John Sayles wrote and directed the blockbuster 1987 film Matewan, about the 1920 Battle of Matewan. This was centered around the Matewan, West Virginia coal miner’s strike that saw scores of people left dead. Fast forward 115 years to Minneapolis, Minnesota. On the one hand we have the US government, run by a wannabe dictator, sending what translated into Storm Troopers, aka ICE & Border Patrol, to intimidate the citizens of Minnesota. Looking back into Matewan WV and Sayle’s film, we have the coal company, a government to itself, sending the Baldwin-Felts detective agency AKA Storm Troopers into town to intimidate the fledging miners’ union. As usual “might makes wrong” always!
Here’s the skinny: The coal miners had the constitutional right to organize their union. Their walkout was done peacefully to address issues as to how the coal company treated them with not only low wages but a myriad of ways to pick their pockets. In reality, the coal company looked upon those men as even less than prison labor! Baldwin-Felts hired guns could have easily worn ICE insignias on their backs and not needing to cover their faces, like today’s current crop of federal thugs. Once again fast forwarding to Minneapolis, as with the Baldwin-Felts hired killers, today’s ICEMEN shot and killed unarmed peaceful protestors who posed NO threat to them! And, as with the Matewan massacre, no murderer was held accountable… period! The Trump regime had the nerve to call those murdered in cold blood as Domestic Terrorists.
It is time to use the F word that resonated in 1920 Matewan and 2025-6 Minneapolis: FASCISM!
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This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Philip A. Farruggio.