Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

The Columbine massacre — like 9/11 — was an ideal fear-lever that governments used to rewrite school policies across the nation, strengthen gun control legislation, and generally weaken individual empowerment and freedoms. Few people questioned the changes in education policies, dress codes, curriculum, and so on, as the threat of another school shooting was hung over their heads. They say that Harris and Klebold chose the date of April 20 because it was “Hitler's Birthday”, or perhaps to top the Oklahoma City bombing (April 19). The real reason the date April 20 was chosen has more to do with the Rockefellers and the rich establishment than Hitler and troubled kids.

Today is also the 91ST anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre (Columbine taking place on the 85TH), one of the worst attacks on the common worker by the wealthy, aided of course by the allies of the rich, the government. It is for that bloody symbolism that the the agents of the rich chose April 20 when they were programming Harris and Klebold to take part in the Columbine massacre.

And even if I'm nutcase-wrong, it's still a story worth knowing.

In 1913, Colorado was almost entirely under the thumb of the Rockefeller family. Not only did they control Colorado Fuel and Iron, but they owned a great deal of the real estate as well — whole cities were owned start-to-finish by them. Their workers were paid $1.68 per day maximum, and they were paid by the weight of coal they mined — with two sets of scales used, one for the workers and one for the purchasers… you can guess which one was accurate and why. They weren't paid for work like building the mines either, so the actual rate of pay was even lower. Lack of concern for worker safety resulted in a death rate at CF&I mines that was double the national average… To make matters worse, they were paid not in cash, but with coupons that could only be spent at Rockefeller-owned businesses.

Unions had begun organizing in the late 19TH century, but the Rockefellers employed terror squads to abuse and eliminate most of the activists — how did you think the rich got rich and stayed that way? After the Rockefellers had an activist killed for trying to get fair wages, twelve thousand workers went on strike in the fall of 1913. The Rockefellers immediately evicted the workers and their families (primarily immigrants, and all excessively poor and without assets), who then built tent cities to try and survive the cold Colorado mountain winter. Rockefeller snipers regularly fired at these tents while families were sleeping, so they eventually had to take to sleeping in pits dug in the ground for safety, and at times their agents would enter the camps, killing indiscriminately — including women and children.

By Halloween 1913, it was apparent that the unionized workers were not going to back down on their demands, and Colorado Governor Elias Ammons, a good friend of the Rockefeller family, agreed to send in the National Guard to assist their own mercenaries. The National Guard took to terrorizing families, destroying water supplies, kidnapping and abusing activists, killing many of them and leaving their bodies on the railroad tracks to warn other strikers.

On April 20, 1914, as the miners at Camp Ludlow were celebrating Easter, the National Guard opened fire on them with machineguns, killing anyone who left their trenchlike homes. The main union activist made it to the National Guard to try and arrange a truce, but he was knocked to the ground and shot three times in the back. After several hours, a freight train stopped on the tracks which separated the camp from the National Guard machinegun positions, which allowed many of the men to escape into the hills, although two women and eleven children stayed in their hiding spots.

After the train moved on, no more gunfire came from Camp Ludlow since the men had taken positions in the Black Hills, and the National Guard moved into the camp. The women and children — some only babies a few months old — who had remained in the camp were burned to death under orders from the Rockefellers, their charred corpses being found by their families the next morning.

Federal troops were then sent in by President Woodrow Wilson who eliminated the remaining resisters. The strike had failed, the union workers were replaced by scabs, and none of the demands for worker safety or better treatment were met. The Rockefellers had won, and none of their death squads nor any of the National Guard men were ever charged with any of the killings.

People send me fake tattoos drawn on with marker all the time trying to get a membership, and some people try harder than others. I'm not sure if this guy isn't trying hard enough, or if he's trying way too hard… The lantern in the background is a great gangsta touch.