Massacre ]=-

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

-- James Baldwin (1924–1987)

I hope that you have had an opportunity to gather with friends and family to observe the many that died in order to make certain things we take for granted today. Stuff like fair wages, the 40-hour week hour week, and vacations, for example, are a reality today because people fought for those rights.

That's OK, our Corporate Media and their bland whores -- the well-paid, hair-sprayed teleprompt readers -- would never focus on such a history. No, I don’t blame you for forgetting about Labor and its impact on our lives. After all, there’s much more important stuff to think about.

The history of Labor in the USA is one that is rarely ever discussed and until recently, you would be hard put to find any historical documentation on its history. There is a good reason for this: it’s not a very pretty history. For those of us of a conservative orientation who like to mouth clichés about the “good ole days,” well, they weren’t so good.

Not unless you consider child labor, or the lack of safety in the workplace leading to disease and death, as good. One school teacher, Samuel Yellin, wanted to teach Labor history to his high school students but was unable to find a textbook, so he wrote his own, American Labor Struggles. Until Howard Zinn and some others, this was the only book that documented the history of the US government’s and Big Business’ shameful response to the Labor movement.

One of the more heinous of episodes, now known as the Ludlow Massacre, reads like something out of a fascist government -- which is what corporatization (rule by corporations) is, in fact. When I first read this as part of a deal I made with my then high school-aged son, I was shocked that such things, with all our lip service to individual freedom and fairness, happened in the United States:

On April 20, 1914, 20 innocent men, women, and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. For some time, coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the UMWA for many years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

As a result, for their striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The ensuing massacre was a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strikebreakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later, investigations would reveal that the tents were intentionally set on fire. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.

The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency had been brought in to suppress the Colorado miners. They brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun--the Death Special-- that roamed the area spraying bullets. The day of the massacre, the miners were celebrating Greek Easter. At 10:00 AM, the militia ringed the camp and began firing into the tents upon a signal from the commander, Lt. Karl E. Lindenfelter. Not one of the perpetrators of the slaughter were ever punished, but scores of miners and their leaders were arrested and black-balled from the coal industry.

A monument erected by the UMWA stands today in Ludlow, Colorado in remembrance of the brave and innocent souls who died for freedom and human dignity.

Today, people enjoy taking potshots at Unions. Much of this is the result of a media controlled by the very forces that opposes organized labor; some of it is the result of bonehead actions taken the union leaders themselves. However, the only thing standing between you (if you’re not a CEO) and complete servitude are unions, which is why Corporate Christianity abhors the Labor Movement.

I find it hard to write about individual improvement when there is so much denial going on in our country. To stay quiet during times of atrocity is to be complicit in its crimes. This was the example of the Wiemar Republic -- the epitome of Western Civilization. Most of those people weren’t evil, they just didn’t act. There was too much to do, they were too busy, going about the time-consuming activities of daily living to do anything. So after the butcher, the Jew, the homosexual, and then the teacher were gone, there was no one around to help when they came for them.

In the past, people have asked me to write about actions we can take to improve things. That comes later. Before we can act, we must become aware. I write in the hopes that even one person can gain some awareness. Mass movements of social change are founded in this notion of enlightening one mind at a time. History shows us, as Margaret Meade observed many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

I will leave you with the words of someone who was a lot better at this than I will ever hope to be:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” Edward R. Murrow said in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Remember to give thanks to all those men, women, and children who had the fuckin’ cojones to lay down their lives for their convictions, so that we could have better lives.

Love,

Eddie

Economic Enslavement

¡Hola Everybody...
Yesterday, I was on my way to the fireworks display and when I hit the City, I decided against it. I wanted to take some photos to upload, but I was tired from a full day running around at the beach.

I was reading this and I have to admit: sometimes I surprise even myself...

* * *

There are currently at least 30 wars and armed conflicts raging in the world… over 80% of the casualties of war are civilians… disproportionately women and children.

-=[ The Ties that Bind Us ]=-

... And whoever controls the debt, controls everything. This is the essence of the banking industry to make us all slaves to the debt.
-- The International

As we lurch toward the end of the first decade of the new millennium, I can’t help but reflect in amazement how we’ve been at it for all these thousands of years and we’re still here in spite of ourselves. Through the cruel elements, the countless plagues and wars, the madmen, and perhaps human nature itself, we are still here, defiant, striving, still trying to make sense of it all.

We’re still alive...

But we’re still suffering and killing and hating each other. Diplomacy has risen to an art form because we have become masters of the art of war. I wake up today with the realization that we have defeated the democratic process and in its place we have put an economic system that depraves our efforts in order to create riches based on a subculture of poverty and crime, a system any other creature would rightfully see as barbaric.

We believe ourselves to be the most advanced species but we demonstrate very little understanding or respect for our bodies or the world we inhabit.

For over a hundred years, the practice of slavery has been outlawed here in the Land of the Snow, but people still slave. Technology has taken us to outer space, but not before we managed to eradicate millions in search of genetic purity; not before one of our greatest technological projects, harnessing the power of the atom, incinerated tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children to shadows.

We wear the restraints of capitalism, the corruption of ideals, and our hatred, prejudice, and ignorance like shackles.

Our capacity for moral reasoning hasn’t caught up with our technological advances. On the richest nation on the planet, we have the power to end starvation, but children still go hungry. We celebrate our medical advances, but the medicines that slow the progress of AIDS are nowhere to e found as that very plague decimates the entire African continent. Our thinking gets the better of our actions. But before you begin to lay blame, please know that our actions are not truly ours to command. At least not any longer...

Today decisions are made by governments and the corporations that own them and are designed to increase profit, not to advance humanitarian ends. Children are starving because it has nothing to do with the bottom line. People are dying everywhere, but how can you try an international cartel for murder?

I awaken and I am appalled at the lack of moral responsibility and leadership. We all know something’s wrong, but we can’t seem to change because we’ve been hoodwinked -- we’ve all been chained and made into property.

Reality TV is our pacifier and money is our drug of choice -- the one habit we can’t kick without dying in the process. Money also forms the links that create our shackles. Our labor binds us to systems that see us only as units of value or expense.

And in this way we careen toward a future like a runaway train whose conductor and engineer have slain one another, its passengers blissfully unaware. Our lives are designed to maintain the values of our economy. A pound of coffee, an ounce of lead, a human life -- all these things express value in our world. Not human values but the values of the system that rules us. We drag along these values accepting their consequences: wars, the laws that maintain order (and their prisons), the weapons of mass destruction, and the perceived need for world dominance.

Through all this, we are told that there awaits a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But we know deep down inside that we’ll have to pay in sweat, blood, and sacrifice -- our sacrifice alone -- for such a future. Yes, boys and girls, the future may be bright, but we will be the beasts of burden hauling around the necessities to maintain that brilliance.

I wake up today and I am overcome by an overwhelming sense that nothing will save the masses from this tragic fate.

Unless we free ourselves from those old chains of ignorance of the past two-hundred years or more. In order to free ourselves we must stop fooling ourselves into continuing to believe that our chains are jewelry. We must begin to consider the nature of our chains. Understanding something about how we became enslaved (again) might allow us the ability break free of those chains. Once freed, we might bring on a new consciousness that will help us realize that the dreams we had for a bright future pale in comparison to the reality that lies quiescent within each and every one of us.

I can’t help but think that as the latest economic devastation forces white working-class Americans to stop heeding the demagoguery of right-wing talk show hosts, they will come to realize that they too are part of the insanity of mass oppression for mass production. This current economic mess, brought upon by decades of conservative ideology, will not just go away. This is not an economic hiccup.

Maybe this time it will make it harder to separate people of color from whites, as we all endure the hardships. Even if people do not want to see -- or admit -- the fact that we’re all in the same boat, reality has come knocking. Maybe, finally, as we all suffer from the economic shit storm, people will be less prone to heed the propaganda of racial superiority.

Poor or nonexistent medical care, job security, lack of education -- these issues affect every cultural group, creed, and race to differing degrees.

While the runaway juggernaut of capitalism may not extract its pound of flesh in an equal opportunity manner, it does extract it from all of us. It is the nature of capitalism to apply its value system to everything. Within this system, all values are interchangeable. Not only are these values interchangeable, but they also rise and fall according to market forces. Your whole sense of identity and belonging can come tumbling down the moment the cost of a barrel of crude oil, for example, skyrockets. Price competition could well affect the cost of production and one of the major production costs is labor -- your labor. In this way, the value of life itself rises and falls according to the cost of production.

Contrary to what the well-fed and groomed media lap dogs tell you, the economic system that rules so much of our lives cannot value human labor above any other commodity or resource. Under the crushing weight of this system, your humanity is no more valuable than its equivalent cost of a sack of potatoes. Capitalism has no humanity, something even the talking heads admit even while they tell you it’s the ultimate solution to all our social ills. All that exists in the capitalist bible is the margin of profit, the market share. We are all part of the machine, and those elements -- those idiosyncrasies of individualism -- must be dealt with in the same way any mechanic deals with a “faulty” part: removal or replacement.

We are all part of an economic machine. Some of us are cogs, others ghosts, but it is a machine, not our differences, that drive us.

Whites will experience what people of color have been experiencing for centuries and my hope is that, as they experience alienation and isolation from the full participation of the democratic process, they will begin to learn what it feels to be marginalized and in that way, we can all somehow create a coalition founded on our common experiences. As whites, you might feel identification with groups or power, but what does that identification mean on the unemployment line or when an HMO refuses you the luxury of life-saving technology?

In our current reality, we are all a unit of labor. Sure, each individual may use his or her labor as he or she wishes, but in most cases, this power is extremely limited. Make no mistake: the advantage of supply and demand is in the favor of the corporations, not ours. While this is indeed depressing, I take heart in knowing that the experience that can marshal a new era -- a new consciousness -- in our shared history.

The history of African Americans and other people of color is an integral and important part of the history of the United States. Rebellion, it is said, is the essential movement of understanding. Violence and oppression rob us of the ability to understand. Without understanding, there can be no growth, no appreciation of truth, and no tomorrow -- only a never-ending repetition of the daily act of humiliation that has become definition of our existence.

You may deem my words depressing, but I say that there can be no healing until recognition of the disease has evolved. With that, we are well on our way. I also realize that some of you despair that there aren’t enough of us, that the machine will chew us like so much grist for the mill. My first response is almost theoretical: allow me to point you to the power of karma as we discussed the other day. Your actions, no matter how seemingly insignificant, fan out, creating psychic ripples of consequences and actions. My second response is pragmatic. For those who would despair, I leave you with the following knowledge passed down to us by the great anthropologist Margaret Meade:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Love,

Eddie

Labor Struggles

¡Hola! Everybody…
I was watching Rachel Maddow's The Timothy McVeigh Tapes (about the Oklahoma City terrorist bombings) last night, and when they showed the children that were killed, maimed, and harmed, I just started crying...

Most war casualties are innocent women and children. I have a suggestion: form now on anyone proposing aggression as a way out of war should preface their rationale by first saying, “I propose to continue slaughtering innocent women and children because... ” It may not be as convincing as some patriotic bullshit slogan, but at least it's more honest.

* * *

-=[ The Ludlow Massacre ]=-

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. -- James Baldwin (1924–1987)

The history of Labor in the USA is one that is rarely ever discussed and until recently, you would be hard put to find any historical documentation on the history of Labor. There is a good reason for this: it’s not a very pretty history. For those of a conservative orientation who like to mouth clichés about the “good ole days,” and taking their “country back,” well... they weren’t so good.

Not unless you consider child labor, or the lack of responsible overview in the workplace leading to disease and death, as good. One school teacher, Samuel Yellin, wanted to teach labor history to his high school students but was unable to find a textbook, so he wrote his own, American Labor Struggles. Until Howard Zinn and some others, this was the only book that documented the history of the US government’s and Big Business’ vile response to the Labor Movement.

One of the more heinous of episodes, now known as the Ludlow Massacre , reads like something out of the history of a fascist state -- which is what corporatization (rule by corporations) is, in fact. When I first read this as part of a deal I made with my then high school-aged son, I was shocked that such things, with all our lip service to individual freedom and fairness, happened in the United States:

On April 20, 1914, 20 innocent men, women, and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. For some time, coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the UMWA for many years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

As a result, for their striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The ensuing massacre was a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strikebreakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later, investigations would reveal that the tents were intentionally set on fire. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.

The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency had been brought in to suppress the Colorado miners. They brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun--the Death Special-- that roamed the area spraying bullets. The day of the massacre, the miners were celebrating Greek Easter. At 10:00 AM, the militia ringed the camp and began firing into the tents upon a signal from the commander, Lt. Karl E. Lindenfelter. Not one of the perpetrators of the slaughter were ever punished, but scores of miners and their leaders were arrested and black-balled from the coal industry.

A monument erected by the UMWA stands today in Ludlow, Colorado in remembrance of the brave and innocent souls who died for freedom and human dignity.

Today, people enjoy taking potshots at unions. Much of this is the result of a media controlled by the very forces that oppose unionization; some of it is the result of bonehead actions taken the union leaders themselves. However, the only thing standing between you (if you’re not a CEO) and complete servitude are unions, which is why Corporate Christianity abhors the Labor Movement.

I find it hard to write about individual improvement when there is so much disinformation and unreason going around the country today. To stay quiet during times of injustice is to be complicit in its crimes. Read about those that lived in Nazi Germany. Most of those people weren’t evil, they simply didn’t act. Perhaps like you, they had too much to do, they were too busy, going about the time-consuming activities of daily living to do anything. So they stood by silently while they came for the butcher, and then the teacher, and finally the neighbor. Eventually, there was no one around to help when injustice knocked on their door.

In the past, people have asked me to write about actions we can take to improve things. That comes later. Before we can act, we must become aware. I write in the hopes that even one person can gain some awareness. Mass movements of social change are founded in this notion of enlightening one mind at a time. History shows us, as Margaret Meade observed many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

I will leave you with the words of someone who was a lot better at this than I will ever hope to be:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” Edward R. Murrow said in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Remember to give thanks to all those men, women, and children who sacrificed their lives in the workplace for their convictions, so that we could have better lives.

Love,

Eddie

Labor Struggles

¡Hola! Everybody…
The rabid neocon fanatics and their enablers can call it what they want, but the fact is that some people just aren’t comfortable with the notion of an African-American president.

Period.

It is Labor Day -- people died...

* * *

-=[ The Ludlow Massacre ]=-

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

-- James Baldwin (1924–1987)

I hope that you have had an opportunity to gather with friends and family to observe the many that died in order to make fair wages, the 40-hour week hour week, and vacations a reality.

That's OK, our Corporate Media and their bland whores -- the well-paid, hair-sprayed teleprompt readers -- would never focus on such a history. No, I don’t blame you for forgetting about Labor and its impact on our lives. After all, there’s much more important stuff to think about.

The history of Labor in the USA is one that is rarely ever discussed and until recently, you would be hard put to find any historical documentation on the history of Labor. There is a good reason for this: it’s not a very pretty history. For those of us of a conservative orientation who like to mouth clichés about the “good ole days,” well, they weren’t so good.

Not unless you consider child labor, or the lack of responsible overview in the workplace leading to disease and death, as good. One school teacher, Samuel Yellin, wanted to teach Labor history to his high school students but was unable to find a textbook, so he wrote his own, American Labor Struggles. Until Howard Zinn and some others, this was the only book that documented the history of the US government’s and Big Business’ vile response to the Labor movement.

One of the more heinous of episodes, now known as the Ludlow Massacre, reads like something out of the history of a fascist state -- which is what corporatization (rule by corporations) is, in fact. When I first read this as part of a deal I made with my then high school-aged son, I was shocked that such things, with all our lip service to individual freedom and fairness, happened in the United States:

On April 20, 1914, 20 innocent men, women, and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. For some time, coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the UMWA for many years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

As a result, for their striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The ensuing massacre was a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strikebreakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later, investigations would reveal that the tents were intentionally set on fire. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.

The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency had been brought in to suppress the Colorado miners. They brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun--the Death Special-- that roamed the area spraying bullets. The day of the massacre, the miners were celebrating Greek Easter. At 10:00 AM, the militia ringed the camp and began firing into the tents upon a signal from the commander, Lt. Karl E. Lindenfelter. Not one of the perpetrators of the slaughter were ever punished, but scores of miners and their leaders were arrested and black-balled from the coal industry.

A monument erected by the UMWA stands today in Ludlow, Colorado in remembrance of the brave and innocent souls who died for freedom and human dignity.

Today, people enjoy taking potshots at Unions. Much of this is the result of a media controlled by the very forces that opposes unionization; some of it is the result of bonehead actions taken the union leaders themselves. However, the only thing standing between you (if you’re not a CEO) and complete servitude are unions, which is why Corporate Christianity abhors the Labor Movement.

I find it hard to write about individual improvement when there is so much denial going on in our country. To stay quiet during times of atrocity is to be complicit in its crimes. Ask anyone that lived in Nazi Germany. Most of those people weren’t evil, they just didn’t act. There was too much to do, they were too busy, going about the time-consuming activities of daily living to do anything. So after they came to get the butcher, then the teacher, and finally the neighbor, there was no one around to help when they came for them because everyone had been taken already.

In the past, people have asked me to write about actions we can take to improve things. That comes later. Before we can act, we must become aware. I write in the hopes that even one person can gain some awareness. Mass movements of social change are founded in this notion of enlightening one mind at a time. History shows us, as Margaret Meade observed many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

I will leave you with the words of someone who was a lot better at this than I will ever hope to be:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” Edward R. Murrow said in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Remember to give thanks to all those men, women, and children who had the fuckin’ cojones to lay down their lives for their convictions, so that we could have better lives.

Love,

Eddie

A New Mourning

¡Hola! Everybody...
Funniest thing: I can write for myself and it’s quite easy, but when it comes to writing for my work, it’s very difficult. LOL

I’m very busy, what with the NYS legislature going crazy (thanks to two slave-catching Latinos who are under investigation). The possible power shift could derail advocacy work on several fronts: mandatory sentencing reform, the anti-shackling bill, and same sex marriage to name just a few. In addition, any legislative traffic jam can result in the delay of funds non-profits depend on. It’s a mess.

Then yesterday, yet another right-wing extremist went on a rampage, spilling blood and killing senselessly...

* * *

-=[ The Pink Wound of a New Mourning ]=-

Cold rapid hands
draw back one by one
the bandages of dark
I open my eyes
still
I am living
at the center
of a wound still fresh.
-- Octavio Paz, Dawn

I have written before that’s there’s a potential upside to the current class war aka “The Economic Crisis.” Namely, what people of color have experienced for centuries as a group many whites now experience as solitary and alienated individuals. Chris Rock’s observation that a white person would never trade skins with a black person has some merit, and truth be told various groups of white Americans might feel they belong, that there is a system that looks out for them. However, today more than ever, individually they suffer the stings of corporate indifference like anyone else.

At a group level, a white man might identify with a white, male, Christian president, for example (though that’s not available today). But how much does that identification mean when on the unemployment line or when a HMO refuses to allow possible life-saving technology?

Every American is a unit of labor. This labor is owned by corporations. Each individual may dispose his or her labor as he or she wishes, but ultimately the employer owes the laborer nothing. In a very real way, this fact can potentially unite the historical experience of people of color and the new day dawning on the rest of our nation.

It can, but we are pitted against one another. Even poor or oppressed whites can look further down and find (false) refuge in the knowledge that the faces at the bottom of the well are mostly black and brown.

I am attempting to understand, by looking at inequality, the problems that face all of us in America. I want to understand how we can free ourselves from the chains that bind us together in this dysfunctional and horrific dance of death and hatred. While these chains are more easily recognized in the experience of people of color, they are also the same chains that shackle us all.

Some of us are looking at social change in fear. We view the reality of a black president as a threat somehow. We see a Latina Supreme Court nominee and fear that our freedoms will be taken away. We see that our religious beliefs will not be enforced on others and we seethe with self-righteous indignation and hatred. It’s an irrational fear with far-reaching potentially catastrophic consequences. It compels some of us to kill and maim.

Today, I am not looking to advance a particular dogma or socio-political agenda. I am not looking to socialist, Marxist, or capitalistic experiments as an answer to our social and economic problems. Rather, I want to look directly into the maws of capitalism to see if there’s a way to survive the onslaught.

I stand at the intersection of knowledge and action. Rebellion is the primary movement of knowledge. Violence and oppression rob us of the ability to understand. Without understanding, there can be no growth, no evolution, no recognition of truth, and no tomorrow -- only an endless reverberation of gray todays.

If we refuse to look at and understand the restraints placed on all of us by history, economics, self-image, the media, politics, and the misuse of technology, we will never be free. The alternative to knowledge and action is ignorance and enslavement. The shackles I speak of threaten to enslave everyone in America and therefore, concern us all.

When the logical consequence of a popular and mass ideology is murder and oppression, we are in a crisis that may enable us to become the first species to make themselves extinct.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

The Ties That Bind Us

¡Hola! Everybody...
Welcome to social networking sites where a woman who considers it moral to screw married men, another who pays for sex, and a man who talks publicly about his ex-wife’s foul-smelling genitalia have the audacity to pass moral judgment on others.

There’s some funny country-assed muthafuckas up in here. LOL!

Imma get all pedantic on yo asses today ...

* * *

-=[ The Ties that Bind Us ]=-

“... And whoever controls the debt, controls everything. This is the essence of the banking industry to make us all slaves to debt.”

-- from the film, The International

As we lurch toward the end of the first decade of the new millennium, I can’t help but reflect in amazement how we’ve been at it for all these thousands of years and we’re still here in spite of ourselves. Through the cruel elements, the countless plagues and wars, the madmen, and perhaps human nature itself, we are still here, defiant, striving, still trying to make sense of it all.

We’re still alive...

But we’re still suffering and killing and hating each other. Diplomacy has risen to an art form because we have become masters of the art of war. I wake up today with the realization that we have defeated the democratic process and in its place we have put an economic system that depraves our efforts in order to create riches based on a subculture of poverty and crime, a system any other creature would rightfully see as barbaric.

We believe ourselves to be the most advanced species but we demonstrate very little understanding or respect for our bodies or the world we inhabit.

For over a hundred years, the practice of slavery has been outlawed here in the Land of the Snow, but people still slave. Technology has taken us to outer space, but not before we managed to eradicate millions in search of genetic purity; not before one of our greatest technological projects, harnessing the power of the atom, incinerated tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children to shadows.

We wear the restraints of capitalism, the corruption of ideals, and our hatred, prejudice, and ignorance like shackles.

Our capacity for moral reasoning hasn’t caught up with our technological advances. On the richest nation on the planet, we have the power to end starvation, but children still go hungry. We celebrate our medical advances, but the medicines that slow the progress of AIDS are nowhere to e found as that very plague decimates the entire African continent. Our thinking gets the better of our actions. But before you begin to lay blame, please know that our actions are not truly ours to command. At least not any longer...

Today decisions are made by governments and the corporations that own them and are designed to increase profit, not to advance humanitarian ends. Children are starving because it has nothing to do with the bottom line. People are dying everywhere, but how can you try an international cartel for murder?

I awaken and I am appalled at the lack of moral responsibility and leadership. We all know something’s wrong, but we can’t seem to change because we’ve been hoodwinked -- we’ve all been chained and made into property.

Reality TV is our pacifier and money is our drug of choice -- the one habit we can’t kick without dying in the process. Money also forms the links that create our shackles. Our labor binds us to systems that see us only as units of value or expense.

And in this way we careen toward a future like a runaway train whose conductor and engineer have slain one another, its passengers blissfully unaware. Our lives are designed to maintain the values of our economy. A pound of coffee, an ounce of lead, a human life -- all these things express value in our world. Not human values but the values of the system that rules us. We drag along these values accepting their consequences: wars, the laws that maintain order (and their prisons), the weapons of mass destruction, and the perceived need for world dominance.

Through all this, we are told that there awaits a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But we know deep down inside that we’ll have to pay in sweat, blood, and sacrifice -- our sacrifice alone -- for such a future. Yes, boys and girls, the future may be bright, but we will be the beasts of burden hauling around the necessities to maintain that brilliance.

I wake up today and I am overcome by an overwhelming sense that nothing will save the masses from this tragic fate.

Unless we free ourselves from those old chains of ignorance of the past two-hundred years or more. In order to free ourselves we must stop fooling ourselves into continuing to believe that our chains are jewelry. We must begin to consider the nature of our chains. Understanding something about how we became enslaved (again) might allow us the ability break free of those chains. Once freed, we might bring on a new consciousness that will help us realize that the dreams we had for a bright future pale in comparison to the reality that lies quiescent within each and every one of us.

I can’t help but think that as the latest economic devastation forces white working-class Americans to stop heeding the demagoguery of right-wing talk show hosts, they will come to realize that they too are part of the insanity of mass oppression for mass production. This current economic mess, brought upon by decades of conservative ideology, will not just go away. This is not an economic hiccup.

Maybe this time it will make it harder to separate people of color from whites, as we all endure the hardships. Even if people do not want to see -- or admit -- the fact that we’re all in the same boat, reality has come knocking. Maybe, finally, as we all suffer from the economic shit storm, people will be less prone to heed the propaganda of racial superiority.

Poor or nonexistent medical care, job security, lack of education -- these issues affect every cultural group, creed, and race to differing degrees.

While the runaway juggernaut of capitalism may not extract its pound of flesh in an equal opportunity manner, it does extract it from all of us. It is the nature of capitalism to apply its value system to everything. Within this system, all values are interchangeable. Not only are these values interchangeable, but they also rise and fall according to market forces. Your whole sense of identity and belonging can come tumbling down the moment the cost of a barrel of crude oil, for example, skyrockets. Price competition could well affect the cost of production and one of the major production costs is labor -- your labor. In this way, the value of life itself rises and falls according to the cost of production.

Contrary to what the well-fed and groomed media lap dogs tell you, the economic system that rules so much of our lives cannot value human labor above any other commodity or resource. Under the crushing weight of this system, your humanity is no more valuable than its equivalent cost of a sack of potatoes. Capitalism has no humanity, something even the talking heads admit even while they tell you it’s the ultimate solution to all our social ills. All that exists in the capitalist bible is the margin of profit, the market share. We are all part of the machine, and those elements -- those idiosyncrasies of individualism -- must be dealt with in the same way any mechanic deals with a “faulty” part: removal or replacement.

We are all part of an economic machine. Some of us are cogs, others ghosts, but it is a machine, not our differences, that drive us.

Whites will experience what people of color have been experiencing for centuries and my hope is that, as they experience alienation and isolation from the full participation of the democratic process, they will begin to learn what it feels to be marginalized and in that way, we can all somehow create a coalition founded on our common experiences. As whites, you might feel identification with groups or power, but what does that identification mean on the unemployment line or when an HMO refuses you the luxury of life-saving technology?

In our current reality, we are all a unit of labor. Sure, each individual may use his or her labor as he or she wishes, but in most cases, this power is extremely limited. Make no mistake: the advantage of supply and demand is in the favor of the corporations, not ours. While this is indeed depressing, I take heart in knowing that the experience that can marshal a new era -- a new consciousness -- in our shared history.

The history of African Americans and other people of color is an integral and important part of the history of the United States. Rebellion, it is said, is the essential movement of understanding. Violence and oppression rob us of the ability to understand. Without understanding, there can be no growth, no appreciation of truth, and no tomorrow -- only a never-ending repetition of the daily act of humiliation that has become definition of our existence.

You may deem my words depressing, but I say that there can be no healing until recognition of the disease has evolved. With that, we are well on our way. I also realize that some of you despair that there aren’t enough of us, that the machine will chew us like so much grist for the mill. My first response is almost theoretical: allow me to point you to the power of karma as we discussed the other day. Your actions, no matter how seemingly insignificant, fan out, creating psychic ripples of consequences and actions. My second response is pragmatic. For those who would despair, I leave you with the following knowledge passed down to us by the great anthropologist Margaret Meade:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Love,

Eddie