Next Saturday, Elizabeth Warren will make it official: she's running. Big surprise? No. Good news? I think so. Of all the candidates and potential candidates, she has-- along with Bernie (and Marianne)-- the best ideas to put out for Americans to think about. The rest of them, frankly, are coming across as one form or another of careerist. The cases being made by Kamala, Beto, Biden, Gillibrand, Castro... are all about them. Elizabeth Warren is making a case about us.So Saturday she announces in Lawrence, Massachusetts (at Everett Mills, the site of the Bread and Roses strike in 1912. Why there? That's where immigrant textile mill workers, led by the IWW, fought back against the "greedy mill owners who cut workers’ already meager salaries." The strike lasted 2 months and united workers of 40 different nationalities. IWW leaders Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn went to Lawrence to help direct the strike, which resulted in congressional hearings forcing the mill owners to settle and giving workers in Lawrence and the rest of New England substantial raises.The Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Mass, 1912After Lawrence, she heads right up to Dover City Hall in New Hampshire for a 3 PM organizing event. Sunday morning she'll be at the Veterans Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, followed by a rally in Iowa City at the Iowa Memorial Union at the University of Iowa in the late afternoon. And then in the evening she'll be at the Mississippi Fairgrounds in Davenport for a more intimate roundtable discussion.She doesn't stop there. Right after Iowa, she's off to events in South Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and California.There must be something even more sublimely wonderful about Elizabeth Warner than even her fans-- like myself-- have understood. The extreme right hates her even more than they hate Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton! Think about that! According to some right-winger at the Washington Times yesterday, refers to her as a "lightning rod," the "tip of the spear," a "strident liberal," someone with "cultural pedigrees," an "indefatigable backer of government power," a "class warrior from a privileged position" and "the symbol of everything they don’t like: a Harvard professor who is to the left of Barack Obama." At least he pointed out that she is"not a flip-flopper," a reference to Kirsten Gillibrand, who has virtually come to define the term.
BREAD AND ROSESby John DenverAs we go marching, marchingIn the beauty of the dayA million darkened kitchensA thousand mill lofts greyAre touched with all the radianceThat a sudden sun disclosesFor the people hear us singingBread and roses, bread and roses As we go marching, marchingWe battle too for menFor they are women's childrenAnd we mother them againOur lives shall not be sweatedFrom birth until life closesHearts starve as well as bodiesGive us bread, but give us roses As we go marching, marchingWe bring the greater daysFor the rising of the womenMeans the rising of the raceNo more the drudge and idlerTen that toil where one reposesBut the sharing of life's gloriesBread and roses, bread and roses