Joe Hill was born on this day in 1879 & noticing that sets my brain to racing.
I observe how representatives of the American right wing object when people notice how the majority are slipping ever further down even while a small minority of our people are flourishing, and various remedies are suggested.
Such as cutting taxes on the lower & middle classes and rescinding the array of tax breaks the rich have been given in the past eight years…
Class warfare, they declare.
Well, yes, there is class warfare going on. And the battle has been going in one direction for a very long time.
By diverting the working and middle classes from the real issues with the red meat of domestic culture wars, holding up the evils of gay marriage and slogans like socialized medicine and terrorism, the rich and their lackeys have taken us a long way toward a very ugly world.
Think mercantilism. Think fascism.
But do we notice?
Well perhaps eventually…
Perhaps now.
Many of us in the middle classes are noticing we may not have a retirement and that American health care is the most problematic of the industrial West, and that our children will live poorer than we.
And the rich, well they continue to get rich.
They pinned a paper heart on Joe Hill’s chest as a target. Maybe we’ll look down at our chests and see if we don’t see a target pinned there, as well…
Perhaps we might start dreaming about Joe Hill…
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