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View Full Version : Helen Keller: deaf, blind, socialist, IWW member



cyu
21st October 2008, 18:46
Excerpts from http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2008helen-keller


“Love? Why, bless you, that is easy; it is what everybody feels for everybody else,” she reportedly once said at a young age. But early on, she was horrified by the circumstances under which the urban poor were forced to live.

“I have felt their hard, rough hands and realized what an endless struggle their existence must be.” She also wrote about how blindness was connected to poverty, prostitution, and venereal diseases.

Keller’s revulsion toward injustice developed into sympathy with the socialist labor movement. She read Marx and Kautsky and German socialist papers printed in Braille. In 1909 she joined the Socialist party, began writing for several leftist papers, and became a prominent spokeswoman for the movement.

Keller wrote: “What? Are we to put difference of party tactics before the desperate needs of the workers? Are we no better than the capitalist politicians who stand in the high places and harangue about petty matters, while millions of the people are underpaid, underfed, thrown out of work and dying?”

GPDP
22nd October 2008, 00:04
It's amazing how schools hold up Hellen Keller as some shining example that "everyone can make it if they try", but never bother to get into what truly makes her an inspirational figure, on the same vein as people like MLK.