I am keeping my 13 year old son home from school today, to learn a real civics lesson. We are going to Occupy Detroit for May Day, join in the March and General Strike.
Our voices will be loud, here in the shadow of the closed factories, joined with so many others in what was once the largest Union City on the country.
Before we go, I will read to him and speak to him of the struggle for worker's rights. We will talk about what the UAW once was, what it meant in terms of Civil Rights too. We will talk of the history, from Pinkertons railroad murderers to miners being killed enmasse. I will tell him of the dust bowl and Woody Guthrie and Eugene Debs.
We will speak of his teachers, what is becoming of his schools, and how they are killing education to stop that Union and privatize the very source of knowledge.
I will tell him, though that May Day originated in Australia trying to get an 8 hour work day, it really grew legs in Chicago in 1886 when many died in a demonstration for worker's rights there. I will tell him how, in the US the powers that be decided to try and defuse this movement by creating "Labor Day" and make into a celebration of a long weekend and Summer's beginning - but that International Worker's Day will always remain May Day.
I will tell him how, in 2007, the police attacked a peaceful demonstration in California by striking men, women and children; many of whom were immigrants - some "legal" some not, but how these brave people managed to mostly shut that city down for a day.
He already knows why I cannot find work, and probably never will at 49. He knows I deserve better, his teachers deserve better and he deserves a better future.
Today, we put our bodies on the line for our rights.
Excuse the short essay - but I wanted to inspire any of you on the fence about this to do the same.
Occupy, March, Strike, Protest.
Namaste,
d