Our old television set finally broke down so in celebration of Labor Day we bought a new one. It's a flat screen, our first, so it took some getting used to. We discovered that in sunlight the dark scenes aren't visible, but at night the content on the the screen is visible and highly defined. I guess that cuts out daylight viewing, at least in the summer, but that's OK. We don't watch much TV except for British mysteries, the BBC and the Lehrer News Hour.
Of course, I did indulge when we first unveiled our flat-faced friend. I watched for hours, mostly mediocre mysteries, except for one show about Harry Bridges, the famous union leader who organized the longshoremen of San Francisco. The program showed footage of the 1934 maritime strike. The governor of California sent in the National Guard to oppose the strikers and the San Francisco police gassed them and beat them up. They also murdered two men by shooting them in the back.
Until then, the city's sympathies had been divided, but when the longshoremen marched down Market Street in a funeral cortege to honor their dead, thousands silently lined the pavements to watch. It was then that public sentiment went over to their side. Later, there was a general strike and the city shut down for four days. At the end of that time, the workers' every demand was met.
Workers, Unite!
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