Farmers ready to attend a meeting of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union 

(SFTU) 1937  Creative Commons 2.0

The New York Times just ran an interesting article on Wisconsin's Governor Scott

Walker, his broken promise to prevent right to work as he courted union leaders

to support him in spite of his assault on public sector unions collective

bargaining, and Walker's masters--the Koch Brothers and ALEC, the American

Legislative Exchange Council.

It is a story of solidarity.

It is a story

of the failure of our solidarity, and the success of the solidarity of the

radical rightwing and their masters, the fabulously wealthy, in particular the

Koch Brothers.

It is well known to us that Scott Walker is running for

President of the United States. It may not be so well known that the Koch

Brothers have promised as much as $400million as long as he is politically

viable.  The Koch Brothers will spend as much as $500 million in other races. 

They know very well whose side they are on--and who they own.

Some 2000 years

ago a very wise poor, homeless carpenter said you cannot serve both God and

money.

America's wealthiest have made the accumulation of wealth to the point

where they can't spend it all and it becomes just numbers on a ledger or, more

likely, a spread sheet on a computer; they've made it their religion.  They

defile any fundamental human values, destroy our country's economy, and spend

lots of their money to add more zeroes to their ledgers and spread sheets. 

They've twisted a Congress to allow 20 percent of all American kids and 25

percent of all African-American workers to be born and raised in poverty and

need with never, ever enough--not enough clothes, food, shoes, even

shelter--this in the richest country in the history of the world.  And they

DEFILE HONEST WORK, the kind of work that allows a family to live in dignity and

security and raise kids with enough.

And we allow it all because we forget

that we are workers, that we are members of a very proud social class, the

working class.  Not so long ago some workers thought they could make it into the

ownership class--and we got weaker.  Then as we got weaker some of us began to

sell out other workers for our narrow slice of dignity, comfort, and

security.

Until now as has happened in Wisconsin, our refusal to stand

together in solidarity is impoverishing us all and now threatens the existence

of our labor movement and democracy and the idea of democracy.

Let us be

clear about this.  Without a vibrant and vigorous labor movement there is no

democracy.  That is fast happening.

American exceptionalism is not that

anyone can become rich.  That is simply bullshit.  American exceptionalism is

that though rarely a majority enough people will stand together and fight

together against the worst kind of odds to make a better life their kids and

others they love and, as a consequence, all others who work for someone

else.

The struggle to make America better has NEVER been easy.  Ask Nat

Turner whose skin was made into a lamp shade after his slave rebellion was

crushed.  Ask William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass.  Ask Gene Debs, 

ask Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who were abolitionists who led

the women's suffragist movement.  Ask the kids intentionally burned to death at

Ludlow, Colorado by the state's militia.  Ask Dr. King and Cesar Chavez

And

ask the Native People of America who survive in too many cases terrible

conditions but whose blood flows in so many of us. Ask Tecumseh of the Shawnee. 

Ask Tsali of the Cherokee who sacrificed his life so that some of his people

could stay in the mountains they loved.

We forget because we may sing

Solidarity without practicing or even knowing it.

Scott Walker and the Kochs

are neither new nor unique.  They are the scum that has always threatened

America, real freedom, real justice.  They are the Tories who sold out their

neighbors to the Hessian soldiers of fortune, the slaveholders and the poor

whites who fought and died for them, the government agents and politicians who

lied, killed, starved and destroyed the people who were here first, the scabs

and militia who killed thousands of workers striking for an eight hour day and

the right to organize.

It is not too late for us to refuse to give in, give

out or give up.  It is not too late to do as Bruce said and as written on my

shoulder, No Retreat No Surrender.

It has now come down to a bunch of

personal decisions that will decide for our country.

Do you know which side

you are on?

Are you prepared to defend your family, your kids, other workers,

your class?

Will you protect the precious idea of freedom?

American

exceptionalism is not that we've ever been a majority, but we've been

enough.

Now is the time.  Don't wait for Jack.  Jack's done gone.

But

there's still enough of us if we are still the progeny of those willing to give

everything for freedom.  No generation of Americans has been spared this

question.  That has always been the existential question of Americans.

 

Photo: Ready to attend a meeting of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) 1937. Creative Commons 2.0.

Photographer Louise Boyle; at the Kheel Center, Cornell University