MATEWAN, ARMED STRUGGLE.

            Not many films are ever made that cover a strike from the strikers point of view, one such film was Matewan by John Sales. I think Matewan is one of the most powerful films made, it covers a miners strike in West Virginia when all the miners walked out, this action turned West Virginian into a battlefield with the miners fighting it out with armed strike breakers, who were paid and armed by the mining companies. After a harsh and brutal struggle the miners eventually laid down their arms probably from the excess fire power of the enemy, but also an appeal to patriotism played a part. This short clip shows one of the many powerful scenes and should be essential viewing.

         Times have changed but the struggle hasn't, it is still those who have to work to survive, and those who exploit them to enrich themselves and/or their shareholders. To them workers are just tools, expendable items that are bought at the cheapest possible price, and cast aside as profit margins dictate. As long as we have that duality, there will always be conflict and struggle.

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - BLAIR MOUNTAIN.

The Other Side of Life

         The other night I was in a room with a few other members of Clydeside Industrial Workersof the World, watching films, uploaded from Youtube about Blair Mountain.

       No the mountain isn't the cash Tony Blair has accumulated for himself as a stooge to the U.S. War machine. Blair Mountain is in the Appalachians in West Virginia. In 1921 it was the scene of an armed confrontation between miners wearing red bandanna – nickname “red-necks” - seeking to organise throughout the State, and a reactionary militia mobilised by the authoritarian regime in Logan County. It resulted in the intervention of thousands of federal troops sent in to halt and disarm the biggest clash on U.S. Soil since the Civil War. Years later it was dramatised in the film, Matewan.

       On page 3 of Industrial Worker, the story is brought up to date by the battle to preserve the historical site and environment of forests, against current mine companies engaged in devastating open cast mining. A hidden agenda is to physically obliterate any record of the miners struggle which saw 20,000 mobilised to defend and to organise those suffering terrible exploitation and working conditions in company towns.

        Looking at such a video brings it home to you just how tough life was back then. In USA, the “land of the free”, the owners regularly turned to “Pinkerton” type agencies to assassinate workers involved in strike action, recruit desperate scabs & evict strikers from “company provided” housing.

      There is a wealth of material in the internet now from the IWW and radical union sites, determined not to forget our history. Despite all the knowledge that can be accessed, the authorities prefer the mass of people to stay as passive consumers, lulled into a “social amnesia”, where a diet of pap, glosses over a history based on class violence & subjugation. So many valiant efforts by workers and radicals are wiped from consciousness & memory, as new generations are bombarded with the propaganda of our rulers. In the USA it has a subtle twist, with all the nonsense of religious fundamentalism, a racket by manipulators & money makers to feed off the human need for group solidarity, common cause and to be uplifted “spiritually”.

Jim McFarlane, hereandnowscot@gmail.com

Some of Glasgow's working class HERE.

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       BLAIR MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA.

        There isn't a country in the world that does not have people protesting against what this corporate fascist system is doing to our lives and the planet, which is the future lives of our kids and grandkids. From the "Arab Spring" to the Pan-European protests agains the plunder of our public assets, from groups objecting to the rape of the planet to the cruelty to animals and all this vandalism is done in the name of profit for the rich, parasitical corporate shareholders. It is time that we all joined hands and made it one massive movement against the system that breeds poverty for the many and the eventual demise of the planet.

A REPORT FROM, MARMET, West Virginia—

      On Monday morning, hundreds of people began a weeklong, 50-mile trek to protest mountaintop removal mining and defend labor rights. Nearly 250 marchers and supporters of the Appalachia Rising March on Blair Mountain gathered at the Marmet Baseball Field for a rally on Monday morning. An hour later, shortly after 10 a.m., they headed toward Blair, a town near the Boone-Logan county border, where their march will end on Friday.

SOLIDARITY.

     As the marchers began, several people driving through Marmet honked their horns in support of the marchers. Two small groups of counter-demonstrators held up signs including “Friends of Coal” and “I Love Coal.”

      The marchers plan to walk the same route more than 10,000 coal miners took between Aug. 24 and Sept. 4, 1921, marching to Logan County to organize non-union miners.

 

        The 1921 March on Blair Mountain was the biggest armed conflict in American labor history. After several days of battles, federal troops arrived and ended the conflict.

Read the rest of the story and see video from the Charleston Gazette here

Find out how to join the march here

http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/

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