Robert Schrank

Facebook Linkidin Twitter etc. Versus J.Edgar Hoover

2012-02-11T21:32:00.000-08:00

I can’t resist this. Can you believe we have reached a point in our Country where the biggest stock offering is going to be Facebook? What exactly does Facebook produce? Oh, you got my point. Facebook doesn’t make a damm thing you can put your hand on. It's going to make a ton of money because you are probably a member and they can custom target advertising that you wont be able to resist. Amazon does that already with me and it’s ”One Click” seducer.

Getting back to J. Edgar. Far fetched, you think? Yes I did too until I began to compare what Hoover’s, 700 page FBI File on me says and what Facebook or Google could say about me. When Hoover was collecting information on me he primarily had four different sources. Tapped phones. Physical surveillance, Informers, Intercepted mail. Physical surveillance meant sending Agents to record what I said at a meeting or actually approaching me for an interview. The latter consisted of this clumsy, “Hi, Bob can we talk to you? It’ll only take a few minutes of your time. So, has your family? Daughter doing well over there at Music and Art.” All that sweet talk was suppose to soften you up by showing how friendly they are and yes we already know a lot about you so why not tell us about some other people we happen to be interested in?

840 million members on Facebook Linkedin 135 Million Members. I get repeated invitations to be somebody's “Friend.” Often, no most of the times it’s not a person I’m even familiar with. Usually I click yes. Why? Underneath I am really sorry for people who have to create lots of friends through social networking. You know Facebook wont accept more than 5,000 friends? Isn’t that too bad? Now think about all the stuff they know about you. Oh, maybe it’s my McCarthy years paranoia that worries me about how much information the Digital Network is collecting about us?

Then I began thinking about all the various present day institution who have been collecting data on me for years. First there’s my credit cards. Then there’s Facebook, Linkdin. Google they all have loads of information about my, purchases, (books movies, DVD’s) looked at all together one could easily figure out my politics, my relations to other like minded people my movements, who I visited with, who I might have shared a trip with. What I published and who visited my blog.

Hoover had to get a court order to tap my phone. I can buy a unit in Radio Shack so I can listen to other peoples cell phone. So can the Social Networks. Yes, they target my advertising based on my digital purchasing. Google has stuff about me that comes from 3rd hand sources. Quotes of what I was supposed to have said in somebody's book. Yes you want a State that can easily trace your every move? We got it.

Oh, you think it doesn’t matter because it was the Internet that launched the Arab Spring? On balance would you call this information gathering an asset or a liability? Yes I know there are lots of folks who believe it was the Internet that was the mobilizer of those hundreds of thousands that took over Tahrir square in Egypt and similar places across the Middle East. I agree that the Internet can be a great, instant protest organizer.

Yes, I wonder? Is that what takes the sting out of the Protest? Precisely because it vented the anger? BUT the protest had no real plan for what kind of change it wanted. That’s what is happening in the Middle East today. There has been no clear program for the protesters to fight for. Ahhh yes, except for the Muslim Brotherhood. Their very existence is evidence for what I am talking about. So there’s the rub. Yes the Internet is a remarkable organizing tool. It may be acting as a pressure relief valve letting off steam from angry citizens. It also may become a critical source of socio political information that can be used egregiously by government forces controlling an angry citizenry. Not an easy choice.

Internet The Voice of Protest !

2012-02-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

Lead story,NY Times Feb. 3rd, has once again got me thinking about the role of the Internet as a voice of protest. One of my favorite organizations is Planned Parenthood. Remember when I was seven my mother dies from a botched abortion. In my blog Feb. 10, 2011 "On Abortion" was about that nightmare. The extreme right wing has been forever trying to put Planned Parenthood out of business. The Susan Komen Breast Cancer Cure Foundation decides suddenly to withhold its annual contribution of millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood. Komen decided they could not contribute to P.P. because an entirely separate budget does abortions. Clearly the hand of the right wingnuts who oppose even "family planning" is at work here.

For the second time in a couple of weeks the rolling anger expressed through the Internet has forced a major issue on to the front pages. Even Mayor Bloomberg jumped into this bruha with a $250,000 donation. In California all seven of the Komen affiliates took exception to the decision. fact is that PP is the major Breast Cancer screening organization in the country. That simply means poor women have a place to go to get a checkup.

A short time ago there was an another eruption on the Internet over a Congressional Bill to start censoring the Internet over “copyrighted or intellectual ownership” of Internet published stuff. That outcry caused a bunch of GOP Congressmen to have their names removed from the Legislation. Then of course there is the whole Arab Spring phenomena. Many observers have said it was generated by the Internet and especially the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc. I must admit that my early response was mostly doubt. Now I am working hard to try and understand this phenomena. Anyone interested in social change cannot afford to ignore this new informer agitator, organizer.

David Brooks, In the same issue of the Times, writes a column about how many young people have found a way to express themselves through the Internet. He voices a concern that these people are very good at expressing frustration with existing institutions. Brooks says, “This seems to be a moment of fervent protest movements that are ultimately vague and ineffectual.” He says the problem is they have no ideas as to how to replace these broken institutions. Brooks suggests that these people were taught to think for themselves. The result is they have no ideas to ground them in how to see alternatives to what is.

Brooks, unkowingly referred to people like me who were taught to think like Marxists. Yupp, that's right and that what helps me see how we might change institutions so that they are more responsive to the needs of the 99 percent.

“RUMMAGE THE PAST FOR A BODY OF THOUGHT THAT HELPS YOU UNDERSTAND AND ADDRESS THE SHORT COMINGS YOU SEE." Thank you David Brooks. That is precisely the kind of education I got as a child from my Socialist family. No I don’t want to exchange capitalism for what existed in the Soviet Union. That was not Socialism. That was an abomination called “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Just a new version of the old Czar Ivan the Terrible. No, I think of socialism as lived by the early Kibbutz settlers in Israel. Yes of course we could argue all these issues but it gives me a jumping off point for correcting some of the present days worst offenses against equal opportunity for all as suggested in the Constitution.

The Internet needs a large dose of discussion about alternatives to what is. The Arab spring is a good example of what happens when there is not any clear ideas about what to transform in the existing order of things to berth a new order. That is except the Muslim Brotherhood. They have a pretty good idea of what they want. The Tahrir Square demonstrators demanded Democracy. That’s nice. It doesn’t say how the society institutions are to function. That's what our Founding Fathers spent a couple of years figuring out. Even that has needed adjustments as an agrarian society became an industrial one. Yes I am becoming more understanding of the Internet as a voice of protest. Good but not enough. How do we make it a place where ideas for new more equitable ways of organizing society is presented as alternatives to the status quo?

Mafia Job Interview

2012-01-29T11:17:00.000-08:00

It was sometime in the late 50s early 60s. As a result of long past union connections I ran into Sam Goldsmith. He had been the czar of the Brooklyn numbers racket. Sometime in the late 50s District Attorney busted that racket. Out of a job, Sam moved into the Tony Ducks Corello Mafia family. Sam convinced me to come have dinner with some of his buddies in the Teamsters Union. Having worked for Dan Tobin President of the Teamsters in the 44 Roosevelt campaign I came to know a lot of these guys. It was many years since I had been expelled 3 times from the Machinists. I was then working as an Engineer for United Shoe Machinery,

The dinner was at Patrisseys restaurant on Kenmare Street short distance from the old NYPD Headquarters. We arrive. There’s a large round table with a 6 or 8 guys and piles of food and booze. They were chowing away and I needed to keep apologizing for interrupting. Frankly they didn’t give a shit who I was anyhow. Sam introduced me as an, “old labor union guy who really knows how to run a union.” Sam and I were squeezed into the table.

From then on I was just a fly on the wall. I heard, “ we gonna haveto blow that Ford dealer in Staten Island cause he ain’t signen up.” Talking in a whisper I ask, “did you win the election?” Oh maybe you didn’t get it either but the whole table is laughing and choking on the pasta. “Heah Sam tell this knuckle head, whoever he is, we don’t do elections. If duh boss don’t go along he might have a fire or a couple of busted heads, like dat and den it’s organized.”

Now Sam is pleading, “Look guys this is just why I brought Bob down here. So he can tell us how to do this legal like. The days of knocking people off is over. (Back then it was known as Murder Incorporated.) We now gotta learn the legal way. It gets us where we wanna be nobody gets hurt and the DA’s are off our ass.”

In the meantime I’m listening to the big guy next to me explaining how stupid he was to “bet a C note on Mickey Mantle cause last night he fixed him up whit his “Chink girl” who musta sucked the life out of him. Shit I don’t think he knew where first base was. He was probably dream-in out there in right field about last night. Man I am dumb.” Sam kept trying mightily to get them talkin about what I had to say. It went nowheres. I was trying to figure out what Sam was up to?

As Sam drove me home to the Bronx he was extolling the wonders of the boys I just had dinner with. “Oh I know you probably think they're just a bunch of thugs. “Sam I never said that you did.” “Man you should see the presents they got my kids at XMas and I’ll tell you if you get in trouble there never was a better bunch of friends. Say a guy gets sent up, is doin time. His salary gets paid every month for as long as your up there. Nothing in your family is gonna stop. Dats how they are. I admit I wasn’t listening to closely to Goldsmiths intention. Then I got it, he wants me to come work for them. What a bizarre notion. I thank him for an interesting evening and let it go at that.

A short time later I get a call from Sam about a meet (that was a meeting in their world.) that was gonna take place on Wed. night at 10 PM Hotel McAlpin on 34 street and Broadway. Sam wanted me to come because they were ready to make me an “offer I couldn’t refuse.” “Why at at 10 PM Sam I go to work in the morning. “That’s the best time to get all the guys we need at the meet and besides that the only time Tony Pro can make it. I must admit I couldn’t resist trying to understand what they were up to. Pro was Tony Provenzano a Capo in the Genovese crime family who ran the New Jersey Teamsters.

Once again my curiosity got the best of me I just had to go. My then wife thought I was surely out of my mind. I assured her they weren’t about to cement shoe me as I had never double crossed them and man did they ever know it.

Back in my union days when DAs pestered me to testify what I knew about their stealing from their members. I told the cops, “Look I have to live in the Labor Movement. yes I complain about racketeers and crooks in our union paper. I repeatedly said, "we have to clean our own house. If the police do it they will end up running the union." The mob trusted me. At the end of WW2 they gave me a major donation for the French Underground fighters.

Here I was at the Hotel McAlpin meet room 432. There was a big conference table covered with pastrami, roast beef, salami sandwiches. All kind of booze and beer. At the head of the long table sat Tony Pro and about a dozen of his Lieutenants. The room looked like a central casting call for really tough looking hoods. I admit I was getting nervous. Sam introduced me as a guy who built and ran the biggest Machinists local in New York City and, “he’s gonna teach us how to run a union without knockin anybody off or burnin the place down. We gonna become respectable.

Sam said, “now ask him anything you want?” As I looked around the room this was clearly a good sample of the Mafia foot soldiers and wheelmen. “Heah you, "were you ever busted, for what?" “Couple times for disorderly conduct on picket lines.” What da fuck is that? He was disorder, they all roared and kept repeating disobey the teacher.” “Okay smart ass. Da bosses aint got enough money for all da guys on da trucks. But they wanna take care of the union guys. Whata you gonna do?”

“Oh I would take the money the bosses are offering and place it in the “Health and Welfare fund.” Another burst of laughter, “the health and what fund?” “Hay ain’t nobody told this knuckle head,"everybody takes. Tony gets top, everybody from dare down gets a share. Dat way nobody gets free to talkin witt da DA. Get it everybody takes. Right Tony.” Tony says nothing just shakes his head in agreement.

The questioning continues along the same line of what if? Sometime around midnight Sam raises his hand to make an announcement. Room falls quiet. Sam unfolds a paper, Commences to read. Robert Schrank New York Sate President of the Machinists Union use to be a communist. Everybody knows, those guys are clean as a hounds tooth. Yupp, thats our man, “clean as a hounds tooth.” he’s the next President of the New Jersey Teamsters.” I’m sitting there thinking, what the hell am I going to do now? Sam nods to Tony Pro.

“Okay Rob, I am now getting inside talk signified by “Rob.” “Okay here’s the deal, $50,000 a year plus expenses and a new Cad. every year.” Wow, now there’s along pause they are waiting for me to say something. I think that's a lot of money, more than I ever dreamed of making. Out of nowhere I say, “Tony thanks so much for your generosity. But what do I do for you?

He leans back in his chair looks around the room as if reviewing his General staff, looks over at me says, "You do whatever I tell you.” I thought wow that’s an honest answer. Sam, I think could sense my doubt about the whole proposition jumped up says, “Now Bob don’t give us an answer right away. Talk it over with your wife.” Out of nowhere's I say, “Sam, Tony, I really appreciate your trust in me but I think you could take anyone of the guys here and they could certainly follow your instruction. You really don’t need me for that.” Tony’s final comment, “I hope you don’t end up on welfare.” “I’m okay with that as long as I can sleep well at night.”

Sam assured me we were still friends and if I ever needed a favor just call. We parted and of course some years later I needed a favor. Congressmen Fino from the Bronx introduced an amendment to the Anti Poverty Bill making it’s way through the House. The amendment was a proposed Loyalty oath. I was a Deputy Manpower Commissioner in the Lindsay years. Fino charged that a notorious communist was running the biggest employment program in the country. The speech was far to intelligent to have been written by Fino.

“Sam, no I don’t want any body cut down at the knees. All I want to know is who wrote the Fino speech?” Sam said, “Christ, that’s all? Be back to you within the hour.” He calls back says, “you know Father Ahern up there in the Powerhouse?” St. Patrick's Cathedral. “Yes of course I do he sits on the Cities Anti Poverty Council. We talk regularly and I am having trouble believing this. Bob you can go and make book on it.” I thanked Sam and he assured me “anytime you need help let me know cause we owe you.” Good By Sam and thanks. I’ll remember that.

Romney and Richard The 111

2012-01-23T17:59:00.000-08:00

Shakespeare

If any of the GOP hopefuls would go see Richard the 111 they might get some fresh ideas about doing their opponents in, so to speak. Gingrich’s maybe dig up Santaurums wife’s birther who was an abortion doctor. Ron Paul might figure out that “Mitt” is short for Mitsva a Jewish word for a gift. Romney could take his wife skiing maybe her binding breaks loose. She goes over a cliff. Romney now gets it on with Nancy Reagan and the White House is in sight. Stuff like that but even that’s very tame stuff compared to Richard's.

Last night we went to see Kevin Spacey as Richard the 111. I have seen a variety of actors play this role it has always confounded me. It doesn’t take much time into this play to realize that this man, Richard the 111 is the essence of evil. By the way, from what I have learned it has not much to do with the real Richard the 111. Writers at the time of Shakespeare assumed that this Richard was written as a competition with Christopher Marlowe. These two writers were in a fierce competition to get their plays performed by the Queens players before Elizabeth. Sensationalism was very much part of the stakes. Maybe,that’s the same as now?

This production had the players wearing suits and ties as well as some television like screens in the background. I have always had trouble with the idea that you can put Shakespeare plays in modern costume to make the point that they are HISTORICALLY UNIVERSAL. Well, yes, no and maybe. Feudalism was in its full glory at the time of this play 400 years ago. The Dukes and Duchesses were huge landowners with an army of peasants who worked the soil and could be called up for battle. This was totally the era of the landed Gentry. Not at all like modern times of Corporate Gentry.

What Shakespeare has to say about human drives, desires, wishes, jealousies, envy, and most of all power, are as relevant today as they were in the 1600s. However what is very different is the context. Looking at the Republican primary the closest we come to skulduggery was hauling out Gingriche’s 2nd wife to squeal about his open marriage proposal. I suppose the so called Arab Spring Dictators might be closer to the plays action. But as I said, the times are quite different. Getting back to the play. It is primarily about power and how a most evil man can achieve it.

Here’s my dilemma. Watching this play I have often felt if this was a silent movie we would be booing and hissing Richard every time he reveals a new murder plot to get him closer to Kingship. He repeatedly turns to the audience for approval. And in our silence we give it to him. So? is the audience part of his evil plot? Yet in the play I am admiring the acting while I hate what it stands for. At the end instead of booing and hissing I’m yelling bravo in celebration of an exciting production. Oh yes I think Spacey was not paying attention to Shakespeare's, instructions to the Players.
“O, it offends me to the soul to hear a --------fellow tear a passion to tatters.” Spacey sure did, Further, “ is to hold, a mirror up to nature,” ---------- and don;t overdue it, Spacey! And yes he sure did.

And of course like so much of everything else in our culture wow em and sock em is essential. I assure you the ending will shock you and the ghost of the Bard would probably say,”Now how’d they do that? I know but I wont tell cause you might want to go see it. And by the way even the ending wouldn't help Romney.

Favor From Warren Buffett

2012-01-21T10:55:00.000-08:00

Winds of Change....

I had something else ready for today but I love this idea. So lets go with it.

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

_*Congressional Reform Act of 2011*_

1. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social
Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the
Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the
American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all
Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and
participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the
American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women.

Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive the message. Don't you think it's time?

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete.
You are one of my 20+ - Please keep it going, and thanks.

Urinating on the Dead

2012-01-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

The resurgence of tribalism.

Watching the kerfuffle over the four Marines urinating (High class for peeing or pissing.) on the dead has got me wondering. Why aren’t we asking? Why are the Marines killing these Taliban soldiers? Or vice versa? Nobody in the media seems to be concerned about the killing. But we are sure indignant about pissing on the dead. Oh yes I forgot this has to do with respecting the dead while we don’t give a damm about the living. I am wondering what lies underneath the peeing incident?

In the case of the four Marines in Afghanistan they are involved in a war that we originated by invading their country.Our soldiers are not members of the same tribal group. We are Christians and THEY are Islamist. Hence our soldiers feel they have no restraints when it comes to the enemy. Remember Abu Gairab. We saw same phenomena in Vietnam. Those people became Gooks. Once the soldier sees the enemy outside of his own tribal group, has a very different religion, hell then you can just forget him as a fellow human. That gives the license to go piss on him.

Of course there is more to it than that. To motivate the soldier to kill kill kill It is essential that the enemy be demonized. Made into this non human creature who wants to, “invade our homes, rape our wives, and as they innocently sleep in their beds kill our children.” Well now if that’s our enemy we’ll show em we’ll kill em and then piss on em.” In a lot of Blue Collar bars I can hear the guys at the bar hoisting a few cheering on their pissing buddies. Underneath, in the subnoxious as Jimmy Durante you to say there is the belief that we are superior and that gives us license to do things that the Islamic world will simply not understand. Anymore than we could if it was the other way around.

There are some other interesting variables between the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. The latter had long been a colony of the French. They were fighting the Vietnamese war of independence that we took over as the French were giving up. That left a European stamp on cities like Saigon. American soldiers had a place they could feel at home in a familiar culture a tribal connection. So much so that it resulted in 8000 marriages between US soldiers and Vietnamese. Maybe that cultural,tribal distance between the Iraqis, Afghanistan people and our soldiers accounts for the very high level of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. During these wars I have often wondered what can our guys do for rest and recreation while they are on duty in a land with absolutely no tribal or cultural connection? Contrast with those beautiful Parisian looking women in the Saigon bars.

There was a time a few years back that I was looking forward to the Middle East oil production peaking and the wells going dry. I thought we could then begin to withdraw our need to protect our lifeline of oil.

Israel is another place where tribalism is on the rise. The Orthodox Jews want women to go sit at the back of the bus. They are the balance of power in the Netanyaho Government. It is the influence of the Orthodox that keeps Natanyaho building settlements in Palestinian West Bank. Orthodox Jews would kill every Palestinian if that were possible. They are pals with our own Evangelical Christian tribe who would like to kill every abortion doctor.

The Israeli are in mortal fear of the Iranians getting the bomb. This is the conflict that leads to the present game of CHICKEN over rights of passage through the Gulf of Hormuz. The International boycott is squeezing the Iranian economy. They need to show they can control their own destiny and show the, “invaders,” yes that’s us that they too can play, we’ll now piss on you. President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, “Try gettin your ships through our little straight.” God I hate to conclude this blog with the observation that the men who run the world have been in an endless series of “Pissing contests.” Maybe the women, now a majority in our workforce will do better. I hope.

SAAB Goes Belly UP

2012-01-07T22:20:00.001-08:00

What we learned at SAAB ?

It was November of 1974 that six autoworkers embarked for Sweden to work at the SAAB Plant in Soedertaelje. The 1970s was a time of large experiments in how to give workers a greater control of the work. There were self managing work-teams, skunk works where groups of workers,engineers were sent off to develop new products. The objective was simply to give workers a sense of their own achievements in the work process. The new ways of working was considered an attack on boredom and low moral that was causing increased low quality output especially here in the US. At the time it was very common to compare the poor quality output of American manufacturing plants to the Japanese or the Germans.

The autoworkers hadn’t been in Sweden for a few days when McGeorge Bundy President of the Foundation called me, ”Schrank what are we doing in Sweden? I am getting calls from the Swedish Embassy wanting to know who sent these radicals here to stir up trouble?” I needed to convince my bosses at Ford that I was not responsible for whatever was going on in Stockholm. “No I did not set up any kind of shenanigans that was taking place there. Oh, let me get back to the story.

As a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation I was able to create a program called,”American Workers Abroad.” I thought that it would be very educational to have workers from the US. go to work in some of the “New Age Workplaces” in Europe. I was familiar with the work of sociologists and economists writing about the assembly line but none of them actually worked there. Professionals who don’t understand the culture of the workplace writing about it instead of it. The six auto workers chosen by the U.A.W. came right off the assembly line. They went to work at the SAAB plant. Bob Goldman went along reporting on their experience. He was instructed to meet with the six every evening for debriefings on what they had learned. (There is a Ford Foundation publication on the program.)

The idea for sending workers to experience the new ways of working was to get feedback from people who could compare their traditional workplaces to the new ones. At SAAB they had given up the engine assembly line in favor of having a team of two workers assemble a whole car engine. That required close attention to sequences and tools. When they finished they could sign their names to a nameplate on the engine. The whole experience was to contrast it to the old engine assembly line. Volvo had built a plant in Kalmar where a team of workers would do the final car assembly in the same way.

Look, it was not my idea to put the American auto workers on a Swedish TV interview show. The interviewer asked them to talk about their observation on the new workplace. I feel certain that the television folks were sure they were going to glow in great praise for their pioneering workplace experiment. Alas it was not to be.

The first bombshell that fell on the viewers was from a Chicano from Cadillac. “You know” he says, “ In the US we’re discriminated against because we have a dark skin. In Sweden you get discriminated if your very blond.” As described to me the poor interviewer is totally non plused, don’t know where to go. As he presses forward the US auto workers say,” Look, we noticed that none of the people on the engine assembly are Swedes. So, we start asking around They're all Finns. Who can’t even live here but go back home for the weekend. When we asked the Swedes why they don’t want to do the team assembly they say it’s to hard.” I thought, wow this program is wonderful we are getting some honest to goodness feedback. Of course the Swedes who don’t do to well with criticisms are furious. Hence the phone calls to Bundy.

Okay, This was not a unanimous view of the six. Others said they liked working the engine assembly because it made the day go quicker because you had to think about what you are doing. Another said “and after you do 50 or 100 engines then what?” Some preferred the line precisely because it required no thought just repetitious motion that left you free to think about what’s wrong with my bowling game or whose gonna win the World Series or of course sex.

I learned once again that workers have very different ideas about how the work in the workplace should be done. Charlie Chaplin Modern Times about the assembly line was a great movie. BUT there are thousands of laid off auto workers would be very happy to get back on the line.

Footnote I have written a book called, “American Workers Abroad” MIT Press 1979.
We sent nurses to Britain as well as policemen. The former to experience the National Health Service. The latter to experience community policing out of the cars. Longshoreman to work in the most automated Port Rotterdam. Sailors to work on a “democratically run ship.” Great stories from all of them.

3 Little Pigs by Shakespeare

2011-12-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

Had a blog set to go reviewing some of the critical issues of 2011. Then I thought my dear loyal readers need a break. We need a regular dose of laughter as part of our attempts to be human. Many local folks in the small town we live in ask, “what’s your long life secret?” My response “laughter and engagement.” Paying attention to the world around me and above all seeing the absurdities. Then having a good laugh to assure my humanness. Not easy in this crazy globalization catastrophe that we are living through. Okay, so here’s my New Years Eve. laugh. My best RS

Please click here to watch "Three Little Pigs" by Shakespeare.

Wishin You'all a Very Happy!

2011-12-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

Hanukka, Chanuka, Xmas, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Nomaste, Salaam Aleukiem, Kaputka! (Just covering all bases.)

Fear not I have not run out of thoughts or ideas for yet another blog. No, figured maybe my readers need a break too. Will certainly be writing about----

SAAB is bankrupt. What did we learn at the Assembly Plant in Sweden?

What does the continuing crackdown in Egypt tell us about the “Spring?”

Should we send Obama a copy of the Constitution? He thinks he can hold people without a trial. (What on earth happens to people once they get to the White House?

Is the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo about the macho problem? (Get ready for a Malenist movement. Converse of Feminist.)

Are we at the end of the Planet as we know it?

What are the Occupiers doing fighting with a Church?

What is the Bradley Manning case telling us?

What ever happened to the wonders of the Global Marketplace?

Oh yes the absurdities of the GOP nominating circus.

Or, “A guy walks into a bar--------------------?”

Look in the meantime pick from the top bunch and “enjoy yourself” and as we use to sing back in the Great Depression, “Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.” My very very best for a MERRY HAPPY, WHATEVER. RS

"You Don't Know Nothin"

2011-12-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

Or the Converse Your a----------------?

It’ a fresh bright early spring morning in Factoryville Pennsylvania. The birds are singing in the sycamore trees. I’m in a big old barn trying my damnedest to get a Horse-collar on an ornery Belgian workhorse. Every-time I go to put it over his head this beast jerks his head up down. On the floor goes the collar. From the other end of this crowded stall comes a small voice of a 12 year old. “You don’t know nothin.” Oh, so your wonderin, What on earth am I doing in Factoryville Pennsylvania in an old barn trying to harness up a giant Belgian work-horse? Indulge me as l back up a little.

It was 1936 on a farm in Factoryville Pennsylvania. Near the worlds longest concrete poured railroad bridge. I was, a young radical in love with coal miners. They were and remain the most important workers on the planet. Without them there is no electricity, no minerals no electronics, nothing.

At the coal mine office the Super. laughed. “You came all the way from New York City for a job here as a Mule Boy? You gotta be crazy. We got more kids whose fathers work in these mines than we could employ for the next hundred years. Want my advice? Get yourself back home as quick as possible cause there’s nothing here for you.” My savior was the name of a fellow radical whose family owned a nearby farm. That’s where I ended up.

The farm family. Mother father a baby and nine brothers all coal miners except the youngest 12 year old Charlie. Because it was summer there was work on the farm. “Do you know how to plow, cut and rake hay, pick beans, like that”. “Oh yes of course” was a much to fast reply. “We can only pay 25 cents an hour plus room and board. You’ll sleep in with the boys. Start tomorrow. You’ll plow that upper pasture use Big Bill he an easier horse to handle.” I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

(Little background.) As an 8 year old I was sent to a camp that was connected to an adjoining farm. At that farm I had been exposed to some of what the folks in Pennsylvania were talking about. Next morning bright an early all 10 or 12 for breakfast and one 2 year old creeping around the well worn kitchen board floor.

Breakfast was pork chops, mashed potatoes bread and coffee. Lots of coffee including for the baby on the floor. After breakfast it’s out to the barn. That morning broke beautiful, sweet spring air, I cannot believe the size of the two Belgians horses. The stall says, Big Bill. That’s my horse.

I’m thinking. Now try to remember what the dam harness looks like. As I said the first thing is to get the Horse Collar over the horses head. I was at the verge of despair when that voice from nowhere said “you don’t no nothin.” I am now face to face with Charlie the 12 year old. Youngest of the nine brothers. A kid about half my size. I quickly agree that I sure don’t know how to hook this horse to the plow. Oh, yes I’m telling him it’s the biggest horse I’ve ever seen and all that sort of bullshit as the little guy just stands there shaking his head repeating,”you don’t know nothin.”

“Okay so you show me.” “yeah but it’s gonna cost you.” Okay how much? A quarter. You got it. "Okay look out." Putting the Collar down he stands on a box putting the Bridle over the horses head. “Once you get this Bridle on his head you can keep him from jerking it. You know what, he’d rather stay in the barn than work that field. He ain’t about to help you with this stuff. Get it?” He gets the horse all rigged up ready for the field.

Wedded by our business transaction we are on our way to the meadow. Charlie, is pointing me in the direction of where to plow. I put the bridal strap over my shoulder and I’m off down the field hangin on to the plow for dear life. Charlie said, "The trick is to keep the steel plow blade pointed into the ground.I make it to the end of the field and am trying to hang on to the plow while turning Big Bill around. There’s that piping annoying but God saving sound, “You don’t know nothin.” Look out he says as he throws the reins around his shoulder bears down on one side of it and there’s Big Bill turning himself around. “That’s another quarter city slicker.” Charlie added that latter part to increase the humiliation of the big city slicker. I ignore it as I know in my gut he’s going to be my mentor for any future stumbles.

As I went from job to job."You don’t know nothin” became a mantra in my life. Each new job was either to advance my skills or simply hold the job so I could organize the place. That might have been my rationalization for hanging on to “you don’t know nothin.” In fact I had learned a very forgiving way to be accepted into the work family. The converse of course was, “Oh! so your a smart ass know it all.”? Yes there was that tendency from Street Corner speaking where in a way you had to sort of know it all in order to get people listening. For young passionate Marxists this was a big problem.

Every shop is like a family and an easy way to be excepted is through I,”don;t know nothin.” What goes with that is an invitation to “Please help me for like you I am just trying to make a living.” Wow, did it ever work. I had learned a critical lesson for organizing. If you want to be part of the group no making believe that your smarter than the rest of us cause that’s just gonna piss folks off and they will make your life miserable for the “know it all.”

Many thanks to the 12 year old in Factoryville Penn. for a piece of lifelong learning. Yeah I still, “don’t know nothin.” As regular readers of this blog I hope understand I do know a few things that are simply based on what I have lived through. A favorite lesson learned in college at age 47 was in order to gain new knowledge it was critical to acknowledge what you don’t know and that was and is plenty. Maybe if I get to 100 I’ll change my mind again. In the meantime I try to embrace “You don’t know nothin.”

PS. As I write this I have a growing concern that the Occupy Folks are drifting. They seem to be warming for a fight with Trinity Church over the use of church property for occupation. Wrong wrong target. Get back on targeting the one percent.

Nonagenarin !

2011-12-10T21:22:00.000-08:00

(Should be writin about Euro bust up, Or birth control idiocy.)

Gotta get this “Non a genarian crap offa me chest.”

To be called a Nonagenarian. That’s an insult.
(Nazis talked of arian held-en folk.)
Is that why I hate it? But,
Nothing seems to be what it once was.

Woke up early full of vigorosity. I announces.
“Honey, goin out for breakfast. Tired of wheatanbran.”
Yupp, it’s French Toast and coffee.
Man this tastes awful. Don't make em like they use to.

Like my old Packard. Talk about an automobile?
Six of us for a Province-town weekend. At Packard Monday 8 AM.
“Grease monkey.” That’s me. Heah, 1933 pretty dam good.
“They don’t make em like that anymore”

Radios, all push buttons. Give me back my dials.
In the wee wee hours of the morning.
The reassuring clip clop of the milk mans horse.
Milk came in open cans or bottles.
No plastic cardboard recycle crap!

Is my memory better than a micro wave or frankfurters.
Coney Island Nathans Hot Dogs. All the way from the Bronx.
Right Fred? A stick shift. Now your a macho driver.
“Slush box” we called automatics.

In the street overhauled the engine. Nary a micro processor in sight.
Our car has 75 and I can;t do diddle swat. Micro’s made us blue collars dumb.
Whatever happened to Trolley Cars? Loved them in the summertime
Hang on the running boards for free. Buses just more pollution.

Don’t get me started on the Tele. Harold on the roof.
“How is it now Ruth? Turn it clockwise. How is it now Ruth?
What’s on the Tele? And conversation died. What’s on the Tele?

Never saw a school bus. Just ran the half mile.
Saw the death of the icebox for the Refrigerator.
The old box. Chop off a piece of sucking ice.

How about safety razor? Automatic, ice-maker, windshield wiper?
Yeah, I know the Cell Phone changed the world.
People walkin around talkin to themselves. like they were nuts.
That's what I call change.

Why do things seem better back before the IPod?
Yes, this here computer? Like now is driving me nuts.

Where is my old Remington Portable. Pounded out stencils for leaflets.
“All out for Zuccotti Park! Demand a living wage!”
No,no, I mean Union Square for a Socialist Society.
Cause, I wasn’t a Nonagenarian.
Some think that’s a terrorist. Or just another alien.
Not a Nonagenarian back then.

Deja Vu All Over Again Yogi Berra

2011-12-03T21:14:00.000-08:00

Has Obama Been Moved?

Oh to be a nonagenarian and keep remembering stuff that looks brand new to the youngens is history repeating itself. Yes, of course there are always new angles so you might call it “repeats with conditional changes.” I am once again talking about the Occupy Wall Street,OWS endeavor. They have been evicted from their campsites. What next?

(Not a secret. The police departments have been militarized. Back in the riot prone sixties as the Ghettos erupted I watched as the NYPD was given military vehicles to control crowds. That’s another blog.)

From listening to the many interviews I gather OWS is wrestling with, “what do we do now?” That’s where my DeJa Vu cuts in. Back in the 1930s we argued every night sometimes all night. The issue was how do we push for fundamental change in society as we deal with the day to day issues of unemployment, home relief, (welfare.) and evictions. Hanging over the whole business was the dark cloud of rising fascism. Hitler and Mussolini legions were already destroying everything we held sacred.

The major split back then? Do we deal with the immediate issues from which the working class would learn through struggle that they have the ability to take power and create a socialist society. Those who held an opposite view said we were just a bunch of reformers who were out to save capitalism by wringing concessions out of the ruling class. Though I argued against it at the time looking back I believe the latter were right.

I see a similarity between that argument and the present left dilemma. It gets expressed in “what are we going to do about Obama?” I believe our best hope is to push him into standing up for the issues he was elected on. In a recent blog “Left Looking for a Dance Partner” I suggested, if the OWS folks were going to have an impact they will need to create a new party or dance with an existing one. If and when we are ready to launch a third party that would be great. In the meantime if OWS want to be relevant they will have to deal with what is. Not what they would wish it to be.

When the OWS was evicted from Zuccotti Park a small band started to march to Washington. Their plan was to challenge the Super Budget Committee on the proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security etc. Unfortunately that never happened. By the time they got to Washington the Super Committee had already abandoned their effort. The GOP members would not agree to a little tax increases for the millionaires. Not surprising.

My point is. If we are going to be involved in day to day issues confronting the country we need to find those in power who are closest to our position. In this case it is clearly the Democrats. I know I know I hear friends saying, “Schrank that turncoat in the White House has sold us out and I will not go down that road of supporting him again.” I am not arguing for support of Obama. I am suggesting that when push comes to shove on the issues we will have to find POLITICAL ALLIES. I just don’t see to many on the GOP side of the Congress. Besides our only hope is that the efforts of the OWS people will push Obama into fighting for all those things he ran on back in 08. The issue of the the one percent versus the 99 percent has clearly been put on the agenda. Outstanding achievement for OWS. I also believe that Obama did hear it.

What was implicit in the Zuccotti Park, OWS decision to go to Washington after the police shutdown? It was a clear answer to the question, WHAT DO YOU WANT? They were going to rally support for those traditional New Deal Social programs. Look, if they started out saying the one percent are screwing the 99 percent where do you think they’ll come down on Medicare, Social social Security etc.? How about taxing the one percent?

Clearly this is not a revolution. It is a continuation of what I call, “the imperfect adjustments.” We have been doing it all my long life and we are still doing it. So, don’t fret to much as capitalism yet again muddles out of another one of its regular crisis. I do see signs that Obama is moving in the direction of being a fighter instead of a pleader for, “Can’t we all get along.” The no, no boys in the House and Senate McConnell, Boehner alliance has dashed that hope. It’s okay, you can call me a dreamer. I accept. Maybe that’s what keeps me trying.

Damm You Kindle !

2011-11-26T12:27:00.000-08:00

Wanted a book on laughter. "Only have it on Kindle."”

Are they---- them, kidding me?

The touch ,smell, feel of books.------A love affair----so be it.

In front of a wall of books I sit.

I’m in Tuchman’s “March of Folly”----Believe me,--boom--boom, I'm marching

“Copper Camp” Butte, good old days. Twenty Thousand Miners.

Ten thousand whores. Two to one? Unfair.

In the dark of night------do the books argue?

Creating The Goodlife”-----Try “The Bible.”

“Big Trouble”----“In The Age of the Smart Machine.
”
Das Capital ------All Governments Lie.

Greeks at Delphi Romans at the gate.

Here's 30 Volumes of Brittanica. feel---smell and heavy!

Yes, I know, I know, The whole things on------

A teeny weeny shiny disk nary a feel or smell.

Hate it-----use it. Future trap ?

Robert Frost “Two roads divide.” Take the traveled one

Remember the Donna Party!

Emily Dickenson Beware the snake in the grass.

Shakspeare, The creation of human.

Own-self be true. Conscience makes cowards of us all.”

Douglas “Life & Times In Slavery.’ People of the gospel song.

Tuchman “March of Folly” Is that all there is?

No, Over here, a whole other shelf.

“Left Turn’-----Wasn’t That a Time?

Growing up Radical & Red in America.”

Black Obelisk, Understand the human condition?

Off with you to the mad house.

Lucretius, 100 years before Christ.

“The Nature of Things”----"Nothing comes of nothing.”

Heah, Lear said that.” March of folly?

Encyclopedia of Furniture Making”

I make it, feel it see it, touch, smell,

Remember it was a tree..

Like Hardy’s farmer oak?

Power of Positive Blah Blah Blah

Take A deep breath, We’re in the cast.

Next Episode, March of Folly

Damn you Kindle.

On The Crisis in Egypt !

2011-11-22T22:42:00.000-08:00

Post Script Nov, 23,2011 Originally published Feb.6 2011 I just felt that a rereading of this February blog on Egypt may be useful in understanding the new rage in Tahrir Square.

I mean with all the punditry blah blah blahing on the 24 hour cable circuit I was really trying to stay out of it. Alas, I can not. The problem with the Punditry is they all are saying the same thing. Will Mubarak go, will he stay until September? Who will take over? What’s Obama doing, what did Hillary say? Yeah and what about the Israelis? I’m wading in because nobody seems to be aware of the CLASS STRUGGLE that is taking place in Egypt.

The whole idea of the class struggle got out of favor after Fukuyama wrote “The End of History.” The collapse of the Soviet Union would usher in the era of capitalism as being the only surviving system ipso facto the end of history. That would also include the end of the class struggle. (Pssst, also the end of Marxism.) It wasn’t long after that anyone who used the word “class” in politics was accuse of starting a “class war.” God forbid. Maybe it is this phenomena that now keeps otherwise intelligent people from refusing to look at the class content of the struggle in Egypt.

It has been acknowledged that a million and a half of young people 15 to 25 are unemployed with no chance of finding a job. There’s another million employed workers who are paid substandard wages. Jobs for women are almost non existence. Yes that’s why the street demonstrations have been led by youth. Like the “old man” said, “they have nothing to lose.” Then I started looking for, who are the major employers in Egypt? Wow, guess what I found?

“The army in Egypt is a great power, not only military, but also economic. The army is the main employer in the country , capitalist 1. The military receive contracts for the construction of bridges and roads, and for the production of gasoline and olive oil, and they own tourist hotels and hospitals. The military elite is an integral and important part of the corrupt bureaucratic system. (Sort of like our very own Haliburton but more so.) “And at the same time, in the eyes of the Egyptian people the army is is the symbol of “independence.” Remember Eisenhower’s warning about the “Military Industrial Complex? Guess what? That’s who is actually ruling in Egypt.

Wow! talk about a nifty setup for the military. No wonder they don’t want any class warfare. They are the ruling class who control the whole works. Yes, the production facilities, the infra structure, the roads, the sewers the water works. Eureka I found it. Just like the Anaconda Copper Company back in Montana 1953. How did it happen?

After the 1979 Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt was signed it left the Egyptian Army with little or nothing to do. So, they went into business and they have been there ever since. They are the elite bunch who have sponsored and kept Mubarak in power for 30 years. They will now have Suleiman as the transition boss who will certainly make sure that the business interests of his army buddies is in no way disturbed. Now our leaders seem to have gotten the message. “Oh yes we have to give the Egyptian Government time to “transition.” This so called transition is pure Kabuki. “You are now with Mubarak and will transition to Suleiman.” Guess what? It’s the same old Army Industrial Complex that will continue to rule.

There you have a class analysis of what’s going on in Egypt. Will the removal of Mubarak make much difference? I don’t think so unless the demonstrators can get their stuff together and start negotiating some real concessions from the RULING CLASS.

That’s the problem when an unorganized band of angry people take to the streets without a well disciplined organization. What is essential in that situation? A clear set of demands need to be articulated. Leaders are needed, who represent the will of the demonstrators and can negotiate with the Ruling Class. Otherwise it will just be another brave effort that ends up leaving everything as it was before the uprising. What comes to mind is Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia 1969. Or the Shipyard workers in Gdansk Poland. They had real power and leaders to do the negotiating. That’s the lesson of history.

O.W.S. Marches To Washington !

2011-11-19T14:32:00.000-08:00

Social Unrest Is Working !

First things first. The militarized police actions in breaking up the encampments may have had the unintended consequence of moving the 0.W.S. to it’s next stage. It is additional evidence, if needed, of how social unrest scares the pants off the ruling class. On the other hand it may have moved O.W.S. from the winter encampment problems to what do we do now? Under any circumstance the encampment tactic may have been wearing thin. They have focused attention and so on to the next.

Just checked my files. I started to write about “social unrest” over a year ago. Back then I was wondering how long it would take for people to get angry enough to to get them into the streets. I am happy to salute the Occupy Wall Street folks for getting them “Into the Streets.” Yes, in many places, London, Athens, Madrid, Rome the Euro demand for austerity have seen ongoing street riots for many months. What the US occupiers did was to help legitimatize that form of protest. They have also focused attention by their one percent versus the 99 percent. In previous blogs I was trying to understand how this, “leaderless” group was going to arrive at some kind of “To Do” list. Ahaa, so here it comes.

A group of O.W.S. people have already started to March to Washington to take on the "Super Budget Committee to reduce the deficit" If this committee fails to come up with 1.5 trillion in savings there will be an across the board cut in the Federal Budget. The evidence leaking out the Committee indicates the 6 democrats willing to make concessions. The GOP 6 say absolutely no tax increases on, you guessed it the richest one per-centers who control 40 percent of the countries wealth.

The unforeseen, or unintended consequence of this stupid Bi Partisan Committee idea has got the Pentagon arms dealers in a dithee over a major cut in defense spending, God forbid. That may force the Senate and House to find a way out of this very dumb idea. The arrival of the Occupiers in Washington, I hope would stiffen the spines of the Democrats including the President to start to understand the message of the 99 per-centers.

In another blog I wrote of the need for the protesters to find a "dancing partner" if they were going to bring about change. Though they have not set it forth in so many words they are demanding a redistribution of the countries wealth. That is where the one percent versus 99 percent leads you, or how wealth is distributed in the US. That's just fine with me.

O.W.S is marching to Washington to lobby the Congress in support of their constituents, the 99 percent. This is continuing in the tradition of the struggle for better life for the, working class now called the middle class. I am not sure when the decision was made that the best we could do is beat out concessions from the ruling class with the threat of social unrest. Our legacy in the history of that struggle is written in the Woman's Vote, Right to Bargain Collectively, New Deal, Social Security Minimum Wage Law, Medicare, Wages and hour Law, worker safety, etc. etc. How did we arrive at “lets just keeping on improving the system” instead of overthrowing it? In my years in the Labor Movement it became immanently clear that my union Brothers and Sisters had no interest in system change, They simply wanted the right to a decent life under the existing order of things, called Capitalism. I think that still holds true. They want a decent “middle class” life under the existing system.

That's what we managed to do and that's what the O.W.S. folks are carrying on. Yes they have found a different way to define the issues as well as how to fight the battle. I love that. Yet in the end there is an acceptance that there is not going to be a fundamental change from Capitalism. We tried hard to get the issue of socialism out there as an alternative. It just didn’t work. (Will get into that some other time.)

The issue now is, how the fight gets played out through the existing system, That ends up with the O.W.S. Marching to Washington. I did that many many times in the 30s, 40s 60s and I wish I could do it with this group that is going to raise hell in support of many of our hardest won gains. Maybe a could train to Washington and join up in front of the Capital with a sign.

“I’M A 94 YEAR OLD GEEZER. WE’RE NOT GONNA LET THE ONE PERCENT MILLIONAIRES TAKE AWAY OUR HARD WON GAINS OF THE LAST 100 YEARS”

Those gains are what I called in a previous blog our “imperfect adjustments.” They changed the country for the better.

J. Edgar

2011-11-13T17:02:00.000-08:00

Brokeback Mountain at the FBI

I’m back in computer rage. Yupp I wrote it last night and lost it in transfer to blog. Even Mac couldn’t help. They just said sorry. Okay, let’s stop bellyaching and get on with it

I am not neutral when it comes to J. Edgar Hoover. We go back a long way. He created an enormous diary of my life from 1932 to 1965. Over 750 pages of the Schrank file. I estimate it must have cost the taxpayers at least $50,000 dollars.

Okay, when did J. Edgar really got pissed at me? It was at a Machinist Union Convention in the late forties. Grand rapids Michigan. I was on a floor mic arguing a resolution on trade policy. “We should not be trading with countries where workers are denied the rights to bargain collectively.” As I’m speaking a guy from the Press Table hands me a note. Reading and talking it says,” “There are a couple of FBI agents in the balcony taking notes.” “ Brother Chairman point of order. Ask those two guys in the balcony if they are members of this union.” Luckily for me they jump up and start to run. “Stop them, don’t let getaway. catch them!” Mr Chairman they are FBI agents and I want to know how they got into this hall?“ (Only members of the union were permitted.)

Pandemonium in the hall. “Get em, go after them. Who let em in?” The union leadership are ringing their hands like a lot of crooks caught red handed. After the session concludes Abe Raskin the Labor Reporter for the NY Times asks me what is my objection to the FBI sitting in the convention? “Look if we let J. Edgar Hoover stick his pig snout into our union business we will all become victims of his blackmail files.”

Early next morning the phone rings me outa bed. It’s our Local union lawyer. “Schrank have you gone crazy? J. Edgar will never ever forgive you for what’s on the front page of today's Times. Hoover is a man who is obsessive about his looks. How could you call him a pig?” “Well doesn’t he look like one?” Well, that was the start. For the foreseeable future J. Edgar never let up on me. That’s how I got that big fat file with his name, or Toulson on every other page.

The file shows Hoover is beside himself wanting to know how come our FBI Agents can't get union cards to get them into the convention. He's after all the Midwest FBI offices demanding an explanation. (Never knew why this was in my file?) Turns out they were X FBI agents working for the Chicago Chamber of Commerce who had declared me the most dangerous radical in the AFofL Unions. Their publication was known as "Red Channels. Their business was outing radicals primarily in the theater and movies.

Back to the movie. So here is J. Edgar struggling with his gay demons. He has hired Clyde Toulson as his depatty who Eastwwod thinks is his lover. They have a lovers spat. End up breaking glasses and wrestling down on the floor where they embrace in a bloody lovers kiss. You know what Clint? I don’t give a shit about all this, “Oh maybe he was Gay.” I care much more about the terrible harm this man has done with his gigantic blackmail files. He used them against all who as judge and jury he decides is a threat to the country and more important to him. How do you think he lasted for 47 years? He even had F.D.R. in check as he threatened to blow his cover of the affair with his secretary. Yes his victim list started up there with the like of Martin Luther King all the way down to me. How so me?

In the late forties he was trying to get me indicted under the Taft Hartley law for signing the non communist affidavits. My luck. He was stopped by the Truman White House. They said that he could not require people in the Labor Movement to testify against me. They actually told him to knock off the investigation. Look, it was some time during a court hearing on my expulsion from the Machinist for writing the pamphlet on the Taft Hartley Law that I learned about my immunity from J. Edgar.

It was at a urinal. The guy next to me a lawyer for the International Union said, “listen Schrank they are not going to indict you.” “Really, pray tell how do you know?” Well, you see they don’t want all you know about what went on during the 1944 Presidential Election Campaign. After all you were on the Democratic National Labor Committee working for Dan Tobin President of the Teamsters. Whatever it is that you know they don’t want to hear about in some Federal Court.” “Really, so that's what this is all about.” So, I thought have I got people I could also blackmail if J. Edgar succeeded in blackmailing me?” I must confess, I don;t know what the urinal talker was talking about.

I continue to wonder what on earth got Clint Eastwood all worked up about J.Edgar's sexual orientation? The real issue her is his paranoid. masterful. evil Henry the 111 kind of control of other peoples lives through blackmail? Now there’s a story that needs to be told in defense of individual rights. Clint Eastwood where are you?

Occupiers Remembered

2011-11-06T06:57:00.000-08:00

Oh, I know once again I’m about to become a pain in your butt. Yes, this is about the Occupy Wall Street, O.W.S. now referred to as a “movement.” This is part of my own struggle to understand what is going on here. Yes ,I get the rage and anger. I don’t get what OWS is going to do with it. In my organizing days we would fan the flames of the discontent and channel the anger into organizing workers into unions. They did change the face of America.

Remembering some occupy experiences beginning with 1932. I was 15. From all corners of the US comes the Bonus Army marching to Washington. 43,000 of them strong. Their demand, the promised WW 1 War Bonuses they never received. They encamp on the Anacostia flats close to the capital. They put up a tent city and were determined to stay until the Congress Agreed to pay the promised bonus. Their tent city is orderly and peaceful. Alas it was not to be. Yes there were efforts in Congress to honor the promise but President Hoover did not think it was fiscally responsible to do so.

Army Chief of Staff, Yupp Douglas MacArthur with the help of Patton led a charge of infantry, Cavalry and tanks against the encampment that they then proceeded to burn to the ground. Defeated the bonus army retreated home. (The Long Island airport, not far from where we live is named after General MacArthur.)

Flint Michigan 1936, The Fisher Body Plant 1. The company G.M., was preparing to move the Plant out of Flint as a way to resist the Unions effort for recognition. The workers inside the Plant quickly realized that once the machine tools were removed from the plant it was goodbye jobs. How to prevent it? Flint Sit-down Strike was born.(A very dear friend, Henry Kraus, long departed wrote a great book about that strike. ”The Many and the Few.”)

The sit down strike went on for 44 days with the Michigan National Guard waiting out side. There was a band of tough women who were determined to to keep the strikers fed. There were lots of provocation to insight violence but the men inside the plant were determined to stay until they won their demands for Union Recognition and the rights that go with it. The sit-downers won and it become the turning point in the long fight to win union recognition at the GM. plants. The U.A.W. would become the most powerful union in the country. Helped change the Country by putting the assembly workers into the "middle class."

Okay, The next one I remember was “The Poor Peoples Campaign December 1968 Washington D.C. organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Council the had been led by Martin luther King. (King was assassinated April 4th in Memphis.) The Council then led by Minister Dr. Ralph Abernathy decided to go ahead with Kings original plan to bring thousands to Washington and camp there until they won their “Economic Bill of Rights.” That would mean equal employment opportunities for all peoples.

Seven to ten thousand people encamped on the National Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It was called Resurrection City. They stayed there for six weeks. They were literally forced out by an incessant rain that never seemed to quit. Knee deep in mud they decided to go home. Needless to say nothing came of the Economic Bill of Rights. I hasten to add the early young Black occupiers of the lunch counters changed America. Like the Auto workers they also were inside.

This of course brings me to, “Occupy Wall Street.” Yes, of course I am fully supportive of the “Movement.” It is now being called a “movement.” Well I’m not sure of that either. A movement need some clear definition or goals or both. ie, the Civil Rights movement, the Labor movement, the Feminist movement. All had very specific objectives. I know, i’ve been told that this is a knew way to bring people together without creating an organization that ultimately leads to leaders, bureaucracies and the end of participatory democracy. Maybe so. On the other hand I don’t know how the “movement” makes known exactly what it wants to do to change how wealth becomes distributed so the 99 percent can be part of the economic benefits?

Looking back at the experiences of the occupiers. I would suggest that comes this long hard winter somehow the OWS movement will need to define why these wonderful brave people are freezing their butts off for exactly what? In the case of the Flint Sit-ins they had very clear objectives and they were inside a building. Yes, the heat was turned off. Still easier to deal with the weather than on the street. Same was true of the lunch counter occupiers. Look I want the OWS to succeed and I don’t understand the reluctance to say clearly what is wanted. Yes I get clear inference from we are the 99 percent. Okay then what? If I were out there with those brave folks I would love to make this same argument. And I’d love to hear the response.

"Make Me Do It" F.D.R. IN THE 1930'S

2011-10-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Can we make Obama Do It?

The economic crisis is the producer of social unrest. (Pssst, listen this goes back to old Karl Marx. Still holding true.) Things get bad enough, people get mad enough and take to the streets. That's how the French Revolution got going. The starving masses demanded bread. The Queen made famous with “Let em eat cake.”

I am surprised by the number of Tea Party people whose response to the Occupy Wall Street is “why don’t go look for a job.” Wow it’s just like the 1930s Depression. Back then, lead by the Hearst newspapers, forerunner of the Mordoch, Fox News Empire were busy with the same cry. “Why don’t those people marching on Washington go look for a job.” The unemployment rate right now is trumpeting “THERE AIN’T NO JOBS, STUPID.

With the A.W.S. Spreading around the world the social unrest is beginning to have an impact. In Europe the Eurozone leaders are working desperately to come up with some kind of solutions that they are hoping will slow down the Social Unrest Movement. Difference between the USA and Europe is the presents of strong Socialist and Communist parties that scare the bejesus out of the ruling capitalists. Unfortunately we have neither of them in the good old USA. That’s to bad. An organized left in the US would be very helpful in scaring concessions out of the ruling class.

I believe the A.W.S. movement, if one can call it that, is having an effect on President Obama. Yes, I know I can hear some of my friends saying, “Schrank, that’s just wishful thinking.” Well, maybe. Yet I see a real effect, for instance in Obama’s move on the Jobs Bill. When the GOP blocked in the Senate the Dems broke it up into pieces forcing the GOP to vote against any measure that in any way looks like a victory for the President. As I write the GOP leaders seem to be agreeing to some elements of the jobs Bill. Effect of social unrest? Maybe.

On Student Loans Obama, without going to the Congress found a way to make administrative changes that will be helpful to those trying to payoff the loans.. Good, Mr. President. Find ways to do more of that. Maybe he has finally learned. That reaching across the aisle just gets his hand slapped? A real test will be the upcoming deal between the GOP and the Dems.on the Super Committee for reducing the deficit. If they don’t agree there will be draconian cuts across the board. The Super Committee was a very dumb idea that never should have been agreed to in the first place. Once the Comm. gets going you know who will be whacked the hardest? Rumor has it that the Dems on the Committee have already made concessions on Medicare and Social Security, God help them if that’s true.

The Administration should be searching for ways to undue this terrible Committee before the Dems. get another shellacking by trying to be nice. “When will they ever learn, When will they ever learn?” Remember the song?

These changes in Obama’s behavior I hope are indicators of the impact of Social Unrest. It’s the A.W.S, movement of protest against the the rich getting richer and the rest of us getting snookered could be wake up call for the Administration. I am also hoping that the protests become more vocal and spreads to additional cities That could make the President, DO IT.” (I love that story.) Yes that’s what Franklin D. Roosevelt said to A. Philip Randolph President of the Sleeping Car Porters Union. Randolph had complained that the New Deal was not helping his members get any benefits from the New Deal. F.D.R’s reply was, “Philip go out and Make Me Do IT.”

That’s what I hope the Occupy Wall Street protests are doing to Obama. Making him do it. Okay, so what is the IT? The IT is making the President put up a fight for the very existence of the middle class. Yes I know, whatever happened to the “working class?” It was dropped probably because the upwardly mobile didn’t like being called “working class.” So, the economists started to call them the middle class and the working class was abolished. Maybe? Of course don’t forget an additional variable, the upcoming 2012 Presidential Election. Wow, the air is already begin to smell bad from all the bull that is flying around.

The A.W.S is the best breath of fresh air we have had in a long time. Sure wish I could camp out with them. This is the best I can do now.

What To Do on a 94th Birthday?

2011-10-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

On Oct 19th I finally hit the 94th. Somehow, no not somehow but through my father who loved to quote Johann Goethe I knew what we needed to do. In my childhood there was a sampler that hung on our kitchen wall. My papa would often suggest to my older sisters that it is a saying they should live by. I found it mysterious and finally got papa to translate. (With the Nazis conquest of Germany papa stopped speaking German.) Here’s what the sampler said.

“EVERY DAY ONE SHOULD AT LEAST LISTEN TO A LITTLE SONG, READ A GOOD POEM, LOOK AT A FINE PAINTING AND IF POSSIBLE SAY A FEW REASONABLE WORDS.” Goethe That saying some how fit my birthday at the Metropolitan Opera listening to Anna Netrebko sing Anna Bolena. Okay it wasn’t just a “little song.” It made up for all the days I missed any song.

The music, the singing, the acting, the 3000 people in the audience all deeply involved with the singers in this musical walk through 1536. Yes, we despise Henry the VIII but we loved Ildar Abrazakov who sang the role with brilliant artistry as did the soprano Ekterina Gubanovaas as Jane Seymour. What is about this experience that I find so invigorating, uplifting, life changing or all of the above. To hear Netrebko sing to the farthest corner of this great hall with an ability to color her voice from the saddest to the most defying note goes right to the center of my spine or where the soul resides.

As she sings you can feel a growing tension in the audience. As the music grows so does our connection. She is telling us of her foreboding. She knows what Henry has in mind for her. She also knows there is no escape. Yet she sings with a defense of her true love, Percy that the evil Henry no matter what he does cannot destroy. As she sings to, her crescendo the audience entrapped with her situation bursts into a spontaneous eruption of brava brava and hand clapping. It is a tumultuous thanks that promises never to be forgotten. For me that is what great opera or theater is about. And yet there is much more.

I leave that theatre as I have so many times in my long life with a renewed hope for humanity. “Look” I say to Kate what wonders human can produce. I find this as an essential antidote to the the ongoing cacophony of the haters, killers, rapists, spin miesters, and yes even the growing collapse of planet earth. Does it sound like a religion? Maybe? On my 10th birthday as I walk with my papa through the Metropolitan Museum of art he is helping me to see the greatness in Gothe’s “fine paintings” The Goethe poetry is in the theater or a reading of Edna Saint Vincent Millay or Walt Whitman.

Finally I would hope that these blogs fall under Goethe’s definition of, “saying a few reasonable words”. That has been my birthday menu for as long as I can remember. To celebrate all those wonders that Goethe wants us to be part of. In this world of despair it is the works of art that save me for yet another year of living that sampler on my childhood kitchen wall. Thanks for the good wishes that many of you have sent. Now its on to the 95th. Kate says that will be a big one. What will we do for that? We’ll see after I check out how the Wall Street fighters are doing. There is also some nifty new lumber sitting in the shop. It is calling me to turn it into a piece of beautiful furniture. I will certainly continue to try.

Who Can the Left Dance With?

2011-10-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

Bulletin The Police clean up brigade backed away and the protesters are still there. Hurray for them.

The Occupy Wall Street is now going full blast. As I write, there is a threatened showdown for this morning. The billionaire Mayor of New York City says he needs to clean the Park. The occupiers say they have been cleaning it and its just fine. The NYPD will be sent in on the pretext of a clean up brigade. I have always felt that Bloomberg was just waiting for the moment to get tough with that “disorderly bunch of protesters.” We got us an, anal billionaire Mayor.” Who would've guessed?

As I have been watching and reading about Occupy Wall Street, O.W.S. I have been struck by how the left is trying to find a way to tie the nation wide demonstrations to a political strategy. There have been blistering attacks on Obama from people like Greenwald, Olberman, Maddow. Very serious voices on the left. Other left web-sights have been running pieces showing how Obama is a complete product and friend and of Wall Street. They sight his present fund raising efforts from the very sources that the O.W.S. folks are going after all hammer and tongs. A paradox indeed.

Herein lies the problem. If the O.W.S. protests are to succeed it needs to tie itself to some political organization or create an entirely new one. At this point I don’t see any potential for the latter.I hope I am wrong. That brings me to the Left’s dilemma with Obama. For an assortment of reasons early on the Left was very ecstatic about the President. Look, it was very hard to resist the simple fact that we had ELECTED A BLACK PRESIDENT. There was a few folks even during the, “hale the conquering hero stage” who suggested we calm our enthusiasm because “He aint what we think he is.”

There was absolutely nothing in his background that would suggest that he would take on a real fight for social and economic justice for working people. They were right. Yes there were some achievements. They have become lost in Obama’s obsession to compromise. Which he did and got bubkas in return. Look, on the other hand that’s exactly how he made it in the white mans world. Has he learned from his new experience? We’ll see. (There are so many WE’LL SEE’S these days.)

My own view. What is non existent is any kind of movement that would PUSH Obama AND SUPPORT HIM AT THE SAME TIME. That basically grew out of my experience through the 1930s and 40s. Sighting F.D.R’s rejoinder to A Philip Randolfrs complaint the Black workers were not receiving their fare share of the New Deal. F.D.R’s reply was,. “Philip you go out there and make me do it.” Keeping in mind that back then there was a most powerful Labor and Left wing political movements that could mobilize millions of workers at short notice. That’s what I felt Obama lacked. An organized left that could, “make him do it.” Is this just wishful thinking? Maybe.

Okay, so leaves me with the original question. Who is the present day Left going to dance with? (No I only watched Dancing With Stars” once.) If the O.W.S. folks want some way to put their demands to get the control of the US economy out of the hands of the big bankers they need a dancing partner some-where's in the political spectrum. Oh, wait a minute. If they want to basically change the system from capitalism to something else. That’s a horse of a different color. I simply don;t see any sign of that.

We on the left are continuing to wring more concessions out of capitalism to make it more friendly to working people. Heah, that’s what we’ve been doing for the last, close to 100 years. Yes, we always had to find partners in Washington to dance with. That’s the O.W.S. dilemma. If and when they emerge the O.W.S. strategists,, will have to deal with the problem. Otherwise the great O.W.S. protest will quickly fade with the fall leaves while the 2012 elections beckon. What do they do then? Romney or Perry against Obama? Ouch!

Welcome To Social Unrest 2

2011-10-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

I have written a number of blogs about Social Unrest, SU. Harking back to the 1930s we marched for Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, Home Relief, Minimum Wage and the right to organize unions. With F.D.R.s help we achieved it and the New Deal was born. That’s how we dealt with SU back then. Now, seventy years later we are confronted with yet another economic crisis. 25 Million unemployed. A large proportion are college graduates with huge school debts and no jobs in sight. The GOP threatening to pay for the crisis by repealing the New DeaL Once again making the majority of working people pay for the mistakes of the money speculators. For President Obama looking at election day 2012 this could be the make or break situation.

Since Obama’s election I have thought that without a mass movement behind him to create a fight against the right wing we were going nowhere's. Yupp I turned out to be on target. But, look a here? We have this budding new anti Wall Street protesters taking over Zuccotti Park as a base for their fight against the “Money Changers.” Here comes the SU and it’s spreading across the country. Great, God I wish I could join them. (My old legs are beginning to give up even as I keep pushing them.) How did this SU happen?

For years now I have been decrying the absence of any organized left in the US that would be a countervailing force against the Tea Party GOP right wing. Low and behold. I simply don’t understand how Cyberspace can be used as an organizing tool. I’m stuck in this old fashioned notion that you got have a meeting of concerned people to organize a demonstration. They come up with the major slogans of the movement. This is not at all like that. Still not sure how it works. It seems that a bunch of people busy Twittering, Tweeting and Face-booking can manage to all show up at an agreed time and place. They make up their own signs, create demands on the spot, create theater, sing songs and if needs-be take on the police.

However, I admit that when they finally breakthrough on the Evening News I’m exclaiming, “Hooray but what are their demands?” I am told that I don’t understand this new kind of protest. The demands will emerge as people gather and discuss the issues. That sounds fine and I hope it happens. Yet I worry that the issues may be come clouded when they need to be very clear if we are looking for mass support. I like. “JOBS IS A BASIC RIGHT”” “DEMOCRACY MEANS FULL EMPLOYMENT” “TAX THE RICH ONE PERCENT.” “THEY OWN THE COUNTRY” WE ARE THE 99 %” “WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO FAIRNESS?” “JAIL FOR THE WALL STREET BONUS CROOKS.”

Okay, so You see I’m from an old school style of organizing. If you get your demands right they will show up. That’s how we organized all those great unions back in the 20th Century. The slogans came from careful listening to the people you were organizing. What was on their minds and how do we express it. In Madison Wisconsin and in Ohio they were handed the issues by the GOP State leadership who simply said, “the unions are dead we are not going to recognize them anymore.” Okay, that’s easy. “PROTECT OUR RIGHT TO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING.”

I Am anxious to see how this new style mass organizing action works out? I don’t want to connect it to “The Arab Spring.” I really don’t believe that’s going anywhere's because there is no clear cut way for those demonstrators to press their demands. In the US there is the looming Presidential election and that’s what this hubbub is about. Yes, my regular readers remember I said when push comes to shove on election day 2012 faced with the GOP crazy ideas of wiping out the New Deal we on the left will vote for Obama. I hope the independents will too. The lesser evil. Yes of course. “We did it before and we will do it again.” Old WW2 song. My best RS

Defining Moments or

2011-10-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

Who Am I Anyhow?

I must first acknowledge the first signs of social unrest that is happening as I right. Down around Wall Street they are raising hell. They are demanding action on Jobs, Foreclosures and exposing the economic unfairness as Wall Street keeps giving themselves bonuses. Yes it’s only the beginning. If the right wing nuts start to go through with their threats to dismantle Social Security and Medicare the Wall Street demonstration will just be a warm up. I promise to get back to this. In the meantime let me get this off my chest. How do we learn who we are?

Oh, this is all part of a 94 year old nonagenarian problem. Maybe you have wondered,“who am I and why am I here.”. Somehow once you enter the twilight zone that question becomes more persistent. Maybe it’s a summarizing issue of what kind of a life have I lived? I am sure there a many ways to find answers. I like, “defining moments.” They are the times when we get a real sense of who we are, The first such moment I can recall. (The reader might want to recall your first.)

Mt family starting with my father, mother two sisters were all Bronx Zoo fans. We lived across the street from the entrance. Many a fascinating night I lay awake listening to the lions roar making believe I was in Africa. We saved all out stale bread to feed the animals. Eventually the antelopes would see me coming and the whole bunch would coming up to the fence. Papa said I had to give it evenly so no one would get it all. Each time I went there I would feel on top of the world as this whole field of caged animals would come running. It was a defining moment. I learned about the reward of generosity.

In 1930 I made my first wagon out of some old baby carriage wheels a wooden box and a piece of two by four. Then I added a battery and a car horn arugha arugha. Defining moment. Helping, Smitty the local plumber. He insisted I learn to distinguish the names of all pipe fittings. That lead to my getting a job as a plumbers helper. That brings me to the present issue of how we reward kids?

Sometime in the sixties the notion of building self-esteem took hold of education. That idea suggested that in order for children to have a sense of who they are they needed to be rewarded. What happened as a result of that movement was an explosion of a trophies, for everybody. No matter our team lost the game we got the same trophy as the winners. It was called a win, win situation. Now who do we think we are kidding? Children know who won and who lost. They know when another kid is better than they are. But the worst part of this stuff is that it fails to teach that’s it’s okay to lose but try again next time. Most of all learn from mistakes.

I have been extremely fortunate in my life to have had defining moments right up to now. Speaking on a Bronx street corner 1935 a little old lady comes up to me after my talk. She takes off a Saint Christopher Medal and simply puts it around my neck. “God Bless you son and may Saint Christopher keep you safe.’ My radical comrades look on in astonishment. “Robert we didn’t know, are you religious?” I never said a word just stood there in the moment. I also had nights when I was pelted with garbage. Washed my clothes and went out and tried a different approach.

My son Fred is the lead double bass player in the Madison Symphony. They are playing Mahler’s 2nd the Resurrection. There is a long bass solo. Fred plays it. At the end the hall is on they-re feet in applause. The Conductor asks Fred to take a bow. Fred calls me says, ”Dad don’t know what happened tonight? The music took to me to some other place. I have never played that well before.” Ahaa, a defining moment. I'm sure it helps him understand who he is.

Working with a bunch of Juvenile Delinquents in 1964 at Mobilization for Youth it struck me very early on that these 16 to 20 year olds simply have never experienced any positive achievements. Our job was to create work projects that were learning related. Our work crews renovated an old tenement building on east 10th street. Locals told me that on the weekends our kids brought their girlfriends to show off their accomplishment.

I’m in New Mexico visiting my daughter. She is singing in a Mexican Night Club. I am in the audience. She sings Jalisco. The people at my table are insisting she must be from Mexico. I can’t resist and say no she’s from the Bronx. They don’t believe me. “She can’t sing that way from the Bonx” Well, she does because of time spent in Mexico listening and absorbing the culture. The dollar bills are flowing down on her like snowflakes. She looks even more surprised than her visiting father. Defining moment.

My Great Grandson Soren now 3 is learning to speak. I am,told what he enjoys most is when he makes up a new word and can announce it for an hour. The beginning of defining moments. What do we need to do to help children develop self esteem? Support them in their struggle to become whatever it is that requires real investment on their part.When it happens they will have a true sense of achievement. We defeat their whole experience when we give them trophies for losing because we think it makes them feel good.

Feel good may be the opposite of any sense of accomplishment. Maybe the present educational craze of test passing falls into the same category. Pass the test you get a trophy. Wether or not anything was learned is an entirely different question.

Might try a little experiment of your own. Write down a sheet of paper the defining moments in your life. You might be surprised. My best RS

Computer Rage!

2011-09-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's what it was last night as I wrote a blog, “Defining Moments.” I went to transfer it from Pages to my Browser and somewhere’s along the way I LOST IT. Dam machine. This has always been my nightmare with this otherwise magical wonder. When I was writing my book “Wasn’t That A Time” I lost a couple of chapters and some smart ass Geeks at Apple found them and saved my life. Someone will ask, “but did you save it?’ yes of course I always do. Question is where did it go” No it’s not in Pages and it’s not in the Trash. Let me forget it for now.

Today I went to a beautiful wedding of two dear friends Bill and Didi out in the woods near Orient Point. It was a perfect example of how everyday life goes on no matter all the bullshit whirling around our economic-political crisis. In the darkest days of McCarthyism I was preoccupied with holding the union together. As I traveled the State as the NY State President of the Machinists Union I was always impressed with how people from Town to Town would continue with the rituals of their everyday existence. Somehow I always found that reassuring. Not sure why? Here’s more stuff to piss me off.

The Editorial Section of the Sunday Times has a full page story, “What Happened to the American Left” by Michael Kazin. (Pssst he has a new book out on the same subject.) Tell you about that soon as I read it. But for now let me just show you one example of what happened to the left. Accompanying the article is a half page picture of the Mayday Demonstration in Union Square New York in 1934. Yes, of course I was there. Guess who organized that and all the other major demonstrations of that period? The Communist Party that's who and there is absolutely no mention of that simple fact anywhere in Kazin’s article.

The word communist has been stricken from our speech except when the crazies want to scare the feathers off us chickens. The lesson that should be obvious is that if you demonize a critical part of the left you have cut of a major piece of the body politic.

The answer to Kazins question is there is no equivalent institution to the Communist Party that can actually organize a demonstration like the one shown in the picture. The demoneization of the communists is at the heart of the problem of the Left. Yes you can refuse to acknowledge that they even existed but with that you lose all the practical know how when it comes to organizing the discontent. The Tea Party has taken that over.

Thank you Didi and Bill for a enveloping us in all the love and joy in your Thomas Hardy day in the Countryside. The only thing missing was some Moooing Cows. Love RS

Slouching to 94

2011-09-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like Old Gray Mare
That’s a song. A trusty old Mare
Ain’t what she used to be
Neither is this trusty old Stallion.
Ain’t what he used to be.
I try hard pay no attention.
Can’t get that song outta my head.

Okay, Kate’s on girls night out.
I go to my Old Steak House
Memory dinner. Dear departed Mike.

“Schrank come on Steak & Boilermakers
What say?” (Only union blokes at Ford Foundation.)
“Christ, nobody here has a clue on boilermakers.”
Whiskey and beer Whiskey and beer.

Last boilermaker? Maybe twenty years.
Wow I’m flat on my ass. Can’t eat the steak.
Still gotta get home. Old Gray Stallion ain’t what he usetobe.

Damm the reminders. Can’t digest all that meat.
Can’t swing a 8 pound hammer no more.
Yeah, I’ll wear the helmet, no matter
Can’t ride the bike no more .outa balance.
Shush, can make a little bit of old time love.

Nice warm bath. How the hell to get outa tub?
Changed many, many flat tires. Honestly I can.
“Damm nuts are now to tight. “I told you, call Triple A.”

Pushups forget, subway stairs forget, Merry go-round okay
Roller Coaster? Forgetit. Forget the Appalachian trail. How about
A walk around the block? “Make sure you take your cane.”

Danced in 2011 New Years Eve. How about 2012 ?
“Better do somthin about those swollen feet.”
I know it’s MIND OVER MATTER. MIND KNOWS IT.
Somebody, tell Old Gray Stallion’s feet?

Gifts Given, Curiosity!

2011-09-11T19:48:00.000-07:00

As I slouch toward 94 I feel an urge to write again of Gifts Given.

It is Sept.10th 2000. Kate and I are readying ourselves for a highly anticipated trip to London. We were excited to see Shakespeare at the Globe Theater. Then on Sept. 11th our plans together with the World Trade Center disappear in a cloud of dust, We are pinned to the sky and the Tele watching these 100 story buildings collapse like something built out of a bunch of pick up sticks. It is impossible to grasp the reality of all those lives lost in the unfolding catastrophe.

As we sit in horror and listen to all the blah blah blah about who plotted it and who did it I was nagged by a fundamentally different question. Why did these buildings collapse like a house of cards and result in all those horrible deaths? Did the terrorists know that the Twin towers would dissolve into the biggest ruble, dust pile ever? I very much doubt it. So, what caused that to happen and who might be responsible?

Curiosity, simply would not let me sleep until I found an answer. Here’s what I found. 1. The Twin Towers were built during the Nelson Rockefeller Governorship of New York. (2. They was a slop to the Building Trades Unions. Their vote was essential to his election.) 3. The Twin Towers were designed by a Japanese architect Minouri Yamasaki maybe he was ignorant of New York City building codes. Built by the Port of New York and New Jersey Authority. 4.Therefor they were not built according to the Construction Code of the City of New York. 5 THOSE 110 Floors WERE HUNG ON THE OUTSIDE WALLS WITH WITH ABSOLUTELY NO INTERIOR SUPPORT.

6. Firefighters long ago learned of the dangers of floor suspension on outside walls. In a fire the heat pushes those walls out and down come the floors. That’s a Crypt for any firemen, or anyone else caught between floors. New York City building code requires internal support columns. Why were there none? Because that left more open space to rent.Make ,More money.

Case in point. By sheer accident in 1945 a WW2 Bomber smashed into the 75th floor of the Empire State building. Damage? Of course strictly to the floor where it hit. Why because the Empire State buildings floors do not hang on the outside walls. It has interior support columns as do all the skyscrapers in the city.

This was quite a different take on the tragedy of Sept. 11th. It wasn’t just the terrorists who had caused those buildings to collapse it was also the negligence of the builders. And of course why did the FBI or the CIA do nothing about a group of foreigners who were training to fly airplanes but not land and takeoff? Having gone through flight training all I did was land and takeoff what seemed like hundreds of times in order to be certified. Bureaucratic hang-ups or the inability to ask WHY WHY WHY? That’s all part of the tragedy of 9/11.

As a very young child I was being taught the importance of “Questioning Authority” starting with. “But The Emperor is Naked.” Too “why did all those founding fathers own Slaves at the same rime that they were championing the idea of freedom? Holding a nickel in his hand papa would ask “who is this God that we trust? If you find him you can keep the nickel.” Thanks pap

Everything that struck my eye that I didn’t understand had to be learned, How was the subway built and what made it run meant hundreds of rides up in the front train looking out at the tracks and asking a friendly trainmen how the brakes made it stop. And of course the magic of those giant electric motors that run it. Every bit of it had to be learned. That burning curiosity I believe is the most important trait for serious learning.

According to my Papa, the first step is the ability to doubt even in the place of universal acceptance. Like saying “The Pledge of Allegiance” in Public School. That was my Papa's first lesson in being able to stand alone for what you did not believe. The second lesson had to do with what was the role of that pledge and why was it being taught? Ahaa conformity! Essential to get everyone to believe and CONFORM a fundamental requirement for all who rule. Thank you papa.

Those were the hard parts. The fun part came with all those wonderful discoveries at the Museum of Science and Industry that was on the 4th and 5th floors of the old Daily News Building on 42nd Street. At age 12 I was there so often that the Guards knew my name. From cutaway engines I learned exactly how the car engine and transmissions worked. I could name all the different kinds of gear mechanisms. How the cars electrical system worked including the generator that charged the battery etc. etc. Each one of those learning experiences was a joyous discovery. In my later years going to college there was the same kind of discovery in physics, economics, sociology and the humanities. That was just the continuation of a life of endless discovery that never seems to end. A most remarkable gift. Thank you all who provided and encouraged asking why or how or what for?

About Irene

2011-09-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

About Irene
It’s only about a week since we had to pack up and move to a neighbors home on higher ground. As a friend from Connecticut upon visiting said, “you don’t live by the water you live in it.” Some truth to that especially when the storm season is upon us. Like now.

Our most critical problem in the hurricane season is the anticipation. It is raised to frenzied heights by the broadcast media. To make sure they scare the life out of you they show you all the destruction brought on by previous hurricanes, And in case you didn’t notice the Weather Channels commercials time doubles triples during these emergencies. (More people are watching and being scared.)

I think it was Heidigger who suggested that anxiety is created by anticipation. Indeed it is and so by the time the storm arrives you are spent like an old wrong out mop. I have rediscovered an old problem of writing about the past. The problem may increase with time but here it is. As I write about what happened a week or ten days ago am I writing as I am in it? Or how I am remembering it? Or put another way. Is that of it? Or about it? Believe me these are not the same thing.

I learned this lesson while writing “Wasn’t That A Time.” There I was trying to reconstruct time that was 60 years old. How do you do that? You are required to re-imagine what happened. It is in that process you are consciously or otherwise interpreting what happened. That is very different from live reporting in the time it is happening. I now have had time to think about the incident and like it or not I color it.

Okay we are 24 hours away from the hurricane strike. We start to pack up. What to take what to leave? You walk around the house looking at each thing knowing your not going to take any of it. Maybe you are saying goodbyes to many objects of affection that have sweet memories tucked away inside. You end up with your medicines, change of clothes and the guitar. Our pictures, a few original oils were carried off to safety by a dear friend. We leave with a heavy heart and not a clue of what nature intends.

I know in my gut that people younger than me are in a terrible fear for their future. I know from the experience of others that a total loss of your home is as traumatic as losing a major piece of your life. Oh, sure I know we are not supposed to get attached to stuff. That may not apply to stuff that has become part of your self. These are things that have meaning far far beyond the thing itself. My guitar is a good example. It has given me some of the happiest moments of my long life and I love it. Could it be replaced? Well of course but the new one wouldn’t have my spit marks all over it. I have the same feelings about some of my books and my wood-shop tools.

We said goodbye to the house and went up the road to higher ground. Spent a nice evening with our local friends and others they had rescued from around the Island. We slept through the storm and the next day bright and sunny went to look how our little house stood the storm. Lo, and behold there it was muddy all around but unscathed. We spent the day shoveling mud and being happy that we still had a home. Kate was quick to get at rescuing the garden that had been inundated with salt water the enemy of plants.

That’s my memory of our siege through hurricane Irene. I am very glad the hurricane Katia is going far east of us. But there not through with us yet. Not until October. In the meantime we are wondering why do we live here? Is it because today as I write this and look out the window it is breath taking beautiful.

Hampton Classic Time Again

2011-09-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

Was going to write about or Hurricane Irene experience but that has to wait as it is Hampton Classic time here on Long Island. Besides I love my riding in another, “ Classic” Enjoy RS

I confess, I am rerunning this blog again because in some ways it reminds me of the absurdities of our every day news reports. Besides it does remind me of another absurdity, me riding in a horse show in Mexico City. This was long before the drug Cartels took over the country. I still think of my time there as a very happy experience.

It is now Hampton Classic time out here on Long Island and I had another memory jolt. The horses reminded me of an early Sunday morning in Mexico City. I was at the stables of the Presidential Palace for an early breakfast. You are wondering, “What on earth was he doing there?” I was too.

It was probably 1965. I was in charge of Youth Employment programs for the City of New York. John Lindsay, the Mayor, asked if I would be willing to go to Mexico to evaluate a youth employment training program called “Instituto Nacional La Juventud,” National Institute of Youth. It was wintertime and I could not be more delighted to leave the City for whatever reason. (Mayor Lindsay sometimes referred to my job as “keeping the city from burning.” We did that by employing as many as 50,000 kids in summer jobs.)

Once in Mexico City I was treated like royalty, with chauffeured car and airplane at my disposal, to be able to visit any one of dozens of cities and towns that had Youth Training Programs. I would visit the programs, spend a day or two observing, and make notes. Getting back to the Horse Show.

On Friday evening my host, Sergio Alvarez, Director of the Instituto, announced, “Sunday morning we ride with Mexico’s National Equestrian Team at the Presidential Palace in a practice jumping session.” You have to understand that Sergio, a small highly energetic man, spoke in proclamations that came out as major facts that simply could not be denied. Yet I valiantly tried saying, “Sergio, I know how to ride a horse, but for God sake I would not think for a moment I could ride with Mexico’s best riders. Besides, I know absolutely nothing about jumping a horse over a hurdle, and I have no riding clothes.” That last was a desperate attempt to get out of this impending disaster. To Sergio it mattered not. “Roberto,” he announced, “we have all your sizes and your clothes and boots will be waiting for you at the arena.” And so I gave in to Sergio’s determination that this was going to happen.

Early Sunday morning there was Sergio all decked out in boots, jodhpurs, tailored riding jacket, and helmet, assuring me that the very same outfit awaited me at the stable. We arrived at the great hall where dozens of men where already eating breakfast of eggs rancheros. There was no silverware and I noticed people were using there rolls as a way of scooping up the peppers and eggs.

I was greeted as a dignitary from Estados Unidos who will “honor us by riding in our La Pista.” I was still hoping that the riding outfit wouldn’t fit and that would be my way out. At this point Sergio was insisting that it would be a real insult if I were to withdraw. “Roberto,” he exclaimed “do you want to insult us by being disdainful of our riding ability? No Roberto, for the sake of the relations between our two great countries you must ride.” Sergio was what some Mexican friends described as a “declamador,” who declaimed as though he was addressing the multitudes. There was nothing to do but put on the outfit (it fit amazingly well) and make the best of it.
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We proceeded to the riding hall and again it was announced that Roberto Schranko from Estados Unidos would be riding with the equestrian team. As I watched these fabulous riders and their horses go over the hurdles from a foot off the ground to what appeared like six feet, I was in awe of the grace and the ease with which they managed the ride. I did not have a clue regarding how they were being judged. It was getting to be late morning and I thought, “Oh well, they probably forgot about me,” when Sergio came to remind me it was time to “mount up.” Back to the stable. There was a beautiful horse held in check by a groom who very graciously, with a movement of his hand toward the horse, suggested I mount; which I did. Once up in the saddle, it seemed to me this was the tallest horse I had ever been on.

Adding to my overwhelming anxiety and prayer that this horse would know what to do, since I didn’t, was the fact that I was sitting on an English saddle instead of a nice Western with that great knob up front you could hold on to when things got hairy. Everything from here on out was now in the hands of the Gods, or the horse, or both.

The groom led us into the La Pista and sent me and the horse off to the very first hurdle. I gave the reigns a little lift, which is what I thought was a signal to the horse to jump. Once past that first hurdle there was a round of applause from the audience. I thought, “Well heck, that wasn’t so bad.” Then came the next and the next and the next, and after each one a loud applause. As I approached that final six-footer I thought, “Man, just hang on here or for sure you will be dumped.” But this dear sweet horse just took it his stride and over we went. Now there was thunderous applause. Sergio came forward to congratulate me on my great spirit. I had sacrificed myself to make the Mexican’s feel good by knocking down every single pole from the first to the last. “Roberto, you are a great friend of Mexico and we will never forget what you did here today.”

As the trophies were handed out, I was given a silver belt buckle with a Road Runner bird on it. I thought that was a perfect portrayal of me at the “Hampton Classic” in Mexico City. This was yet another case of “never look back,” for if I had I would have realized how absurd this whole episode was. I thanked the horse for getting me through the hurdles without a single refusal to jump.

Irene Goodnight Leadbelly Song No Irene Go Away!

2011-08-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

So here I am trying to figure out our plan for dealing with yet another Hurricane. Been trying to count how many times in my life I have done this? The first one I remember was in 38. I was working for Packard Motor Car. Owned a 1929 Packard Touring car. It was great for driving through water because of its large wheels. Boss at the garage said “here kid take a couple of batteries and some either and for 50 cents go start up stalled cars. You should make a few bucks.” Driving around the Bronx all the way to City Island made about $20 dollars. A lot of money back when gas was .20 cents a gallon and a hot dog a nickel.

Living in New York City you didn’t pay much attention to hurricanes. We didn’t own our own homes and besides the very structures in the City tended to break up the wind patterns. It wasn’t until the fifties when I started going to Fire Island that hurricanes became a familiar experience. Back then, there was no “Weather Channel” or even radio didn’t endlessly scream warnings at us that our world will soon be destroyed via the wind or flood or both. Today I am scared to death of what awaits me comes Saturday Night. Part of my trepidation is my age insecurity. I no longer feel like I “can take on anything and survive.” I’m not sure when I past that point but I have. I am now dependent on others. The other part is the Media scaring the daylights out of us by its ceaseless bombardment.

In the 1950s I bought a little “fixer upper” bungalow on Fire Island. I was spending a weekend underneath the house putting in new posts. Went to sleep and the next morning looked out and there was water up to the porch. Coast Guard guy comes by in a boat, “what the hell you doing here this place was evacuated.?” I don’t know I was sleeping. “You wanna leave now?” No why, it’s a beautiful day?” Well okay but be careful on the beach, it’s a really heavy surf.

Went down to the beach and lo and behold there were all the local yokels with their Jeeps. They were pulling stuff out of the surf deposited by the houses that were being tossed into the sea. That was an amazing site. Whole house being picked up and dumped into the ocean like pancakes on a grill. As I walked along what was left of the beach Poseidon favored me with the gift of a large Dutch frying pan that I treasure to this day. (Have to rescue it from Kate who thinks it’s pretty useless.) Taught me that some things we own have value only for the person who experienced the point of sentimental creation. They're precious memories.

Okay so here we are living halfway out on Long Island. We are sweating out our preparations for Hurricane Irene. Everything that might become airborne has to be put away or anchored. Sixteen feet of a glass wall facing the bay has to be shuddered up with corrugated aluminum shutters from Florida. Everything from the woodworking shop has to be raised up out of the flood that will certainly encircle us. Kate’s got her waist high wading boots ready. The night of the storm we will go stay with some very kind neighbors who live on higher ground. That’s essential as I could easily have a medical emergency. Our home could be in two feet of water and no Emergence vehicle is going to come near it. I hate to leave but we just have to go.

Wow, if anyone can’t see the changing climate patterns they must be totally blocked by their refusal to accept reality. Talk about a “state of denial.”

I recently came upon an interesting study that correlates El Nino with increasing war and social unrest. It goes something like this. The more the presence of El Nino ie. the warming of the Pacific ocean the greater the increase in wars and social unrest around the world. El Nino produces increased drought, intense storms, tornadoes, and flooding. .In other word extreme weather. That's what Climate Change is all about. Why can’t people see that?

So what we are now observing weather wise is a dress rehearsal of more to come. The droughts and hunger in Africa are already putting the migratory pressure on Europe as the African natives run from the drought parched land. (See my blog on 7/10 on Immigration and Climate change.)

The so called“Arab Spring” has yet to produce a single country that has seriously moved to a democracy. I doubt that any will. That's because none of these countries have the raw materials or any tradition of a what democracy even means. Most important no Industrial Revolution to create some surplus. It was Fredrick Engels who suggested that the production of surplus allows a society to create a educated class essential to a democracy or socialism.

In the Arab lands there is a tragedy unfolding as people become disillusioned with the so called revolutions. They are not revolutions precisely because there was no clear vision of what would replace the old with the new. Without that vision the old just comes back decked up in some new clothes and take up where they left off. In Egypt the army ran the country with Mubarack and they still do. Sad, but so true.

Anyhow for me the biggest immediate threat is Hurricane Irene. I promise to stay focused on the wind, the rain, the flooding, the survival of our home and us. Wish us good luck as we may need it. Yet there is a part of natures fury that continues to fascinate me. Not sure why?

Four Years of Blogging "Lord Lord Lord"

2011-08-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

Feels like folk song “The Grey Goose”

“They par boiled him lord lord lord and the saw couldn’t cut him lord------, the axe couldn’t chop him lord -------. The last time I seen him he was fl-yin cross the ocean. Goodbye to the Grey Goose.” Not sure why but blogging is somehow is like that. You just keep try-in and I’m never sure where its going to end up. Who cares except me?

This is my 4th anniversary of blogs. 215 later. That’s amazing. How did it happen? Well, you know it all started as a challenge from a Grandson and Son In Law. Both computer geeks. “Grandpa you seem to know some-thin about everything why don’t you write a blog?” Aha, there was the challenge. Nothing Grandpa likes more than a challenge. What is a blog? Son in law Robert has one on Poker Playing in Las Vegas. Read it. Wow that was really interesting.

Can I do it? How often do you have to say some thing? Why would anyone care? Yee Gods there are a million blogger's out there. Do we need another one? No, The issue is do you have anything to say? So far my answer has been, yes indeed. Ask my patient wife Kate. If the truth be told she’d say “ Except when he’s thinking about it or writing his blog, or working in the wood-shop he never shuts up.”

As I look back over the four years I am beginning to see patterns. Some friends have suggested I bring some themes together and do a book. Ah, a book is a different species from a blog. Oh, sure you could just string the blogs together sort like on a wash-line but that would quickly get boring. I’m going to see how the themes line up and then try to look at what I might say that would be of some interest for me and the reader.

That's how you do it. First it has to have interest for the writer, A lesson. A well known documentary film maker working with me on a Ford assembly line said, “Schrank, lets stop your tired and the camera doesn’t lie.” In some way writing is like the camera. If the writer is not excited by the subject why should the reader be? However in the meantime.

I do think, maybe ruminate a lot about everyday occurrences both in the news and in everyday life. That’s because long ago I learned that no matter what news might be shaking the world somehow or other everyday life goes on.

Ahaa, It was a cold winter day in 1936. Fortunately I was working, as a Plumbers Helper. (I really wanted to be on a March to Washington with an upraised fist demanding Unemployment Insurance. Fact is I wasn’t unemployed!) Working to clear a clogged up sewer main in a 30 story apartment building I got the greatest shit shower ever poured on a man. A bunch of plumbers had one hell of a laugh trying to clean me up as they hosed me down. First of many ha-zings in the world of plumbers.

After that I figured at any moment of any day somebody somewhere's is in a shit shower from a stopped up sewer line or a farmer spreading a similar material in a meadow, or someone peeling potatoes in a restaurant, or Firemen cooking a meal in the Firehouse or a bunch of stock brokers on a computer screen. Coal miners a mile down mining coal. Or women getting their hair curled in a beauty parlor. And on and on. All part of everyday life.

I guess on balance I like that gnawing curiosity that is always sending me to go learn. What is it, how it works, why is it here, who invented it, how is it made, what makes it fly, when will it crash and on and on and on.

Oh, I can see a blog on Curiosity. Or maybe on “Leadership and why we haven’t any.” Or why have men been losing their testosterone? Growing mouth beards instead. How come the very smart Israelis keep screwing things up? Why are we having 15 month election campaigns? Stuff like that.

See what I mean about curiosity? Stay tuned. I’m sure there’s a “Curiosity” blog in the making. That’s how it works. You just suddenly start thinking about a word, a thought, a happening and why and why. A blog is born. Happy anniversary. Love to you all wherever you are. Roberto

London Riots Lessons from the Sixties

2011-08-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

The social unrest that is rocking London is probably a direct result of the Cameron governments austerity program. The worst thing a country can do when faced with high unemployment and an unstable financial situation is to institute an austerity program. NO,no, no That's like putting out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.

If folks would just pay attention to what FDR did in the 30s it was just the opposite. His Administration went on a huge spending spree to get the economy moving. The objective was to reduce the unemployment rate and if necessary CREATE JOBS. That’s how I ended up first on the NYA and later on the WPA. (NYA National Youth Administration Yupp I was a Detective looking for wife deserters.) On the WPA I worked on the building of Orchard Beach in the Bronx.

In the 60s we saw the some of the worst social unrest in US history. One major city after another was rocked by riots. The problem, not unlike London, was large numbers of bored, angry frustrated unemployed Black and Latino youth. How to respond?

Early on in the 60s Robert Kennedy the Attorney General had set up the National Committee on Juvenile Delinquency. That was an effort to deal with the social unrest problem among the 16 to 21 year olds. One of the experimental efforts to deal with this crisis was Mobilization for Youth, MFY. It was Located on the lower East side and sponsored by Columbia University. It was the beginning of the anti poverty efforts that Lyndon Johnson would make part of the Anti Poverty program.

MFY was setup as demonstration project to help poor mostly Black and Latino youth make it in the white mans middle class world. I was head of the work programs. I saw my job as providing successful real work experiences for 600 youth 16-21. These jobs at real work-sites would help them in transitions to jobs in private sector. We had managed to setup a restaurant, gas station, woodworking shop. print shop, sewing shop etc. Okay, It was the print shop that would get us into severe conflict with the Police and City Hall.

After a street altercation a police officer by the name of Gilligan had shot a black boy in Harlem. Much like we are seeing and hearing from London. The New York Daily News accused MFY of printing a poster with a skull and crossbones backdrop that said, “Get Gilligan the child killer.”

Oh man the Press was all over us when Robert Kennedy arrived unannounced to see for himself, “what the hell is going on here.” As I sat in the Police car with him, (he often showed up unannounced in a NYPD police car.) I explained that there was no way that we could have or would have printed such a poster. I toured him through all of work sights on the lower East side that made it crystal clear that we had absolutely no poster printing ability. As he told us to keep up the good work he departed with one of his staff saying, “the Attorney General was very favorably impressed with what you and your staff are doing.”

For most of the era of the sixties I would be involved in the youth employment issue. The point about our experiences at MFY was the bitterness of the right wing against anything the government was trying to do in dealing with the social unrest. While London concentrates on what the cops can do differently they better look closely to programs that will address the issues of the unemployed youth.

Yes, increased police presence will deter the rioting but it does not get at the underlying problems. To Lyndon Johnson’s credit he was determined to try to do something about the issues that lead people to act out in the streets expressing their bitter frustration with lives that simply had no place to go. In my years of working in that vineyard I learned the very tough lesson that simply increasing police deterrence will not make the problem go away. Oh yes it can hide the real problems but like a plugged up pressure cooker eventually it will explode and then lookout.

Along the way I became convinced that even without an overall solution it is better to address the problem with some actions than leave it to fester. It was in the Hot Summers of the 60s that we had as many as 50,000 youth on work projects. That was example of “action.” As Deputy Manpower Commissioner for Youth Employment the Mayor would remind me. “Your job is to keep the City from burning.” And indeed it was. This is how the London folks need to start thinking. How about a Summer Youth Work Program that can help in school youth engage in something more useful then smashing shop windows?

Out of the sixties experience of MFY came the Job Corps. It remains to this day as a residential job training program that has effected the live of millions of youth. A couple of million kids, 16 to 24 have gone through Job Corps training. Is it a solution to all the ills that ghetto youth are prone to? Of course not. It is what I call an “imperfect adjustment” to a social economic problem of today's society. For some time I have believed that is the best we can do in our present circumstance is to make “imperfect adjustments.” That’s what the folks in Britain need to think about otherwise they will be sweeping a hell of a lot more glass on their main thoroughfares. Especially the fancy ones.

What Goes Around Comes Around

2011-08-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

The Stinger Surface to Air Missile

Remember “Charlie Wilson’s War”

Yes, that was the name of the movie about the Congressmen from Texas who seemed to single hand-idly got us involved in the Soviet Afghan war. (1979-1989) Wilson had made it his life's work to get the US to do everything to defeat the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. It was going to be Russia’s Viet-Nam.

In the course of that effort Wilson was successful in getting the US to arm the Afghan rebels with the FIM Stinger Shoulder Held Missile Launchers. They were so successful in bringing down Soviet Helicopters that many military writers credit them with defeating the Russians. And boy did those very same missile launchers proliferate. We ended up selling them as if they were kitchen doilies to anybody and everybody. Around this time my friend Hugh Jones was working In India. He tells how an arms dealer offered to sell him a Stinger Missile. Hugh asked if he expected him to just take it home on the plane? Needless to add it was very profitable for Raytheon.

Okay, so here comes the, “Comes Around.” Day before yesterday we suffered our worst Day In Obama’s Afghan War. A Boeing Chinook Army Helicopter with 35 men, some of them amongst our very best were killed as it was brought down with, you of course have already guessed it a “shoulder held surface to air Stinger Missile.” Oh, I’m pretty sure nobody is going to report that our elite fighters were killed by our very own missile. God it pisses me off how stupid our Military leaders can be.This brings me to the Black hawk Sikorsky Helicopter downed in Mogadishu in 1993. That ended up as a movie, “Black Hawk Down.”

So, how did the US Army get into the Helicopter business?
At the end of WW2 the Army Air-force Generals decided they wanted their very own military unit and so the United States Air Force was born to the great disappointment and chagrin of the Army. Some time before the Army had lost its old Horse Calvary Unit. It was made famous in our Western movies. They were the great saviors of the white man in the wild west. As we watched and waited sure enough here came the “Old 7th cavalry singing to the rescue.

Somehow the Army needed their very own flying ability and so the Helicopter as part of the infantry was born. I was not able to get the exact number of Helicopters shot down since the 1950s but it has been a lot including the famous catastrophic failure to rescue our Iranian hostages. That probably cost Jimmy Carter his second term. There was that famous failure in Mogadishu in 1993. That led to the movie “Black Hawk Down. So much for the Army Helicopters in wartime. Now this latest flop in Afghanistan. Shot down by one of our very own Missile Launchers.

As I write this I am haunted by those Obama election promises to end the Afghan war. Mr. President, war is not some abstract policy. It’s peoples lives that are being spent and for what? That is the question, and for what?

Empathy Overload

2011-07-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Marshal McLuhan Centennial of your birth. “Go to hell”

Many Universities around the globe are celebrating his prescient theories. Back in the 60ies and 70ies he was writing about where the media was going to take us. I remember those arguments over, “the medium is the message.” Worse than that was his notion, of the “Global Village.” Yes the media was going to turn us into one all embracing society across all man made boundaries. McLuhan was one of the rare thinkers, artists who somehow are able to see the future without any clear consciousness as to how they arrived there.

Back in the sixties, seventies I thought, surely there would be an increase in the number of television sets but never could have foreseen the explosion of the Internet IPods, Mextexts Cellphones with cameras etc. etc. Indeed, in many ways the world is now a village. Here’s where I breakdown with empathy overload.

Back in my own "good old days" I might have read something about a drought in Africa or Asia.That was probably transmitted by the dot dash code of Telegraph and it was surely a week or a month old. Now it’s instant photographs taken with cellphone cameras. Here in front of me on this computer screen are thousands of starving, thirst driven Ugandan women carrying their starving babies to an already overflowing refugee camp in Kenya. Just a sample of the Global Village that is now relentless in its daily story of all the horrific droughts, fires and the monumental disasters being brought on by Global Climate Change. In the old days it was simply Colonialism.

Oh, so you think I’m finished? Not so fast. Here comes the foreclosure, unemployment crisis, collective bargaining crisis in Wisconsin, the abortion fight in Kansas, the Fukushima Nuclear meltdown. Instant pictures of those poor poor old Japanese men and women walking around in a daze, The Haiti earthquake just shows us that forever poverty. Their tent villages just waiting for the next hurricane to blow them away. And yes, my wife insists, that the Polar Bears loss of habitat is the Canary in the Global climate crisis that will do us all in.

On top of all that there’s all the left wing causes threatening me to give them money or we are looking at the “end of days.” How can I take on the Global scene when I’m struggling to hang on to the local disasters? From my empathy bank I have very little left over for the Debt Crisis. That seems so inconsequential when I look at those dyeing mothers and bloated babies in Africa.

In my lifetime I have often confronted the problem, what burning issue of the day should I spend my energy on? The old Marxist solution was to find the link in the socio economic chain that would help to fundamentally change the society. Maybe that’s how I ended up in the Labor Movement? Now my empathy scale sends me all over the place. That could be precisely because we do not have a program to make any fundamental changes in the present system of Market Capitalism.

Could that be what is sending me into an empathy overload crisis? Or is it just Mcluhan’s Global Village?

Repeal The New Deal

2011-07-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

Destroy the Obama Presidency!

The more I try to understand what on earth the GOP is trying to do it becomes increasingly clear that they are out to destroy all the Safety Net programs built in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s. As I have indicated many times on this blog that the Tea Party -GOP Gang of 240 (members in the House) also have a very deep hatred of this President and will do absolutely anything to bring him down. That gives the hard right a chance for a double hit. This will be coming to a head very soon as the US approaches the deadline for paying its debts.

Look, in the 1930s there was a critical need to give working people a greater voice in their workplaces and break the grip of the Robber Barons. That gave us the Wagner Act. It assured the right of workers to join a union of their choice. That’s under attack in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana etc. Unemployment Insurance gave laid off workers a weekly stipend to help keep house and home together. Home Relief (Welfare) kept people from being pushed into the streets, (evictions) and made homeless. The Wages and Hours Act required employers to maintain 40 hour work weeks as well as paying overtime for off hours that were worked.

The absolute star in all this legislation was Social Security. Yes it is a tax that all employees pay into during their working life. That guarantees a lifetime income after retirement at age 65. It is not a government handout. The Government is simply the Policy Holder of the retirees money. Unfortunately the Government has periodically snuck into that fund to spend money on such unrelated stuff like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally there is Medicare. It was added to the Safety Net back in 1965. That was a way to help our citizens make it to retirement without suffering from all the ailments that flesh is heir to. It was a recognition that Health Care is part and parcel of a well lived life.

Okay, now all of these programs are under attack by the Gang of 240 in order to get the Country back to the “GOOD OLD DAYS OF THE ROBBER BARONS.” That was a time when big business totally dominated the economy and felt completely free to do whatever it took to increase the profit take with absolutely no Government interference. In place of the Robber Barons we have the Wall Street Derivative Crooks who just want to play dice with the lives of home buyers, credit card holders, stock purchasers etc. etc. Meet our new Robber Barons.

So the Gang of 240 lead by Mr. Boehner and MConnell meet with President Obama Mr. nice guy. He offers compromises that make my blood boil. They offer nothing, zippo, zero. Obama keeps hoping and dreaming because we are all supposed to be reasonable people.

Yupp, Mr. President that's how it was at Harvard, according to the Marquess of Queens-bury. In this Congress it’s according to the Bloods and the Crips. The President is going to be forced into a real tough stand in the next few days. Here’s what he needs to do to save the 1930s Safety Nets and keep us from defaulting into the abyss.

First and foremost he needs to talk directly with the American people about this coming economic breakdown. He needs to explain how we got here and what he is going to do to get us through it. He must make no deals that sells out all those hard won New Deal measures that we have fought for over the years. They are part of what has made our country the envy of the world. They are a sacred trust. Don’t sell us out. If you do Mr. President in the end you and us will pay a very dear price.

If the Gang of 204 and their leaders Boehner, McConnell just wont budge taking back the Bush tax breaks for the rich here’s what needs to be done. The President goes on prime time television to explain the following to the American people.

”This is your President. As you probably know I have spent the last month in an intense effort to reach an agreement on raising our debt limit. In past administrations this was an automatic congressional activity that you probably never even noticed. Suddenly in my administration the debt ceiling is being held hostage. This is a bald attempt by the GOP to dismantle the hard won gains of everything from Social Security to Medicare. I am not about to let that happen.

Under the powers granted the President by the Constitution I am declaring the Country in a State of Emergency. I am ordering the US Treasury department to increase our debt level so that the United States will not default on its debts as stated in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. These are the powers granted to the President. I would be derelict in my responsibility as the Commander in Chief if I did not carry out my oath of office to uphold the Constitution. We will pay our debts. Good night and may God Bless America.”

S'Mores Very First Taste

2011-07-15T22:09:00.000-07:00

Their yearly visit, son, granddaughter.
Our time is filled with love.
Allie a young lady searching
Fred a man of music both
Ocean swimmers from the midlands,
That is Madison of the recall wars.

Merrily, we cook talk eat talk and then?
Outa nowhere, on a moonlit deck
Moonbeams danced on the rippling water.
“Granpa, ever had S’Mores?” What’s that?
S’Mores brigade steps in for action.

Quick, to market we must go for S”mores!
Fred’s on the fire, Allie's marshmallow chef
Kate’s the graham cracker chocolate girl.
Here it comes “Grandpa get ready.”

A very first S’Mores bight. “Oh my God.”
A taste concocted in heaven. Definately
“Want Some mores S’Mores. By jove”
How’d this camper miss it? Got to know.

Ahaa who invented S’Mores?

1927 Gramps at 10 no S’more’s
Hurray for the Girl Scouts.
Finally something I could love
About those namby pamby goodie too shoes
In they’re cute little uniforms.
Invented those sin-full, sin-full

Sin-full Yeah give me more S’Mores.
Good luck in Wisconsin, ya win you get S’M---------.
Love youall Grandpa

(Don’t forget to bring S’M------)

Climate Change & the Immigrant Crisis

2011-07-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

As the planet rockets headlong into climate change the immigration issue will continue to heat up. We can see the beginnings in what is presently happening in Europe. I had hoped to have an old friend in London due this piece but alas he has become unavailable. Don’t know why? But as you get to 94 years strange things happen that you may not be able to account for. Anyway I will do me best with what I have left.

After WW2 there were severe worker shortages in many European countries. That resulted in what became known as The Guest Worker Programs. Germany a country of 81 million people there are now 3.5 million Turks. Early on it was assumed that these Guest workers would turn out to be exactly that “Guests.” A guest is supposed to be just that. Someone who comes for a time and then goes back home. As of now these guests have seemed to have overstayed their welcome and many of the locals want them out of there.

In 2010 Angela Merkel Prime Minister of Germany said, “Germany as a multi cultural nation has failed.” So what happened? As long as there was a low unemployment rate nobody seemed to care to much. Once the economy began to slow guess what? The Neo Nazi skinheads began to rag on the Turks, “who are taking our jobs.” Germany is simply an example of what is beginning to happen all over Europe. France 23% of French citizens are product of immigrant parents. A million West Africans came there through Spain and Italy. Now with a 9% unemployment rate the old fascists are accusing the immigrants of “stealing our jobs.”

In the UK. United Kingdom ie Britain there are whole towns that have become majority Muslim. That wonderful old image of “Merry Old England” is rapidly fading to what it is becoming. A very small little island with a critical human density problem. It turns out that England with it population of 54 million people is the second most densely populated country with 660 people per square mile. Germany 500, France 300 and USA has 69 people per sq. mile. (This is probably the heart of American exceptionalism.) Malta is number one in population density and the UK is number 2. France, Spain the Netherlands as I indicated are all not far behind. The key issue for all the European countries is how large a population can the land support?

This is the fundamental question asked by concerned environmentalist? With arable land, potable water, fisheries all being impacted by climate change how can the planet feed, clothe and shelter the rapidly growing population? The short answer is, it cannot. Hence the the immigration crisis that has already begun. The best we can now hope for is that some accommodations can be made as the Brits. are trying to do. The alternative is what the Danes have done and the French are probably not far behind in TRYING yes just TRYING to close their borders. Now about the US.

Of course if you remember our extremely low density figure you might conclude that we don’t have a problem. Wrong. We have a problem with demagogues who are increasingly signaling out Mexican immigrants as being responsible for our economic mess. In Arizona we have Militias who have taken over control of the borders.That's an old right wing strategy of blaming the victim for the crisis. That takes the heat off the real culprits the Wall Street Bonus Boys. They are back having the same old fun with derivatives that gave us the present economic meltdown. The real tragedy for the Planet is the failure of the political leaders to heed the warnings of the environmental scientists. I am sad to report, it includes our very own President.

It is going to take some kind of critical smash up somewhere to wake up the world to the grim reality the future is facing. To many people in lands that cannot support them. That's the coming crisis of immigrant hordes coming across borders in search of food shelter and clothing. Just as basic as that.

"Dee Women is Smarter:

2011-07-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

Old Calypso Song

First, a humble apology for my rush to judgment in the Strauss Khan affair. Certainly something happened at that fancy Hotel, Not exactly as she described it. Yes I was over influenced by looking through the prism of my “class struggle” glasses. The rich against the poor. I have been struggling with that defect all my adult life. Will keep working at it. On to the next blog.

This started out with observing the newly decorated male. I call it the “MOUTH CHIN BEARD” I first began to notice it on television especially amongst Pundits from consultants to college professors. Then movie stars, young business types especially those nerds in the cyberspace world. That sent me to Carlos the Tunisian who owns my local barbershop. He has a library of Men's Magazines.

In going through Complex, Details. Men's Fitness, ESPN. Esquire, GQ. and lots more. (Not including Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler as that’s a whole different porn category. Been around a long time.) I was struck with how similar this new breed of men's Magz are to the Women's Magazines that have been out there forever. What’s new in this men's world is the perfumes and the emphasis on style. Yes, men now need “accessories,” scarves, belts, rings, bracelets etc.

So, what’s going on here?
I need to digress for a moment to go back to May 1977 when the Harvard Business Review published an article I wrote called “Two Women Three Men on a Raft.” It was about an Outward Bound trip down the Rogue River. Based on my experience on the raft I suggested that men were not about to rollover and let women assume the males traditional positions of power. That article became a Print Out Best Seller. As a result it was republished in 1994 17 years later. At which time I agreed that women had made progress in achieving positions of power in the business world but were still far from the men.

There is now a whole new variable that has come into play that has changed the dynamic. That variable, is the elimination of much of our basic manufacturing industry. This is the world that was dominated by men from the bottom up. It was also the world of the traditional husband Breadwinner. He arrived home for dinner as a hero who was working in the mine, factory or mill to guarantee his families future. “See the USA in a Chevrolet” raise the kids send them to college. That was the creation of what we ended up calling our “great middle class.”

In this new Service Economy women are rapidly moving into key positions. Brawn is no longer a factor as it was in traditional manufacture. In this new economy it is strictly nerdy brain work. Hence my Calypso song. When I was growing up we had two Mens Magz. Popular Mechanic, Popular Science. In those Magz. a real man had big biceps that let him kick ass of any guy who tried to fuss with his gal. They also taught how to make and fix things. Out of Popular Mechanics I made a boat. To big to get out the door, Uncle Zegfried, was kind enough to take the door jam out. We took it to City Island. Indeed it floated.

In February of 2010 I wrote a blog about women being a majority of the workforce and its implications. Well I now believe the new male is part of this evolution. With women assuming the role of breadwinner where does that leave little ole me? It’s in this new Labor Market where both spouses are working women ofttimes making more than the guys. So, what we may have going on here is role reversal. Now I readily admit that guys really can’t compete with the excess of cleavage style now so prevalent in our culture. Though some of those Men's Magz. had some pretty big genital lumps. No, that will never compete with cleavage.

Ahaa, I said to myself that's what all that hair around the mouth and chin is about. Men making a fashion statement, “me still he man even though I don’t lift nothin or make nothin like men used to.” The male is becoming the Peacock, pardon the pun. Just struttin around lookin and smelling pretty and sure hope that very successful women in banking notices him. And yes,” look at the trouble I’ve gone through with this fancy mouth beard and even some real narrow sideburns.” As Gilda Radner use to say, “ain’t I cute.”

Catastrophism vs. Linear Thinking

2011-06-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

Or how I think we will survive.

Of late I have been busy trying to understand all the dire and unholy predictions of the coming catastrophes. My friend HJ as been supplying me with dozens of articles from the Internet about the coming socio economic cataclysm. I have also been reading “future books like,” “The Next Decade” George Friedman

The oil shortage. We have already passed peak production. Climate change, rising oceans already flooding low lying areas. As clean drinking water disappears we can look forward to the “water wars.” Increased storm activity ie. This year the US broke records for severe Tornadoes. Increased population plus increasing food shortages makes for social unrest. Food shortages will send people on the move to advanced industrial countries. Border wars, already started by Denmark closing its borders. Same is happening here. All of this will increase with time. Why? Primarily because we are running out of cheap energy producing fuel.

There is a paradox here. On the one hand there is a prediction of a variety of shortages that will only continue to intensify with increased population and exhausted commodities that the people are totally dependent on. I have no problem with the 15 papers I have read and the Friedman book, except for one thing. They are all the result of Linear Thinking. Linear thinking sees things happening in rigid straight lines. Sort of from point A to point B. Yes,there is another way to think about what lies ahead.

It is called catastrophism, (Primarily concerned with geological changes. I am applying it far more broadly.) I arrived here a long time ago through my very own life experiences. First came my mothers sudden death at age 7-8. Then cam the Great Depression of 1929. World War 2, Bombings, Concentration Camps, Holocaust etc etc. Yet through all this people some how or other survived. It lead to what I call the Fish and the Tern phenomena. A swarm of Fish swimming along minding there own business. Out of the sky comes the diving Turn and goodbye a fish. Just one not all, That’s how I see our lives. More important I live my life with that metaphor very much present in my unconscious.

This brings me to the 15 papers and the Friedman book. All of these pieces suffer from linear thinking. They see the world and its resources moving in a clearly predictable direction, straight ahead. Catastrophic thinking does not. This is not to say that the problems outlined in these documents are not real or untrue. No, not at all, What I believe is that crisis, or catastrophes can change our best laid predictions. ie, the Tsunamis and the Japanese nuclear crisis, the Iceland Volcano, 1883 Krakatoa exploded, (maybe that’s how the world was darkened for 40 days and nights. Thank you Emanuel Velikovsky.)

There is also a whole world of ways that individuals have adapted to changing circumstance. Already mentioned. moving away from unlivable places, planting Victory Gardens, de salinating water by filtration, riding bicycles, wind & solar generating,etc. etc.

That’s an important unpredictable for what is up ahead for future generations. They will be faced with some really tough issues. Look, it’s not to say that my generation had some tough ones as well and guess what? Some of us are still here listening to the birds singing and admiring the sunsets over the Bay. We are blessed with a will to live. Yes it may be tougher at times but we will survive. What about, “The pursuit of happiness” Ahaa, that’s a question for another blog.

EXTREE EXTRTEE

2011-06-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

READ ALL ABOUT IT

AARP CAVES ON SOCIAL SECURITY !!

When I was growing up that's what the Newsboys would be yelling. That meant an EXTRA, Edition of the paper was out. That’s how we got the Hot News of the day. Yes and that's what happened a few days ago.. These days I find myself getting a saw neck from shaking my head in disbelief. These people don’t know diddly about negotiating? You don’t open with with a give back. Pulease.

In my many years negotiating union contracts I knew, and the membership knew when we were in a tough spot. Like the Companies business was way off. BUT! We didn’t start with a give back. That just demonstrates your total and complete WEAKNESS ! Stupid. You may have to do that but don’t open with it.

Yes this stupidor is John Rother V.P. for Policy at AARP. (I really tried to find out his pay at AARP. But alas i could not find it.) Talk about your head up you know were. Looking at his picture I guess he’s about 70 something. I betcha his salary at AARP to be in the 6 figures. Obviously he isn’t concerned about retirement income.

But here’s what pisses me off. He is proposing Soc. Sec. cuts in 2063. That's when the present Trust fund runs out. WHO THE HELL DOES HE THINK HE IS ? BARGAINING AWAY THE RIGHTS OF THE PRESENT 40 YEAR OLDS????. Besides if the US Government gave back the money it stole from the SS Fund we would be okay well until 2050.

I am sure there are very capable 40 year olds out there who should be doing the bargaining for THEIR FUTURE. I am sure there will be a “burning of AARP Membership cards.” Wrong strategy. Better we show up at the National Convention and raise hell inside the organization. Leaving just leaves the field to the knuckle heads who don’t have a clue of what it means to live on Social Security.

PS I am already calming down because it’s hot as hell already and summer has just arrived.

Left Strategy Highly Questionable

2011-06-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

On the Internet recently I have run across a rising tide of criticisms from the left aimed at President Obama. Yes, they are frustrated with him, as I am over his lack of fight on very fundamental issues. I can go back to the single payor issue on health care through his collapse on the budget deal with the GOP leaving the tax cut for the rich etc. I am very fearful of the kind of deal he might cut with the GOP to raise the debt ceiling. He has absolutely no feel for the economic beating the American worker has been taking for the last two decades. Obama got to where he is by being nice to white men. That's what he knows how to do.

As I have written before Obama, is not a fighter. There is nothing in his life experience that would have taught him that a good hard tough fight is how we bring about change. Remember how he promised “change”? His major strategy was seducing the GOP to learn the love of compromise. I wont dwell on it. You have watched with horror as he got snookered on one issue after the other trying to just be nice to his adversaries. Look, the GOP conservatives just hate that Black man in the White House. If tomorrow he walked on water it would make absolutely no difference.

Perusing through the left oriented Web-sights I noticed a rising tide of, “we gotta do something to move this President so he starts to put up a real fight for workers rights.” One proposal was to run a candidate against him in a primary fight. If that didn’t move him then run a third party candidate. Ralph Nader was mentioned but I think he’s to old and tired. This sort of thinking reveals the frustration that Progressives have with Obama. I understand it.

However in face of the present relationship of political forces I do not think it serves a useful purpose. There is a critical danger that a strategy of attacking Obama from the left simply lends support to his extreme enemies on the right. Yes the ones who simply hate him no matter what, I hear some of my best friends saying. “So what are we suppose to do? Just sit here and watch as the right wing destroys all that we built in the last 100 years?”

I do not underestimate the dilemma. Permit me to use my long life experience to again go back to similar situation. First we need to agree that the threat from the far right could have very serious consequences for this country of ours. Back in the 1930s we had similar far right schemes that would dump the cost of the depression on the backs of the working class. We didn’t think that FDR was really the best fighter against the crazies on the right. (Our fear of fascism was critical to our thinking.)

We don’t characterize our present right wing extremists as fascist. A close analysis of what some of them are saying gets you very close. This is precisely why we need to be careful that our frustration with Obama doesn’t help elect Michelle Bachman. Yes I seriously believe that’s a possibility.

So what’s to do? The best example comes from Madison Wisconsin. Organized resistance against the attacks on the working people of America is the most effective way to pump some fighting spirit into our representatives in Washington as well as the State Capitals across the country. That’s what the Wisconsin workers are doing. Moaning about what Obama is doing wrong will be counterproductive. We need to demonstrate with action what are the right things to do.

Back in the 1930s we had intensive arguments about “the lessor evil problem.” Okay, I can deal with that. Is Obama a lessor evil than Bachman, Pawlenty, Romney etc. Yes of course he is. Is he an ideal candidate for the Progressive cause? No. BUT, He’s the best we got so we had better run with him or we could be very very sorry with the alternative. Comes November 2012 I don’t want to be writing a piece I have had to do a few times before about why progressives should not leave the country because of McCarthy, Nixon and yes, Reagan.

"Companies Spend on Equipment Not Workers"

2011-06-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

Front page headline New York Times June 10 2011

Kate and I have had many conversations about how employers following large scale layoffs always come out of rehiring less employees. Kate was Human Resources VP. in charge of hiring and firing. We agreed that, once business begins to pick up companies figure out how to get the same level of production prior to the layoffs. The Times piece says, “Business would rather buy new machinery. That’s cheaper than increasing the payroll.” I might add that they have a strong underneath pull not to help this President no matter what.

All of this reminds me of a blog I posted back on March 10th 2010. Oh! man a sure sign of aging is when you go back a year to quote yourself. Not me but, an old friend, a Noble Economics Laureate, Wassily Leontief.

He had received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1972. His work was the development of an input output analysis that became an essential tool for major manufacturing companies. He was frequently consulted as the job market changed regarding the kinds of jobs that would be available It was in that capacity that we became friends.

In Washington he would often participate in various meetings regarding the training and job placement for unemployed youth. At these meetings he was always very professional and careful in his labor force projections. Early on he predicted the demand for computer literate people to meet the demand of that fast growing industry.
He also acknowledged the growth of the service sector and its advantages for women.

It was in the more informal New York City social settings that he would express a very different kind of concern. It turned out that a mutual friend lived in a loft in SOHO. Meeting Wassilly there I told him that these lofts, that were now home to artists, used to be the workplaces of many of the members of my Local of the Machinists Union. He was very interested in the kind of manufacturing that was done here. “It was mostly small parts manufacturing as well as specialized plants for making all kinds of fastenings, screws, nails, washers, lamp parts etc.” Wassily wanted to know what happened to them? “ I told him that most of that stuff was automated. I had the pleasure of participating in eliminating dumb jobs like hand feeding punch presses. “Lots of fingers were lost in those operations.” “But you were eliminating jobs by doing that. Weren’t you?" he asked? “Yes of course” I replied. “But nobody should have to do that hazardous dumb work when we can automate it.” That really caught his attention.

Wassily went into a lengthy explanation of what he thought was ahead for the job market. Yes there would be a big increase in the computer sector as well as the service sector, including health care. “Machinist” that’s what he called me, “as you and I and all those baby boomers age we are going to need a lot of care. That will create Health Care as the number one employer in the country.” "Okay, I understood that but what about all those members of my old Machinists Union? What about jobs for them?"

He paused for a long time, as if he did not want to give me the bad news to come. He spoke slowly as if measuring his word very carefully. “You see, Machinist, we are now in the second part of the Industrial Revolution. First part created jobs, second part is eliminating them through automation and now computer controlled manufacturing.” “I have experienced that when I was still working in a plant.” “Yes” he said “But the pace is now picking up and we are looking toward a time when we simply wont need all those workers of yours anymore. What we don’t automate we will export to the new rising economies in the third world countries.”

“Wassily” I said. "What are we to do?” “He smiled laughed a little said, “Your job Robert Machinist is to find things to do for all those workers we don’t need in the factories,” “Are you serious. I asked, “or are we drinking to much at this party?” He looked around at all the artists gathered, shook his head said, “These folks are all just trying to get a piece of work accepted into the Modern cause the curator is here. Maybe some of your old Union members could take up painting? Anyhow that’s your job now? Good luck,” As his wife came to drag him away from all that, “shop talk.”

I have often thought about that conversation with Leontief back in the 80s. With the unemployment rate sticking around the ten percent and a large number of workers not seeking jobs anymore.That adds up to something around 20 to 25 million out of work. Not to promising future if Wassily’s prediction is finally coming true? What do you think?

Romancing Utopia

2011-06-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

Tahrir Square Cairo 2011 upraised fist.
A new day JUSTICE, FREEDOM. EQUALITY!
Tahrir boom dee yay Tahrir boom dee yay.
May a new day dawn in Cairo today?

Utopia a place desired and wished for.
Adam & Eve, New Harmony, Brook Farm
Dream, dream DREAM.

1917 Russian wish a utopia born?
Strawberries & cream for all.
Frostbite from Siberia shatters the dream.
Utopia on a slow fade to Armageddon.

“Ideology & Utopia” Carl Mannheim 1936
“Social movements must have a Utopian vision.”

Oh, did we ever!

The vision never dies. It just goes on hold.
Is Utopia like an orgasm?
Chillingly glorious but--- short.

1938 Union Square “Hold the Fort
For we are coming” down Fifth Avenue.
Dawn of the new day. Karl Marx said it,
“From each according to ability
To each according to need.”
It talked, Utopia, Was it?

Socialist picnics were all love and skittles.
Beer, bratwurst, frankfurter and honey-cakes.
It was the “Long long dream
of a world that’s pure and free.
When the world is owned by labor.
In the commonwealth of toil that is to be.”

We used the word free so much
Even love was to be.

Little Utopian summer camps practiced it.
Fresh air, clean water plenty to eat
For a fleeting moment or two.
Singing made it feel “WE MADE IT.”

I loved those little utopias. “IS THAT ALL THERE IS?”

The Holocaust births a Jewish Utopia, Israel.
Yet, another dream?
Drowned in a sea of Palestinian upraised fists?
Marching for their dream-------of--------yes!

Here we are. The Arab Spring, Dreams of utopia.
This one is democracy.
Awakened by tanks in the street
Screams from the prison walls.

Do we ever stop dreaming of utopia?
Webster say’s it’s “No Place,”

Memorial Day 2011

2011-05-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

I am trying to remember my very first Memorial Day. I believe it was somewheres around 1925-6. Papa would get me dressed in my best “gawn to meeting clothes.” We’d catch the subway at 180th street in the Bronx for a trip down to Fifth Ave. to watch the Memorial Day Parade.

Papa liked parades. We were often on Fifth Avenue or Broadway watching a parade with papa’s running comment. (Wow! do I ever Remember that Lindbergh ticker tape.) On a number of those Memorial Day trips I actually saw the last Civil War Veterans being pushed in wheelchairs at the head of the parade. Papa said that war was between Feudalism with its Slavery and Capitalism with its wage slaves. “That Southern system was far to expensive for the capitalists. Why feed and house workers when you can just lay them off and not worry about them,” “Papa I said, would we be better off if we were slaves?” “Well that depends” he said. “ If we were lucky enough to have a nice owner maybe? But generally speaking no because we wouldn’t be free to take the subway and go to Coney Island or wherever we wanted.”

What I always found most heartbreaking in these parades were the wounded vets. Most without one limb or another. sometimes both. Yes, people watching would always give them a lot of applause. Papa would say, “look carefully that’s the price of war. The people who make them aren’t here. They are sitting in their fancy clubs up the street having a whiskey and a cigar. They just make the wars because it is a very profitable business. They don’t come near the front lines of battle.” Papa never missed an opportunity to educate about the Ruling Class.

So, here we are in 2011. I did see a bit of our local Memorial Day Parade. There were still quiet a few WW2 veterans but like the Civil War Vets back then their ranks are rapidly declining. The Vets I am very sad about are the ones who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. In some ways they are like the Vietnam veterans. With a very heavy heart I remember watching that belated parade for those very sad men who finally got their ticker tape shower up Broadway. Watching that sad,sad march I just knew in my guts it was a terrible waste and even more sadly they knew it too. Is the high rate of suicides amongst returning veterans just a symptom of the malaise that they suffer?

Because of improved armor and medical help in the field we have an increased number of wounded. 42,000 thousand from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many double and triple limb amputees. As the Fire Engines go by on Main Street’s part of our Memorial Day Parade I close me eyes and see these thousands of wounded men and women vets passing. They are asking why are we like this? What were we fighting for? I feel this great sense of shame for I have no answer.

Strauss Kahn Circus Coming Soon

2011-05-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

I am conflicted about writing this as Mr. Kahn has not been convicted. But I gather a dirty licentious, Clinton like trial is on its way. Oh the Tabloids will love it, SEX,SEX, SEX. rated 3 XXX with a Frenchmen and Black maid from Africa main characters. Whoopee.

A little Background

In 1975 I wrote a piece for the Harvard Business Review “Three Men Two Women on a Raft” It was an honest revelation of what had occurred on an Outward Bound Trip down the Rogue River in Oregon. Going down the river each person on the raft took turns as the helms-person in charge. In the article I wrote, the men on the raft did everything they could to undermine the women. The result was an overturned raft with all of us in the ice cold water. The women then declined the helms position. The men said “oh that’s okay we’ll take over.” At the time I suggested that was pretty much the way in the corporate world. That Harvard Review piece became a “best seller Reprint.” It was republished 25 years later. Mostly to see how things had changed. I think they have. (Women may find themselves in that same “predator” position as the men. Yupp I experienced that.)

That article gave me a kind of legitimacy among women who at the time were struggling with the issues of fairness and equality in the workplace. And that’s how I became the recipient of stories of sexual harassment at work. At the time I was at the Ford Foundation. Many young women researchers one way or another made their way to my office at the Foundation to relate horror stories of what went on at their workplaces. I have chosen a few examples. However I do have to go much further back into the 1930s for my earliest lesson in sexual exploitation.

It came with Edith my first wife. She was a dancer who appeared in a WPA show called “From Gospel to Swing.” In the reviews she was singled out as a “dancer to watch.” Look, she was really good. She danced with an infectious joy and the audience loved her. Some time later she was auditioning for Broadway, Hollywood shows. God, I remember it so well. She was up early and bright for an interview with an agent in the old Brill building on Broadway in the 50s. Alas, she comes home practically in tears. First she doesn’t want to talk about. Slowly she lets on to what happened. The Agent tells her to take off her clothes. She say’s “for what?” He tells her she has to understand, if she really wants to make her way in the Show-biz world she’s gonna have to “put out.” Yes he says “that’s how it is and if you can’t do it go find some other way to make a living.” She did.

It’s decades later. A young women was doing a survey of ways to create job opportunities for Black youth. She goes to see, (I am not going to mention names.) an important leader in the field. After a few minutes of questioning he asks her, “How she feels about sex? She suggests it’s is none of his business. In a short time he is up and suggesting they go in the closet for “some fun.” She picks herself up and is out the door. Asks me ”what is wrong with these men?

A friend in Washington tells me of a staff opening in a NYC Congresmen’s office. Oh, yes of course I know a young women, Brandies graduate good research background. She goes for the interview. Gets passed a couple of other staff people is ushered into the Congresmen’s office. He shuts the door. Spends his time looking at her Legs asking questions about her experience and then out of the blue asks,”do you enjoy fucking.” It’s not that she never heard the word before. But she really believed she was going to work at a level beyond that.

In my years in the Lindsay Administration I would hear a constant chatter about women being harassed at the top level of City Agencies. I knew some of the men involved. I began to wonder what was about them that made them think that the position they were in entitled them to take any women who happened to be in proximity for their immediate sexual gratification?

For at least some men there seems to be a confusion with the power inherent in their job position and what that entitles them to. Is it a purely neurotic need to transfer that power to sexual satisfaction to make it complete? I can’t answer that. What I do know is that women should not have to put up with the distorted maniacal view that power entitles men to harass women to satisfy a sexual urge. Unfortunately there are just to many men who need to learn that.

As women come into the positions of power will they have to learn that as well? It is also why I am not surprised by the Strauss Kahn revelations. Been going on forever. Mostly the victims shut-up. This one didn’t. How many women out there could add to these stories? And why don’t they? Anyway here comes the 3XXX Circus. Do you think our suppressed sexual fantasies arrived on the Mayflower? 

Anniversary! Where's the Waltz?

2011-05-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

It turns out that our Wedding Anniversary, Kate and I that is, falls on Mothers Day. That’s handy as we are both AARP in the key forgetting syndrome. Not a good choice but we ended up watching Derrick Jacoby play King Lear in downtown Brooklyn at the Harvey Theatre. Lear is hardly a celebrates play to see on a wedding anniversary. Jacoby is a wonderful Lear. The whole cast did their work well.

The play ended with a audience that just jumped out of their seats and this writer screaming Bravo, bravo bravo. I just love theater people who can make me do that. As we walked a few blocks to the restaurant for dinner a severe pain was developing in my right foot, I do suffer from Neuropathy but somehow this was different. It was becoming increasingly severe.

I began to think, this pain is a result of this play. Lear is a strange story of a group of people all living without love. Lear, the needy father, is distributing his land wealth to his daughters. Reagan, Goneril and Cordelia. But he does it based and how they are able to describe their love of him. Regan and Goneril get their share of land holdings. Cordelia who wanted her fathers love gets nothing. As Lear says, “nothing comes from nothing.” She gets nothing while her evil sisters get it all.

With the landholdings comes power. Regan and Goneril have men besides them who also have one interest, power. Once Lear has given up his throne his two daughters turn him to dust. Without his Kingly powers he goes mad. His friend Gloucester has his eyes torn out by a betraying son. There simply are no redeeming characters in this play. This was in 1605. Do we have similar contemporaries?

As we walked and my pain kept increasing I suddenly;y became aware that my oncoming pain was not neuropathy but Gout. The kings disease. Now that was a perfect fit for this Shakespeare play. I would add, there simply are no heroes in this drama. All the players except Cordelia seem to be devoid of love especially Lear. Yes he wants his daughters to love him but he doesn’t seem to know enough of himself to love anyone. We meet him in his almost childlike old age when his life is fading. It is at his end that he longs for some love from his daughters and loyalty from friends. He gets neither and sinks into an abyss of loss and death.

Upon Cordelia’s murder Lear leaves out a spine tingling scream. I first heard that from Laurence Olivier who described it as hearing trapped animals screaming in a near bye woods. For me that outcry has always touched me as our weeping for the the human condition. The VietNam child screaming with agent orange covering her body. The Kent State students eyes on the Soldiers gun. Slavery, the Holocaust, the Gulag, on and on..
When Lear says, ”When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools.” Doesn’t that say it all? How did Shakespeare come to know so much about the human condition?

“Kate, how the hell did I ever pick this play for an Anniversary Waltz? No love, no caring, no loyalty, no reassurance. That's not our life. Yes we live on this stage of great fools. We try real hard to carve out our little space of love and caring. It’s not easy. Like so many others, we just keep trying.

PS. Unlike Shakespeare’s Kings, thanks to modern medicine my gout is under control. Next year we will seek out a place to waltz around or go see Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”

Tornadoes as Portent of Things to Come!

2011-05-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am aware of the fact that we have had other periods of severe Tornados. I remember 1974 as I had occasion to travel to Xenia Ohio and saw first hand the devastation. It was an incredible sight almost like a flood I witnessed in upstate NY back in the 1940s.

Since the the impact of Global Warming, now called Climate change, we have been trying to convince the world that we need to take action now to at least slow down the dumping of millions of pounds of fossil fuel gas into the atmosphere.

I certainly don’t want to get into an argument of whether or not this has happened before. In that case we are just experiencing another period of extreme weather that has happened repeatedly over time. No I don’t want to go there because that’s a dead end. If I learned anything in science 101 is if you end up in dead ends the question has not been framed properly. Science abhors dead ends.

What I would suggest is we look at these phenomena and ask the question. If it turns out that this is a result of Climate Change is this the kind of catastrophes that will become regular occurrences? Here is where I simply don’t understand the deniers. Okay I'll grant you it’s an iffy question. Problem is if we continue to simply deny it and in fact it is part of climate Change it will be far to late to do anything about it. That’s the tragedy i see unfolding right before my tired old 94 year eyes.

I remember so well my blue water sailing days. (Oh how I miss em.) On occasions I was caught in unexpected thunderstorms. It brought me very close to losing the boat. As well endangering the lives of sailing friends. As a result I became very cautious before setting out to make sure I wasn’t just “daring the elements.” Yes, I had sailing friends who called me “chicken.” That was all right as I said “I’d rather be clucking than in the soup.”

IF, the predictions regarding the impact of Climate Change, made by the worlds best scientific minds just happens to turnout to be right then what? Then the tornadoes, floods, drought, fires across Texas, rising sea levels and severe food shortages will create a hell on earth. This is why I care a lot less about the National Debt than I do about the Climate Change catastrophe. The former can be fixed. In the case of the latter it will be a phenomena of to little and far to late. The consequences absolutely unimaginable. That is the kind of future I do not want to leave to my grandchildren.

How do we wake up folks to realize we are on a very deadly path?

May Day 1930

2011-04-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

“May Day” Cannot resist my deep memories of that very proud day. Here it is again.

This is not an emergency call.
It was the night before May 1st 1930
All through the house preparation was made,
No Maypole dancing for this crowd.

A serious parade would be underway.
“Papa “who are we going to march with?”
“We’ll see we’ll see. Now for the posters.”

Free Mooney Billings, and the Scottsboro Boys.
Papa “are we gonna sing Hold the Fort?”

I lived in house of rebels. There were,
Socialists, communists, freethinkers, anarchists,
Wobblies, atheists, modern dancers, single taxers
and lots more. All preparing to march.

This was our workers holiday.
Long ago it started the eight hour day fight.
This 1930s day I stayed out of school.
Note said, “My son Robert was marching
In the workers holiday.” Teacher, “what is that?”
“This day we celebrate workers who built this land.”

Papa are we gonna sing Hold The Fort?”
There I was with my Papa on Fifth Avenue at 50th Street
Amongst the bricklayer and mason unions.

Girls were with the modern dancers.
Maybe the Garment Workers brigade?

Up came the signs. “Jobs for all” “ Old age, Social security.”
Free Mooney Billings and Scottsboro Boys.”

We started our march down Fifth Avenue
All the way to Union Square. Singing
Hold The fort for we are coming
Union men be strong. Side by side
We battle onward victory be won.

With upraised fists flags flying
Marched before the reviewing stand
Papa said we were 250-300 thousand strong.
I knew we had to win all our demands.
“Hold the Fort” as we were there.”

Holding my Papas big hand.
The proudest thirteen year old in the land.

Blue Collar Philosophy 101

2011-04-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

In my many years of living and working with Blue Collar people I have enjoyed listening to their most varied conversations. I thought from time to time I would share some of their wisdom with you.

In order of frequency subject manner can range from sex, sports, work issues, politics, wars, sex, and sports. I am working on yet another furniture project. A library stand based on a Jefferson Monticello piece. When I pulled up to the huge lumber warehouse to pick up some Pennsylvania Cherry wood the place seemed empty. Upon walking through this huge cavernous building I realized it must be lunchtime and found the five Guys gathered around a table in a small back room.

“Hope I’m not interfering with anything important” “Hell no Robert come on in and help us figure out what’s going on with this guy Spitzer.” It turned out the discussion was about the possibility that Elliot Spitzer could run for Mayor of New York. He had been the NY State Attorney General until he was forced to resign in disgrace from a scandal with a high priced prostitute. Or as one of the Guys pointed out there is a price breaking point as it goes from the Whore to Prostitute to Call Girl. “You see Robert its all in the price.” I asked, “So what’s the issue you Guys are trying to resolve?”

There was a short conversation and then, “What makes a smart guy like Spitzer ruin a promising career just to get laid?” Suddenly everyone was talking at once. “He was hard up.” “His wife is a cold bitch.” “He needs to pay for it cause it makes him feel powerful.” “Yea and with no entanglements. Like he really loved the girl and couldn’t help himself.” “Power, it’s all about power. The Guy just wants to show how much dough he’s got and how he can buy anything he wants.”

Herb, who seemed the most thoughtful amongst the group, began quietly. “Look, you’re out working all day. You’re driving home you begin daydreaming about what you’d like to do when you walk in the door of your house. The stick in my pants already gets the idea and starts swelling. I come in the door. There’s my wife sweating in a dirty apron and starts complaining, “you think I can make it on the money you’re giving me to run this place you’re nuts” “The stick down below shrivels and dies.” Now remember Spitzer’s wife is a lawyer. She isn’t busy with laundry she’s busy with cases she needs to try tomorrow. She hasn’t time for Spitzer’s fantasy of some bikini cute in amongst the Caribbean Palms.

Jimmy jumps in, “I get it so he goes to see his call Girl and they ain’t got nothing on their minds but you know what.” Yupp Herb says and that’s the way it is with that girl in the office. Same thing. They look at each other and feel hot to trot go off to a motel great sex. Think they rediscovered heaven on earth. No laundry, no food shopping, no dinner to make, no kids to pick up from school, no kids to take to soccer, the ballet, music lessons, play dates, on and on” Just a role in the hay a nice dinner and go home make believe nothing happened. “Yea and don’t forget he tells the wife, “Honey I had a tough day at the office and with all that overtime I need to just rest.” Man the whole group is laughing and they seem to agree except Herb is back.

“Yeah that’s all true but let me give you the other side of the same story. It’s a nice sunny day and the wife is at home. She’s just a little dressed singing, prancing around no bra just a little blouse and shorts. She looks out the window and there’s the handsome young gardener bare chested with all those rippling muscles. Her lower department is getting damp. No problems just an invitation to come on in for a glass of iced tea. He doesn’t ask a question. He is in the house and they’re tearing each other’s clothes off and having a great role on the hay. No fuss no muss no kids no cooking just the two of them having a little fun in heaven. Okay Guys that’s how it is for both men and women. Women have the exact same problems as the men. They too find creative ways to solve them. Humans have been doing it forever and it will continue forever”

As I Left with my Pennsylvania Cherry I thanked them for the Blue Collar Philosophy 101 on sexual dalliance and promised to be back for some more good wood.

Myzwell Getusedtoit

2011-04-18T14:01:00.000-07:00

Bronx Talk 1930s

We are in for a season or a year and a half of continuous campaigning for two basically different visions of what our country should look like. Thats what Myzwell ----------------is about. This was how we lived back in the 1930s between the New Deal vision and at the time the right wing “Fascist” vision of our future. It became a permanent struggle between two different views of our future.

Fascism was riding high in Europe. Mussolini and Hitler were solving the financial crisis of capitalism by instituting a State ruled by the military and the newly instituted Fascist Black and Brown shirts. Keep in mind that the Soviet Union was sitting there as an alternative to capitalism. That of course sharpened the struggle. At that time the organized left considered the threat of fascism the greatest danger. Hence a strategy of the United Front Against Fascism.

In the US that meant fully supporting F.D.R. against his right wing opponents some at least had open fascist support. In the 1936 Roosevelt reelection campaign the left vigorously supported the reelection of FDR. Did we think that he was the ideal candidate to ward off the attacks from the far right? Probably not. The issue came down to, how do we stop the far right march to fascism. Lessons for today.

Solving the problems of capitalism on the backs of the poor and the working class. Congressmen Ryan’s GOP plan for the future does precisely that. Hell, he doesn’t even want those millionaire tax cuts to die. These GOP folks do not believe the Government should have any role whatsoever in helping its citizens to lead healthy secure lives. They believe it should be like the old Wild West everybody on their own and with a gun, even in the classroom. It has its resemblance to the 30s by putting the cost of the economic crisis on the backs of those least able to afford it. While the rich get richer all the time.

What’s the lesson here? We need to build all possible support for Obama. Is he the perfect candidate for the fight ahead? Maybe not. We could probably sit around the bar over a few beers and create a dream candidate. FDR for empathy. Teddy Roosevelt for fighting spirit. John F. Kennedy for charm. Abe Lincoln for honesty. Eisenhower to bring along the military. Role em into one and ipso facto you got the perfect candidate. In the meantime back to reality.

What I have observed about Obama is that he does respond when his supporters yell. “for Gods Sake Obama get in there and start fighting” he responds. For instance, I think the militant actions in Madison Wisconsin has strengthened the Presidents resolve. (Pssst, That’s what moved FDR into action.) The Labor movement raising hell about who was going to pay for getting us out of the mess that the banks got us into in the first place. They are getting big fat bonuses while the the unemployed are getting the shaft.

Madison Wisconsin has shown us what needs to be done. The more we are able to do that the easier it will be to support our President. As they said in the Bronx “Myzwellget usedtoit”. We are looking at 18 months of sheeeet in the fan. I do promise to write about other stuff at least once in a while. Just to make sure that everyday life can go on. At least mine.

Soren The Decade of 2000

2011-04-09T14:02:00.000-07:00

This is another in a series of “Decades” to my Great grandson Soren.

Soren The Decade of 2000
Twenty First Century begins.
Sodom and Gomorra? Genesis 13.10 Worst than 20th? Could be?

Presidential election 2002 people voted Al Gore
Republican Court, Supreme, “George Bush President.”

9/11 Tallest skyscrapers in New York
New York City building code ignored.
Become terrorist rubble in a few hours.
Top floor fell all 80 down as dominoes.
3000 innocents die. You wonder? Why?
Islamic jobless men bored, believe Ben Laden
“Western peoples satanic enemies.”

Cowboy Texas Bush,” Iraq has Nuke Bombs, And oil.”
“Get em dead or alive.” Ben Laden that is.
Dream America, “You bet we can have it all”

Heah this could be a nightmare? Iraqi ruler Hussein
“Tried to kill my father” Texas Bush.
To war. Like in the movies? No,George real bullets.
Kills 4400 US soldiers, 33,000 hurting wounded.
Cost us--- USA 3 Trillion Dollars, You guessed it
We’re going broke, more to come.

Yupp, Hurricane Katrina wiped out New Orleans.
Old levees didn’t hold. 4000 dead 94,000 homeless.
President George wonders “What to do?”

Heah take Air Force 1 view wreckage. That's nice.
Asian Tsunami wipes out coastal villages 200,000 die.
Gonna skip the school shootings. (Trying to lighten up a bit.)

Comes 2008, the economy goes into toilet.
Worst economic bust since Grandpa was 12.
Soren, hang in there.
Grandpa still looking for good stuff

But housing bubble keeps bubbling.
Good ordinary people dreaming,
Conned into houses can’t pay for.
Meantime.
Wall Street bonuses in the billions!
Bubble bust 4 million homes foreclosed.
Good bye American dream.

Near decade end a miracle.
First Black elected President in this dear land.
People expect miracles. Maybe cause he’s Black?.
There ain’t none.

Internet substitute for eyeball or handshake.
We mexteck instead. Oh, you know about that!
Globalization, Good old Imperialism in new garb.

GrandpaBob worries, the Red Wing Blackbirds
Have not come back. (Industrial Revolution disease.)
Our lovely sick planet. I’m sorry for the big party.
We used up to much of the earths goodies.
Via “We can have it all, We can have it all”
Left our pollution in the air. our garbage in the sea

Your generation wondering, What we’re they thinking?
Some of us tried. Could not stop the race to “We can have it all.”
Sorry about that. Okay, I’m at the bottom of the barrel here.
How about that Rocking Horse I made for you?
Will I be here for another decade? We’ll see?
Love Great Grandpa Bob

Cobra Snake Odyssey !

2011-04-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

This dammed computer that made me do this blog over because I lost the first try somewhere in that dark dungeon inside its guts. Why am I so sure it was better than this one? (This computer is the greatest love hate relationship of my long life.)

Yes, they did find the Egyptian Cobra snake inside its home at the Bronx Zoo coiled up in a corner under some pipes. The Cobra is a good metaphor of what’s going on in Egypt. Mubarak may be gone but the Generals who kept him in power are still running the country. Like the good citizens of Egypt the snake was just looking for her freedom. Alas it didn’t happen. As it is not happening in Egypt. Of course this brings me to my story.

As some of my regular readers know I grew up a short distance from the Bronx Zoo. At 181st Street entrance there is a lake created by a dam on the Bronx River. It was built by the Lorllard Tobacco Company back in the late 1890s as a water powered Snuff Mill. The Boathouse at the river rents out row boats.

In my 12-13 years after school and on weekends I would run down to the Boathouse and see if I could earn a quarter an hour rowing people around the river. There were lots of “row boys” competing for the quarter. Remember this was the Great Depression. We needed to pass a rowing test in order to be “certified.” That was done by an ex boxer who ran the Boathouse and was simply known as Boss.

It was on a beautiful sun drenched Spring day I was fooling around with a bunch of other Dock Boys when Boss came over to me, said “I want you to row Dr. Dit--------ous around the lake. Do not take any money from him. He runs the Zoo and we got to be real nice to him, okay?” Of course I said yes, what else could I do? But I sure did not like the not getting paid idea.

As we climbed into the boat me in the middle seat facing the man sitting in the stern seat. He introduced himself as Dr. Raymond Ditmars. Added “Bob just call me Raymond.” As I rowed up river he kept a close eye on the banks as if looking for something.Then would suddenly pointing say, “over there.” I would head for the bank as he climbed past me and was out of the boat as soon as it hit the dirt. For the love of me I couldn't figure out what on earth he was doing?

Yupp, there he was the head man at the Zoo turning over rocks shouting, “come here boy and see this. This is a family of Salamanders. Here are some little fish probably Shiners. Oh look at these ant nests and worms, worms,” he was in heaven. That’s how we spent the afternoon from one bank to the other turning over rocks checking on creeks leading onto the river and all the time exclaiming how wonderful it is to explore the earth.

Raymond looked at his watch said, “by God we better get back they’ll be wondering what happened to us.” As we pulled up to the dock Dr. Ditmars said, “now Bob if your ever in the Zoo don’t forget to visit me over in the Snake House.” Boss met us and Raymond assured him we had a wonderful afternoon.

It was some time later I was wondering around the Zoo with me sister Hedda who is a couple of years older than me. As we passed the Snake House I told her about Dr. Ditmars. I could tell she was a little skeptical of what might be just another “Bobbie story.” Once inside the building I asked the Keeper if Dr. Ditmars was there? “Yes” he said and, “who might I say is calling?” Oh just tell him it’s Bob the Rowboy from the Boathouse.” A short time later Dr. Ditmars came out gave me a big greeting as I introduced him to my sister. he suggested we go behind the cages and see the new life being born out back.

As we walked along our guide kept up a constant talk about how snakes are misunderstood. “They are really quiet friendly. It’s only when we encroach upon their turf that they get nervous. Even then a rattlesnake will give you warning, your getting to close." In the middle of the talk he brought out a snake about 2 foot long and threw it around Hedda’s shoulders. Poor Hedda just froze as I wondered if this man was crazy. He just laughed said “look the Garter snake is just looking for a nice warm spot to settle down, maybe in your armpit to take a nap.” Slowly as my sister and I recovered our composure we also began to laugh with our Snake House Guide.

What I mostly learned form Raymond Ditmars was, his passionate love of nature. The need to understand it and give all creatures their space. Yet the the most important of all for me was the turning over rocks to see what might be hidden underneath. Maybe I have been doing that for most of my life.

PS. Some time ago I learned that Newt Gingrich claimed that Dr. Ditmars was an inspiration for much of his life. No, we are not strange bedfellows. We probably found different things that we were looking for. This boy will keep looking under rocks. Thank you Raymond Ditmars.

Reminded of the last stanza of a poem Emily Dicknson.

Never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing.
And a zero at the bone.

Anti Union Epidemic is Spreading

2011-03-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

Friday I was blown away by a front page story in the NY Times. "General Electric," good old GE made $14 and a half billions of dollars profit in 2010 $5.1 billion in the USA AND WILL NOT PAY A CENT IN TAXES.!!! Can you believe this stuff? Through lobbying and off shore financing they have shown what this coming struggle is about. Yes you guessed it. THE RICH GETTING RICHER AND THE WORKING PEOPLE ARE GONNA PAY FOR IT. (Pssst, A first. Non union workforce constructing major high rise buildings in New York City. I am dreaming. I’m sure.)

Back in November 2010 I wrote a letter to Richard Trumka alerting him to the anti union crusade that the GOP election victory would produce. Yupp, it sure has produced even far beyond what I figured the Tea Party extremists would try. Now we are looking at three Governors who are figuring how to solve their economic woes by eliminating the right of Public Workers to bargain collectively. At the same time making sure that the GE’s and the Koch Brothers of the world pay no taxes at all.

Scott Walker of Wisconsin was the lead off hit man. With a lot of maneuvering around how the State Legislature is supposed to enact laws he managed to get a bill passed that eliminates the right of unions to bargain for their members. (I am sure you saw the hell being raised in Madison as union members fought back. It will go down as a great wake up call for the American labor Movement.)

Okay, so here comes two Walker copycats. Maybe they think that this is a game called “who can be the meanest union buster in the land.” Sort of like an old Western movie. The bad guys are the unions. Michigan’s Rick Snyder and Ohio John Kasich getting into the act to bust the unions. I am certain there will be more to come. How do I know? I know because the Citizens United money is telling the Governors, “you want our money you better deliver.” They want the unions out of the way so they can get back to the good old days of exploiting the workforce, “in any way we dam please.’ How does this apply to teachers or policemen? After all “they’re public servants.”

In order to get us through this recession the GOP needs an enemy. Instead of going after the multi million dollar bonus guys who created the mess, Heah, “lets blame it on the teachers.” That’s right. Can you believe this. GE pays not a cent in taxes and so it’s the teachers to blame for the economic meltdown. Where am I living? Must be in a crazy house.

Okay, so here’s the point again. Richard Trumka, Andy Stein, any other Union leader listening? You have got to start organizing NOW to fight these clearly announced objectives to destroy what is left of the once powerful Labor Movement. The country needs the unions. Our Democracy is dependent upon it.

First step is to put together a National Committee to Save the Unions. They-re assignment to come up with a plan for 2012. It needs to be in great detail what will be done and how in State by State as well as City by City to stop this crusade against labor. Obviously raising money will be a key part of any plan. That needs to start now.

Lets get any Hollywood friends to put on major shows, Madison Square Garden halls in every major city in the land. The union leadership needs to not just show up at rallies but needs to think with bold new ideas to win this fight. Whoever takes the leadership of the movement started in Madison Wisconsin will forever have the grateful thanks of Americas working people.

This Cancer Thing

2011-03-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

I am supposed to be over it.

Yet, I am not. And why?

The Tsunami nightmare in Japan?

Could be the the bombing in Libya?

No, there is no pain in my ear or the back.

Ahaa! where are the Red Wing Blackbirds?

Long long long overdue.

It is no spring with nary

That demanding call,

“Maitre Deee! Maitre Deee” where are you?

Did the tsunami scare them off?

It sure would me. How about you?

Are they up north? It’s warm there now.

Could be better nesting.

Global warming, earthquakes, arctic melting.

Nuclear meltdown! Chernobyl. Again?

Floods another war, foreclosures, no jobs,

Gas, four dollars. five dollars?

No Red Wings no Grackles?

Are 40 days of darkness before us?

What exactly is ailing me?

Maybe the planet has the cancer?

And not me.

For sure man made.

Carbuncle Test?

2011-03-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

My father often eluded to the fact that humans can be far more diverted from what is going on in the world by the advent of a, “Carbuncle on your behind.” (a large usually infected boil.) Papa said, “people with the pain of a carbuncle, would care little about people dyeing in concentration camps in Nazi Germany.”

So it was for me in this past week. I had known for sometime that I had some serious cancerous sights on my neck and back. After a number of fearful postponements, the surgical removal took place. I tried to follow the events, especially in Madison but I found myself worrying more about the spread of cancerous cells. Yes, I had been assured that this was not possible. Yet I remembered vividly Dr. Js. answer to my question, “suppose I do nothing?” “Well the one on your ear could go to the brain. Though not likely but where it could spread, we don’t know.”

I began to try to reconstruct my fear of cancer since it has been with me a good part of my long life. On one fine spring day when I was a child my mother died from a back alley abortion. In my insistence on knowing what happened to her I was told,”she went on a trip.” No, she died of cancer. It was all mysterious and very scary. That underneath sort of fear stayed with me for most of my adult years. Until.

In 1975 on an Outward Bound rafting trip in Oregon down the Rogue River I had a dream. I was hiking in those very mountains around the river. I came to a fast rushing stream. To get where I was going I had to cross it. As I looked into the rushing water there were these huge menacing spider crabs. Panicked unable to cross the stream. I woke up in my tent with a sudden start. Now I thought, “what the hell was that about?” Right away I knew it was not about crabs. First of all what was the stream that I had to cross? Ahaa, that was my journey, my path. If I was unable to cross it my life would be stalled.

As I went down the Rogue with my four other rafters I could not get that picture of me and the giant crabs out of my minds eye. Sure enough there was an astrology nut on board who suggested that “crabs are the symbol of The Tropic of Cancer.” Everybody on board thought I was nuts when I yelled, “By God that’s it. Cancer I can’t get on with my life for the fear of that hated dreadful disease.” All that day I went over and over that discovery.

Trying to concentrate on the historic struggle of the Labor Movement in Wisconsin I was still being nailed down with that underlying fear of cancer. Okay, once again I had to clear that underneath subconscious stuff out of the way. Now I can get back in touch with my son out there in Madison and get an update on what the teachers did at last nights meeting.

About the cancer surgery, my carbuncle. Yes I am doing just fine, having crossed the stream. In a week I should be back at my old stand thanks to Dr. J. His response to my question, “how come you aren’t doing Nips and Tucks on celebrities over on Madison Avenue” “Yes I could do that but this is far more rewarding. Don’t you think?” “Well of course and I love you for it.” Made my day.

Be back soon with more thoughts on Labors fight for survival. So far looks pretty good. We’ll see?

This Ain't The Air Traffic Controllers Strike!

2011-03-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

As I wrote in my Feb. 18th blog President Reagan in 1981 fired the Air Traffic Controllers and the Unions just slept through the whole episode. I was so ashamed of the total loss of working class solidarity, like the Robin in a Hank Williams song, “I hid my head and cried.”

Now together with my son in Madison Wisconsin I am once again proud of the great tradition of solidarity amongst working people. God, they need that more than ever. Why? Because in the last 25 years working class, now called middle class, families have been taking a royal beating when it comes to their income. At the same time the top two percent of the wealthy have increased their wealth by over 25 percent. Yupp the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. (I am not going to go over what is happening in Madison. Plenty of that in Cyberspace. Rather deal with what’s behind it.)

Much of what happened during those big party years of the nineties was done in the name of “The Free Market.” That economic theory held, “just let the market do its work and everything will just be honkey dorey.” Looking back it turned out that was very true for the top ten percent of the rich while the rest of us just languished or lost out. Like all those folks who were suckered into buying homes that clearly they could not afford. Then upon closer scrutiny we find that the Wall Street Derivative boys were making a bundle gambling on those very stock gimmicks that grew out of the Housing Bubble.

At the same time as the Housing Bubble the Federal Government under George Bush squandered the financial surplus that was left from the Clinton administration. That was the “Feed The Beast Period?" That idea held that if we spend the government into bankruptcy there wont be a dime left for anymore social programs like Medicare or Social Security SS ie “The BEAST.” (Remember when Bush wanted to privatize SS.?)

Yupp, all part of the same strategy of ridding the country of all that “socialist” New Deal stuff. SS. was and remains the single most important factor keeping old people out of poverty. It is still sound until sometime in 2030. It is not broke now and it never would even have run out of money for many more years past 2030 if the Government had not been “Burrowing” from the SS. Trust Fund.

Yes, I have always been a little skeptical of conspiracy theories. Now I believe that one is unfolding before our very eyes. Here is the GOP vision of how to destroy what is left of working citizens power to defend their economic concerns. The fact is that the Republicans now seem to be determined to destroy the last semblance of working people's power to defend their economic interests.

Destroy the power of the unions. That also means the role of unions in the election of 2012. The GOP's central objective is to deny Obama a second term. How? Gut the Union power. Unleash the money from the corporate world ie. “Citizens United.” Result, unlimited corporate spending in the coming national election campaign.

What is happening in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and more to follow is part and parcel of the, "destroy Obama strategy." How do they expect to achieve that? First thing you do when you want to destroy a group of people is you demonize them. I wrote about that in my blog of January 18th.

Look, if your unemployed or underemployed working in Hamburger Heaven for a minimal wage and you used to work at G.M. for $30,00 an hour you are pissed off and maybe you even joined the angry Tea Party crowd. Who are they angry at? Well, rationally speaking it should be the folks who brought us down? And who was that? Sure as hell it wasn’t the public school teacher. Now was it? Secret, she’s a good target because she’s close to you and a lot better off. She did not cause your lay off and she is not responsible for the debt crisis at the State level. On the other hand if only they can make her the enemy? There is nothing like it to bring people together. (The Tea Party folks.) She is an easier target then those people who created the present mess. And who are they?

First the financial Wall Street guys who manipulated the market. Yes that created real losses for the State Pension Funds. The insurance industry that advised the States on how to invest their money including the actuaries who certified the future of the Pension Funds. Second the economic crisis we are now living through. Who caused that? For God sake it wasn’t your local school Teacher, Firemen or Sanitation worker.

Now we add up this new GOP strategy and ipso facto, of course it’s all the much to powerful unions that are responsible. Oh man the union busters dream has come true. The Republican Governors are now going to lead the charge against the unions. They hope to decertify the ability of the unions representing the State employees to BARGAIN COLLECTIVELY FOR THE EMPLOYEES.

Well, the best news is from Madison Wisconsin. Not only are the unions saying NO to Walker's union busting but they have managed with true grit and iron determination to wake up the American Labor Movement to the dangers ahead. It has become crystal clear that Governor Walker is just another patsy for the Koch Brothers or any other major employer who wants to be rid of the workers voice in the workplace. Then the owners can go and do whatever they want. Just the way they did before unions existed.

Yes, I am even old enough to remember what that was like. It was a life without dignity or respect. It was the dark ages of the factory, office, mine, school where the employees worked at the peril of the owners or their representative. Oh. I do remember that snotty foreman whose behind I had to kiss because we were powerless without union representation.

In this present economic bust there is lots of Punditry about how “we all need to sacrifice in the face of our National Debt crisis.” So, how do we start out with “we all need to sacrifice routine?” You guessed it we start with the richest people and extend their tax break that George Bush gave them. How’s that for sharing the pain? I told you. Rich getting richer poor getting poorer. And yes, the Wisconsin unions have already agreed that they will accept the Governors proposal for sacrifice on their part. Of course that's not enough. The Governor is after the very existence of the unions.

Lets do whatever we can to support those very brave and courageous citizens of Madison Wisconsin leading the fight in our the latest battle for democracy. It has brought the Labor Movement back to a newly invigorated life. Lets hope that’s a new beginning for all working people.

Talk About Social Unrest

2011-02-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

What will unfold. The Tragedy of Failed Expectations.

Back in 2009 I wrote a blog called, “Social Unrest.” (SU) I spoke of the fear that SU stirs in the hearts of the ruling class. Now just 18 months later the world seems to be in the grip of an epidemic of SU. The present SU Scoreboard looks something like this. (This does not include the USA. I will deal with that separately.) Wow this is overwhelming and hard for me to believe.

The young 15 to 25 year old Tunisians, out of work and with nothing but time on their hands decided it was time to bid their their old Dictator goodbye. They succeeded and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is gone.

In Egypt the youngins have driven out their 30 year President Mubarak. In Libya the people have finally come to the conclusion that having a cuckoo, named Qaddafi running their country is a bad mistake. This does not in anyway help the youngins find a job, or career unless you are one of the few in the Dictators personal department.

In Yemen the protesters have so far managed to get seven lawmakers from from their Dictator Abdullah Saleh to resign and form a new opposition party, Bahrain King Hamid is releasing political prisoners. All are from the opposing tribal group including 23 Shiites. (Reminder, this whole part of the world is made up of thousand year old tribes that hate each other.)

Saudi Arabia. The US needs to be very careful as they are our major oil supplier. The Saudi Sheiks have given the Saudi people interest free home loans and sweeping debt forgiveness. That’s just to keep their folks calm and quiet. In Israel Netanyahu doesn’t know weather to cheer, cry or just pray for what all this means to his countries stability.

Back here in Washington the President and the Secretary of State are hanging by their finger nails trying to decide WHO THE F@%& DO WE SUPPORT AND WHO DO WE CONDEMN?

What happened that triggered all this SU? The jobs-career crisis in Tunisia reached the breach point. Millions of young people between the ages of 15 and 25 began to find each other through a whole new gateway for organized action. Yupp, I believe that the Cyberspace, Internet, Face-book, Twitter, Tweeter, and plain old E mail was the Paul Revere rounding up these out of work, out of patience out of money youth to demand a change. The organizing tool was simple. Lets all gather at the Central square in the middle of the city and demand a change in leadership. It was a perfect way to vent their anger at a very specific target. The dictator, oft times elected, became the rallying cry, “Out With Mubarck in with us.” Who is “the us?” That is the question.

Ahaa’ you got it. What does it mean? Egypt is the best example. As I wrote in my Egypt blog, the Country is and has been controlled by the Army. Mubarak served at their discretion. he left at their discretion. Egypt is being run by them now as it was before Mubarak as it will after Mubarak.

I Have spent a good part of my life in the front lines of SU. We understood the importance of having all your demands clearly spelled out. That required a well disciplined organization that could then guarantee the results of the change. You have to have a plan. Alas, that does not exist. This is true particularly in Egypt where the military holds all the cards. In some of the other places it’s a mixed bag. What have we learned so far?

SU, continues to be a critical element in achieving change. However for it to succeed in guaranteeing the desired change it requires some kind of well disciplined organization that will be able to take over the governance of the change or at the very least participate in its execution. I hope that will evolve.

The tragic side to all this SU is the stark reality that most of these countries do not have the resources, natural and otherwise to create jobs for all those young people out there in the City Square. Yes, there could be a far more equal distribution of the oil wealth for those that still have it. As in Saudi Arabia. That also helps increase the false idea that this oil gravy train gonna run on forever.Yes I’ll say it again. It’s finite. That's what the leaders in those oil rich Kingdoms continue to hide from the masses. Those youthful protesters are in for some real disappointment.

Coming soon the Social Unrest in the US. A horse of a different color.

PS. Abu-Dhabi is the greatest monument to human stupidity ever erected any where's in the world.

Unions at Another Crossroads

2011-02-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

Back in November I wrote an open letter to Richard Trumka president of the AFof L-CIO urging him to take the lead in a fight to save the Unions from the coming right wing GOP onslaught against Labor. Sorry, but I never got an acknowledgment. Oh well. That part is easy to deal with. If only they had launched some kind of fight to save what is left of the Unions. Sad to say they have done nothing.

Scott Walker the newly elected Republican Governor of Wisconsin has drawn a line in the sand. He is determined to destroy the rights of Public Employee unions to bargain collectively. Incidentally a right won many years ago in Wisconsin.

What I find so appalling is the conservative right wing crowd use to decry the fact that there were not free trade unions in communist controlled countries. This was the ultimate evidence the they were not democratic. They use to say, “there is no democracy without free trade unions.” The GOP just keeps moving further to the right. This is what is going on in Wisconsin.

I must pay tribute to those feisty, brave, determined union supporters who have taken over the Capital Building in Madison. (Must acknowledge, it includes my son.) They have broken through the barrier of silence that has engulfed us since the 2010 election. They have made known the real intent of the right wing GOP crowd which is to destroy what is left of the American labor Movement.

It is precisely because of that simple fact that every Union leader worth their wait in salt ought to be up there in Wisconsin supporting their fellow Brothers and sisters who are out there on the firing line. The President of the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel is there. Where is Richard Trumka, Randy Wiengaten President of the Teachers Union. Andy Stein President of the SEIU? Yes and the leaders of the UAW, the Teamsters etc etc. Don’t they understand the very life of what’s left of the Labor Movement is once again being challenged? Don't they remember “Solidarity Forever for the union makes us strong.?”

Need I remind them of the turning points that continues to reduce the relevance of unions? Start with the Taft Hartley Law 1948. I wrote a pamphlet back then, “This Is Aimed At You.” "How the Taft Hartley Law is out to destroy the American labor Movement." The Union leadership with a few exceptions like, John L. Lewis President of the Miners, went along with the new law. (Trumka, Lewis should be your guiding star.)

At the end of the War the employers launched yet another attack on the unions. The Yale & Towne Lock Company decided to cancel its contract with the Machinists Union. The Machinists in NY Conn. and Mass. organized a General Strike in Stamford Conn. We stopped that anti union drive in its tracks. No, that wasn’t the end of the war against the unions. Just one more battle.

Then came the Traffic Controllers Strike in 1981. Reagan fired them and the Labor Movement just slept through the whole episode. Further decline of the unions. Now this frontal attack on the Public Workers right to collective bargaining. There needs to be a united response from every union in the land. This is aimed at all of them. If those folks in Wisconsin lose this fight it may well be the swan song of the Labor movement. That would be a great tragedy for American Democracy. Unions represent a critical countervailing force against employer greed as well as being a great equalizer. Without them we lose a critical part of our Democratic process.

The Wisconsin sit-in, sleep in, fight in, our heartfelt thanks, we are with you all the way.

On Abortion

2011-02-10T21:38:00.000-08:00

"LATEST HIDDEN VIDEO BY ABORTION FOES SHOWS BRONX CLINIC OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD" Headline NY TIMES FEB. 10 2011

I intended to stick with Egypt but then this abortion thing hit me. Please indulge me this moment.

On Abortion

Nothing stirs my anger as
The “Live Action” whacko show at Planned Parenthood.
Make believe pimps prostitutes, children
Abortion for 13-14 year olds. No We don’t do that.
Live Action out to destroy Planned Parent-------.

They just don’t get it. Abortion,
A women’s body, her right to control it.

Long long ago a little boys mother
After the oatmeal, kissed him off to PS 34.
With an extra long hug said, “Neighbor will make lunch.”
Never ever happened. Never!

It’s the month of May.
Empty junk strewn lots. The North Bronx
A sea of wild flowers amidst the junked cars.
Skipped to school through the daises.

Three o'clock home, lunch neighbor still there.
Something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Try as she may, neighbor’s tears give her away.

“Everything will be alright, everything will be alright” she pleads.
A cold shiver of fear took hold of me.
Where’s my papa? Where’s papa? More neighbors appear.
He’ll be here soon, he’ll be here soon, he’ll be---- it died away a mumble

A shadow of my big papa comes home. No,
No hidden Hershey in the vest pocket.
In his arms, through his tears. “You will have to be brave.
You will have to be brave!

"Mother is gone on a long trip.” Where papa where? Can’t I go too?
Along our garden path, papa walks, bursts into tears.
The garden wall blood red from papas head.
A big man, rapt into a human ball.

Decades pass. Mama’s “trip” abortion alley.
Surgical tool, wire coat hanger. “Live Action” damn you!
Stupid bastards. Return of the back alley killers. Sorry,
I try to understand I really do. But my papa’s tears, won’t let me.

On the Crisis in Egypt

2011-02-06T09:21:00.000-08:00

I mean with all the punditry blah blah blahing on the 24 hour cable circuit I was really trying to stay out of it. Alas, I can not. The problem with the Punditry is they are all saying the same thing. Will Mubarak go, will he stay until September? Who will take over? What’s Obama doing, what did Hillary say? Yeah and what about the Israelis? I’m wading in because nobody seems to be aware of the CLASS STRUGGLE that is taking place in Egypt.

The whole idea of the class struggle got out of favor after Fukuyama wrote “The End of History.” The collapse of the Soviet Union would usher in the era of capitalism as being the only surviving system ipso facto the end of history. That would also include the end of the class struggle. (Pssst, also the end of Marxism.) It wasn’t long after that anyone who used the word “class” in politics was accuse of starting a “class war.” God forbid. Maybe it is this phenomena that now keeps otherwise intelligent people from refusing to look at the class content of the struggle in Egypt.

It has been acknowledged that a million and a half of young people 15 to 25 are unemployed with no chance of finding a job. There’s another million employed workers who are paid substandard wages. Jobs for women are almost non existence. Yes that’s why the street demonstrations have been led by youth. Like the “old man” said, “they have nothing to lose.” Then I started looking for, who are the major employers in Egypt? Wow, guess what I found?

“The army in Egypt is a great power, not only military, but also economic. The army is the main employer in the country , capitalist 1. The military receive contracts for the construction of bridges and roads, and for the production of gasoline and olive oil, and they own tourist hotels and hospitals. The military elite is an integral and important part of the corrupt bureaucratic system. (Sort of like our very own Haliburton but more so.) “And at the same time, in the eyes of the Egyptian people the army is is the symbol of “independence.

Remember Eisenhower’s warning about the “Military Industrial Complex? Guess what? That’s who is actually ruling in Egypt.

Wow! talk about a nifty setup for the military. No wonder they don’t want any class warfare. They are the ruling class who control the whole works. Yes, the production facilities, the infra structure, the roads, the sewers the water works. (Just like the Anaconda Copper Company back in Montana 1953.) How did it happen?

After the 1979 Peace Treaty between Israel and Egypt was signed it left the Egyptian Army with little or nothing to do. So, they went into business and they have been there ever since. They are the elite bunch who have sponsored and kept Mubarak in power for 30 years. They will now have Suleiman as the transition boss who will certainly make sure that the business interests of his army buddies is in no way disturbed. Now our leaders seem to have gotten the message. “Oh yes we have to give the Egyptian Government time to “transition.” This so called transition is pure Kabuki. “You are now with Mubarak and will transition to Suleiman.” Guess what? It’s the same old Army Industrial Complex that will continue to rule.

There you have a class analysis of what’s going on in Egypt. Will the removal of Mubarak make much difference? I don’t think so unless the demonstrators can get their stuff together and start negotiating some real concessions from the RULING CLASS.

That’s the problem when an unorganized band of angry people take to the streets without a well disciplined organization. In that situation what is essential? A clear set of demands need to be articulated. Leaders are needed, who represent the will of the demonstrators and can negotiate with the Ruling Class. Otherwise it will just be another brave effort that ends up leaving everything as it was before the uprising. What comes to mind is Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia 1969. Or the Shipyard workers in Gdansk Poland. They had real power and leaders to do the negotiating. That’s the lesson of history.

Another Decade for my Great Grandson

2011-02-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

Soren the 1990s

Party time, “We Can Have it All.”
The end of a millennium
The Y2k problem hung ou’er our heads.
(Hang in, I’ll tell you later.)

I lived 83 years in dreams of utopia.
Soviet hope of socialism implodes.
Dream, each according to need.
75 years later with no bananas, no socialism.
In the end. nothing is what it seems.

NASA shot a telescope into space.
Hubbell’s picture of infinite vastness.
Creationists, “God did that few millennial back.
I’m with “fifteen billion year evolution.”
Thanks, Bronx Zoo Chimpanzee’s.

Had a quickie war in 92. Over?
Kuwait oil fields. No oil, we stall, kaput finished.
Dolly a sheep, got cloned. Made a perfect copy.
People someday maybe? Creationists go berserk.
“Only God can make a tree.” and a sheep.
Grandpa, can make furniture.

And the Y2k pendulum looms ouer our heads.
Crazies tried impeaching President Clinton.
He had a wee wee problem, where to stick it.
Lesson. “Think with your head not your wee wee.”

Astrology folk or such making ready
Millennium could be end of the world?
With Y2k thing waiting for the end?

Diana, world Princess dead, 100 miles an hour
In a Paris tunnel----- end of world sign?
Citizen, terrorist blows up Fed building. Oklahoma City
Timothy doesn’t like Federal Government.
Kills 168--- 19 children. Tim says, “Sorry-- collateral damage”

Yes Y2k? Computers all at 99. Ball Drops in Times Square
Goes to 00, “Wide wide, world goes down.”
Herr Computer, Ruler of our lives.

Internet is? Connective tissue.
Relax, Soren boy. 2000 comes. Ball drops. Guess what?
Suns up, coffee’s on the stove, life’s beautiful.

Livin in the 21st Century worry most
Every inch of Bountiful Planet being used up.
Might never be able to fix it.
The way your Mommy and Daddy fixed that
Old Rockin Horse from Great Grandpa Bob.

2011 up ahead. Hope The NY Times Makes it,
To 2012 grandpa be 95 by then.
Love, from your Great Grandpabob.

Welcome To Social Unrest

2011-01-29T11:16:00.000-08:00

Back in 09 I wrote a couple of Blogs about the roots of Social Unrest, SU. Now here we are with SU. shaking much of the Arab Middle East right down to its bones. Back in 09 I was trying to show how SU. can effect change. Capitalists were really scared when the masses took to the streets. It was seen as a direct challenge to the very existence of the system in power. Back then the underlying fear was over a takeover by left wing organizations to establish a socialist system of government.

In the case of the present Middle East SU. the issue is not a threat of an alternative system of government. It is primarily a notion that if we throw out the Dictators in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt Jordan and Yemen etc. somehow, maybe, things might get better. As my Tunis born barber says, “listen things couldn’t be worse.” That’s the threat to the long time rulers.

However there is a real domino effect here. If Mubarak in Egypt goes down the US. and Israel lose their major Middle East supporter. Remember we give the Mubarak government $I.6 Billion a year for him to be nice to us and our ally Israel. What happens if the street protesters chase him out of country? (He will find somewhere to live happily ever after on the money he’s probably got socked away in a Swiss Bank?)

Oh, man this puts Obama once again between a “rock and a hard place.” If he supports the very justified protesters he is undermining our old, maybe only, Middle east ally. If he even appears to be supporting Mubarak and his oppressive regime he will lose all credibility as champion of Democracy. So, he tries the tightrope walk. “Now Mubarack we understand the spot your in just, please don’t start shooting the protesters. That would be shades of the Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square running over student protesters. Yee Gods we don’t want that.

In case you haven’t noticed we are living in extremely volatile times. We now have many countries with emerging economies. They are the ones with a disproportionate number of young people looking for work. Their job markets are simply unable to absorb the millions in need of jobs. The anger of the frustrated gets directed at the corrupt dictators and their cronies. The basic problem however is the lack of a feasible alternative. That is exacerbated by the absence of any organized left
.
Here’s my “light bulb minute” (Thanks Miss Friedmen my 4th grade Public School teacher.)

In the good old USA it seems we have solved the above problem with the Two Party System. When the Dems are in power and folks get mad, ie The Tea Party Crowd yells, “THROW THE BUMS OUT.” Okay, in 2010 we throw them out. Maybe they even keep up their run and in 2012 they throw Obama out.

Hold on now. Comes 2014 the Dems.Coffee Party Crowd will yell "THROW THE BUMS OUT." And that's how the political dance of Tweedildum and Tweedildee came about. You’ve got to admit. For the Fat Cats it works pretty good. For an Old Geezer like me it remains a mystery why folks can’t see through it? My departed historian friend Herb Gutman would remind me how we suffer from “social amnesia.” Nobody remembers what happened two weeks ago. What happened two years ago? Ancient history, gone and forgotten.

Sargent Shriver Poverty Fighter

2011-01-21T13:10:00.000-08:00

The death of Shriver at age 95 reminds me that our 1960s breed of anti poverty fighters are rapidly dyeing out. I never met Shriver. Yet he played an important role in my career. It was at Mobilization For Youth. MFY it was one of several big city experiments to see what kind of interventions might help Ghetto youth become gainfully employed members of society. At the time MFY was far and away the best known of those efforts. I came to work at MFY when a sociologist Professor at Brooklyn College asked me if I would be interested in running a work program for 4-500 Juvenile Delinquents on the lower East side of Manhattan? As a result of being blackmailed I had ended up working as a Chief Engineer for a division of United Shoe Machinery Corp.

After a brief Washington meeting with Bobby Kennedy, the Attorney General I had extensive interviews with the folks who were putting MFY together. After some tough bargaining about pay, that would be a lot less than I was making I took the job. It was a better fit for someone who had spent his working life in the Labor Movement. (I had been expelled 3 times from my union. A Guinness Record.) This time I would be helping Ghetto kids make it the world of work.

We were about 6-7 months into creating a series of workplaces, Gas Station, Restaurant, Print Shop, Woodworking shop sewing shop, construction, etc. when the Daily News made a front page attack. We were accused of printing a large Poster that showed a Policemen with a skull and crossbones over him. He had been accused of shooting a Black kid. Besides they charged that MFY was overrun with “commies and assorted radicals.” We were besieged with demands for people to resign. The City Administration got into the act be demanding the the Legal Aid an MFY Project stop organizing tenant strikes against landlords.(MFY Legal Aid for the poor continues to this day.)

We organized a Staff Committee to Save MFY. We raised a lot of money and declared “That nor single member of our MFY staff would be victimized as a result of the attacks. Now the real question was what would Washington funding source do? That’s where Shriver came in. I got a call from his office saying that he was dispatching Jay Rockefeller his I.G. to take a look at our Programs and report back to him.

The following Monday a tall skinny young man in dungarees appeared in my office door announcing he was here for Shriver to see what we were doing. “Can I just follow you around.” He asked. “Be my guest. It’s a public project with citizens money so I assume anybody can come here and see what we’re up to.” He said fine and we were off. He spent a week arriving every morning around 8. We had coffee, a bagel and we were off to the work sights. At each one of our operations he would wonder around ask the enrolees as well as the Crew Chiefs what exactly we were doing. Then he would ask the enrolees, "what are you learning?"

Upon realizing that he was a real "blue blood" Rockefeller I was duly impressed with his commitment and discipline n trying to understand what we were trying to do. In the print shop he made extensive inquiry about the alleged “Poster.” Of course we didn’t print it as we did not have the capacity to do so. Several times he would ask if we had any “printing facility in the basement.” My reply was always, “okay lets go look.” Of course there was none as we never had such a press. Our budget never would have approved it. We never would have printed such a poster even if we could have.

At the end of the week Jay and I retired to the local Bistro run by MFY. He wanted the answer to a few more questions. Most of which had to do with my background in the unions. We had a long conversation primarily about what the MFY type of programs could teach us about working with troubled Ghetto kids. With a warm handshake and a “Good-luck with all the great things going on here" he left.

A short time later we received a copy of a letter Shriver had written to the MFY Board. He said he was very proud of the work we were doing and held it up as exemplary for others to emulate. Sargent Shriver was a dedicated public servant. He would not be intimidated by all the Tabloid hysteria about reds and radicals running anti poverty programs. In his report Jay Rockefeller said, paraphrasing, “If we can’t have the kind of people we have at MFY running those work programs we can forget our anti poverty efforts.” He did eventually become the Senator from West Virginia. Shriver continued his own journey in making this world a little better place for the disadvantaged. He will be missed.

Public Workers Easy Targets

2011-01-18T17:48:00.000-08:00

I was still in a union when the UAW negotiated 30 and out. Wow was that ever a union victory. 30 years on the assembly line and the UAW guy goes out with a full pension. My friend Herb Lerner a mathematician by hobby said, “Sure as we’re sitting here having lunch this’ll bankrupt GM.” “Herb” I said, “they must have actuaries who have figured this out.” And so it went. GM will never fund this sufficiently to pay the millions, no billions that this will cost down the road.

I must confess there was an attitude at the time that implied, “heah we don’t know where they’ll get the money from but that’s there’s. “the Robber Baron’s problem,” not ours.” Even the lefties at that time in the Labor Movement seem to express that same sentiment. We may have known in our hearts that they can’t afford it but that’ll be their problem not ours. Anyway thats years away so why worry about it. Funny thing that happened on the way. I’m one of the very few who is still around to see the train crash from those heady days. Pension funds are running out and the victims are being blamed for the crash. Yupp, the Media folks are ringing their hands because, “these public employees are bankrupting the States.”

So what is going on here? First of all the Public Employee unions negotiated what every employed person in the country wants. a decent old age pension to assure them a place outside the Welfare Line. These promised Pensions have been underfunded from the start. Meaning there never was a serious effort to set aside enough money for the pension pay-out. Many of the States assumed a minimum of 8 percent on there Funds Investment. Other States ran Ponzi schemes assuming there would always be enough people working and their contributions would keep the funds available for the retirees. Other Pension Funds made heavy if not all investments in the “booming” stock market. Of course when the bubble busted the Pension Funds went into the toilet. No not those financing the funds the major banks and Investment Companies. They did and are doing just fine. Let me back up here a little.

The Republicans who started us down the road to bankruptcy are now claiming that it is the fault of overpaid and over pensioned Public Employees. Oh how we suffer from social amnesia. So let me remind us. For 8 years of George W. Bush there was a saying around the Washington GOP members of Congress called, “Starving the Beast.” (My Friend Elaine often reminds me of the strategy behind that saying.) Translated it meant lets spend the Country into bankruptcy and guess what? There wont be a lead nickel for any social programs that the Dems. might want to enact. That is exactly where we are now. Must concede, “Starve the Beast” has worked. Now we have the spectacle of blaming the Public Employees because their Pension Funds are bankrupting the States. That’s like asking, “who killed the chickens after we put the Weasel in the Hen House?

What I find fascinating is how these same folks can sit and watch the banks be awash in recently reported profits and not find them culpable in the Pension crisis. Who exactly were the people who were managing, advising, investing Pension money? Same bunch again who the Government bailed out after the economic meltdown of the 80s. My dear long departed father had a saying, “no matter how bad things get you can always count on the top bankers and investment houses will come out on top.” His favorite back then was Rockeffeller’s Standard Oil. My favorite now is Goldman Sachs. They always seem to come out smelling like roses. Thanks papa for reminding me. It is not the fault of the people who wanted what all the folks at Goldman Sachs take for granted.

The Culture of the Gun

2011-01-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

It was back in 1953 I was, 36 and working in New Jersey for The Mine Mill & Smelter Workers union. The Unions number 1 Local at the Anaconda Copper Company in Butte Montana had been decertified. I was asked by the Union President if I would lead the campaign to get the Union re-certified. That meant a petition to the NLRB for a vote.

I was welcomed to Butte on a January night with 20 degrees below zero. Just kept mumbling, “what the hell am I doing here.” I wasn’t in Butte more than a week when I was introduced to Bob Ellenburgh. He was probably 60 a giant of a man who had spent his life working in the mines and was “dusted.” That meant he had Silicosis from the dust in the mines. The miners who saw me with “Big Bob” as he was known said “kid you got a hellova friend there. Listen carefully to what he tells you.”

In a few weeks of early organizing meetings Big Bob invited me to his home for a “family cooked dinner.” As we sat in the tiny living room of this A frame miners home he said, “son I.m gonna get you a couple things from the attic so you just set there and enjoy your drink.” He comes down with two guns. An old double barrel shotgun and a Smith and Wesson revolver. Big Bob chewed tobbaci. The house had conveniently placed old brass spittoons and he never ever missed a sssspit. He handed me the guns.

“Now son what I’m about to tell you is dam impotint.” (There was something very protective to being called “son.” I liked it.) “You gotta understand this town. Your from New York. People here think that’s a place of a bunch of whinin yellow belied sissys. If your gonna win this here election you’re gonna need to be one toughsonofbitch. That’s what these guns are gonna help you do.”

“What am I supposed to do with that shot gun?” “You keep that on the front seat of the car so everybody can see it. The hand piece you keep in the glove box. And now boy this is impotint. If anyone takes a shot at you. They don’t mean to kill ya. Just scare ya. You just shoot em back even if it’s up in the sky. This is who we are out here son. Everybody carries a gun.” The Montana Standard, company controlled newspaper, referred to me as, Double Barrel Schrank. Bob Ellenburgh just loved that.

That was my living experience of “the culture of the gun.” The people of Butte in 1953 were still living the myth of the “Wild West.” I believe the most telling cultural icon of the U.S. is “The Western Movie.” From Tom Mix, when I was a kid, to the High Noon showdown between good and evil Our movies regularly keep acting out this myth. That crazy man in Tucson has a twisted mind. He is probably hearing voices telling him that Gabreil Giffords is evil. So, it’s okay for him to go shoot her
.
The people of Arizona live on the border. Many of them like to believe that all evil is coming from across that border. Not unlike Frontiersmen who lived near the Indians. They really got themselves to believe, “the only good Indian is a dead one.” “That’s why we gotta carry guns to church, bars, restaurants schools wherever cause we need to protect ourselves from those evil ones who want to destroy us.”

Oh, you think I’m exaggerating? Listen to the Governor of Arizona, “we may be down but we’re not out.” Now what does that mean? It means, “lurking out there in the dessert between us and the border there are these bad people who want to destroy our way of life.” Fact is they are coming here looking for work. Or, yes to sell cocaine as we are the biggest market for the stuff. The drug trade is destroying Mexico. Their only solution is LEGALIZATION.!

Our Country is presently suffering one of its regular bouts of powerlessness. I have seen this phenomena go up and down with the economy. We are now living in a period of economic despair, People who lost their jobs, others their homes, some both. They are justifiably angry. The tragedy is they don’t know where to place that anger. So, it ends up free floating. That crazy in Tucson may be a metaphor for the frustration felt by so many people by finding a convenient target for his anger. It is far easier to deal with one crazy nut than to take a hard look at what our culture produces.

It has been so frustrating for me to watch this growing anger being targeted at all the wrong places, Oh, how I long for those days back in the 1930s when we could get hundreds of thousands of unemployed marching on Washington to “make FDR” build the economic network that became, “The New Deal” America’s safety net. Instead we are slipping back to the long gone days of playing out once again, “The Cowboy and Indian Myth.” The mythic war between Good and Evil.

Our tragedy is the absence of any serious left to organize and channel the anger at the ones who have perpetrated the exploitation of our citizens and now, as always are rolling in dough. Obama doesn’t understand that. Why should he? He spent his life being nice. Look where it landed him. Maybe he is learning that being nice to Mitch Mconnell is not going to get him the time of day. God I sure hope so.

And yes, whatever happened to the Grady gun law? Obviously in Arizona any whacko can walk into a supergun gun market plunck down $500. and pick up a very efficient little killing machine called a Glock. No computer check no nothing. Easy as buying a package of Wrigley’s. Is there something wrong with this picture?

Remembrance Happy New Year

2011-01-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

Of late things have been springing back to mind as if to say, “yes this really happened and it is a story I want to share.” (Pssst, don’t worry I’ll get back to the political mess soon enough.)

It’s a New Year Eve 2010 and I am going to let it have its way. I don’t know if this is a universal. With every New Years Eve, from somewhere inside me comes an automatic review of things past. This time around it was the power of dreams. New Years Eve was another wondrous night of best friends, feasting, dancing, hugging, dancing all rapped in the wonder of love. And of course drinking. Probably to much. That’s normal too.Then came a scary dream on the first night of 2011.

I am out in the cold searching for our departed cat Aldo. Unable to find him I’m desperate. Where is he? How could I have lost him? I awake. Think it through. What am I losing? Aldo was part of our family. The sudden loss of my mother as a child cause me to be obsessive about family. It represents security and safety. Any family related loss sets off high anxiety. Okay I got it. I am thankful for the ability to pay attention to dreams and learn to read them. How did I learn that?

It was in the late 50s I was in a mid life crisis. I was lucky to have found a “dream Guru." Ralph who became my guide and teacher. He would help me unlock the secret hurts that were hidden away in dreams. It was the beginning of an ongoing journey of understanding what my dreams could tell me. Being a born skeptic I thought, well I know he’s going to go over all that Freudian Unconscious stuff. I had been there and didn’t really get it. (Freud’s work was a remarkable discovery.) No we didn’t go there. But maybe we did? Just didn’t call it that.

Ralph asked, “what have you dreamed lately?” “This one has been a regular nightmare. I am going somewhere in the City. I park my car. Go to a party, meeting or just a visit . Time to go home sometimes with a friend some time alone. Start to look for where I’m sure I parked the car. Not there. Keep looking. Up one street down the next. Get desperate. car is stolen, the police took it. I wake up in another anxious sweat.

Ralph laughed, said “so who’s the car? and who’s lost?” “Oh, you don’t understand parking a car in New York City is an art. Only born and bred city people like me know the how to of parking.” Ralph had a little whimsy grin. “Now you really believe that would make you sweat and grieve looking for parking or looking for your car? What is the car to you?”

“ Are you kidding? I got my first car when I was 16 and have had one ever since. My car is my chariot to freedom. As a boy after my mother died I have always had an escape plan just in case I was to be sent off to an orphan asylum.” “So do you think the car might be you and you feel lost?" I was overcome from that hit in the gut. I left in tears, I am lost as I don’t know who I am. The dreams would soon help me out of that trap. It was in those dream sessions that I learned to keep a dream book. It sits right there on my bookshelf and is invaluable as a reference.My Dream Book is full of weird and amazing stories. A dream can tell us things that for some dam reason we just can’t tell ourselves.”

Sometimes I go back over my Dream book to check if any of those old dreams are returning? I am reminded, all dreams are not merely a reflection of deep seated hidden woes. Some dreams can be very reassuring. In 1975 on an Outward Bound trip down the Rogue river I had a wonderful dream. I was part of a Traveling Circus. My covered wagon was full of crowns like the kings wore. Each Crown signified something good I had done. As I wore each one before an audience I had to say how it was won. It was a pot puree of things. Like going shopping for my aunt, cleaning the furnace for my uncle. Helping Papa change the spark plugs on the car. And for that very night on the Rogue for helping a number of the women to build a shelter out of a piece of plastic. (They had never gone camping.)

Jimmy Durante, comedienne from my childhood referred to the “unconscious as “the subnoxious” It isn’t always so. It can reveal to us many of our most hidden fears and doubts. In New Years 2011 I raise my glass in thanks to all those great teachers who helped me unlock those nasty little secrets hiding out in my dream vault. Salute, Cheers, Prosit.

Mr. President Here Comes 2011

2010-12-30T13:37:00.000-08:00

New Years Resolution “Suit Up For Battle”

First, have to explain to some old friends my support of Obama. Complaints about his lack of any ideological commitment to real change arrived via e mail. I am reminded of a well known AARP saying when seniors complain about the terrible ills of old age. Response, “better than the alternative.” That’s about how I feel about our President. He is not only an anomaly being the first Black but also how he got elected with that sweep through the Internet was very new.

Mr. President, Welcome back from warm friendly sunny Hawaii ! Hope you are in a good strong mood for a fight. That’s is what is going to greet you on January 2nd. The GOP stung by the Tea Party stalwarts are going to come out swinging at everything you try to do. They are single minded in their objective. “NO SECOND TERM.” I know you don’t like to hear this but they just, “viscerally hate you.” You have to give up that grand illusion that, “if you keep making nice they’ll come around.” It will never ever happen. So, lets get on with it. Or as my friend Elaine says, “Get a grip.” Here’s what you need to do. Hopefully, “we can make you do it.” More about that later.

In sports, or military parlance you need to grab the ball and dominate the field with your initiatives. To do that requires that you make very clear to the whole country what exactly needs to be done to change the economic climate. Your Administration has saved Wall Street the Bankers and their bonuses. Now you have to save the jobless, the foreclosure victims, save your Health Care Law with that same kind of determination you showed on the Bush tax cut deal and the Start Treaty. Yes working the phones to Richard Trumka at the AFof L CIO, Andy Stein and all your friends on the Internet to rally support for what you are trying to do. I emphasize again, the need to get your program objectives down to simple understandable slogans. Remember you are not teaching a class at the U. of Chicago or Harvard Law School. Your talking with a lot of everyday folks gathered at a local coffee shop or at a Blue Collar watering hole.

There is an important lesson to be learned from The Tea Party bruha. To their credit they were able to chorale much of the anger of citizens who lost their jobs, or their homes, or both. Contrast that with the Bank Bailouts and Wall Street bonuses and they BLAME YOU FOR FORGETTING THEM. That’s what you now have to fix. The only way to do it is with a vigorous no holds, clear cut agenda for correcting the inequality. My friend Stanley Aronowitz some time ago wrote a program for Progressives in which he suggested that our central argument be based on FAIRNESS. That is exactly what has been lacking in the recent economic rescue.

Get your veto pen ready to strike down any of the GOP shenanigans to turn back the clock on Social Security, Medicare, Abortion and Education just to mention the major issues that come to mind.

I know you have another review of the Afgan war coming up. Well use that opportunity to get us out of there. We can’t afford that adventure any longer both in lives lost and wounded soldiers filling our military hospitals. It is becoming increasingly clear that the terrorists that are threatening us come from all over the globe not just Afghanistan. Its a corrupt sinkhole that will keep us there forever. Time to get out.

My earlier reference to, “make me do it.” was a statement FDR made to A Philip Randolph who was complaining about the lack of help for the members of his union. FDR wanted to see a mass movement in the streets demanding that he act hence, “make me do it.”

Finally Mr. President, a final bit of advice from Baron Von Clausawitz the great Prussian Military Strategist. Paraphrasing, when the enemy has you surrounded and outnumbered and your not sure what to do, “LAUNCH AN OFFENSIVE.” In the meantime have a Happy New Year and best of luck. Your going to really need it,

Blizzard of 2010

2010-12-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

I was really prepared to do a blog on what happens in Washington Comes 2011? Then this Blizzard arrived with a bang. Now I am all tied up as natures fury dominates the scene. I yield to nature. It is blowing 40-60 mile an hour on our “anemometer” (wind speed indicator.)

Snow piled up over our front door but Kate managed to clear it. I was amazed that she was able to do this as she is trying to recover from Limes disease. (Kate is on a daily infusion of Anti-Biotic. I am learning “Infusion procedure’s as her helper in attendance.)

The winter has its own beauty here on the bay. There is also a real disadvantage in our isolation. It means we need to make sure we can get a car out or an Emergency vehicle in. Tonight we hope the snow plows will come through. Tomorrow our driveway plow guy will plow us out and all will be well for the Blizzard of 2010.

My son Fred, lives in Madison Wisconsin and knows a lot more about winter than I do. He has been disturbed over the fact that people have totally misconstrued the effects of Global Warming. Some time ago he insisted that I start calling it, Global Climate Change. As snow and cold have gotten worse in recent years people say,”see I told you that Global warning was more baloney from that elite crowd from New York,” that’s why we need to call it “Climate Change.” Okay, I agree.

Fred in this Sunday Times there’s an article “BUNDLE UP,IT’S GLOBAL WARMING.” The Article explains how the Jet Stream, that circulation of air five to seven miles above the earth is picking up increasing moisture from the defrosted Arctic Ocean and dumping on the Northern Hemisphere. “In winter this change in flow sends warm air north from subtropical oceans into Alaska and Greenland, but it also pushes cold air south from the Arctic on the east side of the Rockies. Meanwhile across Eurasia, cold air from Siberia spills south into East Asia and even southwestward into Europe.

This is why there were thousands of stranded air travelers sleeping on the floor at Heathrow Airport. This is just an attempt to get us thinking about Climate Change. We are facing an increase in flooding, drought, snow, rain, mud slides in places it was never seen before, That is the tragedy of Global Climate Change.

The Blizzard continues to blow away out here. I was reminded that birds need to find food and water blizzard or not. I looked out at my Finch Feeder and sure enough there in the middle of the night, with light from our living room, was this shiny little Goldfinch hanging on to the feeder for dear life. I often think about what animal species are going to be able to survive the terrible damage that the humans have done to their habitat. Yes, we will survive this Blizzard. It may be one more warning about things to come.

It is now Monday afternoon and the Plow Guys did clear our driveway of a couple of feet of snow. I hope by tomorrow I will be able to get my Station Wagon out. I can easily suffer from bunk fever. Got to be able to go! Never mind where? My best from Snowbound Bob

Atom Bomb & Me?

2010-12-22T19:59:00.000-08:00

Obama’s victory with the Salt 11 treaty reminded me of an experience with the Nuclear problem back in the 1970s. Nixon was President. He was trying to show off his nice side. One of these “nice” projects was a job training program on the Sioux Indian Reservation in a God forsaken place called Wolf Point Montana. Trying to woo Ford Foundation support the President invited McGeorge Bundy, Mac President of the Foundation to join the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Robert Charles at a Job Training Inauguration on the Reservation.

Bundy suggested that Mike Sviridoff Ford Foundation VP. for National Affairs go as he knew more about job development. As the downward spiral continued Mike suggested, “we send Schrank he’s our job training expert.” There I was, 8AM at Andrews Air-force base ready to take off in Air Force 2 for Wolf Point Montana. All the necessary papers had been sent ahead that admitted me to the Base and the plane.

Upon boarding I was introduced to a motley bunch of reporters from all over the world including 3-4 Russians from the Tass news agency. (Remember the Cold War was in full swing at the time.) The seating on the plane was against the outside wall with a long center counter loaded with all kinds of goodies from nuts to booze and nuts to booze. Reporters who have an accepted tendency toward alcohol were just proving the point with early morning Bloody Mary’s. Maybe it’s the tomato juice that makes the boozers think “it’s a breakfast drink!”

We made a fuel stop at Minneapolis and then on to Wolf Point. The major topic of discussion amongst this weird collection of folk was “where’s the worlds best restaurant?” Soon after take off the wife of the Assistant Secretary of defense emerged as the Maitre De. She seemed to win out with the choice of Wing Loo in Kowloon.

As the plane was on approach at Wolf Point it seemed to me we were going in circles. (I had done some flying. I loved it until the bill at the end of the fourth or fifth month made me realize this was not an affordable hobby.)

At the flight deck I listened to the conversation between the three crew members. There was no control tower. A pea soup fog just hung over the area. Captain said,” “We just gotta be able to see this friggin air strip. One more try and then we’re outa here.” This was visual flying and there was no ground to be seen. The Captain advised the Secretary and suggested “we find the nearest field with instrument landing facility so we can, put this plane down safely.” The Secretary reluctantly agreed as we would miss the start up ceremony. It turned out that Maimstrom Missile Base was the nearest safest place for us to land. The base was about 15 minutes away. They were notified. The Base Commander told Secretary Charles we might make it to Wolf Point by Helicopter. Or we could make it the following morning. If the fog cleared?

As we were getting ready to land at Maimstrom I realized that I too was half crocked from a couple of -------I don’t know what? The plane lands. Taxi’s up to the Gate. There’s a red carpet and a Band playing Hail to the Chief. As we deplane, Haynes Johnson a reporter for the Washington Post is poking me, for God sake Schrank salute at we go by the flag. I was now feeling like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times as he came up out of the sewer with his red flag in hand to end up a May day parade.

The Base Commander welcomed his distinguished guests to one of Americas “first lines of defense.” Reporting the weather, he indicates we would not be able to get to Wolf Point until noon tomorrow. So, what would we like to do in the morning? Secretary of Defense wife suggests, a visit a missile sight and see exactly how our multiple missile warheads might work in a real war emergency?”

Oh my God I near fainted. Because of my radical past I couldn’t get a pass to go pee in the Pentagon. And here were all these Tass reporters from Russia. Others from Eastern European News Agencies I never heard of. Here we were about to be shown Americas top secret.

Next morning, bright and clear we were on our way to the “demonstration Silo.” Out came the mostly little “spy” cameras as the whole bunch were clicking away as though it was a wedding party. Then in groups of 2-3 we went down the Silo and were shown a cutaway of the multiple warheads and the gyroscopes that would control the flight pattern and finally the nuke part that would send the whole three tons skyward. I admit it was fascinating to see how this deadly machine had been put together. (Old machinist could not help admiring the engineering. Except when I thought how it would or could be used.)

Around this time there had been an accident at a missile base in Arizona. Somebody dropped a wrench down a Silo and the missile exploded. Why? Turned out nobody was sure except some Air Force mechanics said because of poor maintenance nobody knew for sure what might happen if we launched these suckers.

At the bottom of the Silo sat two Air Force officers who when called upon would unlock separate boxes on the wall take out a key insert it into a ready to launch lock click it and wait. The actual firing is controlled from an underground bunker somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.. I asked the guys how they were spending their time down here at the bottom of the Silo? They were both going to school. One to be a lawyer the other a doctor. Schmoozing with them I asked about the Arizona episode? They laughed, agreed that “yeah nobody can tell for sure what happens if we ever had to launch.” “Hell if we don’t know what they’ll do think of what those Rooskys know? There’s would probably never leave the ground. Nobody knows and I sure as hell don’t want to find out.”

In the afternoon we went on to Wolf Point and the training program. The Sioux were being taught how to rebuild M16 rifles that were by then pretty obsolete. At the time the rifles were mostly being used for guard duty at Army bases. Watching the trainees using sledge hammers to remove the sights from the barrels convinced me that this was another joke being perpetrated on Indians. Some company out of Texas had the contract to operate the program. When I inquired about the value of what they were doing I was told. “THEY gotta learn how to walk before THEY can run.” The minute I hear “THEY.” I realized this was this same old bullshit that the oppressed need to prove first that “THEY” can do it and then we’ll let them in. This program like so many others would result in the opposite. “Well we tried but THEY just couldn’t cut the mustard. We can’t just molly coddle these people.” The Secretary and his wife were given fancy Indian Headdress and some blankets. They thanked the Indians and we started our trip back home.

I reported my experience to Sviridoff and Mac. Mac asked me what I was going to report to the Administration about the training program? With a twinkle in his eye, “how is all that whining and dining going to effect your report?” “About Maimstrom or about the training program?” Unless you have any strong objection it will be the way I told it.” He looked at Mike, said, “I bet you knew that. Is that why we sent him?” They were the best two bosses I ever had. Somehow I was pleased to tell my Anti Nuclear friends, “nothing to worry about, chances are, they will never get those rusty old Nukes out of the Silos.” I wished.

A Bronx Christmas

2010-12-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

I have always had trouble remembering my life before my mother died in the mid twenties, Yet, the older I get, 94 this year, the more things are popping up that I had thought were long lost.

My family, mother, father, two older sisters and I lived in a tenement on 181st Street, a few blocks from the entrance to the Bronx Zoo. A six story walkup with two apartments on each floor and a single toilet between them. The Howe family shared our 4th floor. He was an inspector for the Sheffield Farms Milk Company. He rode around in a small horse-drawn rig checking up on the work of the milkmen and their deliveries.

I have a felt sense that mama was the sentimental side of my German family. Papa was the stern disciplinarian. Instances of severe bad behavior might bring mama to say, “possoff due dine Varter comt.” lookout your father is coming. That was enough to transform me into a little angel. Any pain that her cliner leibshen felt would be healed with a long hug against her pillow like breasts.

Though we were not at all religious it was mama who brought home and decorated the XMas tree. Sneaking out of my bed at night I watched her and my two older sisters pinning those little candles on the tree. On Christmas eve they were lit and the little tree just glowed with joy as our friends and neighbors sat around and sang, “Still a Nacht Heiliga Nacht.” All was well and happy.

The feeling of warmth and love might soon be dissipated. Drowned out by the clang of, what was probably the last Horse drawn Fire Engine Company as it roared through the street with sparks from the steam boiler filling the sky. This was “night riders in the” streets. Once the lovely candle lit XMas trees caught fire it was soon enough a four alarmer calling out Fire Engines from all over the City. That never happened to us.

Sure enough on Christmas day there would be presents. My most wonderful memory was a toy automobile go cart. I now remember sitting in it driving around the apartment and making conversation with other drivers. “okay Jack om gonna back her up” or “can’t ya see it’s a red light.” Papa would laugh until the tears ran down his face. He would ask mama, ‘where did he learn that talk?” She said, “It was the auto repair shop around the corner where he can hang out all day watching what is going on. The men who work their insist, “he’s no bother.” My sisters got girl presents. Mostly clothes to pretty them up.

Papa said, we had to save all our stale bread for the animals in the Bronx Zoo. He insisted that we treat them as our distant relatives. “They also need to have something special for the holidays, even if the Bible said they had only to get on the Ark if they were to be saved.” Papa always the teacher would then add. “Yes if it wasn’t for the Chimpanzees across the street we wouldn’t be here. So let’s go give them some thanks.” On Christmas day the Zoo was all ours. When we arrived with our shopping bags of stale bread the animals would come running. Papa said see how they appreciate our taking time to come and share with them whatever we have. That of course was the lesson of the day. “Thank you so much Papa,”

Aside from organizing workers Papa started the Modern Sunday Schools. He believed that if we are ever to have a socialist society children had to learn exactly what that meant. He often said the Jesuits were right. “Give me the child from zero to six and I will give you the man.” At its peak Papa had schools in three Boroughs, Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. On Sunday morning instead of church, or much like it, we went to Sunday School. We sang songs in praise of the working class. Teachers helped us understand the evils of capitalism and the glories of socialism.

The holiday spirit in our home would continue on through the week. Mama had baked all kind of cakes and cookies. This was all before telephones. People just showed up. No appointments, no advance notice and they were always welcomed with warmth and love. The big welcome seemed to produce a magical appearance of coffee, cake and talk.

The folks I was blessed to grow up with were obsessive talkers. This was all before radio and television so whatever punditry there was came from all your relatives, friends and fellow true socialism believers. A favorite in those times was, “the true meaning of the Russian Revolution” That could keep the argument going well past midnight. It was mama who always made me feel, “it was okay to argue about all that but above all else she was going to keep this home a, “safe warm and loving place.”

Of course, this was all before the great depression of 1929. That would change everything especially that warm homestead that mama made. In the mid twenties she would suddenly depart from a botched back alley abortion leaving a very young boy without these sweet memories that have only recently begun to return. Now that’s a blessing. Happy Holidays to you all. My very best RS

WikiLeaks & Marxism

2010-12-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

I can’t understand all the Sturm und Drang about the sensational WikiLeaks stuff taking up page after page in the NY Times. The Pentagon papers it ain’t. Should I say, the stuff that is called, “the great secret Government documents” that whip across the cable and wireless networks of our Government is really just bloody boring.

Is it really a great discovery that Berlosconi is a playboy trying to act like a Prime Minister should. Or that President Sarcozy worries more about his suits and neckties than he does about the French Muslim problem? Or that Hillary is really losing her patience with Prime Minister, Netanyahu who, as any informed person knows is a prisoner of his extreme right coalition. I’m sure he thinks that Hillary is a pain in the ass and so on and so forth. And who cares?

(Yes of course Senator Lieberman thinks Mr. Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, should be tried as a terrorist.)

(Assange is wanted in Sweden for sexual misconduct. Holy Cow Sweden is the most tolerant sex State in the world. How’d they ever come up with that one?)

Our Attorney General is trying to figure out exactly under what law they could prosecute Assange? Surely not The First Amendment. The US Supreme Court recently ruled that spending money in political campaigns is free speech. What WikiLeaks does is kindergarten stuff compared to what that court decision, “Citizens United” does to our electoral process.

I was trying to figure out why none of these “secret cable” made much of an impression. I realized it was my years as a student of Marxism. What has one to do with the other? Once you get a Marxist understanding as to how Capitalism operates you can begin to see what is going on in the WikiLeaks stuff.

All of those documents confirm the power struggle going among the competing capitalist countries for dominance in the various spheres of influence. Marxism described this power struggle as the reason for armies navies, spy systems, military buildups including colonial adventures. The latest addition to this roster of international struggle for economic dominance is Globalization. Source of cheap labor for outsourced manufacture. Best way to get out from under unionized workers in the home country.

It has been very useful for me to hang on to many of the things I learned growing up in a world of intelligent radical ideologues. Upon entering college in my late forties I did have to make a very important adjustment. I realized that my old ideologies were barriers blocking any new ideas. As I drove to school I began to think of my brain as a blackboard. To learn I had to wash it clean as Miss freemen did in my fifth grade class at PS 34. Wow was that ever right. A blank blackboard for new learning.

Yes, college in my forties was a great learning experience. Yet it was within that learning environment I began to incorporate some of the old things I learned with the new. That's why keeping the good stuff I learned from Karl Marx sure helps in understanding how capitalist society functions. Yupp, WikiLeaks is just another side show that is given us courtesy the “Press” that reflects the hopes of the ruling class that we don’t think of anything more serious than the fact that the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can get mad. No kidding!?

"Can't We All Just Get Along"

2010-12-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

This was Rodney King a few decades back. It didn't work then and it ain't working now. It could be Obama’s problem. I have tried real hard to understand him. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it’s my desire to see the first Black President succeed. I have been fighting back a conclusion that he simply doesn’t have any real fight in him. This has lead me to think about how do we learn how to put up a fight for what we believe in?

Drawing on my own experience. Could it be something that needs to be learned early in life. Maybe even in childhood? In the radical world where I spent my growing up years fighting for what you believed in was not just taught but you learned how to practice it. Questioning authority was the mantra of that world. Hence in Public School I neither stood for the Pledge Allegiance or sang the Star Spangled Banner. Yes it was tough the first few times but little by little you became proud of what you were doing. Learning to say, like the little girl, “But The Emperor Has No Clothes.” In the home I grew up in she was the hero numero uno.

Okay, now go over to the world Obama grew up in. His white mother taught him how to “Get Along” in the world of the white men. Obama talked a lot about “change.” Yet he was not a participant in any movement that dealt with any meaningful change like the Civil Rights efforts. So all through his first two years as President he spent an inordinate amount of time and political capital reaching across the isle to find, NOBODY THERE!

We hoped, well maybe he’ll get it now? They really don’t want anything to do with you. They just want “There Country Back.” Translation of that “underneath feeling” We just want that Black man out of the White House. He can not accept that. For Obama it means they are rejecting me so I must not be making myself clear. “I’ll just keep trying.” That’s where we are now. He just keeps rolling that same stone up the, “we can all get along hill.” You know where that got Sisyphus?

With all the rejections he finally has to find a way to prove that “we can all get along.” Down that road he ends up making compromises that just gives the store away to his opposition. His base goes berserk watching him say okay let the Bush tax cuts for the rich just stay a little longer and then maybe just maybe we can do something about it. It is sad that the first Black President in our history is not measuring up to a fight with the very people who simply want to see him in the trash bin of history. “Can’t we all just get along and be friends” a much desired wish and never achieved. To bad.

Goodbye Aldo!

2010-12-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

Sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the bay

Trying to unbend a dream of again, lost and searching?

For what for whom? Before the morning mist had gone, I’d know.

There before the little cat door in tears is Kate.

In her arms is Aldo mouth wide open in pain.

“His back legs paralyzed. He can’t move them.

I’m sure he has a blood clot.”

On a lonely farm in Minnesota miles from anywhere 's

Cats took Kate as their best, best friend.

Snookims was dressed up pushed around in a doll carriage.

Now Aldo like his brother Louigi had to be put down.

Just to save him from the pain.

Louigi’s legs had turned to sticks when he went down.

Aldo couldn’t move them anymore. Dr. Brian said,

“He is to old to have a chance.” I knew what it meant, I left.

Kate stayed and held him, “he went peacefully to sleep.”

A state decidedly to be wished for.

Now we are without our precious friends.

Everyday they reminded us of the many ways of life.

Kate you heard Dr. Howard, “Louigi and Aldo are together having fun.”

As we make it through December.

Can we try to do that?

Soren the Decade of the 1980s

2010-11-29T11:56:00.000-08:00

This is another part of my ongoing effort to leave a record of my life for my Great Grandson Soren decade by decade.

Your mother and father paid a visit---yesterday.
18 months old you made us giggle and laugh.
The country, the world in recession-depression?
We all need a Giggle and a Laugh..
Meeting Kate was my 80s highlight.
My belief in love was reborn.

Actor, President Ronald Reagan opened the decade.
He fired 11,000 Air Traffic Controllers over a strike threat.
The sleepy old Unions, just sighed and dismayed.
Union coffin got another nail. To bad for your Grandpa
He continues to believe in a Labor Movement.

We sent men off in a Shuttle to space.
At the same-time credit card mania took off,
For the worlds greatest party.
On credit off course. “We can have it all”

Yupp, that’s what they thought.
Most celebration’s,--- were down on Wall Street.
Billions in bonuses for money launderers.
Make nothing---just shuffle paper around.

Ronald Reagan, the movie star turned President.
Russian, Gorbachev and he end the Cold War.
(That was between the US. and Soviet Union.)

4500 Nuclear Bombs later. They’re still out there.
Chenobyl, nuclear power plant blows up.
Thousands radiated. Reminder
Nuclear can end life as we know it.
So can Global warming.

New wars, Iraq and Iran--Soviets, Afghanistan Israel--Palestinians.
Computers are everywhere. ”Globalization” The new world economy.
Grandpa thinks its Imperialism under a new rubric.
Cars get child safety seats bicycles get helmets.
Global warming nuclear weapons got nothing.

Berlin Wall between East--- West Germany comes down
Symbol of divided world. Not a failure of socialism,
It was never, never ever tried. Dictatorship is not, socialism.

Aids a new disease decimated the Village where we lived.
350 Bleeker Street Used to be a Village.
Now it’s home to Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Winston, Tiffany?
We left when the locals lucked out. Village my foot.

Aids infects 31 million world wide.
Lung cancer results from smoking. Cure, cut smoking.
Aids from sex. Try cutting that?
New diseases in bloom, like Global Warming
Maybe no cure? Maybe just to late?

Music reflects the time. Rocks in many forms.
Hard, Soft, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, Country Rock
Punk Rock, Salsa Rock. Maybe rocks in our heads?
Even Klezmer is back. Whiney clarinet and all.

The 1980s will be remembered as the party age.
Soren I hope you wont be “Paying the Piper.”
Love your Great GrandpaBob.
.

Memo to Richard Trumka President AFofL-CIO

2010-11-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

You and I met a few years ago at University of Stony Brook Award Ceremony. I was given a “Lifetime Contribution for Social Justice Award.” You and I spoke about the Miners For Democracy that I had been involved with.You acknowledged the role it played in your own career.It contributed in no small way to your becoming the President of the United Mine Workers. You spoke about how you saw the future of the Labor Movement. Yes, you were going to lead a new effort to organize a whole new class of service workers who had little or no tradition in the union world. Okay, that was one of those upbeat and inspiring experiences. Now the Labor Movement is confronted with a very different reality The new Conservative Tea Party Congress will pick as one of their targets the decimation of unions.

I have a fundamental concern with how the Labor Movement needs to respond to any and all attacks. Its hard won victories starting way back with the establishment of the eight hour day will be targets for the conservative steamroller. In defense of hard won concession there has to be a new fearlessness in protecting those gains.There can be no caving in as there was when Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers. That was just the latest turning point leading to the precipitous decline of the unions. The Labor Movement simply cannot tolerate any more of that and still expect to be a force for the workers.

Having spent many of my early years in the Machinists Union I remember another turning point. That was when the leaders of the AF of L. and the CIO couldn’t wait to sign the Non Communist affidavit resulting from the passage of the Taft Hartley Law. The exception was your very own great leader of the UMW John L Lewis. He rightly called the signing of those affidavits a disgrace. Following the end of WW2 the employers with the help of that anti union Taft Hartley Law attempted to cancel any gains the unions had made during the war. We had to find many ways to defend our hard won gains.

I’m going to go back again for a little history. It was in 1935 I was 18 when I got my first organizing assignment for the newly formed CIO. A group of youthful organizers like myself had the opportunity to meet with John L. Lewis. (Oh, my God we were going to meet with the guru himself.) I do remember some of the things he told us. One was when you are really up against it and things look particularly bleak create a crisis. Don’t sit and wait for something good to happen. Emphatically he said “It never will” you have to make it happen.

After WW2 that's what we did in Stamford CT. Yale & Towne lock had decided to cancel their union contract with the Machinists. The strike there was in its sixth month. The union was desperate. Remembering what Lewis had told us we organized a one day General Strike. By God it worked, Lewis was right. That action saved the union.

My message Brother Trumka is please begin planning now exactly how the Labor Movement is going to respond to the attacks that are on there way. New dramatic tactics are called for. Stoppages, sit ins, demonstrations at State and in the Capital Washington. Marches, marches marches, get all that anger out there directed at those who are fleecing the working population. Yes your the leader and your going to have to take some risks. Remember anything is better than just sitting there playing dead.

If there is one lesson I have learned in our long struggle for “Social Justice” it is that the outcome of the struggle will be determined by the very nature of the resistance. Ideally we should win. We may not win all that we started out to fight for. The outcome may not be what we wanted. Most important we should find ourselves in a position to fight another day. One final word from Baron Von Clausewitz the great Prussian military strategist. He suggested, I’m paraphrasing when the enemy has you surrounded and outnumbered and your not sure what to do, launch an offensive.

Richard Trumka my best wishes for a successful outcome. Remember another General in WW2, Vinegar Joe Stillwell's battle slogan, “Illegitimate No Carborundum” or “Don’t Let the Bastards Grind you Down”

What Jobs are we Talking About?

2010-11-16T09:33:00.001-08:00

Or Upon Reconnecting with old friends.

Recently I had the opportunity to reconnect with two old friends. One reminded me that he was finished with, “trying to change the world.” The other reminded me of what happened to the old Blue Collar Democratic coalition. They are the working class who have been losing out since the end of manufacturing across the industrial heartland of the U.S.

First about trying to “change the world.” I grew up with folks who had a dream of a utopia controlled by industrial workers. Workers would form elected councils that would start at their workplaces and move on through government. Yes they would be elected by the people who actually worked in the mines and mills to run the country.Back then there was the Soviet Union. Its supporters held that it was the living example of the new utopia.

I was a young radical growing up in the storm of these never ending arguments. There was a debate between myself, as a leader of the Young Communist League in the Bronx and Gus Tyler the head of the Young People Socialist league. It was held at The Bronx Free Fellowship. This question was posed to me. “In the struggle for socialism do you consider the Soviet Union a beacon or a burden?” Without hesitation I answered emphatically, “it was a burden.” That was my first step away from “changing the world.” Gus Tyler expressed shock and disbelief. Yes I confirmed my position. He then wanted to know “what on earth do you believe?”

In explaining my comment I said that I had come to the conclusion that in our struggle for a better world we can make improvements in the every day lives of working class people. I explained, “that’s what unions do every day in factories across the land.” It was in the struggles for Home Relief, Unemployment Insurance, Right to Organize that I experienced the real gains made for working people. Later I came to understand that what I was doing was making “imperfect adjustments.” This idea left plenty of room for future adjustments. That’s is how I have been dealing with “changing the world.” I guess I am still in that space and that is why I remain engaged even if it is just this old blogger holding forth as if on “Tremont & Prospect.” ( Soap box corner in the Bronx.)

On to the second old friend who for the many years was always a voice for the Guys who worked in the monstrous industrial heartland of the country. In a recent NY Times column David Brooks said, “This is the beating center of American life. The place--the trajectory of American politics is being determined. If America can figure out how to build a decent future for the working-class people in this region then the U.S. will remain a predominant power. If it can’t, it wont.”

Wow where is Brooks coming from? This heartland of America is now the rustbelt of most of those smoldering giants of the early industrial revolution. The few new mills that are operating under foreign ownership are producing more stuff with 80 percent less workers than in, “the good old days of Bethlehem Steel.” Brooks wake up it’s over. In place of Steel Making and cigars for a successful melt we have computer screens you sit in front of and push buttons.

Which brings me around to what kind of jobs are we all talking about? Can I remind my readers that some months back I wrote a blog on “Women As A Majority of the Work Force.” Now that has some real implications for the kind of jobs we are talking about. I love when I hear talk of, “shovel ready projects.” I don’t know exactly when the shovel became obsolete. I do know that any shovel job that required more than a dozen shovel fulls was taken over many decades ago by a machine called a back-hoe. They come in all sizes from a little bitty one that I can rent to use in our garden to giants operated by one person that can dig a quarter mile six foot deep trench before lunch.

My point is that jobs in the U.S. have been rapidly changing from the old industrial mills to the service, health care and automated computer controlled operation. It is now estimated that half the workforce or 75 million people do their jobs sitting in front of a computer screen the whole day.

That reminds me of a book Patricia Sexton wrote back in 1969 called “The Feminized Classrooms, White Collar and the Decline of Manliness.” I knew Pat Sexton and I read the book when it came out. Most of what she had to say is in the title. I was ambivalent at the time because my own experience moving from the plant floor to the office helped me to understand that in the white collar settings men and women were equal as far as the tasks were concerned.

Sexton’s concern about “manliness” was and is real. It was while working as a plumbers helper in high rise buildings I became a man. I was doing hard physical labor that was only done by men. Hence I became one. My work determined my state of mind. So now I’m in front of a computer screen and my major help comes from my wife who knows a hell of lot more about this machine than I ever will. This brings me back to the unemployed that Brooks wrote about in the “Great heartland of America?”

It was my second “old :friend” who called my attention to the fact that without some kind of college education getting any job at all is becoming extremely difficult. So what is going to happen to all those middle aged blue collar guys who lost their jobs as a result of the recession? Who out there thinks they can be retrained to sit here like I am and be, a claims operator at an insurance company? I have some real doubts as to how possible that will be. That brings me back to the David Brooks piece. If we need to create jobs in the Heartland to put the old timers back to work I’m afraid we can’t and so we may be losing our “predominance in the world.” I’m not sure if that’s good or bad?

Social Unrest Has Arrived

2010-11-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

A a number of occasions I have written about social unrest. Now its breaking out all over the world. Karl Marx might have observed that capitalism, in its regular economic upheavals is once again going to solve the crisis on the backs of the working class. What has changed since Marx’s time is whose backs are going to pay for this latest big rip-off? The rip-off artists are known as Madoff speculators, Bear Stearns, Citi Corp Goldman Sachs or any one of the big Hedge fund artists. Yes, we hardly know these days who exactly constitutes the capitalists or the “working class?” Do we include all those millions of white collar people sitting in front of computer screens? Is the new ruling class the Gates, the Zuckerburgh’s? Who? However in the meantime the social unrest factor is spreading across the globe.

Look at the protests in Britain. So far they were primarily students furious at the proposed increase of college tuition. What of the street demonstrations in France, Greece? This of course is only the beginning as all the “advanced capitalist countries” begin to figure out how to pay for the big party of the nineties. That's when we all went on the biggest credit binge in history. Buying mountains of stuff that most people couldn’t come close to affording. That's when your house was your big poker chip. You could burrow against it. You could buy and sell it doubling your money and it was all so easy. And for a little while it made lots of people feel oh so happy that WE GOT IT ALL. Then the bubble burst and very suddenly we are back in the same old dump of a recession. Or depression depending on who you are talking to.

Capitalism is not nearly as scared of social unrest now as it was back in the 1930s. That’s primarily because all that threatens now is a move to shift the distribution of wealth. Back in the 30s the capitalists were scared of a socialist revolution. That’s why I have often told how FDR with the aid of the left saved capitalism from its own abuses.

My years in the Labor Movement were precisely in those times of great social unrest. You bet workers were angry about the unfair distribution of capitalism’s goodies. With our regular use of social unrest we were able to create a world of tolerable working conditions for millions of workers. The Unions in those days had some really dynamic leaders like the head of the Miners John L. Lewis. In a very early new organizers meeting he growled at a roomful of us young whipper snappers. “They’ll be many times when you feel there’s no hope, your up against it don’t have an idea what to do. Then create a crisis.” Soon after the end of the war that’s exactly what we did in Stamford Conn.

Yale & Towne Lock company had been out on strike for months. Strikers morale was eroding. Ahaa! Time to create a crisis. We managed a general Strike in Stanford and man did the rulers ever take notice. We were threatening the system. Workers got a sense of power that they had never experienced. And man did they love it. The strike was settled. I learned from that experience why the idea of the General Strike had been wiped off the map of ways to strengthen working class power. The union leadership in cahoots with the owners of industry realized early on that the experience of the general strike was far to dangerous to the system. That was social unrest that could lead to revolution. Taken off the books.

Okay so now we come to President Obamas Commission on the deficit. They have issued a preliminary report, “for discussion.” The argument that has quickly emerged is who is going to pay for the big party that is now over? Here a lot will depend on the social unrest factor. If the argument boils down too a conversation of do we or don’t we expand the Bush tax cuts nothing much will happen. If the changes in SS and Medicare don’t get anybody mad and out on the streets the working class is going to pay through the nose. We are back to the social unrest factor. To the degree there is a protest movement out there to defend the basic interests of the average wage earner that will determine how much the cost of the crisis will be paid for by that very same wage earner. Keep an eye on the social unrest factor. It will determine the outcome as well as the future of the programs under consideration for cuts, cuts, cuts.

Voting as an Exorcism

2010-11-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

When I went to vote in our local school there was an old lady using a walker. I was sitting down. I offered her my seat. She asked,”how old are you?” I told her 93. She said,”your older than me you stay there.” I thanked her and met her again as we were leaving the school. “How’d it go I asked.” “Oh it was just fine as now we’ll get those scoundrels out and get the country humming again.” “Do you always feel that way after you have voted?” “Oh of course" she replied.” “So you always feel uplifted once you have voted?” “Yes indeed. Isn’t it the American way?”

It dawned on me that people get a heightened sense that the act of voting has somehow cleansed there felt sense that “by God I have actually done something for my country.” She just seemed to be one happy AARP member. If for some the election is an exorcism then for others it has become a sporting event. Think of it as the baseball pennant race. That’s the primaries and the election the world series. The result is the same. Just an opportunity to be a fan for your team. God forbid there be any serious thought given to the issues.

All my life I have tried to understand what the voting means to the individual voter. As a soap boxer way back in the thirties I often told my audience that the whole system of Tweedledum and tweedldee was setup by the capitalist system to create the illusion that you are voting for change. When in fact we were just voting for the same script with just a change of players. Having said that I still tried to convince my audience that F.D.R. was better than his opponent. “So if you have to vote go with FDR as he is indeed better than Alf Landon." Yes, it was the lessor of the two evils. We had lots of explanations for that notion as Europe was going fascist and we felt that FDR was our best bet against that rising tide.

Now with capitalism in one of its regular crisis the Democrats became the fall guys for 8 years of Bush. It was Carl Rove’s idea to raise that enormous debt in order to a “starve the beast” policy. Translated it meant raise the debt to make sure there is no money left for social programs. That’s is exactly where we are now. The Republicans who created the debt crisis are now going to solve it on the backs of those who can least afford it. And yes they will champion all those Bush tax cuts mostly the ones for the very rich.

What went wrong for Obama? A couple of things at work here. I believe the fact that we have the first Black President is what got the Tea Party folks bonkers. That’s what, “Give us our country back” was about. It just sat there right under the skin of so many white people who just couldn’t abide with the new Black face of our leader. It expresses itself in the “Where’s his birth certificate?” “Yeah we know he’s a Muslim just waiting to take over the country." And to boot a socialist and on and on.

Obama really never had an organized base. To the pickup truck, beer drinking old buddies of mine Obama is not a good communicator. He reminds me of another to smart politician Adley Stevenson. He also had trouble putting his thoughts into very simple little slogans that the average Joe can understand. (Just think about the Obama Health Care campaign.) Talking of the essential need for an organized base I am reminded of a meeting between A.Philip Randolf President of the Sleeping Car Porters Union and FDR. Randolph at the time was the lone Black in the leadership of an A F of L union. The Sleeping Car Porters was the largest black union in the country. Randolph was complaining to FDR about the lack of jobs for his members. He was pressing Roosevelt to do more about job creation. FDR is reported to have said. “Philip I agree with everything you are saying now you go out there and make me do it.”

That is precisely what Obama simply doesn't have a mass movement to make him do it. It was great to see all those young folks out there being excited about their new President. Problem was the day after his inauguration the youngens went back to text messaging and forgot about politics.

There simply never was an organized movement in support of what Obama wanted to do. Yes there were some nice slogans like, we can” and “Change.” That last word “Change” seems to have all kinds of magical connotation for the citizens. Yet there is no definition of what “change” means. Just changing the actors doesn’t mean a hill of beans. If there is no change in the system we are doomed to endlessly play the game of treedledum and tweedlldee.

I am glad that a little old lady helped me to understand the excitement that comes over people as they go to the polls. I never thought of it as an exorcism a cleansing of the political pallet. A sense of relief. A feeling that “by God I really changed things today. because I voted.” So there.

Deathday Birthday

2010-10-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Yupp my spell check don’t know “deathday.” and one could ask, "why should it?" Oh lets say I made it up. Kate took me to the theater for my birthday to see Le Bett at the Music Box on 44th street off Times Square. I hated the crowds and the stairs down to the “Mens” room but I loved the play. It gave me license to make up words the way Molier did a few hundred years ago. LeBett is a spoof on our blowhard blowvators. That's what inspired me to come up with“Happy deathday to you happy deathday to you” and so forth. You just don’t want to go there. Right? So, why am I?

Since 1954 I have had this terrible birthday problem. My poor father at age 74 was overcome with an total cancer attack. In and out of hospitals with body wrenching treatments. He would plead with me to find a German doctor scientist he had known at Lenox Hill hospital. Of course he was long gone. My atheist father was a true believer in science. Life and death was only a matter of finding the right scientist. Which of course I could not.

As he slips away the life machines keep him from going under. On October 18th I spent the night with papa at Presbyterian Hospital. With only looks and nods of the head he was telling me it was time to go. With my hand on the plug in the wall I asked him three times if he wanted me to pull it. Each time he shook his head with a most emphatic head shake yes. I pulled it. Short time later a nurse appeared looked at papa looked at me smiled, kissed my cheek said, “time for you to leave we have things to do.” By the time I got home there was a telegram. Papa died 15 minutes before the time I had been born.

This is what has made my deathday, birthday a complex mix of emotions that get tangled up in the two most dazzling of our human experience. Since our beginnings humans have struggled ceaselessly with some way to make sense of our deathday. All the worlds peoples invented some kind of religions to assure them that we just don’t end-up as dust. I was fascinated by how my papa replaced the religion of God with science. I am now beginning to understand the balm of believing that “yes I am happy as I am going to meet all my beloved friends.” There are volumes of songs, hymns, oratories about the glory of the hereafter. And how about those heavenly Cathedrals?

I must admit a change of heart. (No, I’m not going to call for a Minister, Priest or Rabbi.) There is an old Wobbly song, “The Preacher and the Slave. “Long haired preachers come out every night . Try to tell us what’s wrong and what’s right.” The chorus. “You will eat by and by in that glorious land up in the sky. That’s a lie.” Like that. The tune is based on the song. In the Sweet By and By. Here’s what that song says.

“There’s a land that is fairer than day. We shall meet on that beautiful shore. And our spirits shall sorrow no more.” We’re going to meet all our friends over there. In this time of my life I sometimes, fleetingly wish I was a true believer who could meet his old friends in the sweet by and by. Unfortunately the old rationalist takes over says,” it will never happen” so make love to the life you got left, pick up your guitar and enjoy those melodious songs of faith and happiness. Honestly I do try.

Obama's Armegeddon

2010-10-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, it’s just two weeks to the midterm election. The pundits, including the Democrats are falling all over themselves predicting disaster for the President. Some of my faithful blog readers will recall what I wrote during the campaign. High Expectation’s would do Obama in. I warned that Obama will chill out once he hits that cement wall of Republican opposition to anything he would propose. Back then I thought he was completely naive regarding his ability to reach out across the isle to his opposition. Man did he ever get smacked right in the puss trying that reaching out routine. What he got was a resounding NO NO NO. So, what’s at work here?

If I were a few years back from these 93 years I would love to go sit in some blue collar beer joints and listen to what the guys have to say about the man in the White House. I was doing that some years ago when Tiger Woods was first doing those holes in one that blew the golfers away. “God damn now the f------- niggers are about to take over the last of the white mans sports. Aren’t we gonna have nothin left for areselves?” I have a hunch if I returned to any of those bars now I again would hear what is underneath all this, “mad as hell and I ain’t gonna take it anymore” stuff. “Give us our country back” is the password phrase, translated means, “get that Black man out of our White House.” Then we’ll have our country back.

Of course we all know that much of the anger and unrest is about the economic mess we are in. However the GOP right wing has used that anger to turn it against their enemy of the moment, The President. Of course Obama has not done at all what he should have. Some argue that is the reason for the unrest.

1. He didn’t frame the fight with his enemies in a way that people could understand what he was trying to do. 2. He kept hoping that somehow or other his reaching across the aisle might payoff. Remember that disgraceful wooing of the two ladies form Maine?

3. He failed to put into simple terms exactly what he was trying to do. Even today no one in this administration has made a clear simple explanation of how the Medical Insurance Plan will benefit the average citizen. 4. Obama seemed unable to speak directly to the young voters who elected him in order to enlist their support for what he was trying to do.

5. The man who had been a Community Organizer forgot a guiding principle. “An organizer must always make absolutely sure his supporters understand the strategy for successful organizing.” The administration simply failed to do that. Now they will pay the price for that failure.

The outcome of the election will not signify the beginning or end of anything. What it probably do is embolden the crazies. Those are the right wingnuts, Glenn Beck will keep rousing people “to arms” against the “socialists” in the White House. That can become a very dangerous time in our history. It reminds me only to clearly how the Fascists back in the thirties turned the anger in Europe into their anti-Semitic crusades. It was all the fault of the Jews.

In Arizona right now the economic mess is becoming all the fault of the illegal Mexicans. In a sense it’s as if any handy scapegoat will do. Just as long as we don’t want to take a hard look at who were the people responsible for the economic meltdown? It sure as hell wasn’t the Mexicans looking for work in Arizona. Yeah, but it’s a lot easier to go after them than it is to go after the Hedge Fund jockeys who enriched themselves on mortgages that half the people who bought them could not, by any definition pay for them.

This is where we will find ourselves in a couple of weeks. It will just mean some more fighting to keep the rightwing nuts from further destroying the country. Do they have any solutions to the problems before us? Of course not. That’s why we need to keep working to come up with ideas that will address the real issues that we are confronted with. Namely, unemployment, foreclosures, decline of manufacturing, those endless wars, and the increasing discrepancy in how our wealth is distributed. This sure is a mouthful. Well. it’s better than despair.

Obama Needs a Mine Rescue

2010-10-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Did the world ever need the rescue operation in Chile? You betcha. It’s the very best news the world has had in a very long time. I have spent time in the Hard Rock mining community of Butte Montana. I can feel that emotional excitement as the Guys are brought out alive from a half mile down in the rock. In Butte I mostly experienced the opposite. Following a rock slide or a roof failure, miners were brought up mauled or dead. That is exactly the opposite of the emotions being experienced in Chile.

I am also very proud of the fact that the drill that was the first to break through the rock and reach the trapped men was made in Pennsylvania. This should assure Tom Friedman of the NY Times that, yes we can still make good stuff right here in Pennsylvania.(Friedman often bellyaches, in his columns about the fact that we can't make anything anymore.)

The Mine Rescue is exactly the kind of break Obama needs. Instead he got hit with the oil blowout in the Gulf. That just added to a feeling that our government is impotent in the face of any natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina before the BP blowout. Obama administration was far to slow to act in the face of the Gulf disaster. Much of that failure falls on the shoulders of the Cabinet Secretaries who are supposed to be able to take charge in emergencies. Problem is, Presidents tend to hire politicians who need to be paid off rather than people who are actually knowledgeable about their responsibilities.

I have my fingers crossed that Obama might get a breakthrough in of all places Afganistan. Fareed Zakaria reported this week that President Karzai of Afganistan has invited the Taliban to a peace conference in Kabul. Zakaria suggests that if that could succeed it might mean an early end to this 9 year nightmare in Afganistan, If that were to happen Obama’s schedule for the US to leave by July 2011 would turnout to be right on track. That would be Obamas “Mine Rescue Drama.”

When thinking about mine safety there’s another important difference to remember. The Mine in Chile is in hard rock. That suggests they are mining minerals like gold, silver copper, zinc, lead etc. But not coal. Coal mining is where most gas explosions occur. They are far more dangerous mines than the hard rock. And of course that’s part of the argument for open pitting for coal. In that case the danger of gas explosion’s go away. That has other devastating consequences. The the stuff on top of the coal face, called the “overburden” is lifted to expose the coal. It gets dumped in the hollows of West Virginia and end up contaminating the water table. That's got the environmentalists up in arms to save the rivers and streams from being poisoned.

I think of it all as just more chapters in the history of the Industrial Revolution. I have often wondered why was it called a “revolution”? I think I’m beginning to know. Revolution has been against the resources of the planet. Yes we are using them up or as we exploit them they begin to hit back as seen by the red mud lumina sludge in Hungary or if you will, Global Warming. (Just had the hottest July and August on record.)

I will now figure out how I can celebrate the successful effort to save the lives of a group of Chilean miners doing one of the most dangerous jobs on earth. PS. My very first involvement with miners was at 7 years old my father sent me out with a shopping bag to collect canned food for the Harlan County coal miners who were on strike.

Slouching to 93

2010-10-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw my foot doctor. That’s primarily for a neuropathy problem. That is what he called an “age appropriate” phenomena. Yupp, thats how it going now stuff in this 93 year old body is just wearing out. Or age appropriate. What’s one to do? I find myself still thinking in terms of machines.

Remember I spent the first third of my working life as a machinist. I often tended to steam engines as old as me. My job was to find the parts that were worn out and replace them. That's what the doctors are trying to do with this old “engine.” No, not replacing parts just keeping the old ones well lubricated and running. Man! I have worked around lots of pumps but there is nothing out there in the mechanical world that can come any wheres near the human heart. My heart has been beating at a rate that indicates that it has passed the 3 billion mark. Believe me there is no mechanical pump out there that can come anywhere close to that. So, thank you old heart even though now and again you are indicating to me that your getting tired. All I ask of you is that you keep going as I still have some things I need to do. Like what?

Get the lawn mower overhauled for next years grass cutting. Write a blog about my interview with the Mafia for a job in New Jersey. Visit with old friends, I haven’t seen for a while in New York City. (We live 75 miles out on Long Island.) There are plans of woodworking projects for dear friends and loved ones that are still on the drawing boards. Pulling together writings, from early in my life that ended up on the “cutting room” floor. I cannot understand how the past that I remember so clearly is either forgotten or unknown to most people.

Talking of human organs, while I.m most thankful to my heart for keeping this whole body working I cannot neglect paying homage to this old “computer” in my head called the brain. Everyday it astonishes me as to how much stuff it has on file there. I can start playing the guitar and singing and up pops the lyrics to a song that was popular in 1926. Now how on earth can my file up there remember that? But it does even though I never asked it to. Go figure.

I am very excited about the Royal Shakespeare Company visit to New York next July and August. They are rebuilding the old Armory up on Park avenue and 72nd street into a replica of the old Globe Theatre in London. thrust stage and all. They will do five plays and I want to camp out in New York to see them all. I have had a life long love affair with Shakespeare and I have never understood why? One thing I know is I always come away from the play feeling smarter about the human condition. It’s important that I be in good health so as not to miss anything.

Just a word on the upcoming crazy, ridiculous political season. I have witnessed the dumbing down effect of our endless blah blah blah on television. A major quality required of candidates is to prove that they are not any smarter than you. “You” gets reduced to the lowest common denominator.

It’s okay, for no matter who gets elected the problems are going to be there. In my mind the most pressing is the planet. As I wrote to a young women activist in Maine, We can fix the socio-economic issues by rearranging income distribution strategies. We will not be able to fix some of the devastation being done to the planet by global warming. This is the most alarming issue our time and I wished I could be right in the middle of that fight. My campaign would be run on the issue of.”would you drive a car with brakes that you were told might fail?” Or would you say I’m not going to chance it and go have them fixed.” That’s the global warming problem. If we take a chance that its just a natural phenomena and it turns out we were wrong. Then we are in for a big smash up that will not be fixable.

I think most nonagenarian like me just hope we can make it to the end of the decade just in order to, “leave this old world with a satisfied mind.” Country Western Song.

Who Shall Lead Us?

2010-10-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

As I started to write this I thought about the notion that a ”Child Shall Lead us.” Isaiah 11.6 “A little child shall lead them. Bringing together the wolf, the leopard, the young lion, the lamb, the kid and the calf” Johnny Cash sings a great song about how the lion will lie down with the lamb. It demonstrates that the problem of who shall lead is a very old one indeed. That dream of all of us working together is also very old and obviously not a very successful one. But we keep trying. Is that what’s going on now with the Washington Mall as the jousting place for who shall lead?

It now seems we are in a time of “who can get the most people to the Lincoln Memorial Mall in the Nations Capital?” I had mentioned in a previous blog that I had worked with Bayard Rustin back in August of 1963 to get 400 Mobilization for Youth kids down there and back. We had that once in a lifetime experience of hearing a most memorable speech.”I Have A Dream.” Never ever to be forgotten. The March was organized around the theme of jobs. Martin Luther King emerged as “our leader.” That's what Beck reffered to as his objective. For him to inherit the King legacy. Talk about hutspa?

It is now 45 years later and we are being subject to a lets see who can get the most people down there to show who is the leader. Far cry from the 1963 March. Most pundits thought Glenn Beck was going to turn his gathering into a right wing political rally. Instead he got religion and turned it into lets get our old values back campaign. And to finally defeat Woodrow Wilson. The former President is Beck’s favorite villain. He blames him for the start of the progressive government. “Progressive” is one of Beck’s watchwords signifying dangerous communists who want to steal your individual rights.

Last Saturday a group of Community and Union organizations took over the Mall for a demonstration called “One Nation Working Together.” Who exactly were they referring to as “working together?” The lion and the lamb? The rally sponsors included the NAACP, the AFofL CIO, Sierra Club, National Council of LaRaza. A pretty good representation of the old New Deal coalition or what’s left of it. From what I could find in the various news outlets no leader emerged from that gathering. Because that gathering had no sponsors from television I am certain very few of us knew it was happening. Wow, it’s is amazing to see how television is dominates every corner of our political lives.

Shall the comedians lead us? Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert from Comedy Central are taking on Beck with their call for a Washington Mall Day on October 30th. Their themes are. “Rally to Restore Sanity Jon Stewart. ‘March to Keep Fear Alive” Stephen Colbert. Their rallies are suppose to be competitive but I don’t get exactly how that is supposed to come off. Maybe something like dueling banjos? Stewart starts out and Colbert answers or what? But for now I wonder will one of them emerge as the leader on the left? A very sad commentary as to where this country of ours is trying to go.

In the meantime across Europe the street demonstrations for jobs and against pay cuts have been sponsored by unions. The leadership of the European Labor organizations are the leaders of the struggle for jobs and security for their members.

For as long as I can remember there has been this notion of American exceptionalism. That was the idea that we, the U.S. were not like other capitalist countries. Our Blue Collar, working class, in contrast to European workers, never seemed to see themselves as a class. I was forever explaining to my European friends that we are economic but not class conscious. That is again what I now see being acted out both here and in Europe. What will it take to create a mass movement in the U.S. for workers rights? Or is that just something in my sweet memory of things long gone? I would love to know what some of my old union buddies think about this? Who, or when will leaders emerge in a new invigorated progressive left?

Soren Chapter 6 the 1970.s

2010-09-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

Part of my ongoing pledge to tell my life story to my Great Grant Soren in decades.

Soren Chapter 6 the 1970’s

All decades seem to outdo last one.

Women's right to choose. Roe V Wade
Abortion legal. Would have saved my mother.
People keep dyeing in Vietnam war.
Our street protests help end it. Killing stops.
Fifty thousand US soldiers died
1,5 million Vietnam people and for what?
At wars end always the same question, For what?

Nixon, Republican is President..
Nixon sends “plumbers” no toilet overflow.
Domestic spying on Democrats.
Plumbers “shit hits the fan.”
(WW 2 joke ask your Dad.)

Nixon waves goodbye to Washington.
First in our history.
His legacy, dirty tricks in politics. Still living with that.
VP Takes over. Oh yes, the plumbers go to jail.
Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s batting record.
(Have to tell you my Babe Ruth story)

Nuke power 3 mile island blows up.
Scared of radiation? You betcha.
Enough nuke bombs now
Blow the whole planet away.

We send astronauts to the moon.
Bring back rocks. Reminds me.
Rock and Roll music is fun
Your old grandpa roc-ken with Kate. Wah hoo!

Microprocessors, midget computers
Take over many many human functions.
Say goodbye to a lot of jobs.

Enough! Already. New subject
Women continue fight for equality.
Grandpa writes, “Two Women 3 men on a Raft”
In “Harvard Business Review” Fancy stuff eah?

Outward Bound---learn to survive wilderness!
On the raft going down Rogue River.
All on board take turns as Helms-person.
3 men on instinct, undermine the women.
A women at helm, men dump the raft and laugh.
Women say, “see we can’t do it.”
Men say, that’s right, “we do it.”

Grandpa says, “same goes on in the workplace.”
Oh Soren does he catch hell from men.
Women love it, “some guy finally told the truth.”
Yupp, I was the guy.
Women past that but still a way to go.

Your name in the news today.
Movie, Good and bad owls at war.
Soren leader of good owls from GaHole.
See I knew you were destined in blood
A fighter for social justice.
Just like old great Grandpabob.

The 1930's It Ain't

2010-09-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Lead News-story Sept. 17th 2010

"The poverty rate in the US has jumped sharply in 2009." I hear constant comparisons between this recession and the 1930s. You are fortunate as you are reading a fellow who actually lived through the thirties. So, here’s how I remember that time. When I was still a very young man under 20 and I applied for Home Relief. (That was the original name of Welfare.) You had to show some evidence that you had looked for work. There was absolutely no jobs available so we did the next best thing. This meant the name address and phone number of the places you sought employment. That was easy as a group of us would pool our job hunting experiences. Finally found eligible you were placed on Home Relief. That meant a monthly check for rent and food.

Next step would be a government run jobs program. My first was the National Youth Administration. I was sent to work as a Detective at the National Desertions Bureau. This was a Jewish philanthropic organization. It’s job was to find husbands who had left their wives and try to reconcile them. My big find was a wrestler, “Sam The Butcher.” But that’s another story. During the LBJ War on Poverty a similar program was the Neighborhood Youth Corps.

My next stop in the thirties depression was the WPA. There I worked on construction projects such as Orchard Beach, Macombs Dam Park, Bronx Zoo, etc. If any of those jobs were completed and there was no further work available you were put back on Home Relief. In other words there was a whole number of safety net programs that would help individuals and their families to survive.

When Michael Harrington wrote, “The Other America, Poverty in the United States” back in 1962 it lead to the creation of the “Anti Poverty Program.” That effort was closer to the government model of the thirties than what is going on now. When I read about whole families being forced to live in homeless shelters I am simply appalled. We had been through all that in past depressions, recessions. We had learned the need for the government to step in and find ways to support families from this terrible spiral of homelessness, alcohol, drugs. In a word, the path to destruction of what we hold as a precious form of social life, the family.

Anybody with an ounce of compassion should be able to see that the tragedy unfolding before us is not the fault of the people suffering. In the simplest terms, the system has failed them. When I hear some of the right wing blow-hards saying the “unemployed are lazy and if they wanted to work they could” and more terrible bullshit like that it makes my blood boil. (I guess you could sense that pretty good without me telling it,) Well, it was no different starting in the great depression. Yes, there were those back then who would make the same claim. “That bunch of unemployed out there are just lazy layabouts who just don’t want to work.”

Unfortunately the Obama team just doesn’t get how serious the recession is for those whose lives are coming apart through no fault of their own. In one sense the White House bunch are elitists who simply are not able to make contact with those who are bearing the brunt of an economic catastrophe. Never forget the victims were not the cause. And yes, “They are mad as hell” for the simple reason that those who created the mess have been handily bailed out while the victims are being told to, “hang in there better times are coming.” The problem is there is nothing to “hang on to” and so they are drowning while the right wingnuts are choraling all that anger into political capital. Obama and company wake up or the election results will give you a severe case of adjuda.

Passing The Public School

2010-09-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

I live in a small town now.
A New York City man lost?
I needed a work place.
That means regular treks to the hardware.

That’s when I pass the Public School.
It’s September and I remember
P.S. 34 in the north Bronx.
Where the fall sun shone as it is today.
A prisoner squirming at that little desk.
Staring at the window.

Dreaming of the wonder world outside.
Empty lots with abandoned cars
To take apart. see how they run?

Teacher Miss Dawn “Robert Schrank
What is the answer?” “To what I replied.”
A roar of laughter seemed to wake us all up.
Dawn, did not think this funny. “Eight times 12
Is not funny.” Try to pay attention.”

That last was a plea. She knew somewhere in her self
That we should be out there.
Gorging on the last of summer.

That's what I knew was going on at the Zoo
A stones throw away.
If only I could watch the Lions,
Fast asleep in the high-grass.
The monkeys playing with themselves
Does the Zoo bore them like me in P.S. 34?

Or the kids in Center Moriches Public School?
They dream of the Bay? short distance away.
To swim, fish, dig for clams or watch the Osprey
Fish hawk dive for their dinner?

Maybe school should be at night?
Would there be less for us kids to dream about?
I wonder as I go to the hardware?

Hurricanes I Remember

2010-09-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

I should be writing about Labor Day. I am still sentimental about a holiday that had great meaning in my lifetime. Now I'm not sure anymore what it means aside from a long weekend. Anyhow I can't resist writing about, you know what?

Yes, we have been up to our eyeballs with Hurricane Earl. Kate and I are exhausted. At the time it’s hard to realize how much stress is created by the anticipation. There was a fundamental difference in the Stage 5 1938 Hurricane that destroyed the city of Providence and Earl.

In 1938 I was 20 years old and working at Packard Motor Car. Sometime in the late morning the foreman says to me, “listen kid” that’s what they called me, “there’s a hurricane on its way here. Why don’t you grab a couple of batteries and some cans of ether and go make yourself some money starting up stalled cars.” I owned a 1929 Packard Touring car that had unusually large wheels that made it exceptional on flooded roads. That what I did and yes I ended up making over $20, bucks which back then was a lot of money.

My second Hurricane encounter was on Fire Island in the 1950s. We had bought a small “fixer upper”cottage that needed a lot more than fixing. It sat on Locust Posts as did most houses out there. In our first year of ownership I was determined to replace all of the 40-50 rapidly rotting posts holding the place up. It was September. Wife and kids left to go back to school. I had arranged to stay on for a few days and continue my post replacement project.

In replacing posts I would get under the house with a pressured hose. Pick a rotted post. Put the pressured hose into the sand and as the sand was washed away by the water remove the old post. Take a new one push it down into the wet sand until you got a solid lock under the house. It’s just plain hard physical labor. I had bought myself a nice steak and potatoes dinner for that night. That with a couple of Jim Beams and I was off to sleep.

I’m up early the next morning, half asleep I notice that I am surrounded by water. A Coast Guard motorized Dinghy comes by. He says,” what the hell you doing here?” Surprised, I say “I live here.” He says, “There was a Hurricane went through and the Island was evacuated.’ “Well I’m sorry but I was fast asleep and don’t know nothin about no evacuation.” He looks at me a little perplexed says, “okay I guess it don’t make no difference now that’s its over.”

The next one was Gloria, September 1985. It did a lot of damage out here mostly ripping off roofs. The major problem for most of the houses around where we live was loss of electricity. That resulted in these nightly cookouts in a nearby Park. As stuff defrosted folks would bring it to the Park for a community “Gloria feast.” Best community social activity I can remember.

Next was Hurricane Bob. Yupp, that was its name. Kate and I were visiting her parents in Kokato Minnesota. We had heard something on the radio about the approaching storm. I asked Kate’s father to turn to the Weather Channel. Back then it was not commercial. Just the weather. We both stood there aghast as the arrow pointed the Hurricane Bob right at our house. Kate’s mother, Esther packed us some sandwiches as we raced out of the house to catch the last flight out to LaGuardia. We arrived about midnight raced home to board up. by about 5-6 Am we were finished. Everything that could get airborne was put away and our 16 foot South facing glass wall boarded up. I said I was going to bed. Kate said not me I gotta see this, my first Hurricane. Bob never hit us it went 40 miles south.

What was so different with that 1938 huge storm that wrecked hundreds of houses all up and down the East coast, killed a couple thousand people, devastated the shoreline and yesterdays Hurricane Earl? Very simple. Back in 38 there was no television. Nobody even knew the storm was coming because the folks in the Carolinas or Maryland or Delaware didn’t bother to use the telephone to warn the people further up the coast that a deadly storm was on its way. When the hurricane hit the City phones began to ring and that’s how the manager at Packard sent his workforce home early.

Now with television we become aware of hurricanes from where they are born ,off the coast of Africa until they reach their final destination. I am not suggesting this is a bad. Not at all. My problem arises with the endless amount of sensationalized stuff coming over the television screens that can make you crazy by the time the storm itself arrives. I think it was Heidegger who suggested that all anxiety is in the anticipation.That is exactly what happened to Kate and I. After watching and listening we prepared to leave the Island. No we prepared to go to a shelter. No we prepared to put up the shutters. No, we finally agreed to do nothing.

So, what’s the problem here? All television Channels have a single interest. How to gain more viewers. This now includes PBS. They are all looking for increased Neilson Ratings. That’s how the commercial stations like “The Weather Channel” get their advertising. To keep us tuned they have to constantly come up with some brand new sensational information. At one point yesterday afternoon we got calls from different friends all very concerned for our safety, telling us to evacuate. They were getting their information from one of the many media outlets.

The lesson here is not that we just go about “posting your house” with a hurricane approaching. The lesson for people like us who live in vulnerable locations to learn and understand what is or is not a serious threat. So far we have been lucky. That doesn’t mean we will always be. But we will try to become more self informed regarding the risks.

Economic Crisis=Demagogue Time

2010-08-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about how to express my felt sense of the present mood of the country. Some time ago I wrote a blog on”A Pall “ that was hanging over the land. Now I am past “The Pall.” Well, I played with “angst.” No that’s just anxiety. Yes there’s some of that but yet there’s more. How about “ennui” No thats French for lassitude. How about “miasma?” Thats a “poisoned atmosphere." Okay, if we can think of it a mass psychological condition then I believe it fits the present mood of the country. We are suffering from a Miasma of the body politic. Now that the “Big Lend and Spend Parties of the nineties are over the American middle class is really pissed off. They cannot abide with the notion that all those goodies have gone with the economic bust. Then we elect the first Black President and instead of things getting better as promised they get worse. This makes for ideal situation for the demagogues.

In my 93 years I have lived through a number of Miasma’s. They are never exactly the same but there are a few characteristics that show up in all of them. The present situation with the persistent ten percent unemployment and the continuous home foreclosure is starting to increasingly resemble the 1930s. I estimate that the unemployment is probably now somewhere between 15 to 20 millions. Many people who cannot find jobs are either no longer eligible for unemployment benefits or just quit applying. That's a huge pool of angry folks out there. Who will they blame for their circumstance? People in distress often start out blaming themselves for the disorder. Slowly but surely they will find a need to blame somebody or something for their dire circumstance.

In my Marxist days on the soapbox I could make a good case that capitalist system was to blame for the working class ills. Om my desk is a copy of the IWW songbook. On the cover it says “Fan The Flames of the Discontent.” That is exactly what Glenn Beck is doing. Fanning the flames of the discontent.

The present political Miasma, besides the failing economy, is a fierce hatred spewing forth from the right wing of the Republicans against the Democrats and especially their Black President Barack Obama. This situation sets up an ideal situation for the demagogues to work in. They need enemies to blame the economic crisis on as well as slogans that will arouse people to act. Enter Fox News man Glenn Beck.

Speaking of the 1930s my papa used to say “It is very important in times like these to be on the lookout for hidden meanings of code words and phrases.” Yes of course, welcome to “Give Us Our Country Back.” And today with a huge crowd at the Lincoln Memorial Mr. Beck “Bring God back into our lives.” “Bring honor back to our country.” All of these slogans suggest that the present Administration is a danger and threat to “our country and we need to take it back.” Code for get rid of that Black man in the White House.

Todays caper at the Lincoln Memorial, claiming the mantle of Martin Luther King is a way to scare more people into believing the whole country is signing on to, “Give Us Our Country Back.” The mass rally technique is just another form of stampeding the uninformed, unsure and independents to get on board as “we take over the country.” It’s that old saw “you with us or against us?” You remember that one?

No. there was none of that back in the 1963 March on Washington for, “Jobs and Freedom” where King made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. As it continues today. Blacks back then were suffering a far greater unemployment rate than whites. Freedom was not a code word for get the government off my back as it was used today at the Beck rally. Freedom meant the right to live unsegregated lives. With a couple of hundred kids from Mobilization For Youth I attended that rally. There is no question that the March became a rallying cry for the country to pay attention to the needs of a minority of citizens who for to long have been deprived of their just rights under our Constitution. What went on today at the Lincoln Memorial was an attempt to usurp that great moment from our struggle for civil rights and claim it for the Tea Party. That's what demagogues do. Turn things into their opposites.

This is a real challenge to the Obama administration. They need to to really smack back hard on any of these coded messages so that people can see what they are about. Obama needs to respond to the criticisms that he is just to distant from the average working stiffs. During the Gulf crisis I was hoping he would just go and schmooze with some of those Gulf fishermen. He never did. That has got to change or we will see another big deflection of blue collar people turning once again away from the Democrats as they did in the Reagan years. The administration needs to get back to organizing all those Internet folks who elected the President and alert them to the upcoming election in November. I hope they haven’t got to tired of it all and are able and willing to respond.

Hampton Classic Time, Again?

2010-08-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

I confess, I am rerunning this blog again because in some ways it reminds me of the absurdities of our every day news reports. Besides it does remind me of another absurdity, me riding in a horse show in Mexico City. This was long before the drug Cartels took over the country. I still think of my time there as a very happy experience.

It is now Hampton Classic time out here on Long Island and I had another memory jolt. The horses reminded me of an early Sunday morning in Mexico City. I was at the stables of the Presidential Palace for an early breakfast. You are wondering, “What on earth was he doing there?” I was too.

It was probably 1965. I was in charge of Youth Employment programs for the City of New York. John Lindsay, the Mayor, asked if I would be willing to go to Mexico to evaluate a youth employment training program called “Instituto Nacional La Juventud,” National Institute of Youth. It was wintertime and I could not be more delighted to leave the City for whatever reason. (Mayor Lindsay sometimes referred to my job as “keeping the city from burning.” We did that by employing as many as 50,000 kids in summer jobs.)

Once in Mexico City I was treated like royalty, with chauffeured car and airplane at my disposal, to be able to visit any one of dozens of cities and towns that had Youth Training Programs. I would visit the programs, spend a day or two observing, and make notes. Getting back to the Horse Show.

On Friday evening my host, Sergio Alvarez, Director of the Instituto, announced, “Sunday morning we ride with Mexico’s National Equestrian Team at the Presidential Palace in a practice jumping session.” You have to understand that Sergio, a small highly energetic man, spoke in proclamations that came out as major facts that simply could not be denied. Yet I valiantly tried saying, “Sergio, I know how to ride a horse, but for God sake I would not think for a moment I could ride with Mexico’s best riders. Besides, I know absolutely nothing about jumping a horse over a hurdle, and I have no riding clothes.” That last was a desperate attempt to get out of this impending disaster. To Sergio it mattered not. “Roberto,” he announced, “we have all your sizes and your clothes and boots will be waiting for you at the arena.” And so I gave in to Sergio’s determination that this was going to happen.

Early Sunday morning there was Sergio all decked out in boots, jodhpurs, tailored riding jacket, and helmet, assuring me that the very same outfit awaited me at the stable. We arrived at the great hall where dozens of men where already eating breakfast of eggs rancheros. There was no silverware and I noticed people were using there rolls as a way of scooping up the peppers and eggs.

I was greeted as a dignitary from Estados Unidos who will “honor us by riding in our La Pista.” I was still hoping that the riding outfit wouldn’t fit and that would be my way out. At this point Sergio was insisting that it would be a real insult if I were to withdraw. “Roberto,” he exclaimed “do you want to insult us by being disdainful of our riding ability? No Roberto, for the sake of the relations between our two great countries you must ride.” Sergio was what some Mexican friends described as a “declamador,” who declaimed as though he was addressing the multitudes. There was nothing to do but put on the outfit (it fit amazingly well) and make the best of it.

We proceeded to the riding hall and again it was announced that Roberto Schranko from Estados Unidos would be riding with the equestrian team. As I watched these fabulous riders and their horses go over the hurdles from a foot off the ground to what appeared like six feet, I was in awe of the grace and the ease with which they managed the ride. I did not have a clue regarding how they were being judged. It was getting to be late morning and I thought, “Oh well, they probably forgot about me,” when Sergio came to remind me it was time to “mount up.” Back to the stable. There was a beautiful horse held in check by a groom who very graciously, with a movement of his hand toward the horse, suggested I mount; which I did. Once up in the saddle, it seemed to me this was the tallest horse I had ever been on.

Adding to my overwhelming anxiety and prayer that this horse would know what to do, since I didn’t, was the fact that I was sitting on an English saddle instead of a nice Western with that great knob up front you could hold on to when things got hairy. Everything from here on out was now in the hands of the Gods, or the horse, or both.
The groom led us into the La Pista and sent me and the horse off to the very first hurdle. I gave the reigns a little lift, which is what I thought was a signal to the horse to jump. Once past that first hurdle there was a round of applause from the audience. I thought, “Well heck, that wasn’t so bad.” Then came the next and the next and the next, and after each one a loud applause. As I approached that final six-footer I thought, “Man, just hang on here or for sure you will be dumped.” But this dear sweet horse just took it his stride and over we went. Now there was thunderous applause. Sergio came forward to congratulate me on my great spirit. I had sacrificed myself to make the Mexican’s feel good by knocking down every single pole from the first to the last. “Roberto, you are a great friend of Mexico and we will never forget what you did here today.”

As the trophies were handed out, I was given a silver belt buckle with a Road Runner bird on it. I thought that was a perfect portrayal of me at the “Hampton Classic” in Mexico City. This was yet another case of “never look back,” for if I had I would have realized how absurd this whole episode was. I thanked the horse for getting me through the hurdles without a single refusal to jump.

Thinking Together

2010-08-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from all the bad news I was inspired by a visit from my son to write about my kids instead of all the crazy stuff out there. It was a wonderful 5 days. Fred came here from Madison Wisconsin to help his Dad with a bunch of household chores, repairs, additions etc. He and I have had a tradition of doing “projects.” Often as a bored kid he would say, “Dad don’t you have a project?” Back then before cars, and most everything in our lives were run by microprocessors, you could basically do your own servicing. Fred and I could change spark plugs, distributor points, tune the carburetor, change the oil filters etc. etc. Of course you can’t do that anymore unless you have a computer programed to analyze your engine. That’s how we moved into the realm of house repairs.

First project this time around was a motion light over the garage. This was a ladder job from which I have been barred. A few years ago I fell off a ladder. Luckily it was on a lawn so I came away bruised but not seriously hurt. That ended my ladder career. After installing another motion light Fred made the observation, “at night your house lights up like a penitentiary.” Then came sash replacement on some of our old double hung windows. Because we live on the water the salt air is particularly hard on the house.

What’s the fun of working together? I have been wondering about that. As we tackle projects there is a lot of thinking that goes into, the how to. I have always got a kick out of thinking together with my kids. It’s a process in which you both see a problem. Then begins a conversation about how to solve it. Doesn’t matter if its how to get a new lamp-cord through an old lamp. Or how to re-rope a busted venetian blind or clear a stopped up sink. With my daughter it was how do you play an old Appalachian tune on the guitar.What we ended up doing is thinking together. What is that? Okay one of you spots the problem. Then each begin to offer solutions. It is in that problem solving exercise that we get real insights into how the other thinks. Fred grew up in the age of digital. I grew up in the age of the mechanical and therein lies a difference.

Now as a nonagenarian thinking with my son and daughter takes on the character of a new learning experience. Their life experience has given them a myriad of different ways of thinking that come as real surprises. My daughter Elizabeth has spent most of her adult life in foreign countries as part of the International Volunteer Service. That’s a teaching organization. She has probably learned as much from her students than what she had to teach them. She brings an entirely different perspective of how we might deal with our everyday lives. Elizabeth has also been a folk and jazz singer most of her adult life. She has always opened new doors for me to sing myself through a whole world of different music.

What I am talking about in this age of electronic communication might seem quaint. I do believe that this kind of face to face eyeball to eyeball relating results in a deep and abiding respect for the other. It is also a way of helping each other in the process of learning how we can successfully live together. It is precisely because of the absolute presents of all this electronic communicating that I have become such a true believer in some kind of direct interaction between parents and children.

With the ever increasing presence of Twitter, Tweeter, Facebook and what have you I fear we will lose the lasting value of doing real life things together. Thank you Liz and Fred. And my Granddaughter Allie who put me in her High School Yearbook quoting her Grandpa’s “Goodbye and Good Luck.” I love all these kids as they constantly add new dimensions to my old life. I just worry a lot about what kind of a Planet we are going to leave them? More about that some other time. (I don’t want to give up this good feeling I have now.)

Soren Chapter 5 the 1960s

2010-08-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

(This is the fifth in a series of writings I am doing for my Great Grandson Soren. Hope it gives him a glimpse and a curiosity about the lives of one of his grandparents.)

How to write of the sixties?
God, it’s complicated.
Am I just getting old?
With a new young President John Kennedy
We were on the road to Camelot.
The place where only happiness lives.
Trouble was, a terrible war in Vietnam
Another stop on the domino idiocy road.

Kids born after World War two.
Soldiers came home, went to bed.
Twenty years later 70 million Baby Boomers.
Registered for a military draft. Just a number.
Yeahh, “when your numbers up you gotta go.”

That’s how it started, “Hell know we wont go.”
The government lies, The government lies.
Question Authority, Did they ever.

Communist, Castro in Cuba Russian Nuclear Missiles.
President Kennedy’s supreme test.
Nuclear, total destruction or what?
Our military says, just bomb em.
Kennedy waits, talks with Russians
World is saved for now.

Kennedy shot in Texas, Lyndon Johnson President.
Doesn’t know where Vietnam is. Need to continue war.
Why? Yes of course that domino shit again.
Evening news anchor reads names of the dead.

Baby Boomers “Hell no we wont go.”
Feminists Betty Friedan pleads equality for women.
Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring,” pleads for the planet.
Black youth demand right to sit at a drug store soda fountain.

With 400 Juvenile Delinquents on lower East Side
Your Great Grandpa teaching them vocational skills.
They-re teaching the horrors of Getto life.

Veitnam war protests take over the streets.
Kent State U, National Guard shoots protester.
On her knees screaming girl reflects its horror.
The country mourns. Are we are lost?

LBJ seems lost. He does wonders on home front.
New rights granted Black people.
Grandpa bob takes 400 kids to Nations Capital
They hear Martin Luther King. “I have a Dream.”

Civil Rights Movement in full protest.
Anti War, the Feminists, Civil Rights,
Protest crowd streets. This is the sixties.
Like our President King, too is assassinated.
As cities burn.These are the days of rage.

Beatles are visiting from Liverpool singing
Strawberry Fields Forever. As young girls scream in ecstasy.
And Warhol, art known as pop. A Campbell Soup Can.
Transcendental Meditation, smoking pot helped.
Foul language, dress as you feel, burn your bra.
The new road to enlightenment.

Honestly. As Watts in Los Angele's burned.
And Jerry Lee Lewis was rocking around the clock’
Fred, your uncle on August 14-15 1969 with 400,000 others.
A music wing ding, happening at Woodstock NY in the rain
Listening to Jimmie Hendrix, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker, Lead Zeppelin on and on.
In the muddy, and loving every minute. Go figure?

The Vietnam catastrophe was ending.
Russians send Yurie Gargarin to space.
We send Alan Shepard. So began the space war,
As the sixties ended it was clear.

America, the US of us will never be the same.
50 thousand US lives lost, millions in Vietnam died.
Civil rights for blacks, women on the march to equality.

We lived through a culture breach.
Maybe, the end of innocence?
Or the beginning. The age of doubt?
Anyway it was one hell-of a ride.
Changed who we are forever.

Is This a Conspiracy?

2010-08-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

Back in March I wrote a blog called, “Pall Over the Land’ In it I suggested that the present economic crisis was not like the 1930ies depression. Major difference was the powerful political left that existed back then that no longer exists today.

What we are now experiencing is the emergence of the most conservative orthodox right wing. That is the real danger signal for democratic societies. A good example of orthodoxy gone berserk is a bill pending in the Israeli Knesset that declares that only the orthodox can decide who is and who isn’t a Jew. It is similar to the outcries being heard about who can or cannot become an American citizen.

Yet, there is a piece of economic news that I find very disturbing. From looking at economic indicators like the Stock Market or probably more important corporate profit one might get the impression that the worst of the economic crisis of 2008--9 is behind us. Here, I find something altogether different at work. With all the good economic news for the corporate world why isn’t there good news for the employment world? Lets look at any of the periodic economic crisis in the past 25 years and what do we find? With the upturn in the markets came a concomitant upturn in hiring. Why not now?

Here is where my conspiracy theory comes in. As any regular reader of my blog will recognize, I do believe there is a visceral underneath hatred of Barack Obama on the part of the corporate leaders. I might add that I have many reservations regarding Obama. Never the less, Obama’s recent mild criticisms of Wall Street gave the corporate world a rational for their hatred. “He’s against us.” Okay, so” we will hit back.” How do they do that? In spite of the economic uptick they will refuse to start hiring back their workforce. Thus keeping the unemployment rate right up there near ten percent. They figure that will certainly do Obama in comes the midterm election. The despicable part of this behavior is the price that the average job seeker has to pay for these corporate shenanigens.

Yupp, that’s my theory. Seems outrageous that the captains of capitalism, against there own best interest would let politics dominate their thinking by keeping the unemployment rate at 10 percent. How come that they can get away with this play? Remember my old friend, “social unrest.” Well there ain’t none because there is nobody to organize it. Yes, the Tea Party crowd have siphoned off some of the anger out there by directing it at the Obama administration thus deflecting it away from Wall Street and the big banks. Though I must admit that periodically I have noticed that the Tea Party “leaders” whoever that is at any moment will try to heard these cats back on message. They want the anger directed at Obama in order to get rid of the Administrations control of Congress. That's what I believe is the conspiracy and we need to be alert to what is really going on as regards the unemployment numbers.

On The Question of Soul?

2010-07-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

(I have often thought about where some things that I experience come from. This is a speculation on what might be considered my soul.)

It started, I was sitting out on the deck.
One of our new 95 planet hot days.
Pavarotti singing O Sole Mio.
Then my friends the Finch family
Not to be outdone. Gathered from near and far.
As Pavarotti hit high C finches went one higher.
Thrilled to the point of tears. An epiphany!
This was the source of our music.

We imitated them, now they were trying to take it back.
My very first encounter at age seven was Gluck
A 78 Orfeo and Euridice, Locked in the room.
Nobody could see the tears from an old 78.

So started my souls gift of music.
Through life's darkest hours.
It was the balm, that kept me.

Thanks many good friends.
Brahms, your lullaby, Beethoven your fifth.
Hank Williams Lonesome Blues Russ Colombo Ramona
“When day is done you’ll hear me call”
Merle Haggard “Send Me Back Home”
Death row prisoners last request

Or Hank Williams “The moon just went behind a cloud,
To hide its face and cry."
Schubert Der Earl Konig. The cries of a dyeing child.
The terror, hid my head under the pillow.
Never screened out that very last gasp.
"I’m so lonesome I could cry.”

I sang alone out loud and in a crowd quietly to me.
In my 93rd year I believe the music spoke to my soul.
No I still don’t know what that is.

Pavorrotti sings of Pagliacci tearing out his broken heart,
Assures me it’s there. I’m sure there are others.
In the meantime, thanks, music makers for my soul.

The Spy Business

2010-07-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

The recent arrests and deportation of the 10 family style spies reminded me of my own attempt to venture into the spy business. It sort of started way back when my son Fred was in the plastic model making age. His primary interest was airplanes but periodically he would venture into ships, tanks, and other military hardware. Keep in mind now that I used to be a machinist who worked in the defense industries during world war 2. What startled me about Fred’s models was there absolute detailed scale to the real thing. When I looked at a model of the Bradley Tank I thought, Ahaa, I could just sell that to the Russians and they could start building a full scale model of the same thing. That went for fighter planes, battleships, destroyers the whole panoply of military hardware.

The Spy Business model got a big jolt in one of my travels. During the fifties or sixties, I ventured into the Nuclear Museum at Los Alamos New Mexico. In the handout section there was various booklets, pamphlets, and documents describing in fine detail how the Atom Bomb worked. Soon after I came upon a copy of “Jane’s Fighting Ships.” Therein was a detailed description of the most advanced naval hardware. The more I looked around for military information the more stuff on Tanks, Planes Radars, and Ships seemed to be available in museums, bookstores and libraries. Present day, if you add the Internet you got it all right there at your desk.

Okay, so here is the Business Plan. Together with a coworker friend we would designate specific areas of research. ie, Naval, Air, Gunnery, Electronics, Land, Submarine’s, Etc. Etc. We would then hire graduate students with interests in these areas to comb the literature for material that would be useful to anybody who was willing to pay for it. And pay you would because this was going to be a bargain compared to what it would cost to set up spies to collect the same information. Our plan would be completely legal as we would not be selling any secret security material. We thought we would set up shop in either Washington DC or Zurich Switzerland.

Yes, we had financial sponsors who thought it was a great idea as it would promote peace through equalization of armaments. Like the nuclear standoff between the US and Soviet Union. So what happened?

It was on one of my regular trips to the Nations Capital that I ran the idea passed a good friend who worked as a statistical analyst for the Congressional Budget Office. He let out a loud laugh said, “Schrank it already exists. Just take a walk over to K. Street” and-----(don’t recall the cross street) “but right there you’ll find a bookstore selling everything you ever wanted to know about the military in every corner of the Globe.”

Yupp, there it was two floors of books pamphlets, print outs, on every subject that might be of interest to intelligence agencies or anyone interested in how to build a better bomb. Oh, well another great business idea gone with the wind.

It brought me thinking about the latest cracking of the ten family Russian Spy Ring. These folks should have just defected to Brighton Beach that Russian émigré community right next to Coney island. Heck they could have then reported on the rebuilding of the Parachute Jump that was surely a way to spot ships at sea. What In Gods name were the Russians thinking that a nice family living in Montclair New Jersey raising beautiful Hydrangeas were going to steal secrets of what?

It is probably just another example of “old organizations never die they just roll over and continue doing what they know even though it is absolutely irrelevant.” Like “The March of Dimes” setup to fight polio. With the advent of the Salk Vaccine they just shifted over to fighting lung disease. I might add, “old organizations never die as long as they find a way to pay the executives.”

This is what I assume is going on in Moscow. The KGB successor need to continue having spies in the US. Where else could they go? I’m pretty certain they have them in London maybe even Paris. Now I'm sure you noticed that Somalia or Outer Mongolia are not on the list. I still don’t understand why the Russian Ten didn’t defect? Maybe they forgot what winter is like in Moscow? While we’re singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Xmas” I can hear them singing, “I’m dreaming of Montclair New Jersey. What am I doing here with no beach to spy on what the folks are doing about sun screen.” Oh well it will be good for the CIA as they can now say, “See we need more than the 28 billion we get to keep track of all this new “Family Style Spying.” Its like Family Style eating in Italian Restaurants. Goodbye and good luck.

July 4th 2010

2010-07-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

Newspapers, supposed to fade to the Internet.
Then, a brilliant piece of reporting.
Renews my faith in journalism.

Brendan Marrocco, front page full color, July Fourth.
He looks down where his legs used to be.
Propped on his shoulders, where arms used to be.
Damm, just can’t get that picture out of my sight

I think, “The Times” is beating the obit.
Can it explain to Brendan
What he lost it all for? They could say,
It was, funny war against WMD. Oh, Weapons of Mass Destruction.
No,” it was for Middle East, Democracy.” Maybe even oil?
“The war to end all wars” Damm, that was World War One.
‘All Quiet on the Western Front.” Great movie.

Maybe it started in 1194 BC Trojans against Greeks
The Iliad masterpiece of literature. Great read.
Ulysses, Achilles, Agamemnon, Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon Helen Paris
Gods, soldiers, mothers, fathers, fighting it out. Where have the Gods gone?
Just a good story? No color photos to scream the horrors.
Like you Brendan, showing off the wonders of war.

Don’t forget the glorification. Richard The Lion heart,
Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Hannibal
Right on down to Patton. Slapped a shell shocked soldier
“Not going to tolerate malingerers.” There’s tough war talk.
Is that the attraction? Tough manly macho talk?

We used to sing soldiers off to war. We’re Tenting Tonight,
Long Way from Tipperary, Over There and we wont come -----
I thought when we stopped singing you off to----

Brendan you know what I mean?
It, meant it was over, Men were going to quit that game.
Brendan did you think of it as a game?
I know you are trying to be optimistic.
Then please, don’t ever ask yourself why?