I came in at 13, left at 23
And what a trip it was.
Called, the formative time of our lives.
Wow was it ever. First car,1926 Roadster.
Mike’s junkyard, “gooda a car you get for 12 bucks. No?”
First love, madly with Beatrice.
Wondered about in the haze of her smell.
Singing, “Let me call you sweetheart I’m in love with you
Let me hear you whisper that you love me too.”
Delicious while it lasted.
It wasn’t meant to be
Broke my heart long before 23.
Lost my romance
The roadster, Beatrice my sweetheart.
Yes, the depression decade.
The song of the time, no sweetheart stuff?
“Brother can you spare a dime?”
“Once I built a railroad made it run
Buddy can you spare a dime.”
Everybody lost a job.
The country out of work and hope.
Not In my world of radicals, anarchists, freethinkers,
How come you ask?
All, Marxists thats how come.
He taught us. Capitalist economy has a disease.
Regular economic dystrophy.
You lost your job? We knew it in our bones
Terrible. Never your fault. The system failed.
Wow what a relief, “no, no” never your fault.
Always, the capitalist system failed.
Result a permanent state of protest.
We marched, demanded jobs, Home Relief, Food
To City Hall, Albany, Washington yes Washington
Tens of thousands descended on the President.
FDR in the White House. He responded.
What else? Respond or face,
Social unrest. People riot in the streets.
Capitalist power threatened.
Soren, the Russian Revolution just across the ocean.
Our rulers wanted none of that.
A lot of shoe leather lost, marching, marching, marching.
Boy did we win.
The New Deal, Welfare, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security,
Unions right to organize, I became,
A union organizer, bringing workers together
A fair share of company profits.
More important their very own dignity.
Fascism was growing in Europe.
A most evil solution to the depression.
Solved the economic disease. The iron fist of a dictator.
New prison, the concentration camp.
Millions died there.
Picketed the German Embassy shouted
“Down with Hitler and Mussolini.” To no avail.
A war in Spain began the fight against fascism.
Americans, our Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Fought the fascists.
Freedom lost, as the rest of the world, did nothing.
With World War two we would pay a terrible price.
Over 50 million died in that Armageddon.
Europe in ruins.
We continued to live our lives.
Picnics in the parks, concerts at Lewsohn Stadium
Your Grandpa a street corner orator.
Called the masses, “rise up defend your rights.”
A new song, for the decade.To John Browns Body.
Solidarity Forever, “For the Union makes us strong.”
We marched sang with upraised fist.
Nothing exhilarates the human spirit as a crusade,
Not to be missed especially in youth.
Soren, Sure hope you can catch one.
Love Great Grandpabob.
PS. Never ever be without a cause, a women to love and a car.
Thank You Kate and Kaima N.H.W.Y.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Anniversary From Hell
Thats what I would call Obama’s year one in the White House. I was actually planning to do another blog in my Great Grandson, “Decades of you Great Grandpa series” It’s in the works about the 1930ies. But that will have to wait while we deal with what has surely set off alarms up in good old Democratic, New England.
Did the news from Massachusetts come as a surprise? No not really. I have had a feeling for sometime that the Obama White House never lost its way. It just never really found it. Back when I was fuming about Geithner, Summer, Bernanke et,al I felt quiet certain that the promise of “Change” was just another bit of campaign hogwash that I had listened to for most of my 92 years. What changed?
The occupant of the White House had to change because George had served his two terms. What exactly was the Obama administration going to change? Watching the Obama folks deal with the economic crisis it became clear that the President was more comfortable helping Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and their compatriots then dealing with how to get a real job creation program underway or stop the foreclosure epidemic. No change there. It was around this time I began to wonder if Obama would go down as a “gutless wonder?” That’s an old Bronx street expression that could very well apply to Obama if he doesn’t begin to fight, yes fight for all those “Changes” he promised. Or is he just a good orator?
I was reliving the early FDR days when thousands of people were put to work within months of FDR’s inauguration. This administration simply is to isolated from the daily lives of average Americans to have any idea how pissed off they are over the economy. If you didn’t lose your job there was a good chance you lost your home while the banks who caused that loss were being bailed out. To add insult to injury these same banks, a few months later are back making record breaking profits with the concomitant of huge bonuses. No change there. Heah Mr. President don’t you know why that truck driver in Democratic old Mass. won the election? PEOPLE ARE JUST ANGRY OVER YOUR FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THEIR HURT.
If you still don’t get it, just take a look at what happened to the Health Care Legislation. Obama’s made nice with the Health Insurance companies and in the process gave away the store. Same was true with the Pharmaceutical Companies. Who by the way have been raising the prices in case the pending legislation got passed and just might effect their price structure.
The most powerful piece of the original proposal, the Public Option, at the fierce lobbying of the Health Insurers was dropped. That was critical to controlling costs. Yes the government would compete with the insurers for costs. Just like it does with Medicare. Then came the no abortion amendments. And again the administration caved on that. And so it went. People who said that the final legislation would be the greatest boom the Health Insurance industry could have ever dreamed of were absolutely right. So what now?
Obama needs to take a serious look at his priorities. If he can get focused on the economy then he needs to take a very critical eye on his economics team. Get those old Wall Street guys out of there. Bring in fresh new faces and with them a team of, “can do” people who will deal with the unacceptable high levels of unemployment. Mr. President this Anniversary From Hell can be your great wake up call and I sure hope you heed it.
Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.
Did the news from Massachusetts come as a surprise? No not really. I have had a feeling for sometime that the Obama White House never lost its way. It just never really found it. Back when I was fuming about Geithner, Summer, Bernanke et,al I felt quiet certain that the promise of “Change” was just another bit of campaign hogwash that I had listened to for most of my 92 years. What changed?
The occupant of the White House had to change because George had served his two terms. What exactly was the Obama administration going to change? Watching the Obama folks deal with the economic crisis it became clear that the President was more comfortable helping Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and their compatriots then dealing with how to get a real job creation program underway or stop the foreclosure epidemic. No change there. It was around this time I began to wonder if Obama would go down as a “gutless wonder?” That’s an old Bronx street expression that could very well apply to Obama if he doesn’t begin to fight, yes fight for all those “Changes” he promised. Or is he just a good orator?
I was reliving the early FDR days when thousands of people were put to work within months of FDR’s inauguration. This administration simply is to isolated from the daily lives of average Americans to have any idea how pissed off they are over the economy. If you didn’t lose your job there was a good chance you lost your home while the banks who caused that loss were being bailed out. To add insult to injury these same banks, a few months later are back making record breaking profits with the concomitant of huge bonuses. No change there. Heah Mr. President don’t you know why that truck driver in Democratic old Mass. won the election? PEOPLE ARE JUST ANGRY OVER YOUR FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THEIR HURT.
If you still don’t get it, just take a look at what happened to the Health Care Legislation. Obama’s made nice with the Health Insurance companies and in the process gave away the store. Same was true with the Pharmaceutical Companies. Who by the way have been raising the prices in case the pending legislation got passed and just might effect their price structure.
The most powerful piece of the original proposal, the Public Option, at the fierce lobbying of the Health Insurers was dropped. That was critical to controlling costs. Yes the government would compete with the insurers for costs. Just like it does with Medicare. Then came the no abortion amendments. And again the administration caved on that. And so it went. People who said that the final legislation would be the greatest boom the Health Insurance industry could have ever dreamed of were absolutely right. So what now?
Obama needs to take a serious look at his priorities. If he can get focused on the economy then he needs to take a very critical eye on his economics team. Get those old Wall Street guys out of there. Bring in fresh new faces and with them a team of, “can do” people who will deal with the unacceptable high levels of unemployment. Mr. President this Anniversary From Hell can be your great wake up call and I sure hope you heed it.
Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Buy American?
Here I am again recalling the Great Depression of the 30ies. Living long means you are repeatedly called on to tell “how was it back there when the stock-market dove and a third of the workforce was unemployed?” Clearly it wasn’t good, but as a kid you have a different perspective. My family never had a lot so we didn’t have much to lose. Yes, our diet changed. We ate lots more animal organs and drank powdered milk and listened to FDR’s “Fireside Chats” on the radio. I do remember him pleading with us to “BUY AMERICAN.” This was part of a campaign to get the unemployment rate down. I have been puzzling about how this might apply to our present unemployment problem. This is what I have come up with.
Traditional manufacturing has been disappearing from the US since the advent of globalization. We stopped making almost all the stuff that we traditionally bought, including clothing, shoes, appliances, furniture, cars, electronics, toys and food. Too many economists have long argued that we no longer need our manufacturing base. I remember when Kenneth Galbraith argued that all we needed was people to do our laundry and we would sell our knowledge and service industries to the rest of the world. At the time it struck me as pretty idiotic. Since I was closely associated with Unions, I was told that I simply did not understand the emerging paradigm. I admit that was intimidating.
Now it is 30-40 years later and where are we? We are told that the economy is dependent on the consumer. If the consumer stops buying, the whole economy goes bust. What I can’t get through my thick head is what good is consumer spending if the major beneficiaries will be China, Malaysia, Honduras, Viet Nam, and lets not forget oil and the Middle East. Our new bunch of economists seem to forget what their forerunners told us.
We are only now beginning to reap the consequences of giving up our industrial manufacturing base. It was through those good, unionized jobs in steel, auto, chemicals, appliances, and machine tools that generations of Americans were able to make it into what became known as the middle class. The machine tool industry that used to dominate the economies of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont are all gone. They were the essential essential tools necessary for making machines that made all the manufactured goods. Without them we will end up making nothing. Doesn’t anybody understand the threat this is to our military? (Imagine me having to ask this question?)
Oh how I remember members of the Machinists Union saying, “I work in this dump to make sure my kids can go to college and never have to enter a factory door.” For many of those Machinists that turned out to be true. But for many of their children the factory was still their best opportunity for a decent job with solid benefits. Most of that was wiped out in the Globalization euphoria. I am sure there are many turning points, but for me it was when China was welcomed into the WTO in 2001. Since then we have shut 42,000 factories. We have lost about 17 million manufacturing jobs; the same number of jobs that presently represent the millions of unemployed. (I include those out of work people who have given up looking as well as those in part-time work.) By the way, on a percentage basis this is not far off from the 1930ies figure.
People like NY Times Columnist Thomas Friedman seem unable to quit writing about the wonders of Globalization and what it has done for the people in Third World Countries. That is in serious question. If one starts with a zero income and foraging for food in the garbage dumps, and than lands a job making sneakers for Nike at the wondrous salary of $2.50 a week, yes you can call that progress. For Friedman that is a dramatic improvement. For the people who have lost their jobs and for the US economy, that’s a tragedy. It does not solve the problem of the third world country as Nike will pack up and move to another third world place where they can get the same work for $1.50 a week. In the meantime the whole structure of our economy here at home has been busted; resulting in our highest unemployment since the great depression while Nike makes record profits from its overseas operations.
The argument that our industries were inefficient and outmoded is sheer humbug. It took a US Steel plant two man-hours to make a ton of steel. In China it takes 12 man-hours to make the same ton and three times the amount of carbon emissions. So who’s more efficient? We were of course. So why can’t we compete? China keeps its currency artificially cheap. Its companies pay zero, zilch, nothing, for health care and housing, and pay poverty wages. Should we want to compete with that? I think not, unless we want to take us back to the living standards of the 19th century.
So what will consumer spending do for us now? It will increase the trade deficit, since we are buying more from overseas than what we sell. The US trade deficit will not decline unless we can re-establish a manufacturing base. We simply cannot keeping buying stuff from China with nothing to sell them. In 2008 our world wide import was $2.5 trillion. In the same year we exported $1.2 trillion, or a deficit of $800 billion. In 2008 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide, not a one made in the US. Our major export to China now is our waste paper. Maybe that’s what they sell back to us in the stink smelling Dry Wall?
All of this is to say we need a policy that will bring back our manufacturing base or we are doomed as a major player in the world economy. Have you read all those predictions about China becoming the worlds dominant economic powerhouse?. It was our manufacturing ability that made the US the number one player in the world’s economic competition. Without it we are doomed to be a second rate country completely dependent on others to keep supplying us with our basic needs, as well as buying our debt in hope that someday we may find a way to pay them back. How to bring back manufacturing? Maybe start with Buy American as a wake up call?
Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.
Traditional manufacturing has been disappearing from the US since the advent of globalization. We stopped making almost all the stuff that we traditionally bought, including clothing, shoes, appliances, furniture, cars, electronics, toys and food. Too many economists have long argued that we no longer need our manufacturing base. I remember when Kenneth Galbraith argued that all we needed was people to do our laundry and we would sell our knowledge and service industries to the rest of the world. At the time it struck me as pretty idiotic. Since I was closely associated with Unions, I was told that I simply did not understand the emerging paradigm. I admit that was intimidating.
Now it is 30-40 years later and where are we? We are told that the economy is dependent on the consumer. If the consumer stops buying, the whole economy goes bust. What I can’t get through my thick head is what good is consumer spending if the major beneficiaries will be China, Malaysia, Honduras, Viet Nam, and lets not forget oil and the Middle East. Our new bunch of economists seem to forget what their forerunners told us.
We are only now beginning to reap the consequences of giving up our industrial manufacturing base. It was through those good, unionized jobs in steel, auto, chemicals, appliances, and machine tools that generations of Americans were able to make it into what became known as the middle class. The machine tool industry that used to dominate the economies of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont are all gone. They were the essential essential tools necessary for making machines that made all the manufactured goods. Without them we will end up making nothing. Doesn’t anybody understand the threat this is to our military? (Imagine me having to ask this question?)
Oh how I remember members of the Machinists Union saying, “I work in this dump to make sure my kids can go to college and never have to enter a factory door.” For many of those Machinists that turned out to be true. But for many of their children the factory was still their best opportunity for a decent job with solid benefits. Most of that was wiped out in the Globalization euphoria. I am sure there are many turning points, but for me it was when China was welcomed into the WTO in 2001. Since then we have shut 42,000 factories. We have lost about 17 million manufacturing jobs; the same number of jobs that presently represent the millions of unemployed. (I include those out of work people who have given up looking as well as those in part-time work.) By the way, on a percentage basis this is not far off from the 1930ies figure.
People like NY Times Columnist Thomas Friedman seem unable to quit writing about the wonders of Globalization and what it has done for the people in Third World Countries. That is in serious question. If one starts with a zero income and foraging for food in the garbage dumps, and than lands a job making sneakers for Nike at the wondrous salary of $2.50 a week, yes you can call that progress. For Friedman that is a dramatic improvement. For the people who have lost their jobs and for the US economy, that’s a tragedy. It does not solve the problem of the third world country as Nike will pack up and move to another third world place where they can get the same work for $1.50 a week. In the meantime the whole structure of our economy here at home has been busted; resulting in our highest unemployment since the great depression while Nike makes record profits from its overseas operations.
The argument that our industries were inefficient and outmoded is sheer humbug. It took a US Steel plant two man-hours to make a ton of steel. In China it takes 12 man-hours to make the same ton and three times the amount of carbon emissions. So who’s more efficient? We were of course. So why can’t we compete? China keeps its currency artificially cheap. Its companies pay zero, zilch, nothing, for health care and housing, and pay poverty wages. Should we want to compete with that? I think not, unless we want to take us back to the living standards of the 19th century.
So what will consumer spending do for us now? It will increase the trade deficit, since we are buying more from overseas than what we sell. The US trade deficit will not decline unless we can re-establish a manufacturing base. We simply cannot keeping buying stuff from China with nothing to sell them. In 2008 our world wide import was $2.5 trillion. In the same year we exported $1.2 trillion, or a deficit of $800 billion. In 2008 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide, not a one made in the US. Our major export to China now is our waste paper. Maybe that’s what they sell back to us in the stink smelling Dry Wall?
All of this is to say we need a policy that will bring back our manufacturing base or we are doomed as a major player in the world economy. Have you read all those predictions about China becoming the worlds dominant economic powerhouse?. It was our manufacturing ability that made the US the number one player in the world’s economic competition. Without it we are doomed to be a second rate country completely dependent on others to keep supplying us with our basic needs, as well as buying our debt in hope that someday we may find a way to pay them back. How to bring back manufacturing? Maybe start with Buy American as a wake up call?
Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.
Friday, January 1, 2010
9/11 All Over Again
I cannot believe that we are reliving 9/11 all over again. No, very luckily we have not had a plane brought down by some terrorists from Saudi Arabia. That’s where they came from last time. (Alas it was not a result of an action by one of the many Government Agencies setup to protect us.) What saved us this time was the action of a passenger on the plane.
After 9/11 by the time the smoke cleared and the debris from the WTC was carted away, all the explanation we got from the White House was “a failure to connect dots.” Man, if that wasn’t the biggest dose of White House bullshit. I can’t remember any bigger. There was an FBI agent in Minneapolis, Miss Crowley, sending memos to headquarters in Washington that some Muslims were learning to fly big airplanes, but not land them or takeoff. (Maybe they wanted to fly them at 30,000 feet just for the thrill of it?) But no one connected the dots. Hey, maybe they were going to smash these suckers into something and that’s how they would land them? But no one connected the dots.
What pissed me off back then is that in spite of billions of dollars spent on agencies like the CIA and the FBI, they were failing to do what the taxpayers were paying them for. Not one single person back then in the Bush years was fired for incompetence as a result of 9/11. Not one single person held responsible. Can you believe that?
Okay, so here we are again. The father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young man from Nigeria, warned the US Embassy in Nigeria that his son was getting cuckoo as a result of too much training in Jihad. The father warned that his son could be up to no good. Now the first thing that SOMEBODY in the Embassy should have done was lift the Visa that permitted him to travel by plane to the USA. It wasn’t done. He or she should be fired.
The National Center for Terrorism in the US, a super agency setup after 9/11 and headed by Dennis Blair, was sent a memorandum from the British M1 saying Abdulmulallaro was suspicious and they had put him on a no fly list. The agency did nothing. Dennis Blair should be fired. Next comes the CIA that also got information about Abdulmulallaro, and they failed to connect the dots. Sorry, but nice old Mr. Pannetta was put there because the Obama folks’ couldn’t find a bright young policeman who might have had a better idea than to keep thinking about dots. Pannetta should be sent packing back to California where he much prefers to be anyhow.
My whole point here is that the unwritten Washington law states “no matter how badly officials screw up, nobody gets fired.” That simple rule came into effect in order to protect them all. Talk about a union. There’s one that covers the collective asses of all those high on the Federal tit. I am just anxious to see whether or not Obama can deliver at least some of that promise of “Change” so loudly touted in the campaign.
Yes Mr. President, there are times you need to use your authority as the Commander in Chief (the equivalent of the CEO) and simply say to Ms. Napoletano, Mr Pannetta, Denis Blair, and the State Department Head of the Nigerian Embassy, “Sorry folks, you simply failed to do you jobs so you are out of here.” Wow, wouldn’t that be refreshing. Maybe I’m just dreaming, but hopefully maybe not.
Lest I forget, A very happy New Year to youall. Kate and I danced in 2010 as we have done for the last 22 years.
Thanks Kate. N.H.W.Y.
After 9/11 by the time the smoke cleared and the debris from the WTC was carted away, all the explanation we got from the White House was “a failure to connect dots.” Man, if that wasn’t the biggest dose of White House bullshit. I can’t remember any bigger. There was an FBI agent in Minneapolis, Miss Crowley, sending memos to headquarters in Washington that some Muslims were learning to fly big airplanes, but not land them or takeoff. (Maybe they wanted to fly them at 30,000 feet just for the thrill of it?) But no one connected the dots. Hey, maybe they were going to smash these suckers into something and that’s how they would land them? But no one connected the dots.
What pissed me off back then is that in spite of billions of dollars spent on agencies like the CIA and the FBI, they were failing to do what the taxpayers were paying them for. Not one single person back then in the Bush years was fired for incompetence as a result of 9/11. Not one single person held responsible. Can you believe that?
Okay, so here we are again. The father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young man from Nigeria, warned the US Embassy in Nigeria that his son was getting cuckoo as a result of too much training in Jihad. The father warned that his son could be up to no good. Now the first thing that SOMEBODY in the Embassy should have done was lift the Visa that permitted him to travel by plane to the USA. It wasn’t done. He or she should be fired.
The National Center for Terrorism in the US, a super agency setup after 9/11 and headed by Dennis Blair, was sent a memorandum from the British M1 saying Abdulmulallaro was suspicious and they had put him on a no fly list. The agency did nothing. Dennis Blair should be fired. Next comes the CIA that also got information about Abdulmulallaro, and they failed to connect the dots. Sorry, but nice old Mr. Pannetta was put there because the Obama folks’ couldn’t find a bright young policeman who might have had a better idea than to keep thinking about dots. Pannetta should be sent packing back to California where he much prefers to be anyhow.
My whole point here is that the unwritten Washington law states “no matter how badly officials screw up, nobody gets fired.” That simple rule came into effect in order to protect them all. Talk about a union. There’s one that covers the collective asses of all those high on the Federal tit. I am just anxious to see whether or not Obama can deliver at least some of that promise of “Change” so loudly touted in the campaign.
Yes Mr. President, there are times you need to use your authority as the Commander in Chief (the equivalent of the CEO) and simply say to Ms. Napoletano, Mr Pannetta, Denis Blair, and the State Department Head of the Nigerian Embassy, “Sorry folks, you simply failed to do you jobs so you are out of here.” Wow, wouldn’t that be refreshing. Maybe I’m just dreaming, but hopefully maybe not.
Lest I forget, A very happy New Year to youall. Kate and I danced in 2010 as we have done for the last 22 years.
Thanks Kate. N.H.W.Y.
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