Which Side Are You On?

by Florence Reese

Come all of you good workers
Good news to you I'll tell
Of how that good old union
Has come in here to dwell

(Chorus)
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner
And I'm a miner's son
And I'll stick with the union
Till every battle's won

They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Blair

Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?

Woody Guthrie

It was early springtime when the strike was on,
They drove us miners out of doors,
Out from the houses that the Company owned,
We moved into tents up at old Ludlow.
I was worried bad about my children,
Soldiers guarding the railroad bridge,
Every once in a while a bullet would fly,
Kick up gravel under my feet.

We were so afraid you would kill our children,
We dug us a cave that was seven foot deep,
Carried our young ones and pregnant women
Down inside the cave to sleep.

That very night your soldiers waited,
Until all us miners were asleep,
You snuck around our little tent town,
Soaked our tents with your kerosene.

You struck a match and in the blaze that started,
You pulled the triggers of your gatling guns,
I made a run for the children but the fire wall stopped me.
Thirteen children died from your guns.

I carried my blanket to a wire fence corner,
Watched the fire till the blaze died down,
I helped some people drag their belongings,
While your bullets killed us all around.

I never will forget the look on the faces
Of the men and women that awful day,
When we stood around to preach their funerals,
And lay the corpses of the dead away.
We told the Colorado Governor to call the President,
Tell him to call off his National Guard,
But the National Guard belonged to the Governor,
So he didn't try so very hard.

Our women from Trinidad they hauled some potatoes,
Up to Walsenburg in a little cart,
They sold their potatoes and brought some guns back,
And they put a gun in every hand.

The state soldiers jumped us in a wire fence corners,
They did not know we had these guns,
And the Red-neck Miners mowed down these troopers,
You should have seen those poor boys run.

'Betrayed' at Sea
A new documentary says Canada sold out its sailors by selling off its merchant marine fleet.

Betrayed At Sea

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"Canada never emerged from the economic doldrums of the 1970s. It simply lurched from mini-crisis to mini-crisis, with economic stagnation and high rates of inflation characterizing the 1980s. Inflation would eventually be brought under control, but only at the expense of an acute slowdown in the manufacturing sector, an intensification of work relations, the creation of the low-wage service economy in which union jobs and entitlements virtually disappeared from a material context governed by minimum wage employment and part-time work. Capital took a rest from production as investment plunged into the freewheeling speculative climate of real estate, the stock market, sport franchises and other endeavours where glib tongues and fast deals open the door to the shadiest of capitalist practices, the overtly criminal tip of an iceberg of sleeze melting into the odd conviction for insider trading."

Taking Up the Need to Act in a New Way

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I don't think the existence of thuggery in the labour movement is counter to this. In my experience, the thug unions were a form of yellow unionism used against workers who wanted to form REAL unions - in particular, how the Teamsters were used against hotel workers in Montreal.

Fidel also talked about the US thugs brought in to crush the militant seafarers' union.

Sorry, your trolling doesn't work here, for anyone with the slightest knowledge of labour and socialist movement history. Seeing where you are writing from, you should, you know...

[ 20 January 2005: Message edited by: lagatta ]

But Bobby Kennedy's pursuit and prosecution of Hoffa were famously fierce and fearsome.

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Originally posted by lagatta:

Sorry, your trolling doesn't work here, for anyone with the slightest knowledge of labour and socialist movement history. Seeing where you are writing from, you should, you know...

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so I'd rather associate with the Kennedys

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Negad, you've got several things entangled there, including a discussion from another thread in which you were misreading the situation being discussed. That discussion was not about union members attacking "immigrants," although you thought it was. Go back and read others' replies to you.

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Originally posted by Bacchus:
...and disliked the British.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
If only our troll, a "student" knew more about the history of the labour movement in the US. Interesting to remember that at one point the Teamsters were a very militant union, involved in a huge strike wave in Minneapolis. (Folks in the Prairies should learn of that, as there are interesting parallels with events in Winnipeg; moreover, in Minnesota there was a "Farmer-Labor Party" not unlike the CCF). How mobsters were able to muscle in is an interesting topic for labour historians - certainly red-baiting played a part there.

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Lagatta:

He can start with the Hormel strike.

IWW reprint

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Originally posted by lagatta:
My life of privilege?

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The book documents the way in which Jimmy Hoffa started as a labour goon; he was sent to Minneapolis by President Roosevelt to break the radicals' hold on the union.

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Joe Kennedy, the patriarch, was a nazi, supporter of Hitler

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He, like lindbergh' switched gears though after Pearl harbor.

And its not so much surprise that he hated the british, but that he was sent as ambassador there as well

Hmm He might just have been a rabid anti-semite

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During May of 1938, Kennedy engaged in extensive discussions with the new German Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Herbert von Dirksen. In the midst of these conversations (held without approval from the U.S. State Department), Kennedy advised von Dirksen that President Roosevelt was the victim of "Jewish influence" and was poorly informed as to the philosophy, ambitions and ideals of Hitler's regime. (The Nazi ambassador subsequently told his bosses that Kennedy was "Germany's best friend" in London.)

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Brutality was in the eye of the beholder. Writing to Charles Lindbergh shortly after Kristallnacht in November of 1938, Joe Kennedy Sr. seemed more concerned about the political ramifications stemming from high-profile, riotous anti-Semitism than he was about the actual violence done to the Jews. "... Isn't there some way," he asked, "to persuade [the Nazis] it is on a situation like this that the whole program of saving western civilization might hinge?

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[ 20 January 2005: Message edited by: Bacchus ]

Ahhh Not so much economic ties as having the Germans help him make a profit.

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The situation was made even worse when it was learned by Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's most trusted aide, that Joe had sold Czech securities and made $500,000 in profits while U.S. Ambassador. He apparently traded on top secret intelligence information that the Germans were going to invade Czechoslovakia and when they did the Czech stock market collapsed and Joe covered his shorts.

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[ 20 January 2005: Message edited by: Bacchus ]

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Originally posted by lagatta:
I think it is a key question for babblers:

Which Side Are You On?

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I agree!

So...are you with us, or with the ter'rists?

Now, Joe's history in Hollywood is definitely worth investigating. There is the original connection to the gangsters.

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So...are you with us, or with the ter'rists?

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But there is no "class war" between Bush and Bin Laden. Both are right-wing, women-hating born-again religious fanatics and spoit rich boys.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
There is no question but that neo-cons around Bush have spoken quite frankly of "class war", in those words, from the standpoint of their class.

But there is no "class war" between Bush and Bin Laden. Both are right-wing, women-hating born-again religious fanatics and spoit rich boys.

Of course, there are those of us who would rather remain aloof from the whole thing. Wonder if I would, if I had such a luxury?

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Yes indeed, but note that USians are forbidden from uttering the terms "class warfare" together like that -- it must be spoke of in proxy terms. Its bad form to come out and admit it, since in the fairytale USA we live in everyone has a equal shot and only the "lazy and shiftless" don't taste The American Dream (tm).

As far as the Teamsters reference earlier, I learned a lot about that union when I was a part of it as a college student one summer loading hardware onto trucks in a warehouse. The Minneapolis actions were history to me - the Hormel strike in Austin I remember very well. It was a watershed moment for the US labor movement and not a good one.

I am on a Morris dancing team which also sings. We got a gig at the "Miners Wives Association" picnic a while ago. Given that the miners involved are serious brass the fact that the house had a private golf course for a back yard (well, back large area of land) should not come as quite as much surprise as it did.

Anyways, for one of our songs we did "Union Miner", chorus:

Union miners, stand together
Do not heed the bosses tale
Keep your hand upon your wages
And your eyes upon the scale

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Originally posted by Egalitarian American:

Yes indeed, but note that USians are forbidden from uttering the terms "class warfare" together like that -- it must be spoke of in proxy terms. Its bad form to come out and admit it, since in the fairytale USA we live in everyone has a equal shot and only the "lazy and shiftless" don't taste The American Dream (tm).

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You are a wonderful person, and I want to have your baby.

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Originally posted by Barcode:
So, the labor unions in the USA have ties
to organized crime, why don't you mention
that? The Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa are a
good example of this. Let's not forget the
Democrats in the JFK administration had known
ties to mobsters during that era.

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EVERY labour union in the States, Sonny?