Yeah, still feeling 2L4O (Too Liberal For Obama), but nevertheless IMO we had a national moment of emotional release last night, and today I’m still liking this sign I saw at alicublog:

~ ]]> …and Good Riddance.

Yeah, still feeling 2L4O (Too Liberal For Obama), but nevertheless IMO we had a national moment of emotional release last night, and today I’m still liking this sign I saw at alicublog:

~

Don Blankenship, recently retired (Dec 30th 2010) ex-CEO of Massey Energy

and

Debonair bon vivant Reginald Van Gleason III

(Don Blankenship should only be so hilarious)

Happy New Year, everybody!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsK1yxO4LWg

When blue-collar pride became identity politics

On Labor Day, Rightbloggers Denounce Labor Day, Unions, Minimum Wage, Etc

How Companies Turn People Against Unions

The Real Say on Pay

A Century Later, Teddy Roosevelt’s Speech on Corporate Power

Growing Inequality Threatens Middle Class and Democracy

America’s Biggest Jobs Program: The Military

Labor [...]]]>

When blue-collar pride became identity politics

On Labor Day, Rightbloggers Denounce Labor Day, Unions, Minimum Wage, Etc

How Companies Turn People Against Unions

The Real Say on Pay

A Century Later, Teddy Roosevelt’s Speech on Corporate Power

Growing Inequality Threatens Middle Class and Democracy

America’s Biggest Jobs Program: The Military

Labor Day Irony: The People Who Want To Cut Social Security All Have Great Retirement Plans

On Labor Day, Work To Save The Middle Class

Happy Days Are Here Again

Too Old For A Job, Too Young For Medicare Or Social Security

The Original Reagan Democrat

~~~~

NWege the original linkmaster in  Without decent pay, there is no freedom :

This isn’t about agreeing to disagree, these people want to eliminate unions and empowered workers entirely.

Malkin calls labor a celebration of violence. Violence? Towards the same end as the American Revolution. Violence is the last resource of those who seek true freedom. Repression is the first tool used by the powerful to suppress those who seek freedom and there can be no freedom without economic justice.

If you do not earn a living wage, you are not free.

If you cannot relocate for fear of not finding a decent job, you are not free.

When you cannot switch jobs for fear of losing health insurance, you are not free.

When your employer calls you a supervisor and forces you to work unpaid overtime, you are not free.

When working peoples’ wages are taxed more heavily than are capital gains, and the poor pay higher tax rates than the rich, freedom is the last word that comes to mind.

And be sure to check out all the other great Labor Day links NWege generously provides.

~~~~

Labor Day: Labor Got It Right — Who Could Have Known?

“Who could have known?” That’s the cry from the big-corporate and DC elite as the economy and the environment and so many imporant

things crash around us. (Around us, not them, they’re doing just fine and taking good care of each other.)

Who could have known that 25%-per-year house price increases was a bubble?

Who could have known that a housing bubble could burst?

Who could have known that deregulating the financial industry could lead to a financial meltdown?

Who could have known that concentration of wealth could cause consumer demand to dry up?

Who could have known that huge tax cuts for the rich combined with huge military spending increases could cause massive budget deficits?

Who could have known that the Social Security trust fund needed a “lockbox” so it wouldn’t be given away as tax cuts?

Who could have known a deregulated deep-water well could cause a massive, destructive, uncontrolled underwater gusher?

Who could have known that continuing to put carbon into the air would cause problems for the climate?

Who could have known that moving our factories out of the country would lead to high unemployment and structural trade deficits?

Who could have known that invading Iraq was wrong and a deadly, disastrous, costly, long-term mistake?

Who could have known that a too-small stimulus that focused on tax cuts wouldn’t turn the economy completely around and then

conservatives would claim that the stimulus “killed the recovery?”

(List continues into infinity…)

Add organized labor to the list of those who got it right, time after time.

Organized labor was right about the 40-hour workweek.

They were right about the middle class.

They were right about the weekend.

They were right about paid vacations.

They were right about paid holidays.

They were right about paid sick leave.

They were right about providing good, secure retirement plans for everyone.

They were right about providing unemployment benefits to tide people over.

They were right about providing maternity leave, child care and family leave for families.

They were right that trade agreements like NAFTA and letting China into the WTO would lead to massive trade deficits and job losses.

They were right about workplace and consumer safety.

They were right about keeping manufacturing in America.

They were right about fighting discrimination in the workplace.

They were right about raising the minimum wage and the effect that low-wage policies would have on the economy.

They were right about the effect of excessive CEO pay on the economy.

They were right about the devastating effect of the Bush tax cuts.

They were right about the need to maintain and modernize our country’s infrastructure.

They were right about going green.

They were right ab out the dangers of Wall Street’s financialization of the economy.

They were right about providing good health care to everyone.

They were right about strengthening, not cutting Social Security.

They were right about democratizing corporate governance.

They were right about fighting privatization.

They were right about fighting deregulation.

They were right about providing good education opportunities to everyone.

They were and are right that we need a national jobs agenda

Labor was right about people joining together instead of being on our own.

(List continues into infinity…)

They were right and they continue to be right.

And unions have been fighting for these things for all of us, not just for their members.

Please add to these lists in the comments! What other things could nobody have known, and what other things did labor get right?

Enjoy Labor Day. In fact, for those of you that still have jobs after the decades of conservative policies, enjoy having weekends off, the 40-hour week, paid vacations,  sick pay, health care, etc. And if you have a job but don’t have those things … JOIN A UNION!

~~~~

And finally — this last link is a classic from 2006 which is even more relevant today.  I think I’m going to follow Avedon Carol’s example and put the permalink to this post in my sidebar.  All emphases added by me.   Absolutely essential reading.

From Defeat the Right in Three Minutes :

Right-Wing Ideology In A Nutshell

When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just “dime-store economics” – intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don’t really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don’t. It all gets down to two simple words.

“Cheap labor”. That’s their whole philosophy in a nutshell – which gives you a short and pithy “catch phrase” that describes them perfectly.

You’ve heard of “big-government liberals”. Well they’re “cheap-labor conservatives”.

“Cheap-labor conservative” is a moniker they will never shake, and never live down. Because it’s exactly what they are. You see, cheap-labor conservatives are defenders of corporate America – whose fortunes depend on labor. The larger the labor supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you’ll work, and the more power those “corporate lords” have over you. If you are a wealthy elite – or a “wannabe” like most dittoheads – your wealth, power and privilege is enhanced by a labor pool, forced to work cheap.

Don’t believe me. Well, let’s apply this principle, and see how many right-wing positions become instantly understandable.

Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like social spending or our “safety net”. Why. Because when you’re unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like – which is inevitably next to nothing. You see, they want you “over a barrel” and in a position to “work cheap or starve”.

Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like the minimum wage, or other improvements in wages and working conditions. Why. These reforms undo all of their efforts to keep you “over a barrel”.

Cheap-labor conservatives like “free trade”, NAFTA, GATT, etc. Why. Because there is a huge supply of desperately poor people in the third world, who are “over a barrel”, and will work cheap.

Cheap-labor conservatives oppose a woman’s right to choose. Why. Unwanted children are an economic burden that put poor women “over a barrel”, forcing them to work cheap.

Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like unions. Why. Because when labor “sticks together”, wages go up. That’s why workers unionize. Seems workers don’t like being “over a barrel”.

Cheap-labor conservatives constantly bray about “morality”, “virtue”, “respect for authority”, “hard work” and other “values”. Why. So they can blame your being “over a barrel” on your own “immorality”, lack of “values” and “poor choices”.

Cheap-labor conservatives encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.

The Cheap-Labor Conservative “Dirty Secret” : They Don’t Really Like Prosperity

Maybe you don’t believe that cheap-labor conservatives like unemployment, poverty and “cheap labor”. Consider these facts.

Unemployment was 23 percent when FDR took office in 1933. It dropped to 2.5 percent by time the next Republican was in the White House in 1953. It climbed back to 6.5 percent by the end of the Eisenhower administration. It dropped to 3.5 percent by the time LBJ left office. It climbed over 5 percent shortly after Nixon took office, and stayed there for 27 years, until Clinton brought it down to 4.5 percent early in his second term.

That same period – especially from the late forties into the early seventies – was the “golden age” of the United States. We sent men to the moon. We built our Interstate Highway system. We ended segregation in the South and established Medicare. In those days, a single wage earner could support an entire family on his wages. I grew up then, and I will tell you that life was good – at least for the many Americans insulated from the tragedy in Vietnam, as I was.

These facts provide a nice background to evaluate cheap-labor conservative claims like “liberals are destroying America.”   In fact, cheap-labor conservatives have howled with outrage and indignation against New Deal liberalism from its inception in the 1930′s all the way to the present. You can go to “Free Republic” or Hannity’s forum right now, and find a cheap-labor conservative comparing New Deal Liberalism to ”Stalinism”.

Cheap-labor conservatives opposed virtually all of the New Deal, including every improvement in wages and working conditions.

Cheap-labor conservatives have a long and sorry history of opposing virtually every advancement in this country’s development going right back to the American revolution.

Cheap-labor conservatives have hated Social Security and Medicare since their inception.

Many cheap-labor conservatives are hostile to public education. They think it should be privatized. But why are we surprised. Cheap-labor conservatives opposed universal public education in its early days. School vouchers are just a backdoor method to “resegregate” the public schools.

Cheap-labor conservatives hate the progressive income tax like the devil hates holy water.

Cheap-labor conservatives like budget deficits and a huge national debt for two reasons. A bankrupt government has a harder time doing any ”social spending” – which cheap-labor conservatives oppose, and . . .

Wealthy cheap-labor conservatives like,  say, George W. Bush, buy the bonds and then earn tax free interest on the money they lend the government.[Check out Dubya's financial disclosures. The son of a bitch is a big holder of the T-bills that finance the deficit he is helping to expand.] The deficit created by cheap-labor conservatives while they posture as being “fiscally conservative” – may count as the biggest con job in American history.

“Free Trade”, globalization, NAFTA and especially GATT are intended to create a world-wide “corporate playground” where national governments serve the interests of corporations – which means “cheap labor”.

The ugly truth is that cheap-labor conservatives just don’t like working people. They don’t like “bottom up” prosperity, and the reason for it is very simple.  Lords have a harder time kicking them around. Once you understand this about the cheap-labor conservatives, the real motivation for their policies makes perfect sense. Remember, cheap-labor conservatives believe in social hierarchy and privilege, so the only prosperity they want is limited to them. They want to see absolutely nothing that benefits the guy – or more often the woman – who works for an hourly wage.

~~~~

Greetings from the “triune” Tild  (I’m the granddaughter of  a union member, the daughter of a union member, and now the mother of a union member.)

Enjoy this Labor Day.  You’ve earned it.

So, night before last at around 8pm I suddenly had this brilliant idea:    I would go down to the basement and search through about a dozen steamer trunks and footlockers to find ALL of the family slides;  find ONE PARTICULAR SLIDE out of hundreds no, make that well over a thousand;  convert the [...]]]>

So, night before last at around 8pm I suddenly had this brilliant idea:    I would go down to the basement and search through about a dozen steamer trunks and footlockers to find ALL of the family slides;  find ONE PARTICULAR SLIDE out of hundreds no, make that well over a thousand;  convert the slide to a digital file with the slide scanner I bought more than a year ago and had never used nor even taken out of the box;  spruce up the image in case it had faded over the past 49 years;  crop it and make it as nice as possible and put it on a flash drive and take it over to Walgreens before work at 6am yesterday & have an 8×10 print made so I could give it to my sister when I brought all the gifty things for the grand-nieces & nephews over to her house at noon so that everything would be done and delivered before the snowstorm hit…

Mission accomplished — and, hurray for me,  it only took until 1:30am to get the photo into halfways usable shape!

That’s my sister and me  (and I?)  in the photo.  It was taken in December of 1960, the year my sister was Lucia at the American Swedish Institute.

She was 12, I was 8.   Angelic, ain’t we?!

God Jul och gott nytt år to all, and to all a good (quiet, peaceful, lucid) night.

~

Big momentous history-changing milestone:  

As of  December 13th 2009,  this blog – known as Tild~,  aka  (more accurately) Tildology – is six years old!   Happy Blogiversary to me!

Hard to believe the old thing is still ticking, considering the ever-increasing seldomness of updates.  To celebrate, I rummaged through the junk drawer  media library and [...]]]>

Big momentous history-changing milestone:  

As of  December 13th 2009,  this blog – known as Tild~,  aka  (more accurately) Tildology – is six years old!   Happy Blogiversary to me!

Hard to believe the old thing is still ticking, considering the ever-increasing seldomness of updates.  To celebrate, I rummaged through the junk drawer  media library and pulled some random images from each of the past six momentous years to create  A Tildology Retrospective.

Congratulations, donations, and yes, even gifts are much appreciated.   (Ahem… please take note of the Tip Jar and Tild’s Wish List in the sidebars)

Hey, the way I look at it I’m way too old and way too cranky to keep putting on that stupid pious false-humility act.   No more.   No,  from here on out it’s strictly:      I’m old!  Gimmee stuff, dammit!

Thank you.      Enjoy.

~

But in case you’re a newbie,  or maybe a veteran who could use a refresher course, this year an enthusiastic person who identifies himself only as “Ben Mag” enumerates the completely complete, totally total, and extremely complicated [...]]]> Okay kids,  since today is the 3rd annual PYATT Day, most of you already know the drill…

But in case you’re a newbie,  or maybe a veteran who could use a refresher course, this year an enthusiastic person who identifies himself only as “Ben Mag” enumerates the completely complete, totally total, and extremely complicated official instructions for how to observe Pretend You’re A Time Traveler Day :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutWmwMIHTk

If you find that you need to go back to the beginning and can’t fly around the earth fast enough to reverse time a la Superman,  here is Dresden Codak’s original post. 

Have fun, and as always let’s be careful out there.  

~

Be there or be trapezoidal. 

~ ]]>

Be there or be trapezoidal. 

~