EPRushNet has a motto and this inspired The Joe Hill Team to adopt a motto tag line as well. For those that don't know the EPRUSHNET Motto here it is:
EPRushNet
"Stupidity Should Be Painful"
Elisha Rush
The Joe Hill LTD Project
"The truth is incontrovertible,
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end...there it is!"Sir Winston Churchill
Sent in by an Anonymous Joe Hill Reader
If you sent this to the Joe Hill mail box or Blog please let US know who you are.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Joe Hill BLOG gets a "Motto"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Re: The Joe Hill Motto - Churchill quote
Churchill may have been a lot of things, a good historian, a great wartime leader, etc., but a friend of labor was not one of them. The labor unions in England hated him and with good reason.
Churchill was a member of the Conservative party (although he bounced back and forth between the two major parties before he found the one that best suited his positions) and spent a lot of time fighting Labor advances throughout most of his political career. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the early 1920's, for example, he instituted policies, such as stubbornly putting England back on the gold standard, that caused massive unemployment in England. To recoup their financial losses from that policy the coal mine owners reduced the pay of the union miners. During the strife that followed Churchill is reported advocating the machine gunning of the miners if they caused any disruption at the mines. At the end of the this trouble, Churchill’s party, then in control, passed legislation that limited the union member’s right to strike.
How ironic is the fact that your web site is named after Joe Hill, a man who helped to organize unions and you are using as your site motto, a quote from a man that advocated the shooting of striking miners.
Maybe a quote from a labor leader would ring more true as a motto.
Hank Perry
haperry2@aol.com
Thank you for your opinion,... the motto stays. Being retired, perhaps you should start your own BLOG, have your own motto. I don't me to be flippant but the JHLTDP motto? I almost did not respond to this comment.
But the words in this case are the important thing and were sent in anonymously by a reader to the JHLTDP and adopted by the BLOG. They were sent in without attribution, but struck a cord with the JHLTDP. So much so that the BLOG researched the origin of the quote and found it to be a quote of Sir Winston Churchill. Only someone with limited horizons would send to the dust bin of history great words because of who who uttered them alone and in isolation from other great acts.
Remember, labor's greatest friend of the 20th Century was Franklin Roosevelt and he counted Winston as one of his greatest friends and allies. I suppose he could have just written off England and lend lease and let the German's have England, because of how Churchill felt about labor. Hitler's policy of slave labor of the conquered was so much a better policy. I wonder if you might agree.
There are countless quotes from labor leaders that we would run from today. Quotes about anarachy, violence, destroying capital, socialism, racism, eugenics, collective ownership of capital, elimination of private property, elimination of wages, killing of scabs and finks, or many other illegal acts and what we would consider over the top statements today. I have them all. But they are a part of a larger labor fabric and history. The cloth is large, patterned and colorful. It accepts more than it rejects and seeks to identify the better nature in all of us rather focus or dwell on the malicious and misguided statements or acts of our history - no matter who said it.
You are apparently a late reader to the JHLTDP BLOG. Among the first 15 issues were some of the most powerful labor quotes of the last century. Do you have a favorite? I have many.
Just in case you forgot, Joe Hill is an executed murderer. I to this day deny the charges. I accepted the firing squad rather than dishonor the reputation of the married woman in who's company I was, at the time of the robery and murder. The bullet wound from the jealous husband did not help my case, admittedly. The son of the shop keeper/grocer swore until the time of his death in 1995 that I, Joe Hill was the assailant and murderer.
I today have a group of loyal labor friends who petition the Governor each November 15 to grant me a pardon. Many would in spite of my proclamation of innocense not think me the right name to head a cause on behalf or anything. A BLOG Reader has previously indirectly raised this issue via email.
Others may view me as a martyr. Some like me for the songs that I wrote. There is no historical record of Joe Hill successfully orgainzing any union, but the IWW knows better. As for me, TODAY, I am what I am. I take responsibility for my words of today. They are not perfect. They are against the improper and wasteful acts of the LTD management which is imposing the outcomes of this waste upon the workers. The management waste is intended to be born by the workers and this is wrong.
I have sought no claim to fame, choosing even to the extent of remaining anonymous. I still live with the single goal of solidarity and preservation of the Union and its rightful strength and democracy in the workplace.
Sorry you hate Winston Churchill, but I am cannot possibly please all people all the time, expecially on a subject as obscure and unimportant as this.
The Truth of the Words Out-Trump the Vagaries of History in this Case.
PS - Join me in celebrating the birthday of Ghandi this Saturday October 2. Brother Hank, I can even find quotes from this great man you would have trouble with.
Post a Comment