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Book 32 Page 34
The right to strike
We have the right to strike brothers.
Well actually we don’t, they just took our ‘right to strike’ away last week.
O! did they! O.K. then;
we have a right to protest against our right to strike brothers!
Well no actually we don’t have that right either. It’s against the law to gather in a crowd without the expressed permission of the government.
Well we’ll get that permission then!
We can try, but they don’t give out permits to protestors who might be ‘would be strikers.’
H—m. Je--ss, O.K. then! …
“We have the right to think about striking and protesting brothers.”
“Isn’t that right brothers!?
We have a right to think about striking.”
All together brothers say after me;
“We have a right to think about striking!”
“We have a right to think about striking!”
Right you lot
keep a moving,
do your thinking more quietly somewhere else,
you’re disturbing the peace.
Come on! move along now,.
move on or we’ll throw you all in jail.
Brothers! Brothers! shout with me,
“We have the right to think out aloud.”
Come on brothers all together, shout with me,
“We have the right to strike!”
“We have the right to strike!”
“We have the right to strike!”
© Written by Dominic John Gill www.poetry.net.au dominicj7@poetry.net.au Sep 1 2001