…..goddamn, another flash in the pan, ‘Rich Men North of Richmond,’ while the USA bombs the world with sanctions, poisons, hate, terror, carriers, jets, endless bioweapons, but cry cry cry!
Look, musical expression and down home singing are great . . . . But when you/everyone starts Tweeting/X-ing it, and then rolling over backwards, pushing what isn’t is, then we are back to the PT Barnum, the goof-ball summer of distraction days.
In case you are living under a rock (or taking a healthy absence from the internet), independent artist Oliver Anthony released a song, “Rich Men North of Richmond” that’s gone wildly viral, and as usual, fools on Twitter/X and in the media tried to spin it as a right-wing white supremacist anthem for conspiracy theorists.
But it’s a heartfelt song about working “overtime hours for bullshit pay” that just about anyone can relate to—maybe even a couple of Rich Men North of Richmond. Here is a music video compilation I put together of independent YouTube creators reacting to it live.
This is what bastardizes some bloke screaming in his country kinda way his laments. As if we haven’t gone down that road a thousand times, man, a thousand times — country or rock-n-roll ten thousand times.
I can’t be embarassed for these colonized minds — black, white, brown, Asian, Red Man. If you think you are in a free and a fun country, and if you think there was a Norman Rockwell Sort of Golden Era, and if you ever thought that history in the USA was not as bad as biwm 2023, then you have more than a case of amnesia or mis-education or putrified patriotism.
It aint’ poetry and it ain’t ground shaking: What the fuck is he talking about, the “OBESE milking the system?” “Welfare.” “Taxes”?
Rich Men North of Richmond
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin’ in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do
‘Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end
‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat
And the obese milkin’ welfare
Well, God, if you’re five-foot-three and you’re three-hundred pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground
‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down
Lord, it’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin’ in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do
‘Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end
‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
+—+
Mental illness in real time, this Anthony, Oliver. But then, the rich men north of Richmond — aka Trudeau and his transgender thing, and Biden/Trump/All of those Redneck Millionaires and Tech Billionaires and no matter — either the hair sniffing diaper thing, Biden, or the other rapist, Trump, and then that congressional phalanx, good old boys or LGBTQA+ libs? They are all your cheatin’ heart scoundrels.
East of Richmond? Bush Man, Abbott Man, and south, man, of Richmond, hmm, DeSantis, and West of Richmond, all those fuckers along the trail of tears land, Oklahoma, and then keep going to Hope, Arkansas, and head up to Colorado, the AF Academy, Columbine, over to Rose Bud Rez, to the Fracking Fields, and oh, man oh man, this fellow, poor Oliver Anthony, is now a hero in August?
This country tis of thee has always been a trail of tears, brother Oliver Anthony.
Go way back, old Oliver:
[Image, January 1, 1912, A government-mandated reduction of the workweek goes into effect in Lawrence, Massachusetts, resulting in pay cuts at textile mills. In response to the decrease in wages, textile workers go out on strike. Soon after, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) arrives to organize and lead the strike, and the mayor orders that a local militia patrol the streets. Local officers turn fire hoses on the workers. After two months, mill owners settle the strike, granting substantial pay increases.]
Try a little later: Miners line up for strike relief in Matewan, May 1920,
Oh, that’s right, labor day is a comin’: May 30, 1937, Workers at the Republic Steel Plant in Chicago, Illinois protest the company officials’ refusal to sign a union contract. When the picketers refuse to disperse, members of the Chicago Police Department deploy tear gas and shoot and kill 10 demonstrators on the picket line. The event is coined the Memorial Day Massacre.
Reference, Oliver Anthony: Labor Wars in the U.S.
For fuck’s sake, brother, can you spare me another goddamned idiotic social media phenomenon dime:
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
They used to tell me I was building a dream
And so I followed the mob
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear
I was always there, right on the job
They used to tell me I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run
Made it race against time
Once I built a railroad, now it’s done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower up to the sun
Brick and rivet and lime
Once I built a tower, now it’s done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee, we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell
And I was the kid with the drum
Say, don’t you remember? They called me ‘”Al”
It was “Al” all the time
Why don’t you remember? I’m your pal
Say buddy, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, ah, gee, we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell
And I was the kid with the drum
Oh, say, don’t you remember? They called me “Al”
It was “Al” all the time
Say, don’t you remember? I’m your pal
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
When labor organizer Mother Jones arrived in a West Virginia coal town in 1901, residents were skeptical and mine guards were hostile. The United Mine Workers of America had successfully organized other mining operations in the U.S., but West Virginia remained tightly controlled by the coal company operators.
Get real, brother Oliver Anthony, cuz Whitey is on the Moon, Whitey is on Mars, and now the fucking Indians just landed shit on the fucking moon, while millions of Indians starve, man:
And the world is made right, right, rovers on the moon. While billions starve and the climate chaos ramps up.
The seven decades framed by the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and institutionalization of organized labor in the wake of World War II constituted a unique period of US labor relations, one that labor historians have identified as the most violent and bloody of any Western industrialized nation. Despite long-standing scholarly interest in the issues of labor-management conflict, however, important questions regarding the causes of extreme labor-management violence within the United States have never been adequately addressed. In this paper, I utilize a recently compiled and unique data set of American strike fatalities to statistically model the causes of extreme strike violence in the United States. The time-series evidence suggests that picket-line violence increased in association with the struggle for and against unionization and economic desperation associated with tightening labor markets. The results also both depict the stultifying effect of massacres and suggest that state support for labor’s right to organize tended to decrease the likelihood of violence and vice versa. This paper not only thus provides fresh insights into classic questions, but also offers a basis for both transhistorical and international comparison.
Until we bat to the heads all of them — red white and blue generals and Captains and all of them, until we take out the anti-union motherfuckers, and until we get rid of SAVAGERY — AKA CAPITALISM — there will be many whining Oliver Anthony’s or Brcue Springstein’s or . . .
Haiti, brother — kick off your fat ass and stop the Deliverance strumming. HAITI. Cuba. Mexico. Fucking take it to the streets, and no fucking CROCODILE TEARS.
Haiti: Chérizier’s Warning
After greeting the various presses present and thanking them for having responded to his invitation, Chérizier entered directly into the substance of his subject, namely military force.
According to him, “ foreign force will only be applauded under the following conditions “:
1 … Arrest of de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry who helped put the country in this situation.
2 … Arrest of corrupt oligarchs, corrupt politicians and police who sell arms in working-class neighborhoods;
3 … Security so that life can resume properly in the country.
However, being children of Jean Jacques Dessalines, having his blood flowing in our veins, things will happen differently if this force comes to commit abuses in working-class neighborhoods.
2023 is not 2004, and the current problem is much more serious than before.
If we find that this foreign force violates women and girls as agents of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti ( Minustah ) did so in 2004 ;
If we find that this foreign force rapes young boys as the Uruguayan soldiers did in 2004 ;
If this force brings the Cholera as the Nepalese peacekeepers had done.
If the agents of this force come to the disadvantaged neighborhoods ( ghettos ) to open fire, kill people or massacre them as they see fit.
We will fight them to our last drop of blood and it is not the G9 alone that will do it, but the Haitian people. We have a duty and a responsibility to protect and defend our dignity and also to be able to live like human beings.”»
The American State (Insanity) Department was quick to answer Chérizier in these terms :
- The American government condemns in the strongest terms the actions and statements of gang leaders like Chérizier who paralyzed a large part of Port-au-Prince and the department of Artibonite and displaced more than 100,000 Haitians.
The US administration would continue to work to hold accountable those in Haiti who commit gross human rights violations and significant corruption
The United States sanctioned Chérizier in December 2020 as part of the global Magnitski sanctions program for human rights violations related to his role in the attack on La Saline. The violent attack launched against the population of the disadvantaged district of Port-au-Prince in 2018 which left at least 71 dead.
Chérizier was also appointed by a resolution of the United Nations Security Council for its role in the economic and humanitarian crisis which paralyzed Haiti in 2022. The gang leader is accused of the blockade of the capital’s largest oil terminal, Varreux, which has triggered a national gas and electricity crisis.
Our support for the creation of a multinational force to restore security and stability in Haiti remains unshakable, said the spokesperson for the United States Department of State by email to the voice of America ( VOA ).
IT’S Black AUGUST, poor saps:
We commemorate Black August in a time of collective grief, clarity, rage, and rebellion. Mighty waves of popular uprising against the ravages of white supremacy and anti-Black racism are flooding the streets, rising within and outside of prison walls, and reverberating through communities and institutions. Upon centuries of enslavement and subjugation exists an intolerable present, where the state continues to wield violent force against Black people in the form of mass criminalization and incarceration, repression and militarized police brutality, and willful neglect and discrimination, only amplified in the face of a deadly pandemic. And so, Black people resist. First, to survive. And, like generations of ancestors before, to fundamentally alter our collective condition and make freedom real. This is the legacy of Black August.
Black August began in the 1970s to mark the assassination of the imprisoned Black Panther, author, and revolutionary George Jackson during a prison rebellion in California. It is a time of reverence to honor political prisoners, freedom fighters, and martyrs of the Black freedom struggle. This month, we celebrate all the political prisoners who have helped us understand that prison is political and that our collective freedom depends on abolishing the state’s capacity, through incarceration, policing, and surveillance, to disrupt communities and diminish principled struggle against the unjust status quo. The month of August is also rich with the history of Black resistance outside, from the Haitian Revolution to the Watts rebellion and the Ferguson uprising. Black August is a reminder of the power in unity, and a mandate to continue joint struggle.
BLACK AUGUST READINGS
- A Primer: Black August and Its Importance to Black Resistance and Survival
- The Revision and Origin of Black August
- Study, fast, train, fight: The roots of Black August
- Black August in LA: Month of Meaning and Resistance
- Resistance: The Meaning of Black August
- Black August 575
- Kumasi speaks: What is Black August?
- The Black Joy Mixtape
- Black Joy Experience
- 1964 Freedom Summer/ Freedom Rides
BOOKS
- Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson
- Blood In My Eye
- The Melancholy History of Soledad Prison; In Which a Utopian Scheme Turns Bedlam
- Comrade George; An Investigation into the Life, Political Thought, and Assassination of George Jackson
- Destructive Generation
- Who Killed George Jackson?
- Live from Death Row
- Afeni Shakur: Evolution of a Revolutionary
- Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising And The 1960s
- Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in U.S. Culture
- Children of Virtue by Toni Adeyemi
- The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Conjure Women by Afia Atakora
- The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
- Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston
- Naming our Destiny by June Jordan (Poetry)
- Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century by Richard J. Powell (Non-Fiction)
- The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes (Fiction)
- This Child’s Gonna Live by Sarah E. Wright (Fiction)
++++———————————-++++————————++++————————++++—+
Old Oliver Anthony, learn your fucking history, and all you video makers, get fucking real. This is the U$ of Assassinations and Amnesia and Chaos and Terror and Lies. All happening way before 2023, way before Monroe Doctrine, way before small pox seeded blankets.
Even the slaughter fields, that fucking WWI, U$A was ripping off and slaughtering the people.
We fought against that shit in 1917:
On July 28, 1932 the U.S. government attacked World War I veterans with tanks, bayonets, and tear gas, under the leadership of textbook heroes Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The WWI vets were part of a Bonus Army who came to Washington, D.C. to make a demand for their promised wartime bonuses.
Or, Anthony, try out these folk’s narrative:
[Photo: Water protectors march against the Dakota Access Pipeline. By Andrew Cullen/Reuters.]
New York’s Labor Day parade wasn’t an official holiday—participants took unpaid leave—but the movement to declare it one had officially begun. In 1887, Oregon became the first state to designate a Labor Day holiday, followed later that year by Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. Yet the first Monday in September wasn’t the only option for celebrating workers’ rights. An alternative had emerged in 1886: May Day.
“‘Help that guy out’ Woody keeps telling me. ‘Let him know there’s a way to deal with those problems he’s singing about,’” he said (via Consequence). “So today I sat down and wrote this response to Mr Anthony’s song, for people like him and people like you.”
The finished product is a track that aims to speak to all types of “working folk”, and support the idea of unionisation.
“If you’re selling your soul, working all day/ Overtime hours for bullshit pay/ Nothing is gonna change if all you do is wish you could wake up and it not be true/ Join a union. Fight for better pay/ You better join a union, brother. Organise today,” he sings.
If you’re selling your soul, working all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Nothing’s gonna change if all you do
Is wish you could wake up and it not be true
Join a union, fight for better pay
Join a union, brother, organise today
You’ll see where the problem really lies
When the union comes around:
Rich men earning north of a million
Wanna keep the working folk down
Wanna keep the working folk down
If you form a union, you’ll soon find
That working people are all of one kind
So we ain’t gonna punch down on those who need
A bit of understanding and some solidarity
That ain’t right, friend
If you’re struggling with your health, putting on the pounds
Doctor gives you opiates to help you get around
Wouldn’t it be better for folks like you and me
If medicine was subsidised and healthcare was free
Join a union, fight for better pay
Join a union, sister, organise today
It comes down to the self same thing
If you’re black or white or brown:
Rich men earning north of a million
Wanna keep the working folk down
Wanna keep the working folk down
We know your culture wars are there to distract
While libertarian billionaires avoid paying tax
You want to talk about bathrooms while the flood waters rise,
The forest is on fire and the wind burns our eyes
Something’s wrong here
They want to divide us, because together we’re strong,
Are you gonna take action now you’ve sung your damn song?
If you don’t like the rich man having total control,
You better get the union to roll
Join a union, fight for better pay
Join a union, organise today
Don’t matter if you live in the city
Or some little country town
Rich men earning north of a million
Rich men earning north of a million
Rich men earning north of a million
Wanna keep the working folk down
Wanna keep the working folk down
If you’re selling your soul, working all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
Join a union
Oliver Anthony’s divisive song claiming solidarity with workers only benefits the rich who exploit them Billy Bragg
Woody knew that cynicism was the enemy of all of us who want to make a better world, so I’m ignoring those who accuse Anthony of deliberately stoking the culture wars that have divided America. I hear someone struggling to make sense of a world in which help is hard to come by. I wish Oliver Anthony all the best with his newfound fame. I hope it allows him to make a living playing music. But I know from experience that he’s going to face a lot of scrutiny from partisan players demanding he clarify his politics.
I wrote to offer him the perspective of someone whose understanding of solidarity and songwriting was shaped 40 years ago by the miner’s strike. The lesson I learned is as relevant today as it was back then: There is power in a union.
Paul Haeder, Author 