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The statement made that "we forget" the history of the labor movement is so true. Even more true is that youth has not been exposed to it and the problems without. possibly our apathy of not highlighting those problems to out youth, not relating how hard it was to obtain and the sacrifices made, is our greater failure. Much like African American youth who hear but cannot relate the struggles for Civil Rights, they lean to the GOP failed promises. Wealth has a stronger appeal with no sight of the struggles to relate with. Hearing is not feeling. Making that happen is an equally important task to gather in that youth for their protection. We can't do it for them but we can try.
As much as I believe in Unions and their protection, I must also state that Unions must police themselves of corruption within. I feel that is what tore at the inner core of Unions. Strong Unions are only strong with the integrity of their people to that solidarity of people and process. I look forward to the return of the Union process that protected me and my son now.
Palindromedary ~ And there is the rub, isn't it? Is there really any other reason for this ass backwards approach to this problem? Just another attempt to sow discord. Get neighbors to blame and hate each other instead of cooperating to solve a problem. It's also the perfect way to accomplish this goal too. When you get fingered anonymously, there is no way of knowing who did it. Essentially, you have to blame everyone. You focus all your energy in neighbor to neighbor revenge instead of the real culprits. This is a classic tactic used by despots throughout time. It is most disturbing though to see that long arm of tyranny come out of a local water district.
By the way, if you're interested, Papantonio from Ring of Fire did a great job of pointing out all the potential dangers and ways that the latest decision in the Hobby Lobby case could come around to bite SCOTUS in the rear. The segment is about 9 minutes long.
http://ringoffireradio.com/2014/07/papantonio-religious-promotion-will-backfire-on-republicans-video/
Sorry SHF, I am Canadian We still have welfare. No one goes without here. Some get by without working a day in there life. What do you do for the poor there?
Yes, I remember the plight of Sisyphus and rolling that boulder uphill. I also remember a Greek play called Lysistrata where she plotted with all the women in town to withhold sex from the men until they vowed not to go off to yet another war. Very imaginative those Greeks!
I was in Athens once when I was in the military. But about the only thing I can remember about it was the coffee....very strong...just like the coffee in Rio De Janeiro...I was there for a day and a night once. Crazy drivers too!
Actually, it is an Israeli production. It pokes fun at both Jews and Arabs....especially the hard liners...their prejudices against one another. I think that there are many liberal Jews who want to get along with the Arabs...and who think their government has been terrible against the Palestinians. Then again, the Jews don't want to be killed by a bus bomb or a missile strike either.
It has to be way easier to be a liberal Jew than a liberal Arab. They have been suffering far more than the Jews who have been driving them out of their lands and torturing and murdering their people. Many liberal Jews recognize this and are ashamed of what their leaders have done and are doing. They are appalled at the NAZI-like tactics and actions of their leaders.
Iron Curtain....Iron Dome...have you seen those videos showing how the Iron Dome causes the Hamas missiles to abruptly change course...looks like they are just bouncing off an invisible force field. Too bad Dhahran, Saudi Arabia didn't have one when Saddam launched his scuds against them.
Palindromedary ~ Thanks for those links. By the way, I studied mythology and know the story of Narcissus. Although I think that out of all the "messed up" mythological characters King Sisyphus was probably my favorite. You just can't beat what happened to him. Also, I identify with him more so than Narcissus. I used to think of Sisyphus after almost every day at work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus
One of my better friends growing up was named Narcissus too. We used to tease him mercilessly about it. He prefered to go by his nickname, Cisco. No one teased him for that. I guess you could say that the 'Cisco kid was a friend of mine.'
Nevertheless, it certainly is interesting that the writers of that series named the street the Jews live on Narcissus St. I wonder just how the really hard liners in Israel take that little jab and the series as a whole? It certainly seems innocent enough; however, most people I've met that are wrapped in hatred have little sense of humor.
What it will effectively do is to cause people to spy on one another and turn them in to the authorities like they did in Nazi Germany. Pit neighbor against neighbor instead of doing their homework (all could be done by computers) by assessing water bills against what would be expected of a family of various sizes (they could get that info from the census data of the address), the square footage of lawns front and back. Some gas and electric companies put out a comparison of how much gas and electric the specific customer is using compared to other comparable homes. They use a tier system and charge accordingly...the more you use, the higher the tier, and the more you get charged for the gas and electric you use in those higher tiers. I think the water companies do pretty much the same. But they could hone it down to take into consideration the number of people in the household and the size of the lawns and even how many trees and bushes on the property that needs watering. The real water hogs could be easily identifiable this way but to rely on neighbors spying on their neighbors and turning them in is just too dystopian. Only the neighbors who dislikes their neighbors would turn their neighbors in anyway.
I hope you are wrong 10K. Things are going to get better soon and everything wil be all right. I usually takes about 10 years to start pulling out of a recession. Maybe longer with this President But not much. He had a tuff start.
I am not far off. If wages and benefits where reasonable No one would have to out source. look at oil companies. They pay great with good benefits. You never see them out source. they send there employees all over the world to work. I have two freinds working over seas right now. they export more than they import.
Very funny Kend, you think the problem is the greed of the working man, not the greed of the relative few who control most of the wealth and thus the power. I'll check back for a honest answer after widespread violence erupts do to this unrestrained economic inequality. I assure you, there is an ugly breaking point to the out of control madness.
Unions basically are the only power the working class has left in this current Tea-Fascist country....maybe our only hope as well.
I think spending decades in prison would be worse than death. US prisons have becoime increasingly brutal since the 1980s.
That should be "less than 12 percent", not "fewer than 12 percent".
"Fewer" would be appropriate if the percentages could only come in whole numbers.
DAnneMarc: now that you mention it...those people I saw in those photos didn't look torn to shreds as was the rest of the airliner. Even their clothes didn't look soaked with blood or ripped or torn. It is almost as if these people were participating in a staged setting.
Funny how even passports of alleged 9/11 terrorists were found in the rubble of the WTC towers when not even the concrete slabs remained in tact and was turned to dust. Passports are made of paper yet somehow that passport made it through the fire and collapse of the WTC tower. Yeah, right! ;-0
What you said about the Palestinians...I definitely agree!!!
They've been horribly abused...their houses and orchards bulldozed over and their lands stolen. The Neo-Nazis that are currently running Israel should be ashamed of themselves. Many Jews living in Palestine (excuse me..I mean Israel) are not happy with what their politicians and military are doing to the Palestinians.
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On a lighter note: I like to watch a comedy sitcom called Arab Labor which comes on KCET TV via LinkTV on Sunday evenings. Or, you can watch episodes here:
http://www.kcet.org/video/arablabor/
http://www.kcet.org/video/arablabor/#v73430
http://www.kcet.org/video/arablabor/#v73431
http://www.kcet.org/video/arablabor/#v73432
Each episode is about 25 minutes long. The themes centers around Amjad and Bushra (the wife) and his extended family Amjad's mother and his crazy father. They are Palestinians that started off living in the Palestinian section of Israel and had to go through the check points. Then in this new season they move into an all Israeli apartment building because of the water problem in the old Palestinian section apartment building.
Amjad is a journalist who works for an Israeli news organization. He works with and confides in Meir, a younger Israeli co-worker who loves Amal, who is a pretty Palestinian girl that is also close to Amjad's family. Amjad is always getting into conflicts with everyone because he is a Palestinian who, it would seem, wishes he was Israeli. So he is always caught between his Palestinian family and friends and his Israeli bosses and people he has to work with as well as his own obsequiousness and identity conflicts. He wants the good life...just like the Israelis.
Even the new apartment building that he moves his family into is all Jewish and the address is "Narcissus Street" (which is a pun on Narcissus, a Greek God, who "disdained those who loved him" and "saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus died."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_%28mythology%29
Amjad goes to great trouble to try to get his Israeli neighbors to like him and his family but it often leads to a comedy of errors.
The comedy sitcom alternates between Arabic and Hebrew depending of who is speaking to whom but the captions are in English.
Unions have been getting phased out for years. A huge chunk of those family-supporting union jobs are gone, and there's noithing we can do about it. If word gets out that you are talking to co-workers about unionizing, expect a pink slip. Can you risk that, when there's nothing to fall back on? We have an abundance of qualified people who are desperate for any job, any wage.
Adapt, period. The last welfare check was issued back in 1996.
I'm with you Marc; my sympathies are for the Palistinians. I'll not let my lineage sway me. Prime Minister "Yahoo" has got to go. It makes me crazy to hear our president declare Israel's "right" to defend itself when Israel is the aggressor. It seems Obama never grasped the difference between defense and offense. - AIW
tsk
chuckle8 ~ No one! Not even a penalty in the water bill. The water bill is where all the fining should be done; and, not at the front yard garden hose.
Anyway, this stupid new law isn't supposed to go into effect anyway until this August. Judging the lag time for bad news it probably won't be till at least October or November until the stories start coming out; and, it won't be till next year till we learn, surprise, surprise, this stupid law has had no impact on the drought efforts whatsoever. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that water waste has indeed gone up. If you don't ding at the meter, you just don't ding.
All unions have to go? We can't afford union [ good paying ] jobs in a world economy? So why does everyone keep saying we need to bring back good paying jobs to get America back on track? What ever happened to that trickle down program that all those politicians said would save our economy. Now they have changed it's name to "Transfer of Wealth." Now all of a sudden they say that transfer of wealth [ formally trickle down ] is a bad greedy thing. I guess it's what ever suit"s them. They keep tripping over themselves trying to convince us that living on the edge of poverty is the American thing to do, and that they are powerless to do anything about changing it. God Bless America. Now be a good soldier and suck it up.
Unions could help employees form employee owned companies. Minneapolis Star Trib had an article in this morning's paper about Christensen group, that has become very successful in the last 15 or so years as an employee owned company. I think that's one way that workers can share in the benefits of their work more equitably.
I don't know if that's the same as a cooperative, but they work too.
So do unions. We have to get rid of the elected people who keep trying to destroy unions. The gap only keeps increasing.
I would make child sex abuse, child murder an exception to that rule.
Palindromedary ~ Some fascinating stuff, indeed. I always imagined bodies in an airplane crash would be charred and distorted out of recognition. It is amazing how "preserved" many of those victims were. You could almost identify them without needing dental charts or fingerprints.
Equally amazing are the complexity and ingenuity of those Gaza tunnels. It is phenomenal what necessity can inspire. I respect the determination and ability of the Palestinians. I also sympathize with their cause. I wonder if Israel really is grasping how their greed and inability to compromise is directly threatening their already shaky existence as a country. Time will tell if their gamble will pay off or be their downfall. I would certainly not bet on Israel prevailing in the long run. My heart goes out to the Palestinian people.
The labor union movement should transform to a producers’ ownership union movement and embrace and fight for individual worker ownership of the non-human capital assets of the companies they are employed by. They should play the part that they have always aspired to––that is, a better and easier life through participation in the nation’s economic growth and progress. As a result, labor unions will be able to broaden their functions, revitalize their constituency, and reverse their decline.
Unions must adopt a sound strategy that conforms to the economic facts of life. If under free-market conditions, 90 percent of the goods and services are produced by capital input, then 90 percent of the earnings of working people must flow to them as wages of their capital and the remainder as wages of their labor work...If there are in reality two ways for people to participate in production and earn income, then tomorrow’s producers’ union must take cognizance of both...The question is only whether the labor union will help lead this movement or, refusing to learn, to change, and to innovate, become irrelevant.
Yes Trade agreements must go Citizens United must go as well. Foreign aid must be cut. Wealth favoring loopholes, subsides & corp tax cuts must end . Today powerful corps hold workers hostage . Unions were ones who pushed for fair wages, workplace safety, paid vacations, sick days, child labor laws. We forget the history of the ' Labor movement' I suggest people bone up on that subject. Fox , likes of Drudge, Hannity, Rush call labor unions ' thugs' so corps win the low wage low benefits game. Anti middle class GOP are master manipulators . Their masters are Corps & billionaires..not the middle class who once thrived, before the days of Reaganomics , 1981 deregulation, 1986 total amnesty , anti US trade policies. . We must focus on the Big picture Supreme Court judges , avoiding more wars, womens family planning rights & equal pay.
GOP rules did NOT allow women to sue employer unless done within 6 months of a Co paying her less for same work . So in 2009 Obama passed ' Letty Ledbetter Act ' giving women time to sue that employer. Bravo
MMmmNACHOS ~ "Unnecessary violent aggression?" What the hell do you think RAPE is. Not even the rape of an adult but of a child. I'm the first person to reject violence of any kind; however, there are just some situations where it is the ONLY solution. Even Jesus drew the line when it came to money changers in the temple. What about the "unnecessary violent aggression" imparted to that child? What about the permanent psychological trauma that will be with him the rest of his life? It doesn't just end in the room you know.
There is no way you can compare unprovoked police brutality or what George Zimmerman did to Trayvon Martin to what this father did. It's not even in the same ball park. Personally, I'm shocked that this rapist pedophile is still alive. It took great restraint on the part of that father not to break his neck. The plain fact of the matter is that there is nothing that father could have possibly done to that rapist pedophile that would even be close to the damage done to his son. I imagine for the rest of his life that father is going to deeply regret not having caved that rapist's skull in with a tire iron. Every time he looks his son in the eyes. I have no sympathy for that sick bastard at all. I hope he gets the favor returned with interest along with everything else he deserves in prison.
My only regret is that pedophile priests don't get the same treatment. The way they have abused the authority of God for such perversion deserves so much more backlash. I so pity them if there proves to really be a God.