Both my mother and father grew up in abject poverty in the rural South. My father’s family were tenant farmers. They didn’t even own the land they lived and worked on. Theirs was a hardscrabble existence. They plowed vast tracts of Mississippi Delta bottom land by mule, sowed the crops, chopped out the weeds, and harvested the results all by hand. Their fortunes rose or fell with the weather and the vagaries of circumstance.
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When my father was eight or nine, someone stole their family cow. This was a real tragedy as the survival of the youngest children (there were nine in all) depended on the milk from that cow, and the family was in no position to purchase a replacement. The tragedy was only averted when someone took pity on the family and gave them a cow.
The family who donated the cow were not themselves well off by any measure, they just had an extra cow and enough compassion and charity in their hearts to give it away.
If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.
~ John Steinbeck
Steinbeck is among my favorite American writers, in large part because of his sympathy for the plight of the American poor and his celebration of their character.
The poor often take much better care of each other than the rich – which is an irony worth noting. It so often seems that as people’s bankbooks swell, their hearts shrink proportionately. But I’m not writing this to snipe at the rich; I’m writing this to honor the poor and those who champion them.
Let's drink to the hard working people
Working people have been ruthlessly exploited in this country from day one, and the practice is alive and well in modern day America. Apparently the rich just can’t help themselves.
We are writing to invite you to join us in the fight against a form of worker exploitation that many think ended long ago. Though slavery has been illegal in this country since 1865, the intelligence community reports that some 50,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year for forced labor and servitude in such areas as prostitution, sweatshops, domestic service, and migrant farm labor. In response to this emerging problem, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor formed the National Worker Exploitation Task Force, a federal interagency effort to combat severe worker exploitation and trafficking in persons.
National Worker Exploitation Task Force
If it weren’t for the Democrats, we’d all be chained to the factory floor somewhere. A lot of people don’t realize the extent to which they owe their everyday freedoms and privileges to the liberals among us. If it weren’t for labor unions and similar outfits our lives would be very different today.
Here’s an anonymous internet posting I came across a year or two ago that underscores how much we owe to liberals and all those who risked their lives to improve ours.
A Day in the Life of Joe Republican
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications is paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his workday. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.
The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
Woody Guthrie was more than a folk singer, he was a union organizer and fearless champion of the working poor who had a profound impact on this nation.
Aginst Th' Law
It´s aginst th´ law to walk, It´s aginst th´ law to talk
It´s against th´ law to loaf, It´s aginst th´ law to work
It´s aginst th´ law to read, It´s aginst th´ law to write
It´s aginst th´ law to be a black or brown or white.
Ever´thing’s aginst th´ law
I´m a low pay daddy singing th´ high price blues
It´s aginst th´ law to eat, It´s aginst th´ law to drink
It´s aginst th´ law to worry, It´s aginst th´ law to think
It´s aginst th´ law to marry or to try to settle down
It´s aginst th´ law to ramble like a bum from town to town
Ever´thing’s aginst th´ law
I´m a low pay daddy singing th´ high price blues
It´s aginst th´ law to come, It´s against th´ law to go
It´s against th´ law to ride, It´s against th´ law to roll
It´s aginst th´ law to hug, It´s against th´ law to kiss
It´s against th´ law to shoot, It´s against th´ law to miss
Ever´thing’s aginst th´ law
I´m a low pay daddy singing th´ high price blues
It´s aginst th´ law to gamble, It´s aginst th´ law to roam
It´s aginst th´ law to organize or try to build a home
It´s aginst th´ law to sing, It´s aginst th´ law to dance
It´s aginst th´ law to tell you th´ trouble on my hands
Ever’thing in Winston Salem is aginst th’ law
I’m a low pay daddy singin’ th’ high price blues.
~ Woody Guthrie
Let's drink to the lowly of birth
It’s amazing when people of lowly birth overcome the odds to achieve some form of greatness. And despite what they would have you believe, even in America, it’s an unbelievably difficult thing to do.
James Brown did it. Check out his less than promising beginnings:
James Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina, as an only child in 1933. His father was a filling station attendant. When James was four, his parents separated and he grew up in the brothel of his aunt, a poor woman in Augusta, Georgia. Brown left school in the seventh grade. He picked cotton, was a shoe-shine boy, washed cars and dishes and swept out stores. At the age of 16, he took part in an armed robbery and was caught breaking into a car. James was sentenced to eight to sixteen years' hard labor. He served a short period in the county jail before being transferred to juvenile work farms. He spent three years in a community home.
http://www.cosmopolis.ch/...
Loretta Lynn did it too.
So did Bruce.
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Rightwingers love to gush about soldiers. Their cars are often plastered with "Support Our Troops" magnets. Of course they vote to cut spending on veterans’ issues every chance they get. They seem oblivious to the fact of their own hypocrisy.
Let's drink to the hard working people
I suppose I will always have an affinity for the underdog and those who stand up for them. Cesar Chavez was such a man.
They say John Lennon was the least of the Beatles when it came to being born into the lower class. And while that may be true, there’s no denying his passion for the common people.
Working Class Hero
As soon as your born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.
~ John Lennon
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
The Beatles weren’t the only working class lads we all came to know from England. There were also Mick and the boys.
Salt of the Earth
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
And when I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and
Black and white
They don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange
Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let's drink to the uncounted heads
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead
Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio
And when I look in the faceless crowd
A swirling mass of grays and
Black and white
They don't look real to me
Or don't they look so strange
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
Let's drink to the two thousand million
Let's think of the humble of birth
~ M. Jagger/K. Richards
I’m going to close this diary in an unusual way, with a piece of my own poetry. It just seems to fit. I wrote this a few years back but it still seems relevant.
It’s Hard at the Bottom
There is too much that we ignore;
Important things;
Like children,
And the young,
And the old,
And the sick,
And the poor,
And our prisoners,
And each other.
We don’t do enough to protect our children.
We don’t do enough to help each other.
We don’t do enough to save our planet.
We don’t do enough to save ourselves.
We care way too much about all the wrong things.
We despise the peasants, and worship the kings.
We spit on the angels, and lionize demons,
As the righteous among us are dragged away screamin’.
It’s all upside down,
But smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em,
‘cause Lord have mercy!
It’s hard at the bottom.