This is the second post in a loosely related series on the politics of blame and resentment and all the harm it's done over the last 25 years. Here's the first.
As the eminent Wobbly philosopher Utah Philips once said, a common political dynamic of our time is the fact that "the blame pattern has been manipulated."
That is to say that people take out the anger over very real social grievances not on the people who actually cause and profit by them—who tend to be wealthy and powerful—but rather on the people immediately below or slightly above them in social standing.
You can fill in the blanks. The convenient target could be welfare mothers, people receiving Medicaid, immigrants, uppity union workers wanting better pay or benefits, injured workers trying to get some justice, someone paying for groceries with food stamps, women, ethnic or religious minorities, etc.
Admittedly, not everyone in those target populations is a model of civic virtue. But it’s also a lot easier and less risky to kick people who can’t kick back.
This dynamic typically keeps people who have common interests from working together and ultimately benefits dominant groups. It’s the old divide and rule. The sad part is we do it to ourselves. This led one social theorist to comment that "domination is perpetuated by the dominated."
In other words, the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings...
The Wobblies, a nickname for the Industrial Workers of the World, had a great diagnosis of this problem. But first, a little background.
The IWW was founded as a radical branch of the labor movement in 1905. It saw its best days between its founding in 1905 and the massive political repression that accompanied the First World War. Their goal was to unite all workers, regardless of skill, race, sex, religion, or national origin, into One Big Union.
While the Wobblies had their flaws, they also had their moments. They were also very clever in making use of funny and irreverent songs, poems, and signs (similar to modern bumper stickers) which they called silent agitators to get their message across.
They gave the labor movement some of its best songs, such as "Solidarity Forever," which was inspired by a coal strike in El Cabrero’s beloved state of West Virginia, "The Commonwealth of Toil," "Bread and Roses," and "The Preacher and the Slave."
One Wobbly poem called "The Two Bums," is the most eloquent statement on social policy that I’ve ever found.
Then as now, people are all to ready and eager to blame all social problems on poor and working people and ignore the vast harm done to the vast majority by a wealthy and powerful minority of people who own and control most economic and political power.
Here it is:
The Two Bums
The bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind
The other is driven around to his club, is feted, wined and dined.
And they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad
Will greet the other with a willing smile and extend a hand so glad.
The bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occasional bite
The bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night.
The bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel
But it takes the labour of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal.
As long as we sanction the bum on the plush the other will always be there
But rid ourselves of the bum on the plush and the other will disappear.
Then make an intelligent organised kick get rid of the weights that crush
Don't worry about the bum on the rods get rid of the bum on the plush.
I think that covers it pretty well.
(Railroad trivia note: the "rods" referred to here are the rods underneath rail cars--not a very safe way to travel cross country.)
Next time: the big squeeze.
(This series appeared first in The Goat Rope, a social and economic justice blog.)