Age Of Forgetting:Bush Presidency 2001-2009 (Kabuki Democracy/Alterman)

The age of forgetting is always true when we think of political discourse in America. We tend to remove information from our memories when we move along in the political process.The Bush years are behind us now and Republicans bash Obama for everything under the sun but forget the disastrous land mines left by President Bush for the eight years he spent as our leader.Bush's foolish misadventure in Iraq cost American taxpayers well over $3 trillion and left the economic condition of the nation worst than any other President since the Great Depression.More than 8.4 million jobs were lost and nearly three million homes were foreclosed on.The number of personal and commercial bankruptcies reached unprecedented levels.In 2008,a single year,American households lost $11 trillion,18% of their wealth.Federal spending rose from 18.5 percent of GDP in 2001 to 21% in 2008,while a 125.3 billion surplus became a $364.4 billion deficit.Median family income shrank during his years in office before the start of the Great Recession.During the Bush presidency,three million jobs were created compared to 23.1 during the Clinton years(Tax cuts,supply-siders were dead wrong).It was the lowest level of job creation of any post-WWII president.

Bush's inability or refusal to police the financial industry led directly to the worst economic crisis the world has seen since the Great Depression.He also failed at his other numerous administrative responsibilities.The administration ignored our physical infrastructure,mass transit system,school building construction,our environment and especially the low income earners that live and work in the hopeless sections of each state in the union.According to the American Society of Civil Engineers,more than 26% of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient.On-third of our major roads are in poor or mediocre condition with 45% of our urban highways full of congestion.Drinking water systems need $11 billion annually to replace aging ones.Inland waterways,waste water systems and levees are all rated "D" or lower.( Republicans attack the Obama stimulus for spending in these areas)

The result of this malign neglect is that post-Bush America is one disaster after another waiting to happen and are laid at the feet of the current president.The financial crisis,Iraq and Afghanistan,and the BP oil spill all reflect the burden Bush has left for President Obama.The main media outlets ignored the Minerals and Management Service until it was big news.The Bush/Cheney industry- friendly White house left the regulators defenseless to do even their basic functions.MMS,under Bush, did not require oil companies to install reliable backup systems to trigger blowout preventers in case of emergency.During the Bush years,regulators allowed the oil executives to fill in their own inspection reports in pencil,which were merely traced over before official submissions.Free hunting and fishing trips,tickets to games,and expensive meals were the norm at the Lake Charles office,all provided by the oil companies.The MMS collected only sixteen fines from the more than 400 investigations of Gulf of Mexico drilling incidents during the Bush years.The agency found 200 violations but showed no interest in pursuing any of them.Cheney himself was crucial in creating these conditions with is National Energy Policy Task Force.By May,2001,the Task Force concluded that many of the protections under which drillers had previously operated were no longer necessary.The legislation they passed expanded the circumstance under which drilling operations could forgo environmental reviews.Bush/Cheney left one time bomb after another and the Obama administration is being held responsible for failing to predict where and when each one will explode.(Alterman)

Financial Speculation Tax:Formula To Raise $250 Billion Annually From Wall Street

A Financial Speculation Tax (also known as a financial transaction tax) is a small tax on purchases or sales of stocks and other financial purchases like futures, options, or credit default swaps. The rates are proportional to actual transaction costs in the industry - for example, a stock purchase could have a small tax of 0.25%. Anyone who trades stocks, currencies or debt instruments would pay the tax. It would apply to both buyers and sellers. Most of the income from this tax would come from big banks, hedge funds, and brokers who trade frequently. If you have a 401(k) and invest for the long term instead of trading for short term profits, you would pay very little tax –less than the fees normally
charged by mutual fund managers to handle your investments.

Most of the trading and speculation that takes place in stock, currency and debt markets is unrelated to any productive activity in the real economy. For example, the value of currency trades is more than 25 times the actual value of our foreign trade. Even if trading were to decline by 50% – a very unlikely event – our financial markets would remain liquid and attractive to investors from both the U.S. and abroad.

Has anyone tried a Financial Speculation Tax?

Yes, Britain has had a "stamp tax" on stock trading of .5% for many years. It has provided needed government revenue and has not hampered the growth of the British stock market, which is now the second largest in the world. In fact, the U.S. had a "transfer tax" from 1914 to 1966 which levied a 0.2% tax on all sales or transfers of stock. In 1932, Congress more than doubled the tax to help financial recovery and job creation during the Great Depression.

Who supports the idea of a Financial Speculation Tax?

• Prominent financiers including George Soros, John Bogle, and Warren Buffet
• Prominent economists including John Maynard Keynes, Nobelists James Tobin and Joseph Stiglitz , Jamie Galbraith, Dean Baker, Robert Pollin and Larry Summers
• Prominent world leaders including French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Andrea Merkel
• The New York Times highlighted the Financial Speculation Tax as a top idea of 2008
• Unions and community organizations
• Polls have shown widespread support for measures that would rein in Wall Street, including a Financial Speculation Tax

Is there a Bill in Congress?

Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-Oregon) has introduced HR 4191, the “Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act.” Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has introduced S 2927, the “Wall Street Fair Share Act.” Under these bills, half the funds would be deposited in a job creation reserve fund to put Americans back to work and half would be designated to reduce the deficit. The bills were designed this way to have broad bipartisan appeal in Congress. Eventually there may be multiple FST vehicles in Congress. (Jobs With Justice)

Jobs with Justice engages workers and allies in campaigns to win justice in workplaces and in communities where working families live. JwJ was founded in 1987 with the vision of lifting up workers’ rights struggles as part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. We believe in long-term multi-issue coalition building , grassroots base-building and organizing and strategic militant action as the foundation for building a grassroots movement, and we believe that by engaging a broad community of allies, we can win bigger victories. We reach working people through the organizations that represent them—unions, congregations, community organizations—and directly as JwJ activists. Nearly 100,000 people have signed the Jobs with Justice pledge to Be There at least five times a year for someone else’s struggle as well as their own.

In more than 40 cities in 25 states across the country, we are building coalitions of labor, religious, student and community organizations that are committed to each other for the long haul. Our campaigns make a difference for workers facing hostile bosses, knowing they are not alone in their struggle. At JwJ, solidarity is a two-way street: when communities come out for unions, they can expect unions to come out for them. Union victories are crucial, but they are not enough. We must maintain a strong commitment that our coalitions will weigh in on community fights.

In 2009, local coalitions worked on a total of 111 workplace justice campaigns affecting more than 135,000 workers. Jobs with Justice coalitions supported approximately 46,000 workers in 56 organizing and first contract campaigns, and helped more than 10,000 workers at 17 workplaces win union recognition or first union contracts. Jobs with Justice coalitions worked on 130 community campaigns on issues like health care, immigrants’ rights, global justice, accountable development, state minimum wage increases, and sweat-free ordinances. JwJ coalitions were the primary coordinators for 70% of these campaigns.(Jobs With Justice)

Small Business:Lets Look At The Statistics

There are 2.7 million firms in the U.S( with 1-4 employees) who pay 5.8 million people.This  type of firm is the largest enterprise in America.The firms with 5-9 individuals are second on the list with 1.04 million while employing 6.8 million people. Firms with 100-499 have 86.5 thousand while employing 16.7 million.Firms with 500-2500 employees have the most people with 56.5 million.Firms with over 2500 employees are the second largest with 42.8 million people.These statistics,if I'm reading them correctly,tell me that the majority of the workforce are in firms between 500-10,000 or more. 98.3 million of a total workforce of  157.5 million in the U.S receive salaries from large businesses instead of small ones.(U.S. Census Bureau 2004) That's a rate of 62.4% employed by large(big) business.The Republicans lead one to believe small business creates all the jobs when the statistics before me tells a different story.It is true we have a large number of small businesses(up to 499 employees) but they only employ 37% of Americans working.

What is a small business? The Department of Administration Materials Management Division in Minnesota has a list of small business standards by millions of dollars in sales.Companies under a sales amount(revenue) can be listed as a small business and receive state contracts and tax benefits.The lowest revenue was a million dollars(industrial launderers,etc.) to the largest with 75 million(commercial and institutional building construction).Most of the companies were around 25 million. These businesses seem rather big to me but compared to the large firms that I mentioned above their revenues must be a lot smaller than the large firms employing over 500 people.

Last March,NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapole published a report on the role small business has in NYS economy.His statistics claim that 51.7% of all NYS jobs are in small businesses(national statistics show37%) and 19.4% are in firms with less than 20 employees.There are 312,000 of 519,000 firms in NYS with less than four employees.Most of these statistics are similar to the national census numbers I gave in the first paragraph(Each state is a little different).Most employees work for large firms in NYS. The top twenty employers in NYS are very large firms.See chart

Full-time equivalent employees located in the state

Rank Company Name

NYS

Employment

1 NY Presbyterian Healthcare System 29,000

2 Walmart* 28,000

3 Citigroup 27,000

4 IBM Corp. 21,000

5 JP Morgan Chase 21,000

6 University of Rochester/Strong Health & affiliates 20,000

7 Verizon 18,000

8 Cornell University/Weill Medical 17,000

9 Federated Department Stores 17,000

10 Montefiore Medical Center 17,000

11 New York University/School of Medicine 16,000

12 Columbia University/Medical Center 15,000

13 Golub Corp Price Chopper 14,000

14 Wegmans Food Markets 13,000

15 Kaleida Health 11,000

16 Merrill Lynch 10,000

17 Eastman Kodak 7,000

18 Rochester General Health System 7,000

19 Xerox 7,000

20 Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center 7,000    ( Center for Gov. Research)

All of these firms are large businesses with the majority of the jobs going to professionals with college and post college degrees except for Walmart, the chain food stores,department stores and possibly Verizon.NYS and the majority of the states in America lack quality jobs for citizens without a college degrees(75% of citizens have less than a four year college degree).Financial services have replaced manufacturing (40% to 19%) in the last twenty years leaving the high school graduates with little opportunity to make middle class wages.71% of American families(two wage earners) make under $50,000.The correlation between education and earnings is obvious. The increased cost of a college education has created additional income disparity between the classes in the U.S.The lower class is forgotten in the papers and airwaves of America.Lock them up(largest prison system in world),ship them out(Afghanistan) or ignore them as the middle and upper classes wait in line for the next French restaurant to open up down the block.

World Social Conscience:New Vision For Unions

In 1997,the Teamsters strike at United Parcel Service(UPS) challenged and won against the insidious problem of "contingent" or "two-tier" employment,in which employer cuts costs by relying on temporary and part-time workers.Working stoppages in America declined from 3,111 in 1977 to 385 by 1995,even as real wages lost 15% of their value-data that,as if on a diagnostic chart,revealed an ailing U.S. labor movement.So,the Teamsters victory was a much-needed morale boost and the labor movement regained some valuable ground.(Dray)

Based in Atlanta,UPS was the nation's largest shipping company,with 302,000 American employees at twenty-four hundred sites and an annual earnings of $1.1 billion. As many as 80% of the companies new hires were part-time,which allowed UPS to deny them full benefits and pay them $9 an hour in contrast to the $20 it paid full timers.The Teamsters complained that workers were kept at part-time status for years without promotion,and that as many as ten thousand part-timers actually worked full-time hours.(This practice continues for many workers today in numerous companies)(Dray)

Two thousand pilots who flew UPS planes agreed to honor the strike as 185,000 Teamsters walked off the job.Polls showed the public supported the UPS strikers by a margin of 55% to 27%,and that people saw the issue of downsizing and contingent employees as a nationwide problem.One pollster noted,there was a strong perception that management is less fair and less loyal to workers than it used to be.(Dray)

The Teamsters enjoyed the support of the rest of the labor movement.The AFL-CIO had even stepped forward to offer financial resources to the Teamster strike fund.One innovative bit of activism the teamsters pursued against UPS was to call on their friends around the world.While UPS was dominant in America,it was still in an expansion mode in Europe.The Teamsters had links and transport unions in Europe that was part of what was called UPS World Action Day that staged brief demonstrations or work stoppages.The message to UPS was clear that failure to resolve the Teamsters strike on terms acceptable to workers might bring global consequences.With forces of big labor,public opinion,and coordinated sympathy strikes,UPS had its back to the wall.Fifteen days after the walkout began,UPS capitulated,agreeing to shift ten thousand part-time workers to full time and raise part- time salaries 37%. The company also agreed to maintain the present pension system.(Dray)

In November 2009,the U.S. sportswear company Russell Athletic made a startling announcement that it would reopen one of its Honduran clothing factories it had closed ten months earlier in reaction to the unionization of the company's twelve hundred workers.It took this unusual step,which included rehiring the workers,as the direst result of a national campaign by the United Students Against Sweatshops,American activists who pressured Boston College,Columbia,Harvard,NYU and ninety-two other colleges to suspend the lucrative sportswear licensing agreements that allowed Russell to imprint sweatshirts and other clothing with the school's names and logos.The students targeted college retailers and picketed major college sporting events.(Dray)

What was encouraging about the anti-sweatshop effort was that it had overcome perhaps the main obstacle that thwarts U.S. labor organizing today,the power of American corporations to disperse operations to developing countries where there are cheaper workers and few if any labor regulations."Just like capitalism",Roland Munch insists,"trade unions as a social movement are capable of mutation,transformation and regeneration".Trade is global,capital is global, and labor too must become global.The freedoms and protections we take for granted today in the workplace have not been handed down by anyone or distributed ready made but were organized around,demanded,and won by workers themselves.The new mutation of the movement will come as technology/communication is used to form worldwide responses to abuse from the fundamental capitalists that use competition as the scapegoat for exploiting workers around the world.

Reagan,Clinton,Palin,Christie:Lack Character And Vision

When Reagan was the Screen Actors Guild(SAG) president,he secretly gave J.Edgar Hoover damaging information on his fellow union members that they were Communist/Socialist sympathizers.He also testified before the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee that some of his own members in SAG had Communist sympathies.Reagan feared Hollywood would become a propaganda instrument(like FOX news) of the Soviet Union because the Conference of Studio Unions were influenced by Communist doctrine(wanted shared decision making).His lack of character and understanding of loyalty to union members with different political,economic viewpoints would continue throughout his Presidency.One of his first objectives as President was to double-cross the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization(PATCO).Candidate Reagan in Oct.1980,informed PATCO that he was aware of the deplorable state of our nation's air traffic system..that too few people working unreasonable hours with obsolete equipment has placed the nation's air travelers in unwarranted danger.He reassured the union that as President,he would take steps to provide proper staff levels,modern equipment and compensate them appropriately.The union endorsed Reagan believing they had his support.They were one of only a handful of unions that did so.44% of labor households voted for Reagan in the 1980 election because he claimed a special understanding of working people.Unfortunately, Reagan's lack of character and honesty resulted in the eventual firings of PATCO striking workers and the continual undermining of collective bargaining and the plight of the lower and middle classes.As you know,Reagan generalized the lower class as lazy,violent(used racism to exploit voters fear concerning crime) and a drain on the American dream.His vision was defined by the number of people he could undermine so the top 20% of the income earners could increase their wealth and isolate themselves from the ignorant masses.He was an insult to any educated,caring Irish- American and his "revolution" has caused more harm for the lower class than any movement in American politics.

President Clinton will forever be linked to the Monica Lewinski(22yrs.old) scandal.His deplorable actions denigrated the office like no other President in modern times.Clinton,like Reagan,wasn't a man of his word and undermined the unions that supported him in his run for President in 1992. In 1993,he supported ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement when his own party voted against the legislation in the House(156 to 102).The result of the agreement decreased manufacturing jobs in the U.S by 3,654,000 by 2007.This number is falling as I write today.Our immigration problems with Mexico is a direct result of this legislation.Mexican farmers lost their incomes when American mega corporate farmers(subsidized by the government)outproduced and undersold Mexican farmers in their markets.Clinton has failed to take ownership of this problem his administration created.

Sarah Palin is an interesting public figure who has caused trouble for a number of people who have helped her in her political career.After reviewing her record,I don't feel she has directly undermined the citizens that have supported her like Reagan or Clinton.She was not a supporter of union bargaining and had never professed to support their causes.Sarah Palin did run and defeat incumbent Frank Murkowski in 2006 who appointed her to the Alaskan Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and as chairperson of the state's Ethics in Government Commission after his win in 2002.Under Murkowski,she went after fellow commissioner Randy Ruedrich for doing party business on state time and eventually ran against the man who gave her a major opportunity in state politics.The undermining of people who have helped her is a lack of character in my opinion.Palin isn't a loyal person who can wait for her time to come.Her brief years as governor was filled with accusations and confrontation(dismissed Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan for not firing Mike Wooten).Palin didn't complete her four year term and turned her back on the citizens who voted for her so she could continue the national spotlight she gained as a vice-presidential candidate.She claimed that frivolous ethics complaints against her made it impossible to govern(her job rating fell from 93% in 2007 to 56% in 2009).Lastly, she was unable to be honest in her inappropriate handling of the representative that was shot recently in Arizona.Her website did have violent messages concerning the 2008 elections and Palin couldn't bring herself to apologize for her actions in any way. She attacked the media and made herself into a victim on the same day of the memorial.The vision Palin has for America is juvenile and irresponsible.She opposes the health care bill,same sex marriage, supports NRA,hates unions,endorses off-shore drilling,a skeptic on global warming,costly warmonger(preemptive attacks) for Iraq and Afghanistan,a free market fundamentalist and believes that God is always on our side(American Exceptionalism)

Chris Christie is a classic conservative who only cares about himself and what he can get from the country regardless of who he steps on or dismisses as a roadblock in "his" American dream.Today,we are told he wants to lure businesses away from Illinois because they raised their state tax to try to reduce their deficit.He immediately is going to Illinois to talk to businesses to relocate so he can bring a job increase to his state(he has no other ideas). He lacks compassion for they people of Illinois who have made their decision to try the tax avenue instead of reducing needed services and undermining teacher and state unions.Christie is so empty of compassion and is selfish like many corporations who play this tax/subsidy game with municipalities.Lets not forget he was a lackey/lobbyist for GPU Energy who lobbied to deregulate the industry and raise prices for the poor taxpayers of New Jersey.He was appointed by Bush, for fundraising activities, as a U.S.Attorney( no experience) and also has no time as a legislator.In the U.S Attorney office, he went after Democrats during the election cycle like so many other Bush appointments.He used deferred prosecution agreements to help friends who were involved in fraudulent federal monitoring positions.His character is bloody and his vision is ostrich like as he tans himself in Florida watching his stocks grow and complaining about the minimum wage.

International Ladies Garment Workers Union,The Triangle Shirtwaist CompanyFire(1911)And The Creation Of The NYS Factory Investigating Commision

The ILGWU was founded in 1900 and had both male and female workers.The men were skilled fabric cutters/tailors and the women shirtwaist(blouse)makers were members of Local 25(NYC).The factories that employed the workers varied greatly in size from large enterprises to small businesses.The term"sweatshops" do not refer to the workplace temperature but the management practice of sweating labor,assigning specific jobs on lots of garments to ever-smaller shops or units within the same factory. Manufacturing costs were "sweated" downward at each lower level and the workers themselves negotiated the renegotiated wages and production deadlines. Many workers were vulnerable in regard to wages and fluctuations in demand,with little job security.(Dray)

Conditions in the large factories were crowded,poorly heated and ventilated, and bathroom breaks were discouraged or forbidden.Verbal and physical abuse was not uncommon.Workers also complained of routine condescension,sexual touching,and harassment. There was no grievance system and complaining got one fired or blacklisted from the trade entirely.It was a northern form of industrial slavery.About 50% were Russian Jews and another 35% Italian.

In the warm summer of  1909, workers finally rebelled at the Rosen Brothers Company in NYC.The ILGWU led a five week stoppage that forced Rosen Brothers to recognize the union,establish a shop floor grievance committee,and grant a 20% rate increase. The ILGWU had a critical ally in the Women's Trade Union League(WTUL), a group of middle and upper class reformers that was founded in 1903. Their mission was to assist the organizing activities of female workers,especially by fund-raising,and to link labor activism to broader women's issues such as suffrage,public education and temperance. The alliance between the groups brought immigrant garment workers,uptown Progressives,and college students from Bernard and Vassar together to stand on picket lines outside of garment factories.(Dray)

Picketing was made difficult by the neighborhood pugilists and street walkers,hired by the companies,to "protect" replacement workers.Strikers were often shoved,kicked and intimidated.Gangs of men used their fists against young female strikers and hurled many to the ground to be beaten.The WTUL tactic of placing college students and women of means on the picket line was intended to grant the strikers some protection.

On Nov.22,1910, members of the ILGWU and WTUL gathered at Cooper Union(NYC) to consider a broader garment industry strike.The next morning,fifteen thousand workers walked off their jobs in a crippling industry-wide strike.The street violence intensified as female pickets and scabs tangled throughout the garment district of the city.The two groups marched as one to City Hall to meet Mayor George B.McCellan Jr.,son of the Civil War general,to protest the police department's flagrant discrimination in favor of the employers and halt the insults,intimidation's and abuses to lawful picketers. The National Civic Federation(NCF) offered to broker a resolution to end the strike.It recommended a six member arbitration board of two from each side as well as two members from the public.Eventually,the owners agreed to a fifty-two hour workweek,some paid holidays,shop committees to help set rates and wages,and an end to employee charges for supplies.The ILGWU turned down the deal because union recognition was not offered.By late January,with resources drying up,women began returning to work as individual shops cobbled together agreements.Not all objectives were obtained by ILGWU, but some of the most offensive employer  practices had been curtailed and working stature improved overall.(Dray)

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was adamant in its resistance to industrial democracy.Staving off the ILGWU through both the 1909 and the 1910 strikes,it managed to keep its order books filled and its sewing benches in action with many recently arrived immigrants.On March 25,1911, a fire broke out in the corner of an eighth-floor workroom.Between six and seven hundred employees were present at the factory at he time.Panic ensued as the workers tried to flee amid upended sewing machines and tangled electrical wires. The door to the stairway had been locked from the outside,so most attempted to escape by means of one functioning elevator. The Triangle's practice of locking the exit doors to the stairway from the outside was to deter workers from leaving early,taking unapproved breaks or stealing fabric. One hundred and forty-six people,mostly young women(19yr. average),had perished in the fire.

NYS had been unable to prove criminal neglect on the part of the owners of the Triangle factory,but it was clear the real culprit had been the absence of enforceable factory safety measures. Al Smith and Robert Wagner pushed through legislation creating the NYS Factory Commission(FIC) only three months after the triangle fire.Frances Perkins,who ran the NY office of the National Consumers League,was also instrumental with the legislation to reform fire safety procedures in the workplace.The FIC was also active in investigating the dangerous trades that used lead,arsenic,phosphorous,benzene,coal tar,turpentine and mercury. It won legislation that set minimum standards for health,safety and cleanliness of baking facilities,wash up sinks,clean bathrooms and safe drinking water.Later, the FIC turned to issues of child labor, the minimum wage and work performed in the home.(Dray)

More from Dray in the future..."There Is Power In A Union"..and the unions are coming back because America needs them to bring democracy back to the majority.

Industrial Democracy:Progressive Movement And The Social Gospel

Industrial Democracy is a term that describes the relationship of labor and management in the progressive movement after the dreadful Pullman Strike(1994)in which the much honored Eugene Debs was incarcerated and politicians, under the influence of big business, used the courts and the military to break the union strike and push it towards antagonism and violence.Industrial Democracy was a new vision that spawned a desire for more workable solutions and peaceful resolutions on labor-management issues.

Progressive viewpoint was initially a church-based reform movement known as the Social Gospel,which rejected Social Darwinism(what the present American conservative desires).Progressives called for a new public morality(as I do now),one that recognized that great wrongs could result not solely from conscious acts,but from decisions made by faceless institutions,corporate boards,the courts,and neglectful government agencies.For labor,it meant the idea that workers and capital might acknowledge the other's necessity and that trade unions had a role in standardizing decent wages so as to alleviate the need for relief(40% of population eligible for food stamps today) or charity and some form of mutualism could replace the cyclical tradition of hurtful strikes and class antagonism.(Dray)

A valuable influence on Progressive and labor fronts was a brand of English Socialism associated with the Fabian Society which included George Bernard Shaw and sociologists Sidney and Beatrice Webb.In "Industrial Democracy",published in 1897, the Webb's described unions as entities that would check the excesses of impersonal,large-scale capitalism(unfortunately, we are under 11% today and falling). They coined the term"collective bargaining" to designate the method by which industry and labor would together rectify their relationship of inequalities.Industrial democracy would come in America to represent the idea that democratic principles and basic civil and political rights embedded in the Constitution(conservatives want to protect corporate rights) and post Civil War amendments should apply to the issues of labor and industry as much as they informed the nation's political system. Industrial democracy implied that neither side in labor disputes held all the answers,and that neither was entirely in the right. It also came to mean the inclusion in conflict resolution of not only workers and employers but legislatures,reformers, and public relief agencies,as well as scholars,the press and the public(Dray).

One direct force behind the Progressive yearning for moderate solutions was the relative popularity of Socialism.In 1900,U.S.readers could select from eight foreign-language Socialist dailies,and 262 English and 36 foreign-language Socialist weeklies.The "Appeal To Reason",published in Kansas,had a weekly circulation of 500,000.By May 1912,the nation had 1,039 Socialists in elected seats of authority with 56 mayors,160 councilmen,145 aldermen.Eugene Debs racked up 897,000 votes in the 1912 presidential election and later, while incarcerated in prison, won over a million votes in 1920.(Dray)

More to come soon from"There is Power In A Union" By Philip Dray.

State Republicans Blame The Unions For Decreased Revenue,Not The Great Recession Of 2008

Faced with growing state deficits,many newly elected Republicans want to limit the political and economic power of public and private unions in America.They blindly walk down the road accusing labor's only protection,collective bargaining,as the main reason deficits have grown in our land of extravagant consumerism(for high income earners) and stupidity. With 71% of our families(two income earners) making under $50,000 and 10% official unemployment(18% unofficial),the self-
centered,avaricious,wimpy,unpatriotic men of the flag want to end contracts that benefits a small population(under 10% of the workforce are union members) and bring them down financially like the rest of the poor,low income families struggling to survive in our present economy.They want to do this for the taxpayers who are burdened by our tax system that has made it possible for 68% of our corporations to pay no taxes this year and millionaires/billionaires that pay less(15% on equity income) than the vast majority below $50,000 in earnings.God forbid they would increase revenues from the lords of the castle by finding the loopholes in Bermuda or the Cayman islands and tax the bastards appropriately for their fanatical,fundamentalist greed and the destruction of our economy .Why is it always the working poor,the lower middle class holding the ship afloat while the vacationing professionals(25% with college degrees in America) draw the money from the glorious companies that give us consumer products we think we need(the same commercials played over and over between downs or foul shots).They call the union members "The Haves" and the taxpayers"The Have-Nots" because they are trying to drive a wedge between labor just like they did from the beginning of industrialization in this country.They want to see worker against worker so they will remain powerless in  undemocratic working environments,controlled by those who are making money(corporate profits are up considerably) from a bad economic situation because the jackals in the securities business fucked up like they always do(see past recessions).

But labor leaders view these efforts as political retaliation by Republicans upset that unions recently spent more than $200 million to defeat Republican candidates.
“I see this as payback for the role we played in the 2010 elections,” said Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the main union of state employees. Mr. McEntee said in October that his union was spending more than $90 million on the campaign, largely to help Democrats.
“Now there’s a bull’s-eye on our back, and they’re out to inflict pain,” he said.
In an internal memorandum, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. warned that in 16 states, Republican lawmakers would seek to starve public sector unions of money by requiring each government worker to “opt in” before that person’s dues money could be used for political activities.
“In the long run, if these measures deprive unions of resources, it will cut them off at their knees. They’ll melt away,” said Charles E. Wilson, a law professor at Ohio State University. (NY Times)

The worst recession since the 1930s has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record. State tax collections, adjusted for inflation, are now 12 percent below pre-recession levels[1], while the need for state-funded services has not declined. As a result, even after making very deep spending cuts over the last two years, states continue to face large budget gaps. At least 46 states struggled to close shortfalls when adopting budgets for the current fiscal year (FY 2011, which began July 1 in most states). These came on top of the large shortfalls that 48 states faced in fiscal years 2009 and 2010. States will continue to struggle to find the revenue needed to support critical public services for a number of years, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs.(Center on Budget and Policy)

The economic problem is the state tax collections that was caused by the great recession of 2008,not the inflated benefits of a small population of income earners.Republican and some Democratic politicians want to lower the deficit in places they control.The difference between parties is the fact that the Republicans want to destroy collective bargaining while they Democrats want to limit raises during the recession which is appropriate in troubled times.Texas and California have the same deficit($18 billion).Republicans always hold the low tax,low service,low spending state as a model for liberal states to emulate.With no state tax,they're revenues have also decreased due to the collapse of the financial system by the kings of commerce.Why don't the Republicans take some money out the pockets of the citizens that caused hardship for so many.I'm ashamed of this country when we represent the desires of a few over the vast majority of citizens.

Black Discrimination: In Unions And Our Transportation System(Freedom Rides)

By the 1890's,an era historian Rayford Logan has famously termed"the nadir"of the black experience in America,Southern state legislatures had begun the devious process of eliminating black voting across the former Confederacy.Lynching of African American men began to appear in newspapers almost every other day.Magazines ran insulting caricatures of blacks and published articles of pseudo scientific nonsense about Negroes' genetic backwardness.Finally,in 1896,the U.S Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson certified Jim Crow segregation as the law of the land(Dray).

Neither had the labor movement shown itself willing to accommodate African American workers,except under the most rigid,piecemeal terms.Sam Gompers(AFL) and William Sylvis(NLU) wanted inclusion because discrimination had the effect of creating an available pool of cheap labor that industry could and did exploit,using blacks as replacement workers and strikebreakers.It was equally clear that only unity across racial lines would guarantee labor the fullest bargaining power.Gompers,however, was limited in how much he could dictate policy to unions within the federation,and the AFL response remained inconsistent.By 1885,Gompers became weary of the fight for inclusion.Several nationally prominent unions were open in their stated exclusion of blacks(Dray).

Labor's inability to achieve integration was more truly a national failure.In 1897,Booker T. Washington openly criticized the AFL warning that the federation's racial policies left him no choice but to side with employers against labor unions.W.E.B.Du Bois stated that the history of the labor movement from1886 to 1902 has been a gradual receding from the righteous declaration of earlier years.Given the reality of race relations in the country at the time,which were essentially nonexistent,and black citizenship rights,which had become invisible,labor's success would have been remarkable(Dray).

 Jim Crow segregation continued throughout the south until the 1940's.In 1946,Morgan v. Virgina,won by Thurgood Marshall, desegregated buses in interstate transportation. A group of people was organized to test the Supreme Court decision in a practical way.The"Journey of Reconciliation"(1947),organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Congress of Racial Equality, had heavy participation from men who had been imprisoned draft resisters during WWII( Jim Peck,Igal Roodenko...I met in the early 70's at the War Resisters League).Bayard Rustin was also a member who desegregated the prison systems during the war when he served time for resisting the war.This action eventually led to the desegregation of the armed forces a few years later by Truman.The"Journey of Reconciliation"  ran into trouble in North Carolina and many were arrested for riding together(whites in the back, and blacks in the front) of the bus and using the posted bathrooms in the same manner.Igal Roodenko spent three months in jail for his participation.

The First Freedom Ride left Washington D.C. in May,1961 to demonstrate if a 1955 Supreme Court ruling against discrimination(unconstitutional) on interstate buses was being enforced properly..Seven black and six white people traveled south on two buses.They met resistance in Rock Hill,South Carolina and Anniston,Alabama where the vigilantes firebombed and destroyed a bus. Many were attacked and beaten by the angry crowds that wanted the bus system to remain segregated. The national media picked up the story and all of American became witnesses to the violent discrimination.On May 29, 1961, bowing to the demands of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders, as well as international outrage, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in an unorthodox legal maneuver, sent a petition to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to comply with a bus-desegregation ruling it had issued in November, 1955, Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. That ruling had explicitly repudiated separate but equal in the realm of interstate bus travel, but, under the chairmanship of South Carolina Democrat J. Monroe Johnson, the ICC had failed to enforce its own ruling.In September 1961, bowing to pressure from the Attorney General and the civil rights movement, the ICC issued the necessary orders, and the new policies went into effect on November 1, 1961, a full six years after the ruling in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. After the new ICC rule took effect, passengers were permitted to sit wherever they pleased on interstate buses and trains, "white" and "colored" signs came down in the terminals, separate drinking fountains, toilets, and waiting rooms were consolidated, and the lunch counters began serving people regardless of race.