Look For Me In Butte

When the organizers of the National Folk Festival announced they were bringing the event to Butte Montana, the local Wobblies ( Kevin, Amanda, Dennis) jumped into action and created Union Corner right in the heart of the activities. The festival people weren't happy about it (they strive for a Disney-like non-controversial atmosphere) but much to their dismay, our Fellow Workers pulled an end around and we had a great space where we sold t-shirts, cd's, books, displayed union history, sang labor songs, chatted with folks and proudly displayed the red and black. Dennis created a great shirt with the picture of Wob martyr Frank Little along with the words : "murdered by the Copper Trust, Aug 1 ,1917". On Sunday my wife and I wore the shirt all day as we listened to the great music (Afro-Cuban, reggae, Quebecois, blues, gospel, bluegrass etc) and I personally was approached a dozen times by people who wanted to know more about the IWW.



Of course Butte is a unique place with a strong union history but it was amazing to have old working class guys come up to you and call you brother, show you their IWW pin or fathers old red card. Perfect strangers wanted to talk Gramsci and Debord. Young people wanted to explain their ideas about anarchism. There was actual idea exchange spurred in part by current events (the economy) but also by the very fact that radicals were out front with their flags and tshirts, openly displaying their resistance. We simply tapped into a very real dissatisfaction with the status quo and the dilapidated ,empty buildings of uptown Butte were the perfect backdrop, the perfect realization (in the shadow of the nation's largest Superfund site) of capitalisms propensity towards "creative destruction". These people have first hand knowledge of how it leaves workers and communities struggling in it's wake when it moves to more fertile territory.