He made the trains run on time and controlled the Unions

- October 23, 2003

Fascism is recognized to have first been officially developed by Benito Mussolini, who came to power in Italy in 1922. To sum up fascism in one word would be to say "anti-liberalism".

...............Socialism and Democracy. Political doctrines pass; peoples remain. It is to be expected that this century may be that of authority, a century of the "Right," a Fascist century."

Image Source Page: http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/glenn-beck-champions-u-s-pro-nazi-text/

Sunday, June 28, 2009

I'll Drink to that

6/29/09

New Hampshire, What did they do?

The State of New Hampshire passed a budget by a narrow margin last week. The budget is for $11.5 billion for the two-year plan, starting July 1.

Things are so bad in NH that even an income tax is looking good to some voters. Like Maine, programs and services suffer; and the hunt for alternative revenue starts to look like a drunken party game where no one is laughing.

Legislators settled on a mix of fees, increased tobacco taxes and cuts to come up with a something both sides could vote for. Like Maine, except for Bangor, they rejected the expansion of gambling and an increase in the gas tax.

In Maine we could have told them how to pass gambling. Refuse to let natives or in Maine’s case native Americans run a casino which would have kept all the money in Maine then allow an out of state firm to ship 50$,000,000.00 a year to Connecticut.

Funds from a gas tax could have paid for bridges and roads. New Hampshire’s gas tax was last increased in 1992. The wealthy have again refused to pay a faire share and their worshippers in the legislature voted against higher taxes on the wealthy.

N.H. and ME. have even more in common, State workers. The budget passed Gov. Lynch to cut the labor bill by $25 million, through layoffs, furloughs or other means.

State employees have already seen 200 layoffs announced, but to cut the budget by $25,000,000.00 the total could reach to an additional 750 layoffs. The following announcement was posted on the SEIU 1984 website.

Governor Lynch's public statements about the Budget have included discussion of additional state employee layoffs. If you receive a notice of layoff or transfer, contact the SEA immediately at 271-3411. The ability of SEA staff to assist you will vary according to several factors -- one key factor is how quickly you contact the union after receiving notice. So please do not delay; contact the SEA immediately if you receive a notice of layoff or transfer.

The courts: The budget will force cutbacks of both employees and hours and will threaten public safety while delaying justice.

At least N.H. still has State liquor stores which will expand to provide more revenue to the State. When does the time run out on the outsourcing of State revenue in Maine end? Can we bring our liquor stores back into the revenue stream?

Attacking State employees is an old trick. It is a trick that can’t solve the N.H. budget crisis and did nothing to solve the problem in Maine. What gimmick will the Republicans insist on next time around?

Don’t think your pensions are safe, the Repubs are salivating over what have worked a life time to earn.

There are many ways to get at your retirement and only one way to protect it. Get involved, get your family involved and let the legislative critters know you vote.

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But Wait, there is no more.

Note: Late Post, I have no idea why this did not go out last week.

Image by kowitz via Flickr

Superstar of the Infomercials Billy Mays died at his Tampa, Florida, home Sunday morning.

Billy Mays is pitching health insurance hahahaha!

Image by Roscoe Van Damme via FlickrImage by Roscoe Van Damme via Flickr

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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Optomism from Harold Shaw jr.

I mentioned Harold Shaw in another post. Harold is a State Employee and a very talented guy. While reading his blog I came across this optimistic piece that debunks some of the negative press that the right wing is trying to circulate about the president.

If you write, take photos, or have any skill that can be put on a web site, drop me a line and I will try to give you a plug. All Union members invited, not a Union member? If you read this blog, your heart is in the right place, come on in!
Please forgive any formatting errors resulting from translating from his page. From Here on in, it is all Harold's.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

THE OBAMETER UPDATE 6-14-09

Update on the Obamameter from the St. Petersburg Times.

Many have conveniently forgotten how bad things were getting in January 2009 and what President Obama walked into when he took the oath of office six short months ago. The conservatives and wingnuts want people to think that all of the things that are wrong with this Country are his fault. This is a Presidency, that inherited an economy that was in shambles, an international reputation as a lone ranger and a bully, warmongering (Iraq and Afganistan), declining respect by the people for the government, and a “get it while you can mentality” in and out of government. He did not start the bailouts to the banking industry, the recession, the wars or many of the other things that have been news stories and laid at his feet, but he sure as heck was caught in the middle of them.

President Obama is coming up on 6 months in office and actually for the short amount of time in office, he has been effective. He has restored some of America’s tarnished image on the world stage, he has attempted to reach out to the conservative and had his hand slapped away, he has used the bully pulpit to get his programs through.

Does this mean I agree with everything that he had done – of course not. I believe that he has tried to work too much with the conservatives, I believe that there should be a single payer national health insurance at a basic level and if you want more than that go to the private health industry, Guethner has turned out to be more of an insider to the financial industry and a few others.

Overall, I like the direction he is taking my Country. Away from the extremists in either party.

We did have a peaceful transition of power, but that is not to say it has been easy or civil at times from the world of the Conservatives or “Wingnuts”.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours?

This work by Harold L. Shaw, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Before there were Unions Free Market Capatalism Was Free to Grow

I've got nothing tonight, but a civics lesson and a history lesson. Our tax dollars paid for the article below and it is free for all of us.

Many some ones paid for our right to be free and to have a chance to organize and to try to earn a living for our selves and our families. We have to learn the history of the so called free market and the real results of deregulation or we will be doomed to repeat them.

Http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hine-photos/

Teaching With Documents:
Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor

Background

"There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work."

-- Lewis Hine, 1908

After the Civil War, the availability of natural resources, new inventions, and a receptive market combined to fuel an industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries many children were drawn into the labor force.

Factory wages were so low that children often had to work to help support their families. The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890 to 2 million in 1910.

Businesses liked to hire children because they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages than adults, and their small hands made them more adept at handling small parts and tools. Children were seen as part of the family economy.

Immigrants and rural migrants often sent their children to work, or worked alongside them. However, child laborers barely experienced their youth. Going to school to prepare for a better future was an opportunity these underage workers rarely enjoyed.

As children worked in industrial settings, they began to develop serious health problems. Many child laborers were underweight. Some suffered from stunted growth and curvature of the spine.

They developed diseases related to their work environment, such as tuberculosis and bronchitis for those who worked in coal mines or cotton mills. They faced high accident rates due to physical and mental fatigue caused by hard work and long hours.

By the early 1900s many Americans were calling child labor "child slavery" and were demanding an end to it. They argued that long hours of work deprived children of the opportunity of an education to prepare themselves for a better future.

Instead, child labor condemmed them to a future of illiteracy, poverty, and continuing misery. In 1904 a group of progressive reformers founded the National Child Labor Committee, an organization whose goal was the abolition of child labor. The organization received a charter from Congress in 1907.

It hired teams of investigators to gather evidence of children working in harsh conditions and then organized exhibitions with photographs and statistics to dramatize the plight of these children. These efforts resulted in the establishment in 1912 of the Children's Bureau as a federal information clearinghouse. In 1913 the Children's Bureau was transferred to the Department of Labor.

Lewis Hine, a New York City schoolteacher and photographer, believed that a picture could tell a powerful story.

He felt so strongly about the abuse of children as workers that he quit his teaching job and became an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee. Hine traveled around the country photographing the working conditions of children in all types of industries.

He photographed children in coal mines, in meatpacking houses, in textile mills, and in canneries. He took pictures of children working in the streets as shoe shiners, newsboys, and hawkers.

In many instances he tricked his way into factories to take the pictures that factory managers did not want the public to see. He was careful to document every photograph with precise facts and figures.

To obtain captions for his pictures, he interviewed the children on some pretext and then scribbled his notes with his hand hidden inside his pocket.

Because he used subterfuge to take his photographs, he believed that he had to be "double-sure that my photo data was 100% pure--no retouching or fakery of any kind." Hine defined a good photograph as "a reproduction of impressions made upon the photographer which he desires to repeat to others." Because he realized his photographs were subjective, he described his work as "photo-interpretation."

Hine believed that if people could see for themselves the abuses and injustice of child labor, they would demand laws to end those evils. By 1916, Congress passed the Keating-Owens Act that established the following child labor standards: a minimum age of 14 for workers in manufacturing and 16 for workers in mining; a maximum workday of 8 hours; prohibition of night work for workers under age 16; and a documentary proof of age.

Unfortunately, this law was later ruled unconstitutional on the ground that congressional power to regulate interstate commerce did not extend to the conditions of labor. Effective action against child labor had to await the New Deal. Reformers, however, did succeed in forcing legislation at the state level banning child labor and setting maximum hours. By 1920 the number of child laborers was cut to nearly half of what it had been in 1910.

Lewis Hine died in poverty, neglected by all but a few. His reputation continued to grow, however, and now he is recognized as a master American photographer.

His photographs remind us what it was like to be a child and to labor like an adult at a time when labor was harsher than it is now.

Hine's images of working children stirred America's conscience and helped change the nation's labor laws. Through his exercise of free speech and freedom of the press, Lewis Hine made a difference in the lives of American workers and, most importantly, American children.

Hundreds of his photographs are available online from the National Archives through the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) .

Resources

Foner, Eric, and John A. Garraty, eds. The Reader's Companion to American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

Nash, Gary B., et al. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990.

Tindall, George Brown, with David E. Shi. America: A Narrative History. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1992.

He made the trains run on time and controlled the Unions

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

DISCLAIMER

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Teaching With Documents:Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor

Background

Resources

The Documents

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Teaching With Documents:
Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor