Unfinished poem regarding memorials to anti-capitalism

Dig a little here, Dig a little there
Victims of capital are everywhere.
Buried in a mountain,
Thrown into the sea and
Strewn across the fields of every country.

Some were shot, kicked in trenches
After digging their own graves
Some were thrown from helicopters
Into the waves
Some were raped and tortured,
Burned alive in their huts
Some were beaten to death with rifle butts.

They were burned in England,
They were burned in France.
They were burned in Germany (much more advanced.)
They were burned in Korea and in Vietnam
They are burning now in Gaza and Afghanistan.

Burned at the stake,
Burned in the ovens,
Bombs raining from the air
Dozens and dozens.

Some were plowing their fields,
Some were singing a song,
Some were putting on their stockings
For a night on the town.

Some were going to work.
Some were going to school.
Some were in the marketplace.
Shopping for food.

Some were in uniform
Many more were not
Some crouched behind the barbed wire.
Some stirred a pot.

Some were old, some were young
Some were not even born.
Their names we don’t know
But we can learn.


In Argentina, In Chile,
Honduras, El Salvador
Mothers search for the missing
And there’s more

In Spain they’re exhuming
Mass graves of Loyalists
Who were murdered by Franco
And the fascists.

We have our own missing in the US.
The ghosts of our ancestors cannot rest
Until we know the truth about their lives
Whether they lived 200 years ago
Or recently died.

But it’s not just the dead
Of our own families we seek
We need to know History.
So we won’t be weak.
We need to know the names of the people who fought
Right here on American soil for everything we’ve got.

We need to know about the Indians then and now,
To see how we are different yet the same some how.
We need to realize their struggle’s not done
There’s only one way that it can be won.

We need to know about indentured servants and slavery
And how if one is slave, the other can’t be free.
We need to see how hard people fought
In spite of odds so overwhelming it’s hard to give it thought.

We need to understand labor history
And the men, women and children who fought to keep us free
From the greed and the suffering of 7 days a week
Working 16 hour days to make ends meet.

We need to understand that the 1950’s
The Red Scare, union purges, firing commies
Is one of the reasons we don’t know today
How in the heck the world got this way.

We need to study history that’s within our reach
The Civil Rights Era and the dancing in the streets.
The joy and the pain and the subterfuge
That our government directed at anyone who moved.

We need to remember our disappeared
In the jails and the prisons
And remember that Angola used to be a plantation
Then go to the website Unicor.gov
And tell me what it reminds you of.

We are all suffering now, some much more than others
But we have to remember that we really are all brothers
And sisters under the skin.
And if we stick together we really can win

Even if it’s just a few steps forward
Don’t let ruling class push us backward.
To the days when there wasn’t enough to go around
When we fought each other for scraps on the ground.

For we are the people each unique in our way
But we won’t have the power ‘till we stand up and say
In spite of our differences there’s one thing to be stated,
The people united can never be defeated.

We have our differences but we can get along
And make a much better world than the one we’re living in.
We just need to realize who’s the true enemy
And that we don’t need guns to fight to be free.