The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Brian K. Noe

Bread and Roses

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Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Bread and Roses Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts – a formative moment in American Labor history, and an inspiration to workers and lovers of liberty to this day.

Solidarity!

Bread and Roses a Hundred Years On. [Industrial Worker] – Though 100 years have passed, the Lawrence strike resonates as one of the most important in the history of the United States. Like many labor conflicts of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the strike was marked by obscene disparities in wealth and power, open collusion between the state and business owners, large scale violence against unarmed strikers, and great ingenuity and solidarity on the part of workers. In important ways, though, the strike was also unique. It was the first large-scale industrial strike, the overwhelming majority of the strikers were immigrants, most were women and children, and the strike was guided in large part by the revolutionary strategy and vision of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

100 years later, Bread and Roses strike still resonates. [The Boston Globe] – The Bread and Roses Strike, not only called attention to horrific conditions in the mills, but also to the concentration of wealth and power in the United States,an issue that 100 years later would spur protesters to Occupy Wall Street, Boston, and other cities across the country.

100 Years After Lawrence Strike, the Cry for ‘Bread & Roses’ Still Resonates. [In These Times] – The strike that started on January 12, 1912, created political tremors far beyond the Merrimack Valley. The shutdown of mills in Lawrence forced a national debate about factory conditions, child labor, the exploitation of immigrants and the free exercise of First Amendment rights during labor disputes.

Bread and Roses: The 1912 Lawrence textile Strike. [Joyce Kornbluh, The Lucy Parsons Project] – Early in January 1912 I.W.W. activities focused on a dramatic ten-week strike of 25,000 textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts. It became the most widely publicized I.W.W. conflict, acquainting the nation with the plight of the unskilled, foreign-born worker as well as with the organization’s philosophy of radical unionism. “Lawrence was not an ordinary strike,” wrote Brissenden in 1919, “It was a social revolution in parvo.”

100 Year Anniversary of Bread and Roses Strike. [Uprising Radio] – Given today’s economic climate and the rising opposition to wealth inequality in the US, the history of the Bread and Roses strike of 1912 is particularly relevant.

Remembering the Fight and Spirit of “Bread and Roses.” [Common Dreams] – The strike lasted for two months. The workers marched daily, singing union anthems, and later listening to organizers. They faced clubs, bayonets, and frequent arrests.  Many were hauled off to jail, children in tow.  One, Annie LoPizzo, was shot and killed by the police.

Documentary Shows Strike “From The Workers’ Point of View.” [Merrimack Valley Eagle Tribune] – Making movies and local history are close to Tom Gradzewicz’s heart. He has combined his two passions to create “The Strike Heard ‘Round the World: Bread & Roses 1912,” which will be broadcast on community access television stations throughout Greater Lawrence.

A Century of Writing on the IWW. [IWW.ORG] – An annotated bibliography prepared for the IWW Centennial in 2005.

Bread & Roses Centennial Committee Website

Bread and Roses/Makhnes Geyen. [Boston Workmen’s Circle A Besere Velt (A Better World) Yiddish Chorus] – A stirring performance at the Rosenberg Fund for Children’s “Celebrate the Children of Resistance” event in Boston, June 19, 2007. The song is a ballad from the 1912 Lawrence, MA textile strike, woven together with an anthem dedicated to the fighters in the Spanish Civil War. “The masses are marching in the struggle for victory.”

Freedom and the Problem with the Constitutionists

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This will likely be a longer essay once I have the opportunity to do some more research and to collect my thoughts, but I wanted to get at least a short note out on the subject while Ron Paul’s showing in New Hampshire is still in the news.

Here are two crucial points that Dr. Paul’s legion of true believers seem to miss, or perhaps ignore.

First of all, The Constitution of the United States was not handed down on stone tablets, nor was it written by people who were particularly more wise or prescient than we are. It is certainly a very advanced framework for its time, and brilliant in the use of checks and balances to protect the set of rights that were foremost in the minds of the framers. But throughout our history, through legislation, through jurisprudence and through other formal and informal precedent, a complex overlay of generally accepted addenda has been created. Kluge, that overlay may be, but it requires a special kind of ignorance to pretend as if all of it is irrelevant, harmful or lacking in benefit.

Beyond that issue, though, there is also the notion that the federal government is the only (or even the foremost) threat to our liberty. Paul’s logic and rhetoric suggests that if we simply return to a properly strict adherence to his view of what our Constitution dictates, then all will be well. The problem with this pretense is that it refuses to face the fact that the most serious threat to our liberty – indeed, to our very lives – is the unfettered power of huge, wealthy, corporate interests. Granted, their domination of the government also poses a threat, in that governmental powers are increasingly being used as instruments of subjugation to their will.

There is no escaping the fact that government, at this point, is part of the problem. The irony in Dr. Paul’s philosophy is that his program would make the larger threat to liberty worse, and would only result in broader and deeper enslavement of the people.

Faith in market forces to keep us free, secure and prosperous is, in my view, magical thinking. It depends on turning a blind eye to clear and overwhelming evidence, contemporary and historical, to the contrary.

In Depth with Chris Hedges

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The excellent conversation with Chris Hedges that aired live on Book TV New Year’s Day is now available to view online. This broadcast is three hours long, but it is highly recommended to anyone who cares about liberty (and life) on this planet.

Follow the link below for more.

In Depth with Author and Journalist Chris Hedges. [C-SPAN] – On Book TV’s In Depth, author and journalist, Chris Hedges. The Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent spends three hours taking viewers’ calls, emails and tweets on topics such as terrorism, religion and politics.

Tick Tock

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Since The Doomsday Clock first appeared on the cover of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947, it has conveyed how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction, and has monitored the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm. The Scientists announced today that they are moving the clock forward one minute.

Doomsday Clock moves to five minutes to midnight. [Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists] – It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007.