My Beautiful Wickedness

The biggest employer in Eastern Kentucky closed down last week. It might be back, it might not. And of course, the community is trying to pull together so these families have some kind of a Christmas…

But here’s where Kentucky has changed. There’s a backlash now against helping these men and women out because they were unionized. They were the “haves” and now the stupid fuckers who hated them because they bargained collectively and got better wages are standing by to kick them when they fall. Like they didn’t benefit from a higher local wage. Like they didn’t benefit from the money that these workers spent, the taxes that they paid, the meals that they bought, the cars that they drove.

They aren’t laid off because they unionized. They’ve been unionized for 80-odd years. (This is the mill all the men in my mom’s side of the family worked at.) They are laid off because no one is buying cars or laying pipe. We’re at the end of the beginning of a very bad time in the United States.

Sometimes stupid makes me mad. The whole region is on its knees and there’s always some damn fool who thinks its a good idea to break glass.