We don't have Robber Barons like Rockerfeller profiting off their workers who are over worked, underpaid and whose lives are valued, as Mother Jones noted, less than material things or "props".

We don't have a government that is corrupted, or turns a blind eye to it.

We don't have a militarized police force that kills 10 times more people every year than died in the Ludlow conflicts and for much the same reasons: to oppress those who oppose widespread abuses by the system, including those who oppose the 1%.

We don't have a population of worker citizens who are disenfranchised in every conceivable facet of their lives.

It's too bad that Mother Jones' heritage has been sullied by the corporate loving rag that bears her name. She was right. We create the wealth of this nation. And if we have to keep fighting the same battles, then, so be it.

"Let the fight go on; if nobody else will keep on, I will."

You never think about the beleaguered mine owners and their predicament, do you? Huh? DO YOU? He might have to go to jail for an entire year because 29 of his employees got themselves killed. Is that fair?

n/t

Il mio nonno era li! A big FUCK YOU to those in this country who say Rockefeller built it. He lied and put my ancestors into servitude. They built this country. Not him.

Carnegie was just as bad. What kind of monster does that to his own people?.

This kind: "It’s not just her job, or that she and her family is incredibly rich. It’s that Pritzker enriched herself by crashing a bank with sub-prime loans, causing 1,400 people to lose their savings. In addition, a relation of hers was mentioned in the Panama Papers. So while so many were breathlessly reporting on associates of official bad guys like Putin being mentioned in the Panama Papers, hardly a soul noted the Pritzker connection. Finally, and perhaps most incredibly, Forbes several years ago did an investigation in to the Pritzker family and found that they set up shell companies decades ago in ways that would be illegal now. It’s in a sense not just oligarchy, it’s aristocracy. A newly rich person can’t do what they’ve done, according to Forbes. "

The Invisibility of U.S. Oligarchs: The Case of Penny Pritzker

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_invisibility_of_us_oligarchs_the_case_of_penny_pritzker_20160420

As long as the wealthy get their nut and the minons are able to gather crumbs, the rest of us, apparently, can rot in Hell.

(I'm the grandson of a Welsh immigrant miner who worked the Pennsylvania coal mines.)

LYRICS:

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Ludlow means something to some of us. My grandfather had a hit out on his life from Rockefeller's thugs for reasons that shall remain unsaid. He remained in hiding. He told the story of a five year old boy tied to a wagon while the militia paraded him through the camp and cut his fingers off one by one to intimidate the miners.

The mountain was a cruel mistress. She let you make a living, but she required a tithe, and it had to paid in blood. The switchbacks, the cave-ins, the oligarchs, the scrip and the company store. From the silver mines of Guanajuato to the rich coal at Ludlow, the backs of the men in my family have labored to eek out a living under the earth while the oligarchs from Spain to Sicily to New York grew fat on their labor. Don't diminish this...

On this day in Labor History the year was 1914 the bloody anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre.

11,000 miners had gone on strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, owned by one of the wealthiest men in the world, John D. Rockefeller.

2:00 minute audio: http://laborhistoryin2.podbean.com/e/april-20-1429540569/#



Ludlow Massacre Monument Junction of Del Aqua and Colorado and Southern Railroad tracks, Ludlow, CO. This monument marks the site where striking miners and their families were killed in their tent colony on April 20, 1914.


http://www.umwa.org/?q=content/ludlow-massacre



The date April 20, 1914 will forever be a day of infamy for American workers. On that day, 18 innocent men, women and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. The 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.

Upon 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 massacre occurred in a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strike breakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later investigations revealed that kerosene had intentionally been poured on the tents to set them ablaze. 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.

In December, 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated the Ludlow site as a National Historic Landmark. "This is the culmination of years of work by UMWA members, retirees and staff, as well as many hundreds of ordinary citizens who have fought to preserve the memory of this brutal attack on workers and their families," UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said.

"The tragic lessons from Ludlow still echo throughout our nation, and they must never be forgotten by Americans who truly care about workplace fairness and equality," Roberts said. "With this designation, the story of what happened at Ludlow will remain part of our nation's history. That is as it should be."

The dedication ceremony was held at Ludlow on June 28, 2009.

Children were shot when the militia (thugs hired from Chicago streets) fired into tents to intimidate the miners. Kids were tortured. Many of the miners were italian and austrian immigrants who spoke italian, or slavics. The governor of Colorado at the time was a known KKK member and hated italians and Catholics.

This was a hate crime initiated to intimidate people to work for free so U.S. Steel could grow.

meeting tonight. I am going to remind them about what we used to stand for. Probably get thrown out on my ear.

I introduced my early college kids to it today. Funny, not one (even the one interested in American History) had heard of the Ludlow Massacre.

We discussed the phrase: "Winners write the history books" in this context. Because even though none of them knew Ludlow, they all sure as Hell knew who JD Rockerfeller was.

big Union country and many of us at the table were supporters.

Unfortunately as I walked in I heard a Hillary supporter declaring the primary won and that was the end of my enjoyment. Oh, well we will see.

That's going to be my motto for the long haul.

Thanks for posting this.

As somene that was raised on UMWA money (my dad operated the largest coal shovel ever built) and someone that worked in underground coal mines during the summer months of college to pay for college, I actually do appreciate what the UMWA has done for working men and women. However, far too many people have no idea what the UMWA or any other union has done for them. They take that 8 hour work day, 40 hour work week, vacations, health insurance, public education (most have no idea unions pushed the hardest for the average person) and so much more. i keep saying that the day after the last union here in the US shuts its doors, is the day all the above mentioned is gone.

And thank you for sharing your personal experiences.

I'd like to visit this area in Colorado.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor,
and would never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior
of capital, and deserves much higher consideration."

You came at a messy time. But stick around. It may get better.