Ohio citizens puts the brakes on its union stripping measure

It actually looks like Ohio citizens have actually taken it in their own hands and are about to stop Ohio's union stripping measure from going forward. We at LP say Amen to those people.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/30-2

Scott Walker in New York

Scott Walker dropped by New York I think to pick up another couple of bags of money from Wall Street. It looks like hundreds of his closest friends showed up to greet him. He appears to be just as popular in New York as he is in Wisconsin. It is good to see people making these political lackey's live as uncomfortable as they can.

A free song from the Dropkick Murphy

This is a free download of a song from Celtic-style band the Dropkick Murphys who have made their name playing at the Red Sox events. They are standing in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin against Scott Walker.

http://www.standwisconsin.org/

If something is illegal just change the law and make it legal

How far has our country gone down the political corruption rabbit hole? Things that once brought down a president and overturned a government have now been ruled A-OK. America hero Daniel Ellsberg - who gave up his career and profession and faced over one hundred years in jail for spying - fought for what he believed was right only to see his life work invalidated by a congress filled with law makers who were old enough to have gone to Vietnam but didn't.

Also, the PBS series POV is streaming “The Most Dangerous Man inAmerica: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” on June 13 and 14.

In this interview, Ellsberg says, "Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, would feel vindicated that all the crimes he committed against me–which forced his resignation facing impeachment–are now legal. " (Thanks to the Patriot Act and other laws passed in recent years.) And he says all presidents since Nixon have violated the constitution, most recently President Obama, with the bombing of Libya.

The full article is here: http://inthearena.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/07/daniel-ellsberg-all-the-crimes-richard-nixon-committed-against-me-are-now-legal/

Everyone’s favorite government employee who hates other government employees Pt. 1

During the upcoming days LP will try to examine the unique strengths of the Republican governor, anti-labor, class of the 2010s. We’ll call this segment “everyone’s favorite government employee who hates other government employees.” Each of these “public servants” has their own strong personality traits and, if there’s anyone we miss, please feel free to contact us so that we can add them to our honor role.

This class assumed control of their state’s government by using America’s outrage over “Obamacare” - a term either thought up by a think tank or the propaganda ministry (Fox), an agency which never should have been allowed to guard the hen house. “Obamacare” soon came to be equated with Stealth Socialism though, at worst, it proved to be just one more giveaway to the drug companies and insurance industry so they’d cover more of America’s sickly peasants. After the elections these governors soon began to push through a bunch of unpalatable “reforms” that they hadn’t bothered to tell the electorate about beforehand. They had apparently been bankrolled by some people with deep pockets whose interests weren’t always the same as those who live from paycheck to paycheck working more than forty hours a week. Somehow they have been able to equate a marginal tax increase on Bill Gates’ vast fortune with a tax increase on someone living one tax increase away from ruin. Though - with no new stream of revenue, the continued purchase of military hardware and the endless military adventures around the world - bankruptcy seems almost ascertain. Once the serfs found out that they were the problem they began to revolt and suddenly a four year term wasn’t soon enough to throw the bums out. They needed to be thrown out quicker. These politicians reacted in a way you’d expect: by attempting to change the way people vote and redistricting their voters: so that they could choose the voters rather than the voters choosing them.

The first of these acknowledged heavy weights is none other than New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. He is considered by many an outside contender for the white house and everyone knows how much his party loves well connected to beltway politicians and/or Wall Street “outsiders.” Only weeks after using a state helicopter, to avoid New Jersey  traffic, to attend his son’s baseball game Governor Christie signed a bill that cut deeply into the benefits of teachers, firemen, and policeman (another words everyday citizens of New Jersey). I guess when you’re spending so much money on helicopter fuel other big ticket items have to suffer. This of course is the same governor who renounced federal funds to build a tunnel between his state and New York City but why worry when you can just fly over traffic. Your very own state helicopter is the closest that these government employees will get to feeling like the corporate titans they actually work for.

In the outside world someone who hates his own kind might be labeled a sociopath but within the elite media world it is the surest way to be labeled a bold reformer. Mr. Christie seems to enjoy functions where he can have an exchange of idea with people who disagree with him. Sometimes it takes the shape of a public dressing down before his supporters. He’ll be raised on a platform, holding a microphone, as his supporters shout them down. He hates the teacher union. His style is always to profess how much he loves teachers particularly if they act like non-unionized teachers and agree to everything he wants without back talk. The beauty of this is that his crowds of supporters often cheer his every word as he tells them indirectly how he’ll destroy their kids’ education. Only recently the New Jersey hedge fund industry paid for an ad embracing Governor Christie’s ed reforms at the expense of his much loved teachers. Another words people who nearly destroyed the economy last year showed that they were solidly behind Governor Christie. Word is that many people in this leadership group have helicopters too.

The high point anti-immigration mixed with low wages

The fruit is rotting in the fields of Georgia. You think somebody might have thought of that before they passed this bill.

http://georgiaimmigration.blogspot.com/2011/06/georgia-agribusiness-loss-may-be-1.html

Target targets workers to defeat union vote.

This is why we need the employee free choice act. If this was just a fair vote. Then this wouldn't be a problem but instead workers are targeted with free donuts and coffee "bribery" and under surveillance intimidation. Somehow they manage to leave these out of the target adds though.


http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110627/FREE/110629888

One of my all time favorite postings from the first gilded age

Just when you think all your problems are new and unique you see that we have been here before. You put BP, Citibank, Bank of America on these people rather than the various trusts and you have something.

My Mission Statement

My mission statement

This is a mission statement from someone who hates mission statements and sees them as dusty documents that few people care about. I am a reluctant blogger, attempting to take up the labor issues in a country whose current media works long and purposefully hard to ignore them. There is a financial section in almost every newspaper, but no labor section. The stock market is advertised on the so-called news like it’s a spectator sport and we’re all on the same side, when Wall Street’s interests often prove to be different from Main Street’s. I guess those who control our media have decided that most Americans have plenty of liquid cash that they’re just waiting to invest; it certainly isn’t filled with people who work for a living. They substitute plenty of liquid credit to make up for depressed real wages and they tell everyone to go shopping. Labor has been demonized. It is repeatedly referred to as a special interest while corporate money is equated to free speech. Last I checked, money is money and speech is speech.

To me, labor means the jobs I’ve worked and there have been many. At different times I‘ve been: a writer, an educator, a non-union employee, a union employee, a tour guide, a reporter, unemployed, a child care worker, a student, as well as someone who worked plenty of substandard jobs. The “economic royalist” comes from the FDR’s speeches of 1936 when there was a real threat of revolution in America from the left (see Huey Long, Father Coughlin and not the imitation kind that’s promoted by the 24 hour cable stations). The serfs come from a much earlier time, pre-democracy, which many in this country seems eager to get back to. In my mind, a strong labor market is essential to both small businesses and the community as whole as people who have money tend to spend more money than people who don’t. We either find a way to make our labor class vibrant again; or surrender our country to the economic royalists who will rule from inside their gated fiefdoms, protected by (campaign contributions) paid political lackeys pretending to serve two masters – a fake one, their constituency, and a real one their paid sponsors, and who help keep them above the teeming mass of serfs left fighting for the scraps of the old American empire.

Five or six companies control the current media system. They only tell us what they want us to hear. The clog up the bandwidth and leave very little ground for the vast majority to communicate with one another. There interests are not ours.  They pit one group of workers against another by giving us false choices to argue over. I hope this blog can become a space where those of us who work for a living and who are interested in others who do too can communicate with one another through interesting articles from the “old” media, commentary, and through “new” material.

The new labor war is on and labor is losing, badly, but cable television’s talking heads (who pontificate for a living) won’t declare it a war unless someone complains. It’s business as usual if we continue to allow their patrons to rob us blind. The media seems baffled as to why houses remain on the market for so long. They very rarely dwell on people losing their jobs, the unemployed who after so many weeks are no longer even a statistic, or those who are forced to settle for less well paid jobs as one job equal one job no matter what it pays. Those stories make us sad, and the media knows that sadness isn’t good for us. Instead they dazzle us with the latest shiny object (see Lindsey Lohan, Anthony Weiner’s wiener, John Edward’s love child, Oprah’s farewell season, the latest sports controversy, or currently - in Boston - Whitey Bulger).

I guess it all goes back to that old adage: if a labor war falls in the woods and no one hears it did it really fall. It is my belief that we must turn this ship around or else the last man or woman, still working for more than minimum wage, should be prepared to turn his or her lord or lady’s lights off before they make their way to ye ole mall.

Feel Free To Contact Me

Please feel free to let me know what you think of the blog, anything that I should be doing differently or things you'd like to see covered that hasn't been please feel free to contact me here.