- I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
- Alive as you or me
- Says I, But Joe, you're ten years dead
- I never died says he
- I never died says he
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- Forgotten in our days of imported junk - concrete windowless
box stores - echoing plants - shuttered towns - rusted mills - hilltop
mining (EPA, shrug, no Al Gore - seeing the mountains of W.VA. being leveled)
- outsourcing of American jobs (including Information Technology - state
services) - and H-IB imported visas holders (hundreds of thousands voted
by Congress) replacing skilled, professional workers (1/3 the cost - no
benefits - no vacations - no job security) are the working men/women of
this country - brutalized, shot, killed, and starved. You'll see nothing
taught on this great part of a nation's history. Robber Barons made millions
- lived in palatial estates - while citizens (really indentured slaves)
worked in horrific conditions - no benefits - minuscule pay (or scrip)
and in shanty mill/mining towns - in the shadows of belching stacks - clouds
of coal dust. If a man was killed on the job, his widow/children were given
a few days to pack up and get out of the shacks they were living in.
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- The people organized to fight for livable wages - job
safety - and benefits. The history of the labor movement (not remembered
or taught) the military - and private goon squads, hired by the robber
barons - attacked and killed many a striker (family members) shows the
once upon a time tenacity and courage of ordinary people. Our Labor Department
is a joke (corporate appointee), Robert Reich under Clinton was no better.
He recently 'joked' that a student asked him if Labor Day represented child
birth? Not funny - sad how ignorant we've become.
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- Under President Reagan, unions heard their death knell,
when he fired thousands of air traffic controllers. If there had been the
fire and passion of a Joe Hill - or Mother Jones, gifted in organizing
and plain talk that related to the workers - this whole damn country could
have been shut down. If there had been an honest media (not corporately
controlled) the people would have been educated as to the true state of
affairs.
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- When we speak of heroes, a man, a working man, an immigrant
from Sweden, Joe Hill, is never mentioned. The one thing you don't want
the people to realize is the real power they hold (when united in a cause).
Like Joe remarked, the people had the power to shut down the country! Just
as they still have. The attack on protesters in Seattle (against trade
agreements - exporting American jobs/industry) was so violent (Ninja troop
gassing, beating) in my opinion, was because the people came together.
There was almost zero coverage of what really happened (nor in Florida
FTAA) and to this day, many citizens (and state - local politicians) do
not have a grasp, of what these various (thousands of pages) of agreements
(not debated - read - or discussed) voted on (only up or down vote) means
to the constituents of their states - their zoning, employment, water rights,
and various environmental protections! Meantime - our country's infrastructure
with privatization taking over the water, school services, waste, utilities
etc.
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- Seattle saw seniors, students, steel workers, textile
workers, truck drivers, environmentalists, dock workers etc, untied in
their concern (since they had informed themselves). They were beaten down,
with agent provocateurs, masked, inciting violence, to give the police
an excuse to attack (all planned). The major objective in these protests,
(media - special interests), is to keep the greater audience ignorant of
these agreements, and secondly to (media's job) present such actions,
as a bunch of rag, tag, trouble makers - intent on destruction. It worked.
People are 'programed' to believe what the TV tells them!
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- I lived in a mill town. My dad (neighbors) worked in
the searing heat of a steel plant. Those who owned the plants lived far
from the belching stacks - the pollution and heat. Some of them had a woodland
retreat (with all the amenities) above Johnstown, Pennsylvania. They had
workmen construct a lake for them for leisurely boating and swimming. They
ignored the advice of those maintaining the earthen damn. One day it burst
and took out Johnstown . 2,400 people died that day - the town and homes
were left in shreds. NOT one person was held accountable and NO compensation
was ever paid. Such is the malignant arrogance of great wealth (no different
today - robbing pension funds - moving overseas etc).
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- Those protected from the work a day world, with 'inherited
wealth' - connections in high places - or in 'seemingly' secure jobs;
in various government - local consultants - teachers - police etc; protected
by unions - full medical coverage - bonuses - raises (to keep up with inflation)
cannot relate to today's working class man/woman. Wages have been stagnated
for some years. Every week, its a different plant being shut down - (paper
mills - mfg - specialty shops). In northern NH, when the paper mill closed
(a major employer), the men thought they could pick up temporary work
constructing (what else) a Wal-mart store. To their surprise the place
was being built by immigrants. Contractors merely sub contract the work
out to the cheapest labor. Many companies, fire people, and then hire them
back, or replacements, as temp workers (no benefits - great cut in pay).
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- Many seniors and men/women who once had livable wage
jobs are now working in (two - three jobs) in the service sector which
produces nothing. A town - state - nor country, can not long survive in
a market that produces merely the service of selling junk from overseas.
Millions upon millions are unable to afford medical coverage/prescriptions
etc.The hucksters from the insurance industry, HMOs, and pharmaceuticals,
now dictate and write legislation, to benefit their lucrative profits.
In our state, the Senators (far removed from medical crisis or need),
voted against importing medicine from Canada -Japan (made by the same companies)
which would have made medicine less costly. What do they care - we're paying
72% of their full medical/prescription costs! They don't have to care.
There lucrative pensions (yearly cost of living increases!) aren't being
robbed!
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- The chaos of the immigration crisis has victims (Mexicans)
pitted against victims (Americans). If you can organize and fund the multitudes,
to war against one another - they won't unite and see the real enemy,
these various trade agreements, which will see everyone as mere indentured
servants, to the international robber barons of today (who have allegiance
only to mammon). It's a race to the bottom in global wages. The Mexicans,
who no doubt, would much prefer to live in the land of their birth, with
their beautiful culture, friends and relatives, have been forcibly dislocated
with a failed NAFTA, seeing their jobs shipped to China. They have been
forced from their lands, by of a deluge of imported foodstuffs. A corrupt
government - that can't control the violence of drug cartels makes it a
fearful place to live. In the end (not seen in the paid PR hysteria) is
that this global plantation will soon see us all destitute.
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- These past decades has seen factories closed in the north,
and moving south, where the people, uneducated in the protections a union
would offer, (benefits - higher wages - vacations - medical insurance
- job safety) - have their right to work for less jobs. These jobs pay
an approximate $5,300 less than if they were unionized with most offering
no real job security, or benefits. And now these factories are closing,
with the corporate hucksters relocating to slave labor countries, that
pay pennies for labor. This is not free trade -its the plantation of old.
A look at the miners in Utah (non-union) is a story of indifference to
the safety of workers. This retreat mining (honeycombing a mountain) is
all about greed and profits. And now three men (rescuers ) are dead and
six men entombed forever. This mine should NEVER have been permitted to
operate with its dangers and no escape plan. But, yawn, that's old news,
and soon forgotten, with appointed industry interests in Washington holding
down the fort for industry's interests (not the miners). Some men it's
true will sell their souls for a pittance.
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- They killed Joe Hill - it seems that anyone with the
gift of leadership ends up dead? Without leadership (as we're all too
well aware) a people will falter - turn on one another to fix blame - riot
- or shut down, cocooning themselves from all political actions. Fearful
- they are made suspicious of all. Joe was framed for murder, in Utah.
The state appointed the judge in his case - with the cooper boss hogs seeing
to his execution by firing squad. Joe was also a poet and songwriter. He
wasn't too taken with the ineptness of the churches whose word to the worker,
was that they would (finally) receive their reward in the sweet bye and
bye (in heavenly places - not here) thus he wrote the Preacher and the
Slave. As a tribute to Joe - (would that we had thousands of his ilk today)
- I choose this song "Joe Hill Tribute" from youtube (rather
than Joan Baez) because I think this man, a working man (truck driver -
miner - steel worker?) exemplifies the heartfelt remembrance of Joe by
one of his own.
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- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TqqU_CwWIY
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- - JM
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- jdthmoriarty@yahoo.com
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