TWU Strike: Americans Don't Get It

Until Americans get the fact there are two Americas, the brave men and women like Roger Touissant and the Transport Workers Union will be seen as radical.
What's radical is the robber barons like Bloomberg, Coors, Bush, Nacchio and so many others will continue to hold the bulk of the world's wealth and allow men and women to starve and die.
The robber barons have ruled this land since day one and men and women like Touissant have rebelled against the oppression. We, the middle class allow them to be knocked down and discredited.
Malcom X had a message we didn't want to hear. We allowed the death squads of the rich to strike him down.
When Martin Luther King began to oppose the war and speak of radical action he was killed.
We look at King George today and feel he's taken away the right to dissent. That right has merely been tolerated up to a point, anyway. In the poor neighborhoods that were exposed to us briefly after Katrina the right to dissent has always been the fight to dissent.
At least with George we know where he stands without question. Bloomberg, Koch, and Guiliani have weaseled their way into NYC with glib talk and big bucks and become "beloved" to some. To the poor they have been just more of the same tyranny.
Isn't it about time middle class and white America look at the struggle being fought by true heroes of American life and speak up? We jumped at the chance to join Cindy Sheehan in Crawford as we rightfully should have. But we continuously fail to support causes such as unionism, such as the poor against the powerful in struggles that take us outside of our comfort zone.
Too much hostility, too much anger, too much possible violence is the mantra used to excuse ourselves of supporting the causes.
Hell yes there is anger and hostility! And it's only because of men and women like Touissant and Malcom who have tried to be rational and bring the reality to light there's not been an outpouring of great violence.
That day of violence is getting closer as we continue to look the other way at the plight of the poorest. I don't advocate it but I predict it. And I'll understand it when it occurs even if it's me that becomes targeted.
I continually wonder why the peace and justice movement doesn't connect the poverty and oppression with the war. Oh in intellectual conversations we do but in practical strategies we don't. Too much information, not focused enough, we need to keep it simple....so we just talk about the war.
I heard complaints there were people not focused on the war only in the D.C. rally and I said...yeah they're right. But I was wrong and so were they.
Life is complicated and complex; one action has effects on another. A war costing billions impacts all our lives and especially the lives of those who can least afford it.
Our outrage should include that viewpoint whether it is the poor American disenfranchised or the poor Iraqi unemployed and uprooted by the cost of war.
Sure this is rambling. So is life. How can we continue to say our focus should be in just one area?
How can we tell the homeless we're working on helping you by stopping the war? How do we tell the mentally ill we're going to help you after we get the war stopped? How do we tell the children of the ghetto we'll get you some good education right after we stop the war?
How do we tell a mom we'll help feed your kids as soon as we get the war stopped?
Each sector of life in America and throughout the world has a story to tell about how the wars of the ruling class have damaged them in some way. All those stories make up the connected puzzle of life which should be told.
The story of TWU is one of the stories we need to tell and we need to support.

Terry Leichner