[Author’s note: The piece below was submitted to my union newspaper and was rejected for length. Most pieces indeed are about 1,000 words, and this is about 8,000. I suggested serialization, and the editor said that I would have to reduce it to two or three stand-alone pieces. I said that that would ruin the narrative. She replied by saying that that it why she was requesting my help. Was it length or content which got this rejected? you decide.]
A Brief History of the Class War, from the Plow to Right-to-Work
by Dave Fryett, Atlantic Base
Antonio Gramsci: The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions, without becoming disillusioned.
I much enjoyed Linda Averil’s recent article about the so-called right-to-work crusade now slithering across the country. Never has any piece of legislation been more badly named. Like any marketing effort, its title is designed to mislead, to camouflage its real purpose. This struggle is not unique, however, not by a long shot, it is merely the latest battle in the age-old class war. Sadly, and through not fault of our own, most working people are largely unaware of the forces arrayed against us, and the never-ending campaign of those who prosper from our labors to keep us poor and divided. With this in mind, I thought that some historical context to the right-to-work “movement” might be of value.
Some of what will follow will be new to many of the ATU siblinghood, and will conflict with what you have heard and been taught in school. Before beginning there is a story I like to tell which illustrates the extent to which the ruling class is willing to deceive us. It involves the British poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Continue reading
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