Sunday, February 20, 2011
Union Maid
I looked forward to enjoying retirement - to kicking off my shoes and watching my tentacles wriggle in silhouette against the glare of late night TV without a care in the world. What Wisconsin taught me: The battles for social progress won by my forbearers are fragile and tenuous at best. The social safety net, public education, environmental protection, Planned Parenthood, decent wages - all under siege. It seems the Kochroaches are hell bent on reversing civilization itself. Hells, bells, they are even turning back the clock on evolution as Bagheads and Beckheads, devoid of conscience, slither legless on their stomachs.
I hope this YouTube video will remind our progeny how their forbearers fought the good fight.
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Octo -
ReplyDeleteThanks for the visit.
Love UNION MAID. I'll put it up next Sinday, if I keep my wots about me.
I spent the afternoon doing math. What a dismal result.
WASF,
JzB
"To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."
ReplyDelete-- Theodore Roosevelt--
When I was a schoolboy, back when rich people paid more taxes, people were optimistic and the future looked bright, we were led to believe that Teddy was an anachronism because he was way to the right of today's center. Now he sounds like a straw man put together by the Republicans to be burned. He was an environmentalist and believed in progress and a brighter future through science and technology, rather than a return to a fake past, religious mythology, government by a business oligarchy, despoiling the air water, and land -- what a commie!
ReplyDeleteThank you Octo for the connection to the past. When I was 12, I learned to play the guitar. One of the nuns, Sister Mary gave me an old guitar and a book, "Teach Yourself the Guitar." She played and I could consult with her for the finer points. She loved the social protest folk music of the era--Dylan, Baez, Seeger, Guthrie, Odetta, Buffy Sainte-Marie...She introduced me to this music and I became enamored of tunes such as Universal Soldier and Union Maid. My father grew concerned about my leftist leanings and once instructed me not to spout any of that communist stuff while his friends were visiting.
ReplyDeleteI think that this soundtrack of my early years shaped my thoughts and beliefs into what they are today, as well as the influence of Sister Mary. She was quite a radical for her day. A white woman living in a southern town, fraternizing with black folks and talking about social justice and civil rights. I hadn't though of her is quite some time; thanks for stirrig up my memories.