Defending our lives, Caye Caulker and something other

At School we show this movie called Defending Our Lives, it shows the stories of women who killed their boyfriends and husbands out of self defense, after years of abuse. Throughout the movie one of the women lists headlines about the number of women killed in the area that year by abusive husbands and boyfriends. 

I don't know how well atmosphere does what they do, but I think any voice helps for the voiceless.

As I was leaving Spyhouse tonight the street was unpaved (recent construction), the smell of gasoline was in the air and the humidity was as heavy as ever. The dusty road with street lights and the heat reminded me of Belize. How I walked the streets of Caye Caulker and wondered at moving to an island to teach. Wondered what they paid and would the locals accept me. Could I learn enough about the local history, culture and climate to speak with ease, or would I always second guess myself?  Could I brace for storms on an island, and eat seafood, and swim in the ocean without worrying about weird bugs, snakes and stingrays.

I have been listening to this tape I found at school today (who works on their vacation? This guy). 

Its a tape by Bucky Halker who basically gives a history and performs labor songs from 1865-1895. YES not 1900 but 1800 and its really amazing to hear. Many of the songs are Union (like civil war) songs turned into labor songs (remember this is pre -AFL Union (workers)).  The songs are remarkably easy on the ears for the most part. Very simple melodies, you start singing along on the first listen, but also they are very Christian -and its interesting to hear Leftist Christianity. These songs were in the window between Marx and the Soviet Union so they don't fear communism as a atheist stance, they use whatever elements of Socialist, anarchist, communalist and christian doctrine they can come up with to say that labor brings wealth not anyone else.  I know some of the members of SoT are on the same page, and its interesting to hear how things change, yet don't.  

Still I have  a hard time equating middle class america (as it stands today) with late 1800s america where the separation between working class and rich was extreme. These people suffered to live, while we suffer to pay off debt we shouldn't have acquired. I don't mean to sound harsh and I do believe the system is sliding backwards, but many of the old songs speak to a time when the US looked less well off than most developing nations of today. Its hard to write a song about the serving class. We create wealth, but not in stuff... so what do we have to show?  

"I waited your tables, and typed your emails and signed for your goods as they came ashore,

 I washed your car- that gets you so far, now I demand you pay me a bit more!" 

Just doesn't have the same ring to it.