The Long, Sorrowful Ludlow Legacy
Ninety-four years ago on April 20, America made international news when a government-sanctioned paramilitary unit murdered Colorado union organizers at a Rockefeller-owned coal mine. The Ludlow Massacre was “a story of horror unparalleled in the history of industrial warfare,” wrote The New York Times in 1914-and the abomination was not just the violence, but the way political and corporate leaders colluded on their homicidal plans to protect profits.
Sanitized history teaches that our government has since changed. Quite the contrary, as the Bush administration this week moves to legitimize the methods of Ludlow through its Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Colombia resembles Colorado in the early 20th century, only with more frequent slaughters. In the last two decades, over 2,500 Colombian labor organizers have been assassinated, making Colombia the world’s most dangerous place for unionists.
This violence is underwritten by companies like Chiquita, which has financed Colombian death squads that “destroyed unions, terrorized workers and killed thousands of civilians,” according to Portfolio magazine. The brutality deliberately depresses labor costs in a country where business analysts cite exploitative conditions as reason to invest.
This situation, like Ludlow, developed not in spite of the governing elite, but thanks to it. As The Washington Post reports, Colombia’s “most influential political, military and business figures helped build” the killing machine. Recently, prosecutors connected these paramilitaries to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s allies.
Colombian labor leaders have begged the White House to drop the deal, saying it will undermine their struggle for human rights by validating Uribe’s thug-ocracy. Nonetheless, President Bush bolstered Uribe with a pact giving corporations incentives to leave America for the corpse-strewn pastures of Colombia-a union hater’s paradise.
Bush justifies the deal as “urgent for our national security.” The rationale asks us to believe that in backing tyrannical regimes, we will quell anti-Americanism among the oppressed, rather than sow it.
Congressional Democrats could vote down the agreement. But they would need to overcome pernicious forces in their midst. Specifically, the Colombian government and corporate groups have hired former Clinton administration officials to champion the deal, paid off former President Bill Clinton with an $800,000 speaking contract, and employed Mark Penn-Hillary Clinton’s newly resigned campaign strategist-to push the pact.
Oh, how we’ve regressed from Ludlow, when mere Rockefellers owned everything. Today, Dubai princes purchase our stock exchanges, Chinese communists buy our banks, and now Colombian goons bid on our politicians-and the results are trickling in.
When Bush dropped the deal on Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained only that his tactics are “jeopardizing prospects” for the pact’s passage. Instead of blocking the accord, she only pledged to postpone it-a maneuver that could ensure its approval. National Journal reports that Democrats are considering “delaying a vote until after the November elections.” The scheme would let Democratic candidates campaign as aw-shucks populists promisin’ to fight for the little fella, and then head to D.C. to do the bidding of lobbyists and ratify the deal in a lame-duck session.
Between equivocating press releases, Pelosi said she worries that if voted on now, the pact “would lose, and what message would that send?” For starters, it would say the Democratic Party joins most Americans in opposing job-killing trade policies. It would also declare the party against rewarding murderous regimes on behalf of Clintonites now living large off of Colombian blood money.
But, then, such principled stands are considered uncouth in this, the Ludlow renaissance.
Calendars may say it is 2008, but the Establishment mentality is 1914. On the anniversary of the butchery in Colorado, we see the hideous power of corruption in all its pathological glory. Our government is showing that it views the Ludlow Massacre not as an embarrassment, but as an ideal to be embraced and exported.
David Sirota is a best-selling author whose newest book, “The Uprising,” will be released in June. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network, both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.
© 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.
Our empire can and will use any means necessary to maintain our imperial quest. America is just part of the empire and what happens abroad can and will happen at home. The Constitution was written to develop a great country, no prop up a rapidly declining empire.
Hoa binh
I suspect that Nancy Pelosi is more worried about the potential of Republican campaign attacks on the Democrats for being obstructionist and restricting free trade with a supposed “ally” (Colombia)—if they were to simply vote the pact down right now–than she is trying to hold the agreement until after election so it can then be passed more easily. After all, by then it might have the new problem of an Obama veto–a circumstance she would applaud.
In general, I think we’re learning that the problem with most of these FTAs to date is that corporations are drafting the details and merely handing them to the governments for passage. For deals between NATIONS, this is an upside-down order of events. The governments ought to be managing and controlling the corporations for the benefit of PEOPLE on both sides. Bill Clinton failed miserably on this. So will McCain. So, since Nader is running but unelectable, I’ll recommend we try Obama.
… what COMES around GOES around …
No corruption has ever outlived history
Pelosi’s “… scheme would let Democratic candidates campaign as aw-shucks populists promisin’ to fight for the little fella, and then head to D.C. to do the bidding of lobbyists…”
- The Democratic Party doesn’t “fight for the little fella.” They’re not populists, and they consistently do the bidding of corporate lobbyists — whether the issue is war, Pentagon spending, global warming, media reform, financial market reform, or trade pacts. The characterization of the Hillary campaign, with both Mark Penn & Bill Clinton taking “blood money” from Colombian prez Uribe’s “thug-ocracy,” is excruciatingly accurate — just the sort of thing for which the expression “You can’t make this stuff up!” was invented.
Chiquita is the corporate descendent of the United Fruit Company. (See “CIA coup in Guatemala, 1954″). Bill Clinton’s big business support in 1992 came in no small part from interests who astutely recognized that a Dem administration would be better-positioned to betray labor and push through NAFTA. Needless to say, the Dems delivered on that front.
Hillary & Pelosi are no better than Bush on this issue — they’re just sneakier & more two-faced. Obama is somewhat better — for a more detailed review of both Hillary & Obama vis-a-vis the Colombian trade pact, see today’s http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff04112008.html . As Kozloff points out, if Obama plays the pending Colombian trade pact issue strongly, he has a real opportunity to finish Hillary off in Pennsylvania, because in doing so he can appeal to the blue-collar industrial western part of the state, & expose the sleaze of the Clintons at the same time.
By the same token, if Obama passes up this opportunity, you’d really have to ask yourself why. It would be hard to think of a flattering explanation, for failing to go for Hillary’s throat, & failing to stand up strongly for labor rights simultaneously. // Kozloff (who’s clearly pulling for Obama) writes “For whatever reason, however, Obama doesn’t mention Penn’s name while campaigning in Pennsylvania.”
According to Kevin Phillips in “An American Dynasty” United Fruit was owned by the Bush family.
“The Republicans want to cut wages by 10%. So they call for a 20% wage cut. The Democrats say, ‘We are the friend of the worker, we only want to cut wages by 10%.’ The Republicans make a deal and wages are cut by 10%.
“This is the role the Democratic Party plays in American politics.”
Peter Camejo - Green Party candidate for Vice President 2004
RICH M/HEAVY RUNNER: Excellent analyses.
Amazing the constant BS the Democrats have to try to spread to always explain why they are always on the wrong side.
Face it, today’s Democrats are simply on the wrong side. They are on the side of the Rockefellers and the Pinkertons and the death squads. They get paid good money to be on that side. If you are not on that side, don’t be a Democrat.
“The Republicans want to cut wages by 10%. So they call for a 20% wage cut. The Democrats say, ‘We are the friend of the worker, we only want to cut wages by 10%.’ The Republicans make a deal and wages are cut by 10%.
–Close, actually, the Democrats would ‘compromise’ and agree to a 15% cut. Ie, more than the Republicans originally thought they could get. With friends like this, who needs enemies.
PS… and the Democrats would also ‘agree’ to a large package of tax cuts for business to offset the pain caused by their ‘compromise’.
It’ll be interesting to see if the Wall St. money behind Obama would let him go after Hillary strongly on this one.
To me, that’s the reason why Obama’s speaches are always so big on rhetoric and so short on real talk about the real actions he’d take to solve problems. Instead, he just chants ‘hope’ and ‘change’ over and over and he ‘hopes’ that no one notices that he’s not really promoting any real change.
Does anyone believe that Wall St. just gives out millions and millions of dollars out of the goodness of their hearts. Hardly. They know what they are buying and what they’ll get for it. Obama can’t come out and say it and still keep his support, but he’ll be Wall St’s bought and paid for President when he gets to the White House.
FYI, didn’t the Democrats pass either NAFTA or WTO as a lame duck Congress after the elections back in the 90’s? After being screwed so many times by the Democrats over the years, its hard to remember the exact details of each screwing.
Same @#%@, different decade.
For those of you who actually believe in democracy, it might be a good idea to get active with the Democratic party in order to make it in to what it should be. It may feel good to righteously rail against the Dems as being as corrupt and dangerously corporatist as the Republicans, but it accomplishes nothing. If you can’t bring yourselves to associate yourself with such a ‘despicable’ crowd, join the Greens, but for Gawd’s sake, do something besides complain and show of your great and refined understanding of the issues to your fellow opinionists. Get active. It’s our only chance.
h buchman,
Thanks for good reasoning. At the moment I believe that Obama is the potential for total remake of the Democrats as a party. In fact, I have a “hunch” he intends to remake the Democrats in far more profound ways than even they imagine. Into real liberals. (But he can’t say too much during a campaign.)
hbuchman (9:26) & Dan (10:46) -
Your posts are both embarrassingly idiotic. Mr Buchman assumes, without a shred of evidence, that those who rightly criticize the Dem Party for its repulsive & thoroughgoing corruption, “do nothing but complain.” Actually, those whose political thinking is advanced enough to recognize that the Democrats are no more the friends of working Americans than the Republicans, are probably far more likely to “be active” than those gullible enough to keep voting for Democrats. Many who vote for Democrats only do so because their parents did so, or because they never gave the matter much thought.
Dan, on the other hand, sets forth his “hunch” that Obama intends to “remake the Democrats” & that he “can’t say too much during a campaign.” This is the opinion of a naive high schooler. There is no such thing in American politics as a candidate who secretly is profoundly liberal, but who slyly campaigns as a make-believe centrist. For Dan’s silly “hunch” to be correct, the giant corporations ponying up big bucks for the Obama campaign would have to be naifs incapable of discerning the candidate’s true intentions. These giant corporations are many things, but naive is not one of them.
Daniel David,
You are not alone. Many people have that ‘hunch’. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I don’t think so. As I recall FDR was no raving liberal when he took office, but circumstances and profound need helped him become a great leader.
Like with Obama, he could speak and communicate well. Words are powerful. So called empty rhetoric can be a force for change. Being spoken to as though we were grown-ups would be a profound change and an inspiration to return the compliment. And Obama gives every indication that he will be able able to listen to us…especially if we are able to make our voice strong as well as thoughtful. Great leaders need great followers…not sheep or zombies.
We are not voting for a finished product, we are voting for a possibility.
As Mr. Sirota mentioned the ‘Ludlow Massacre’ of 1914, here is a brief addition of the event. For those of you interested, follow up on with own research. I’ll quote a passage from the classic, ‘Labor’s Untold Story’ by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais.
“The events that the old man was following with such unusual interest and satisfaction included the eviction of the strikers, members of the United Mine Workers of America, from their company-owned houses. The miners were living in tents at Ludlow, their colony surrounded by the National Guard. The militiamen occasionally shot into the colony, particularly at night. The women were terribly afraid that some of their children would be killed. They decided to dig a cave inside the largest tent. There they put thirteen children and a pregnant woman.
That night, it was in Easter, 1914, company-employed gunman and members of the National Guard drenched the striker’s tents with oil. They ignited them after the miners and their families were asleep. When the miners, their wives and their children ran from the burning tents, they were machine-gunned. Most escaped in the darkness, many were wounded, but the thirteen children and the woman in the cave were all killed, some shot to death and others suffocated.”
The story continues, I only type with one finger, so look it up if you are interested.
I also recommend John Sayles movie, ‘Matewan’ about the coal miners standing off with “para-militaries ” in West Virginia.
And another thing. The capitalist ruling elite and their corporate media lackys love to use the term, “para-military.” Well now, didn’t the infamous William Quantrell have a para-military force? The four Blackwater guys in Iraq who sold their souls for thirty pieces of silver a few years ago were para-military types. Albert Anastasia and Lepke Buchalter beat Eric Prince by about six decades with their “security service,” which was nicknamed ‘Murder Incorporated’ by the Feds. As the Bard said centuries ago, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” (or stinking putrid).
RichM, Fine post and I second Siouxrose.
Emma Goldman, we need you!
“
Whenever anyone like RichM starts a response with vitriol and name calling I read no further. I am not interested in the opinions of the ill mannered
and mean spirited. If their arguments have merit, they will go much further if they are delivered with respect for others.
The Demoks know what they need to do to earn the progressive vote. As for the monopoly capitalist’s cavendish banana - stop eating it. It’s the least nutritious of fruits. Try pawpaws for a temperate climate banana substitute. Grow your own, select from the wilds.
See, RichM, you made h buchman clutch his or her pearls and leave in a huff!
Can’t you just be polite and agreeable for once, and stop bluntly demolishing inane and puerile arguments? People have feelings, you know!
But no, you’d rather be right!
O.K., I guess I have to respond to various insults. First to Mr. RichM.Grumpy who saw fit to say I was idiotic for daring to suggest that those of us who are unhappy with the Democratic party’s spineless and duplicitous nature try to do something about it. He then condescended to inform me of the bad things about the party which I already know and never denied as if I had suggested it needed our help in continuing to be spineless and duplicitous. I stand by my original assessment of his posting. He was gratuitously nasty, and being so, displayed contempt for any view other than his own and is therefore uninterested in adult and congenial discourse.
As for Mr. Grumpy’s bitchy Little Brother, I hope he isn’t as Gay as he was trying to appear, because it saddens me when my brothers and sisters display themselves in a stereotypically petty manner. This baby brat Brother obviously gets a kick out of seeing others insulted especially if there is any chance their feelings might also be hurt. He is obviously a Republican.
When a complete history of the United States is presented (warts and all)to American students and connected with current events, many light bulbs will light up. Of course we then get the false accusation from people like Lynne Cheney that America is portrayed in an unfairly negative manner. What the Right is really worried about is that the banks and corporations will be portrayed as the ruthless institutions that they are.
Please support my campaign…and Independent campaign to unseat Nancy Pelosi who represents EVERYTHING that is wrong with this country today.
We may be getting shut out of Common Dreams and the corporate media, but I assure you, we are working really hard and oppose the CFTA and call for the repeal of all free trade agreements.
Thanks
Cindy Sheehan
www.cindyforcongress.org