Bread & Roses: A great song sung by one of the best: Listen to the silvery sounds of Joan Baez singing for the rights of women everywhere. This song was inspired by the first strike by the female workers in the Garment District of New York after a terrible fire which inspired thousands of women to form Unions in the US since they discovered there is more strength in numbers when negotiating for their basic rights, for more safe places of employment, and a proper decent wage. These women who were forced to work for practically nothing under terrible conditions (which one might call a type of VAW) until they discovered that Solidarity is the key. Bread and Roses is what the women chanted: Yes its bread we fight for - but we want roses too! Listen to Joan Baez while watching the very moving collage of photos of women, men, and their children over the years from the 1930s to the 21st century all asking for something very simple and basic in my opinion: DECENT JOBS and FREEDOM FROM POVERTY. Is that too much to ask for?! In a world of abundance, where banks are making record profits with numerous billionaires and multi-billion dollar corporations reaping the benefits of the peoples blood, sweat and tears with some people screaming every time minimum wage is increased by a few cents or couple of dollars over the past 50 years while at the same time CEOs salaries have increased 300%, with many of our bright and talented young people unable to find work while being forced to pay off exorbitant student debts, why are the people still struggling, really? Why do we have a provincial government that is talking about privatization and busting Unions while they are at it? Why are we still having to ask for these same basic needs after 60 years? What do we have to do to bring about the change this system needs? Guts? Balls? Or both?! Bread & Roses Bread & Roses!! Yes its Bread we want (a job and an affordable place to live) - but we want roses too (a clean, beautiful natural environment, with leisure time to enjoy it and our families!) They already have this system in Germany, Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries. Its called Social Democracy or Democratic Socoalism and has been the political system of choice by the people for years now. Because they havent been brainwashed inti thinking socialism is a dirty word.Yes they pay higher taxes - but everything they need to sustain them from birth to grave is universal and free including daycare, public school (where children receive two warm meals a day), post-secondary school, and medicare. As my old pal and former colleague Gary Ramey used to say, Whats not to love?! And my final question for the day is this - since New Democrats are on fact Social Democrats who have always fought for Social Democracy in Canada (think Tommy Douglas the father of Medicare) why not jump in the bus with us instead of listening to neo-Liberals and Neo-Cons try to convince people that they are going to fight for your rights? They wont. Because the system works for them the way ot is. I agree with Jack Layton who said, The system is broken and we need to fix it. Yes it is bread we want but we want roses too!
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 15:11:34 +0000
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