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.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Obama's Armegeddon
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Obama Needs a Mine Rescue
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.
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.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Slouching to 93
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.
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.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Who Shall Lead Us?
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?
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?
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Soren Chapter 6 the 1970.s
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.
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.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The 1930's It Ain't
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.
"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.
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