Rocking the Cradle of Labor

8/7/2019 Rocking the Cradle of Labor

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Rocking the Cradle of Labor

At the end of Cradle Will Rock, a film that vividly portrays the strugglesof the fledgling Federal Theater Project in the late '30s, a grand play isanticipated. The play is about the right for workers to come together

and the layers of corruption mounted against them, set in a twistedplace called Steeltown, USA. With strikes at US Steel threatening tospread to every industry in the country, the powers of High Societypurchase political solutions. Among them, hearings into 'un-American'activities within the Works Progress Administration, the New Dealagency that over saw the doomed Federal Theater Project. Mere hoursbefore the curtain is set to rise, nefarious Republican focres conspire tocut funding for the FTP, causing not only the cancellation of the show,but the Government's armed confiscation of the theater and all propsstored within. All Union actors were forbidden from going on stagewhile the height of pre-post-WW2 'red scare' tension builds throughout

the country. Flames of social fury were ready to erupt at any moment.

The final hope rests with the show's creator, a neurotic, non(actor's)union, homosexual schitzophrenic who agrees to perform the entireplay himself, with nothing but a rented piano and his nervous chords toinspire the only vacant theater in Manhattan. As Act One awkwardlystumbles forward, a voice rings out from the back of the house--one of the actors, a once-homeless dreamer who foresakes everything to be apart of that very special moment, begins to sing her lines. Invoking astreet beaten hooker named Moll, the jaded spirit of Steeltown'sdestitute prostitutes, Olive Stanton fights through the raking silence of

choked gasps. Unless another castmate is aslo willing to gamble theirstring-fed lives, Olive knows she, too, will soon be walking her ownlonely, head-down stroll towards midnight's lesser angels.

As the spotlight grip gives up his search for Olive's leading man, thespirit of Bohemian unity shines through the darkness in the upperbalcony and a booming voice commands the womdering crowd toknow that the show will indeed be going on! Inspired, the entire casterupts to deliver a raw, defiant spectacle worthy of every tear there isto shed.

There is actually a very true story behind Cradle Will Rock. Not onlyabout Orson Welles and Marc Blitzstein and Nelson Rockefeller, but of the greater struggles of rich and powerful capitalist ideals versus thoseof labor-inspired socialism, which tends to appeal to the more mentallylunar, as well.

Another common truth from both then and now is that despite never-ending struggles, dwindling membership due to difficulties legislated



against them and a long, staggering list of protections and rights thathave apparently become so taken for granted that we forget thatLabor's role in this country stretches from protections for coal minersand track layers to the forward strides in Civil Rights, to the commonworker being able to earn a fair wage without having to worry if they'll

shamefully be cast aside by company CEOs who simply see 'labor' asanother easy expense to trim in 'hard times'. It's the only way for thetruly needy to afford jet fuel when times are rough.

Something else that is true about this struggle is that many unions, likeanything else influenced by the allure of money or politics in ourcurrent system, have also been corrupted. Blind allegiance to a weakDemocratic party, one whose existence depends largely upon thedwindling AFL-CIO, in lieu of forming a true Worker's party has alsoweakened the ability to organize labor here in America.

Is now the beginning of the end for this incarnation of the Labormovement? With overwhelming Republican power at the state andgovernment levels and limited understanding or support for unionsnationwide, the Midwest protests are likely to be waited out or ignoredinto the next news cycle before having the chance to become theoverwhelming issue of the 2012 campaign, as it should be.

Can the passion of other worldwide cries for revolution catch on hereto fundamentally alter the capitalist system that seems doomed toeventually consume itself--letting only the passengers on those privatejets escape to Bermuda? Will the Wisconsin Statehouse become the

brilliant spark that leads millions of beaten down workers to demandtheir equality, to finally feel the true power of their production? Thereis a lot of money being bet against it. Billions of dollars are at thedisposal of those who think everything is working out just fine, thankyou very much, and don't appreciate the poor not knowing their place.defendwisconsin.blogspot.com

What do we common people have with which to fight back againstthese capital interests? We have our voice and it is mighty. We haveour ideas of what a better world should be and they are wonderous.

We have a legacy of enthusiastic, productive protests that broughtabout incredible changes to the American identity, both painful andfundamental. The momentum should feel like a wind at our backs butit turns out that somehow we've just been left behind again. Even thetrue believers have given up the cause of social unity as a fool's quest.While most admire the strength of those in the Heart-land willing toendure nightmares for the dreams of their children, the fact of thematter is that a lot of those admirers are as far from Wisconsin as they



were from a voting booth last November.

Like the forbiden artists at the end of Cradle Will Rock, we have thechoice to either watch the grand play from the dark seats or stand up,risk it all and demand the spotlight shine on our vision for a new world.

Will history's soundtrack broadcast your voice one day?

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Rocking the Cradle of Labor