Views in brief

Struggles in a steel town

IN RESPONSE to "The re-return of Karl Marx": Thank you so much for this article. I agree with what you say, and you say it so well!

Yes, the owners entice workers to work for them with wages that are "only so high" and by threatening layoffs and pitting them against other workers. But there was another way that owners got workers to do whatever they wanted them to do.

I grew up in the 1950s in Bethlehem, Pa., a steel town. Owners also enticed workers by creating a culture--well, more like an identity--with the company which was, of course, all false, but which was pervasive and powerful. It was very carefully crafted, very subtle. The whole town, your whole world, from childhood on, was the steel company; you wanted what they wanted, and they masked the issue that their interests are nothing like what the worker's interests are. It's hard to describe. It took me until I was in high school to see this and to fight against this, in my opinion, form of mind control.

We lived in row houses built by the steel company, which were located in the shadow of the company (so you heard it and saw it all the time at home). Social clubs and community activities were donated by the company (supposedly out of the goodness of their hearts, but we know better). So who we were, who we were supposed to become, was a worker at the Bethlehem Steel; not just to "work," but because that's "how we were defined, " "who took care of us," "where it was safe."

My father worked for 40-plus years as a steelworker, and in his dying months (from lung cancer due in part to asbestos exposure), he and I talked a great deal about his time there. At the end, he was able to separate out who he was from the company, and he grew to go further and hate the company, but only after they screwed him out of many of his benefits (and after years of dialogue with me, I humbly add).

One other point about class struggle: I have sketchy memories of the strikes, which would go on for weeks. It was then that this personal identifying with the steel company for the workers was thrown off; it was then that excitement was in the air and departure from the numbing day-to-day of work subsided. I have fond memories of that time, even though it was also a time of hardship (we used to go from house to house and eat dinner with families who had food left, and often didn't have enough food, for example).

I say that to reinforce your point that class struggle is the only way to go! Thank you.
Chris Craig, Agawam, Mass.

Sold out by Deval Patrick

IN RESPONSE to "This place was their life": This is a disgrace that this hospital was forced to close with the CEO walking out with his great financial package. What kind of board of directors would allow this to happen, and what kind of governor would allow this to happen?

I heard that Gov. Deval Patrick's intentions might be to run for president. Well, when you cannot support your community, and if it's more important to be part of a campaign instead of the devastation, you have no place in politics.

Then, to fly into North Adams in a helicopter when families are struggling to put food on the table and have recently lost their jobs? That, too, is a disgrace.
Diane O'Neil, North Adams, Mass.

The politics of Ludlow

IN RESPONSE to "The story of the Ludlow miners": Thomas Andrews may say that the solidarity and struggles expressed with the strikers in the Colorado coalfields was left out, but it wasn't. Read the old works, the 10-day war is there. Read Howard Zinn, it's there.

He is using a straw-man argument, and he is not coming from the left in this book. His book reads to me like someone who just wants to spin this with the politics left out. It's a decidedly apolitical book.

He also writes as though the environment, the workscape, brought this war. That's not proven in the least in his book. He also leaves all of the politics out, including the role of socialists in creating this movement.

There is a great article by Steven Brier, for example, on the anarchists and socialists from Italy, and there is Priscilla Long, who puts the context of the Ludlow massacre in a political framework.
Rosemary Feurer, from the Internet

Democracy in Ukraine

IN RESPONSE to "Will Eastern Ukraine break away?": The answer to the author's question is "not if the population is allowed a free and fair vote." That means proper international supervision and the absence of intimidation, precisely what was missing in the farcical vote in Crimea.

Ethnic Ukrainians are in the majority in all of Ukraine's remaining provinces, and there is nothing to suggest that they want to be annexed by the Russians, whom they regard as incompetent bunglers. Indeed, the presence of armed irregulars suggests that the pro-Russian minority know that full well, and are trying to prevent a free and fair vote taking place on May 25.
Michael Kenny, Luxembourg