Remembering Harry Bridges: Maybe Democrats should be more like him.

[Karmadillo]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=19&ItemID=8358

July 28 marks the lO4th anniversary of the birth of labor leader Harry Bridges, one of the past century's greatest leaders of any kind, an incorruptible fighter for the human rights of us all, a man of remarkable vision, courage, dedication and organizational skill.

Bridges was the co-founder and for 40 years president of one of the most progressive and influential organizations in the world, the San Francisco-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

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Bridges often was irritating to the ILWU's friends and foes alike. He was irascible and obstinate. But he was unquestionably one of the most important allies ordinary people have ever had.

Bridges was not in it for money. He retired in 1977 with an annual pension of merely $15,000, never having made more than $27,000 a year, far less than he would have made had he remained a working longshoreman. Bridges was in it because of his unswerving belief in "the rank-and-file," as he once told me, a naive and inquisitive young reporter -- "the goddamn working stiff, that's who! Can you understand that?"

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"The basic thing about this lousy capitalist system," Bridges declared, "is that the workers create the wealth, but those who own it, the rich, keep getting richer and the poor get poorer."

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[rfranklin]

1. But all our "representatives" are the rich...

If they aren't rich when they get elected, they become so soon after. People like Harry Bridges are one in a million, literally. And the average Joe doesn't realize that he's been screwed big-time. He just keeps mortgaging his future to consume now. As long as that works, there is no one to follow a Harry Bridges.

[Karmadillo]

2. Kick

n/t