Music in Labor
Multinational Corporations, Genocide of the Starving Nations
--Napalm Death 1986
The labor movement has always been influenced by music. (Or is it the other way around?)
Anyway, most people associate Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger with music that has embraced the working man and woman. Classics such as, "Ludlow Massacre",
, "Two Good Men", "Step by Step", "1913 Massacre", "Ship in the Sky" and "Mean Talking Blues" have become cemented in history as American folk songs. But labor music doesn't stop
with Woody Guthrie and grainy music from the 40's.
In the seventies and eighties bands such as DRI, the Dead Kennedys and the Circle Jerks lamented how properous America forgot about the majority of the country
who weren't as lucky. Those bands along with others in the punk movement used aggressive music and in-your-face lyrics as their tools of protest. The time for acoustical ballads
had passed as the corporate world used harsher tactics to make profits and silence the working class.
The Circle Jerks sang predominantly anarchy-laced songs but added glimpses into the vast underbelly of America as well. In "Shit Hits the Fan"
lead singer Keith Morris rails against the government and the policies that rise in the face of recessions and unemployment.
The face of America has remained pretty for quite some time. However the head is but a small part of the whole and the rest of the body is beginning to wither as a result of corporate policies that cut our wages, benefits and workplace safety.
The Dead Kennedys and its frontman, Jello Biafra, also explored topics that related to the American situation and often looked at how the establishment, embodied by corporations and the government, so easily
looked over the less fortunate in society. "Kill the Poor" made light of this phenomena by suggesting using the Neutron bomb to wipe away all the poor people. This action would allow a slashing
of taxes and once and for all sweep the poverty problem under the rug to allow the rich to "dance away the night".
But how did all of us get there? How did we end up on the heap, discarded as hindrances to profit?
Kurt Brecht of DRI fame put it bluntly in "Reaganomics". "Reaganomics killing me, Reaganomics killing you," are the simple words to that song. DRI further twists the knife into the "profits at
any cost" mentality gripping our nation with "Money Stinks". Pollution and shattered dreams comes from the unquenchable corporate thirst for money according to Brecht.
Now more modern bands are taking the helm. Hardcore bands such as Sick of It All and Biohazard and rap artists such as Boots Riley and the Red Dagger heatedly point out the gross injustice in the world, but add, optimistically, that together we can defeat it.
With organizations such as the WTO forcing the average worker out of decisions that affect our lives we need to fight back and vote some of these dream stealing politicians, who sell us out to the corporate interests, out of office. Perhaps then National Association of Manufacturers Chairman Charles Sligh
put the WTO in the proper light back in 1955 while discussing the AFL-CIO merger, "...a handful of people not elected, not authorized by the American people would pull strings behind the scenes to direct the destinies of the nation." It's amazing how history usually ends up coming back to bite
this country's corporate leaders in the ass.
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