In All My Years

Step 2

2011-03-29T14:46:00.000-04:00

Who cares what I have to say about a relatively obscure music form and how it does or doesn't share common value with a hidebound movement on its last legs?

Well, the first part of that answer is that America needs a labor movement. There is not a free, first world country on the planet that does not also have a free, vibrant, and independent trade union movement (in many countries where state repression is the norm, trade unions are appendages of the state). Here in America, the labor movement is separate from the state. At times it has colluded with it, like during the Cold War when unions within the AFL-CIO played a significant role in suppressing left-leaning workers' movements in the third world. Still, at home, American unions and the state often have separate interests. The time when 1 out 3 Americans belonged to labor unions represents the time when prosperity in this country was its most equally divided among the classes.With union membership at its lowest since the turn of the 20th century, American inequality is surging. The two facts are connected, if not causally, then at least with statistical significance:

Until finally, we get to this:

Step 1.

2011-03-29T08:08:00.000-04:00

Why should anyone care for a discussion about how punk values and union values collide and complement each other?

The answer is simple: for the same reason that we care about and discuss how religious values compel us to advocate for the least powerful. For the same reason we debate and argue over the role that our experiences as people of color play into our consciousness. Or our class experiences and how they form our opinions of what transpires around us. Those values, experiences and backgrounds are like the air they breathe. You can try and leave them, but they'll never leave you. For me, the values I learned in the punk scene and from punk music continue to resonate, long after I stopped being a participant in any formal scene, and long after I stopped being up to date on the latest releases and what moves the kids these days. As Frank Turner sings--"All the latest music fads all pass me by and leave me cold, and all the kids are talking slang I won't pretend to understand."

If you want to start a discussion about the connection between the spirit of punk and the labor movement I find myself a part of, you have to start with what 'punk' means. Which is nearly a useless endeavor. How can a scene that generated GG Allin and The Appleseed Cast have any common thread? At the risk of being called a coward for not even trying to answer that question, let me say this: lots of people have tried to nail this down, and it's very tricky business. I think that the most you can really say about what 'punk' means is to narrow it down to what it means to you.

So, having listened to this music for the entirety of my adulthood, here's what it means to me: it's the total democratization of music, its production and its distribution (a very labor-oriented project). It reprsents a fight when the odds are so ridiculously stacked you have no hope in hell of winning. It's a jubilation more buoyant than any sugar high you've ever felt, and it's a total anger over things that you never had any control over. It's valuing humans and humanity. It's the beauty of profanity, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's a sick joke. It's the total rejection of the privilege life handed you so that everyone gets a better deal, or as Propagandhi puts it so nicely:

"And yes, I recognize the irony that the very system I oppose affords me the luxury of biting the hand that feeds. But that’s exactly why privileged fucks like me should feel obliged to whine and kick and scream- until everyone has everything they need."

Next steps

2011-03-26T10:38:00.000-04:00

I've begun an outline on a bit of creative work--trying to synthesize the two biggest passions in my life--punk rock music and the fight for working people. (other than my family, so I guess make that three passions). I've begun thinking about how the spirit of punk and the spirit of fighting for workers have similarities and tensions and what those are, how they inform my active work as a union representative and how they shape my perceptions of the massive struggles we find ourselves involved in. I'm still struggling with whether this is a contribution to the punk community or the labor community. Both? Neither? Dunno. I'm going to start fleshing this out in the coming weeks. Some of the already established works I've been drawing on are "Which Side Are You On" by Tom Geoghegan, "Hope Dies Last" by Studs Terkel, the "Philosophy of Punk" by Craig O'Hara, and some other works. Plus the thousands of songs that have inspired me over the past 15 years. Here's one:

Somewhat amazed they haven't shut this down.

2011-03-25T20:48:00.000-04:00

So, I was shopping around for a new blogging platform, because you see it's been three years since I wrote anything here. I started to put something together on wordpress, but it simply wasn't working, so I went to blogger.com which directed me back to my old site. And I thought to myself--why should I reinvent the wheel? So what if I took a three year hiatus? Screw it man! So here we go again. What happened in the past three years? We had a kid. We moved back to the east coast to be closer to family, which was good because a few of them started getting really sick. We sold a house. We bought one. Made adult decisions regarding 401(k)'s and the like. Got disinterested in blogging. Got re-interested in it again. So there ya go.

Holiday pics

2008-01-01T08:36:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe it's been a month since I last posted. Well, here, have some pictures from my trip home over the holidays.

A very tired pup.

A tobacco farm in Eastern North Carolina where we had some lunch visiting family.

Mrs. Drinallmyyears heads back inside to talk to her family at the farm. Those are tobacco curing sheds on the left. They smell great when you open them.

A cheese biscuit. It's actually a heart attack disguised as a cheese biscuit. Seriously. That pile of orange to the right is the cheese that spilled out of the biscuit through the baking process. Man, I could go for one right now.

That's about a five-inch sheaf of snow hanging over my gutter by the back door. It snowed four inches on our return last night. This is the result.

Ruuuuudy!

2007-12-02T10:04:00.000-05:00

Well, if you haven't been paying attention, Rudy Giuliani got caught using the pocketbook of the New York City to pick up the tab for the mistress he was nailing. This video explains why only he can use this 'weakness' to demonstrate that he's to lead America.

Some may call it "the Shag Fund Super Scandal", others "Sex on the City". I call it sound security planning.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-24T08:25:00.000-05:00

Below are some photographs of families with their next week's worth of food:

First the Revis Family of North Carolina:

Next, the Casales Family of Mexico:

Next, the Ayme Family of Ecuador:

And finally, the Aboubakar family of Chad:

In addition to the fact that the Sudanese people clearly don't have a father, and must be freaking hungry, a couple of other thoughts jump out at me. For one, notice the amazing amount of packaging at the American kitchen, versus what you find in a Mexican home, and Mexico's not a world away. Look at the difference in vegetables. It seems the the poorer you get (save for the Chadians) the more fresh vegetables and grains you eat.

Via.

Barrel, meet scraper

2007-11-20T16:24:00.000-05:00

You know the routine. You think to yourself, "Jesus, I know I've seen the lowest that the Bush administration can go. They can go no farther down. Seriously."

That's where you'd be wrong. Because they always find new and innovative ways to ruin the lives of regular Americans. Always. Case in point: People who enlist in the military often get 'signing bonuses' to re-enlist after their contract is up. It's very common. What's new is that the Bush administration's Department of Defense is demanding the signing bonus money back from veterans who have been injured in the line of their service.

That's right, the same people who pillory Congressional Democrats for doing what the American people want--namely, trying to pass legislation to fund the troops and get them home--are demanding back the signing bonuses of injured veterans.

“I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they’re telling me they want their money back,” Fox said.

These people fucking suck. They suck. They're not human. That's really the only explanation that one can come up with after you look at the things they actually do (rather than the things they say). They really do make you lose all faith in human beings with nearly-unlimited power to conduct themselves with a tiny modicum of human freaking decency.

Especially since Boy Wonder and Darth Cheney themselves passed on any meaningful military service when they were asked to serve, and especially since their offspawn have similarly declined to enlist in The Most Important War of All Time, Seriously, We're All Going To Die Unless We Kill All the Muslims Everywhere (TM).

I know you're not supposed to hope that people go to hell after they're dead.

I mean, I know this. I know it's not right.

And yet.

One day we'll have smart discourse like this on teevee

2007-11-18T15:17:00.000-05:00

Instead of the dumb shit we see every day that makes us dumber every day.

Swift Kids For Truth

2007-11-13T08:54:00.001-05:00

I knew there was something about John Edwards I couldn't trust. $4,000 for a nail trim!

(Tip: Make sure your sarcasm switch is in the 'on' position.)

I made it!

2007-11-07T09:19:00.000-05:00

I'm on the ballot for precinct committeeman in my precinct! I got the call last night, and the paperwork went through with no hitches.

Republicans believe in nothing

2007-11-07T09:04:00.002-05:00

You know how I know? Because international God Gangster Pat Robertson is endorsing Rudy Giuliani. This is the same Rudy Giuliani who supported gay rights his whole career, is pro-life, has been married three times, and even demanded that the NYC emergency response center be placed at the World Trade Center.

Why? Why would you put the terrorist response center where terrorists have already attacked, and where, by all accounts, more attacks might be coming? Why? Why not just put your response center in Staten Island? It'd be safer, right?

Here's why:

Giuliani's office had a humidor for cigars and mementos from City Hall, including a fire horn, police hats and fire hats, as well as monogrammed towels in his bathroom. His suite was bulletproofed and he visited it often, even on weekends, bringing his girlfriend Judi Nathan there long before the relationship surfaced. He had his own elevator.

So for all the morons for whom the worst possible crime against humanity was Bill Clinton's fooling around in the White House, let me make this clear. This man put the security of the city at risk so he could have a convenient place to boink his mistress (he was married at the time). Get it? Pat Robertson made a fortune shilling Clinton conspiracy hokum on his teevee network, and it was all predicated on his infidelity to his wife. Clearly, Pat Robertson could not be bigger hypocrite if his very life depended on it. If God herself appeared on the 700 club and commanded Robertson to find innovative ways of looking like a complete hypocritical shill, I doubt she could have devised something so ingenious.

So why is he endorsing him? Because Republicans believe in only one thing: Republicans winning. Abortion, the gays, fidelity, it's all secondary to the overriding principle, which is to win, to accrue power, and to use it for yourself and your friends. I'll leave you with this quote from TPM:

This does beg an important question for Rudy: How does the former mayor of New York City feel about courting and accepting the endorsement of a man who said after 9/11 that America deserved it, on account of our sinful ways?

Kind of makes you wonder, don't it? It's almost like Rudy himself doesn't believe in anything anymore.

North Carolina Called Out for Lack of Labor Rights By Mexico

2007-11-06T07:52:00.000-05:00

Mexico? Seriously, Mexico?

Yup. The National Administrative Office in Mexico followed up on a complained issued by the International Labor Organization that the state of North Carolina (my home state, thus my continued interest in this story) is violating an international Charter on Freedom of Assembly by prohibiting public employees from forming unions and bargaining collectively. Why did Mexico file this complaint? Why do they care?

They care because the union that is working most aggressively with North Carolina public workers, the UE is also affiliated with an independent Mexican union representing chemical and mine workers. It was the Mexican union that spurred the Mexican government to action on behalf of its brothers and sisters in North Carolina.

The North Carolina law banning collective bargaining dates back to 1959 (an enlightened era of forward-thinking southerners moving ahead on labor relations and race) and was passed essentially to keep the commies out of state gub'mint, stop bolshevism, and keep black workers in their place--most of the state jobs that UE has been trying to organize are among low-paid custodial, trash hauling, and other jobs typically held by black state workers.

Anyway, this state law sucks, is a violation of international conventions, and ought to be repealed. Right?

***Update***

I missed this part. Pure genius. When the complaint against the NC State government was filed by the ILO, the response of the Bush administration was simple--the first amendment guarantees the right to form unions and organize! They went even further, though, saying that if any law in North Carolina prohibited this, it would be null and void!

Allriiiiiiiiiiight gang! You heard 'em. George Bush says you can form a union. Go forth and conquer.

2007-11-06T07:42:00.001-05:00

Military grafiti.

Via.

This would explain a lot.

2007-11-04T13:27:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows that George Bush snuck through college on a whim and name, barely graduating from Yale. This is not news.

What was news to me was that in that the New York Times ran a story in the 1960's about fraternity hazing (torture) at Yale that included branding pledge brothers with a hot iron. That article ran with a quote from then fraternity-member George W. Bush:

“it was just a coat hanger, and ... it didn’t hurt any more than a cigarette burn.”

Well, cigarette burns hurt asshole. But it also brings to mind the President's steadfast refuals to define what torture really is. Here he is earlier this month:

The Preznit contends that the only way to save the American Way of Life (TM) is to let the CIA do what we all know they hunger to do, namely roughing up swarthy brown guys in their custody.

Except he's saying that it's not torture. That'd be illegal.

And that's why the appointment of the new Attorney General is such a big deal. Prominent Republicans, including John McCain and Lindsey Graham (who folded his opposition to waterboarding after Bush came to South Carolina to fundraise for him) admit that a practice we use (waterboarding) to interrogate prisoners is in fact illegal, but they refuse to do anything about.

The job of the new AG would be to prosecute wrongdoing within by the administration if he believes that what they're doing is torture. That's why (some of) the Democrats are being such persnickety assholes about whether Mike Mukasey (the guy Bush has recommended for the job) thinks water boarding is torture or not. If he does, he's obligated by his job to prosecute it. If he doesn't think it's torture, then we're back to dealing Abu Gonzales. Of course, the Democrats are such a bunch of spineless wimps that they're naturally backing down on fighting this:

Schumer held a closed door meeting with Mukasey on Friday in which the nominee appeared to offer a crucial assurance: If Congress chose to enact a law banning so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, Bush would have to follow it.

“He flatly told me that the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law,” Schumer said. “He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.”

The reason that's such a pile of crap is that the US has in the past prosecuted American soldiers for waterboarding prisoners of war. Plus there's the Geneva Conventions that we're signed on to, as well as last year's Military Commissions act of 2006. But instead, Mukasey is saying that if Congress passes another law against water boarding, he'd enforce it.

Which brings me back to George Bush and his love of branding people with hot irons. He probably just loves this shit. He probably gets off on knowing the new ways that our less-ethical interrogators have cooked up to 'scare' the truth out of anyone we capture on the battlefield in this never-ending war on terror.

Such is life in the early 2000's. Torture is not torture except when it benefits us politically to tell the base we're bad enough to torture Arabs Who Want To Kill Us (TM). That's what you get for thinking that common human decency had a pig's chance at a roast in Washington DC.

Snowflakes

2007-11-01T10:56:00.000-04:00

"Snowflakes" are the term for the little post-it notes that Donald Rumsfeld used to issue policy decrees when he was the Secretary of Defense. You know, he'd jot down "invade that country" on a little post-it, and off we'd go, committing hundreds of thousands of troops and billions of dollars.

You think I'm kidding, right?

Nope. Not only that, but the following gems made into his sacred scraps of parchment to be turned into public policy:

...Muslims avoid "physical labor";
..."keep elevating the threat";
..."link Iraq to Iran"
..."Develop bumper sticker statements to rally support."

This is, ladies and gentlemen, the man who was responsible for our war policy. I hope you're as proud as I am.

One more kooky gay Republican antic

2007-10-31T09:23:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was Halloween, so in keeping with this creepy festival, I bring you the story of a Republican state legislator who paid a man $1000 to have sex with him, then reneged on the deal, refused to pay the $1000. Then he asked the authorities for help in getting the man off his back. Then he got suckered by the cop who told him his duty as a legislator was to protect the people of the state of Washington, so he just had to see this prosecution through.

Like I've said before, it's possible that the Democrats have just as many closet jobs who are batcrap insane, but if so, they're doing a helluva lot better job keeping them under wraps. The Republicans really seem to have signed on more than their share of people with, um, unusual predilections.

Good News For FedEx Workers: They're, you know, real employees.

2007-10-18T09:07:00.000-04:00

So sayeth a District Court Judge in Indiana. Here's the deal. FedEx has been clasifying its drivers as 'independent contractors' to get out of paying them overtime, insurance, and workman's comp. Of course these people are actual employees, and a court ruling now says they can sue as a class of folks as opposed to individuals.

This is a nice trick that lots of companies have used over the years, from custodians and janitors, home health care workers, to Microsoft engineers. An Estimated $1.6 billion in payroll taxes is lost by businesses cheating under this system. And of course, like most things, this estimate is based on people's willingness to step up and fight, so these are only the figures we know about. The actual number of employees in this situation is probably much higher.

Via.

And here's a nice Q&A from Working America on rights (well, mostly the lack thereof) for independent contractors.

new weakerthans video

2007-10-17T20:19:00.000-04:00

I'll be seeing them next Thursday. You may act jealous now.

As if to prove my point

2007-10-15T07:52:00.000-04:00

The chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party has been arrested for doing things with young boys that people of most political stripes do not agree with.

Oh, and I forgot about this guy, who was arrested twice for lewd conduct in a mall restroom.

You know, if Democrats today are engaged in this kind of stuff in equal amounts, they're at least a hell of a lot better at hiding it than Republicans.

I don't feel good posting about this, but what the hell is going on with conservatives?

2007-10-09T20:07:00.001-04:00

This is only the latest in a long and bizarre series of incidents that involve hardcore fundamentalists who are revealed to be flaming hypocrites. My condolences go out to this guy's family, who I am sure are dealing with some real shit now. His name was Reverend Gary Aldridge, and he was a student of Jerry Falwell and a big-wig among hardcore Christianist Republicans. He met his maker by what is termed 'mechanical autoerotic asphyxiation' (which out to drive up my web traffic). Essentially he died by strangling himself while he was engaged in acts that Christianists typically encourage people by themselves not to engage in. But this guy is only the latest.

There's this guy.
And him.
And who could forget this piece of business?
This guy probably threw the election to the Democrats in 2006, right?

This is not even to get into the heterosexual scandals which have been in the news lately as well. Okay, here are two examples.

What the hell is going on with modern conservatives? If anyone knows, please let me in on the secret.

True headlines you'll never read

2007-10-07T07:55:00.001-04:00

President meets with leader of group involved in assault on Gold Star Dad.

It's just too weird, and yet--it's true.

For true Against me! affcioniados

2007-10-05T19:07:00.001-04:00

This is sheer poetry. Reinventing Rod Stewart indeed!

This man has no soul.

2007-09-30T14:32:00.000-04:00

Bill Kristol is a man who is probably the most easily identifiable person who is responsible for the Iraq war. So already I think he's pretty much a bastard. But this sir, this 'joke' of yours reveals you to be exactly the kind of caricature of cold-hearted conservative that we're always told doesn't exist...because somehow 'conservatives care too.' Or something.

Blech.

One of these things is not like the others.

2007-09-16T17:09:00.001-04:00

Figure out which one of these things is a parody and which is real:

Is it the Mormon leader who sent a child bride back to her husband, telling her to give herself over to him mind, body and soul?
Is is the statement made by a prominent anti-feminist that 'By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.'
Is it a website devoted to "assisting those following the Biblical tradition of arranging marriages for their daughters. We charge a variable fee per listing, depending on the bride price requested and other factors. Potential grooms are not charged. We do not assist in negotiations, we only provide introductions."

Remember, one of these is parody, and one only. The other two are sadly, quite real.

Where were you?

2007-09-11T08:45:00.000-04:00

Today marks an anniversary. Where were you on September 11, 1973? That's when the US military and CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, which resulted in a coup and military dictatorship. Estimates of the numbers of people killed during the ensuing reign of terror range from 2,700 to 3,000 people. Hundreds of thousands were arrested, many were tortured.

Many years later, something else happened on that day in New York City. The numbers of dead were roughly the same.

This is hilarious

2007-08-27T08:28:00.001-04:00

Australian indie rocker Ben Lee covered Against Me!'s new album from start to finish. I especially like his version of Thrash Unreal.

Take a listen.

Proving once again that Ted Nugent is an unremitting piece of dog-doo.

2007-08-26T17:25:00.001-04:00

On stage recently, Nugent told an excited crowd that Senators Barack Obama, Barbara Boxer, and Dianne Feinstein could all suck on his machine gun. He also called Hillary Clinton a worthless bitch.

What's funny is that there is literally nothing a conservative can say that will make him radioactive to other conservatives. This is just par for Nugent's course.

Still don't believe me about that Surge?

2007-08-26T10:41:00.000-04:00

Then check this out:

This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.

Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings - the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press....

Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths throughout the country compared with last year - an average daily toll of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year.
Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and sectarian murders. AP reporting accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006. The United Nations and other sources placed the 2006 toll far higher.
Baghdad has gone from representing 76 percent of all civilian and police war-related deaths in Iraq in January to 52 percent in July, bringing it back to the same spot it was roughly a year ago.
According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the number of displaced Iraqis has more than doubled since the start of the year, from 447,337 on Jan. 1 to 1.14 million on July 31.

According to these statistics, the surge has made some difference in Baghdad at bringing down the death toll, right? But at what cost? What about the rest of the country, where death rates are double? Do we just send in more troops that we don't have? Pull out troops from Korea and send them into Iraq?

What do we do to keep the Army and Marines from flying apart at the seams to sustain this occupation?

Aren't these questions that someone should have asked before we invaded the joint? What will the consequences be for those that should have asked and didn't, leaving us in this current mess?

In keeping with my post below.

2007-08-25T22:12:00.001-04:00

Man, this is a good song.

This is complicated, but it shows just how screwed up this war has become.

2007-08-25T11:23:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time (like three years ago) a guy named Ayad Allawi was Prime Minister of Iraq. He was voted out of office in favor of a different guy, who was succeeded in turn by another fella named Nouri Al-Maliki. He's the current Prime Minister of Iraq.

With me so far? Good.

Now that the surge has accomplished approximately none of its goals (at least as they were told to us when Congress approved it), the Bush administration is desperately looking for someone to blame, and they keep changing the definition of success in this war:

Before the surge started:

Surge is not a term I’ve ever used. But the point is you’re trying to add strength to the forces in Iraq so that they’re going to be successful in taking out sectarian violence and also al Qaeda violence, so that you have the conditions under which people can pursue the important business of political reconciliation and economic development.

After the surge:

QUESTION: Is it still administration policy that the U.S. commitment in Iraq is not open-ended?

JOHNDROE: I think the president has made it clear that he would eventually like to see the United States in a different configuration in Iraq. There’s no doubt about that. The surge was designed, as we have said repeatedly, to help bring security to Iraq.

And just like that, creating a viable political environment is no longer a goal of the surge. It probably didn't help that the Iraqi Parliament took August off for vacation.

Which brings us to Nouri Al-Maliki. One day the President tells him that he's on thin ice, the next day, he's a guy with a tough job to do. The message is delivered. We brought you into this world, and we can take you out.

And this is where it becomes obvious how screwed up things have become.

One of the top Republican lobbying firms in Washington was paid $300,000 to hype Ayad Allawi as the next Savior of All Iraq. So he gets to write an op-editorial in the Washington Post talking about the failures of the current Iraqi government (which are real), without revealing he has paid American lobbyists to set all of this up for him. His representatives from that firm go on national teevee talking up the failures of the Iraqi government without revealing they are being paid to do so.

Do you get that? In this war for Democracy, we're now fighting to recycle the same old deck of leaders, over and over, until one of them waves their Magic Iraq Wand and fixes everything. We had to send more troops to save Iraq. And once we're there, we can't get them out, because then the other troops might be less safe. We're staying there just to save ourselves so we can stay there.

And just in case you missed the point, this week President Bush compared Iraq to Vietnam, saying that Americans had better learn the lesson of what happens when you end an occupation early. He even compared himself to the bumbling character of Alden Pyle in the Quiet American. This character is the literary embodiment of American imperialistic arrogance, the written example of what happens when people who don't know jack about the world start wars in places they've never been.

Hey, did ya hear that joke? What's the difference between Vietnam and Iraq? George Bush had a plan to get out of Vietnam.

Happy Occupation.

We did it.

2007-08-18T19:38:00.001-04:00

Dr. Mrsinallmyyears and I ran 13 miles today. That is the amount that we were training for--the Chicago Half-Marathon.

Today we did it.

I'm pretty sore right now.

Watch Rudy Guiliani Insult an African Lion for being on Welfare

2007-08-16T08:41:00.001-04:00

Ahh, America's Mayor. Here is playing up to the worst imaginable racial stereotypes of 'African lions', whom we all know are just shiftless bums, mooching off our tax dollars as they soak up welfare payments. He sure is dignified, that mayor. And don't forget to check out the new ad from Gays for Giuliani:

I love the youtubez. But somehow, I doubt Rudy loves it as much as I do. In fact, I rather bet he doesn't like it.

Wish me luck. And my family.

2007-08-15T10:57:00.000-04:00

Today I have an enormous union election. Today also is the funeral service of my late-great, great-aunt. Wish me and my family well.

Two seemingly unrelated events.

2007-08-14T19:32:00.001-04:00

On the one hand, half of all poor people who qualify for food stamps aren't getting any (and are thus not likely eating the kind of food they're entitled to under the law). On the other hand, Stephen Baldwin has endorsed Sam Brownback for President.

Coincidence!!?? I think, probably, yes these are two coincidences.

A rough weekend

2007-08-14T10:43:00.000-04:00

Sometime Sunday, my great-aunt died. She was my mother's aunt, but since she outlived my grandmother by a good 20 years, she served as a kind of stand-in, grandmother type for most of my life. Her quality of life in the past year had slipped to a point where she wasn't really herself anymore. For lots of reasons, that's obviously sad (as well as a fact of life), but the chief reason to me why that is sad is because in her vigorous life she was a very funny lady with a sharp, self-deprecating sense of humor. She was, in other words, a gas. She will be greatly missed by my family, and not easily forgotten.

Times like these are tough on all kinds of families. One thing that has made this tough time much more bearable than it might have been is that I've gotten to know my great-aunt's son and his wife. They are two remarkable people who picked up roots when she needed them, moved across the country and resettled with her, filling out her last days with kindness, care, and companionship. Befriending them has been a great personal reward, as my family is small and dispersed across the country.

Also at this time, one of my closest family friends (who has also served as a grandparent to me) is in the hospital facing several serious maladies. She's advanced in age, with some complicating factors that will make recovery a very tough road.

What has made this time more bearable is that the occasion of her illness has actually brought her family back together. One of her children had been estranged from the family, and has been in regular communication with them to be with them as best he can. Seeing them reconnect has been joyous to me, because I know personally the cost the estrangement has borne on the family.

I don't know why I type this except to say that I feel lucky to have these problems as my problems. It's a good problem that you may have loving people in your life who will, at some point, leave. It's a good problem to have to go through these dramas, as they provide a chance to connect with people you never knew (or did know, but grew away from) and find out how to serve them in their time of crisis, and how they can help you survive yours.

These are problems, but they can be rich ones to have.

Oh yeah, this is good news.

2007-08-13T06:42:00.000-04:00

The Pentagon is sending evangelical Christians to Iraq to proselytize among soldiers. In a majority Muslim Country. And Stephen Baldwin is involved.

This should go well. Nothing to fear here. All the hilarity of the 2nd crusade mixed with Bio-Dome.

HALLELUJAH!

2007-08-13T06:31:00.000-04:00

HALLELUJAH!

KARL ROVE IS GONE!

No matter what else happens this week, today my week is glorious. Few have done as much harm to America in such little time as Karl Rove. He is to the death of Democracy what the Bubonic Plague was to the death of real people. Never one to pass up the opportunity to politicize any tragedy or human drama, I can only hope that he enjoys retirement. Because I'll sure as shit enjoy the fact that he's retired.

Texas Church to dead soldier: We'd tell you to drop dead if it weren't already the case

2007-08-11T09:53:00.000-04:00

File this one under 'classy.' A church in Texas had offered to do the wake of a dead veteran, even though they had known he was gay. The day before the scheduled service they canceled because they didn't want to promote the gay lifestyle. Or something.

See, it's nice that he gave his professional life to his country. It just doesn't make him any less faggy. And if there's one area where the Bible is clear, it's that you must ostracize and marginalize further people who are already marginalized and hated in society.

So this church has totally nailed that whole "WWJD?" business. Their kingdom awaits, no doubt.

Food Service workers demand more pay from Wall Street Giants

2007-08-11T09:22:00.000-04:00

Here's a story worth repeating. After years of enduring meager pay, no benefits, no paid leave of any kind, and enduring a generally shitty standard of living, food service workers gathered in the heart of NYC's financial district to demand a living wage. Some of these employees serve food to the America's mightiest money movers, financial wizards, and back-room bank-rakers, and yet they can't make enough money to put food on their table.

So my hat goes off to men and women of the food service industry. Good luck in your fight, and may you be invisible no longer.

Prominent Right-wingers want 3,000 more Americans to die

2007-08-11T09:08:00.000-04:00

At least, if that's being honest, that's what we'd say. Why do they want 3,000 more Americans to die in a terrorist attack? So we can get really serious about the war on Terrorism (or whatever it is we're calling it this week). I saw that some obscure columnist had written an article basically saying that the only way we're going to get back to that hallowed 'post 9/11 patriotic unity' is to, you know, have another major terrorist attack on the US.

That's what passes for serious thought. 'But self,' I told myself, 'Self, don't worry, no one would take such a ridiculous argument seriously. I just hope he's not some liberal, or we'll all get tarred with that brush.'

Au contraire, mon frer. Said columnist found a most welcome home on Fox News. See for yourself:

Well, thank God he didn't say something outlandish, like you know, our sitting President is a war criminal whose impeachment would reestablish the rule of law in our troubled land. That would be beyond the pale.

Update: Atrios does that whole "I'll say it better than you can" thing.

So if a massive terrorist attack happened, it wouldn't be a vindication of what they've been doing, it would be proof that they failed to do what George Bush claims is his most important job.

All of these calls for "unity" and prayers that thousands of people die so that people "wake up" have nothing to do with anyone preventing the Bush administration from doing what they want. They're simply expressing a deep anger that the dirty fucking hippies don't agree with everything they say. Ultimately, they're angry that their pet war isn't going well and angry that the dirty fucking hippies don't rely on quite as many adult undergarments as they do.

But if some sort of terrorist attack happens, it's their people who will have failed to stop it. Despite our best efforts, we haven't managed to impact Bush administration policy on this stuff at all.

Pretty much.

Ah, hell, while I'm at it.

2007-08-09T19:45:00.001-04:00

This was clearly the best song off that previously mentioned depressing-ass album.

I had a weekend like this one time.

2007-08-09T19:37:00.001-04:00

This is probably the best song off the new album by Against me! I was soooo dreading this album, having read some of the reviews, which savaged it. But you know, it's not too bad. Not every song hits it out of the park, but there's enough on there to remind me why I originally liked this band. It's far less depressing than their last one, which I still can't listen to all the way through. So enjoy.

This is clearly the fault of liberals. Somehow.

2007-08-06T08:56:00.001-04:00

30% of all weapons sold to the new Iraqi government have gone missing. Magically, George Bush deserves none of the blame for this.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth

2007-08-06T08:53:00.001-04:00

Congressional Democrats have gotten some actual things done. I'm often puzzled by the criticism that Democrats have failed to get immigration reform, health care reform, and a plethora of other things through the Senate and signed into law. The Republicans are blocking them at every step, and Bush has threatened more vetoes in the past seven months than he has in the past six years. This is somehow the Democrat's fault? Oftentimes, I hear this criticism from the same people who pine for bipartisan consensus, as if that in and of itself were a worthy goal.

Man, this is happening a lot today.

2007-07-28T10:24:00.000-04:00

Second time where someone says what I've been trying to write:

Boy howdy, the Bush administration is harder to kill than roaches. It seems like every week, sometimes every day, there’s a new revelation that should make the Bushies radioactive even to their own party, that should make the American people clamor for impeachment (at the least), and yet it never… quite… happens. It’s like all those happy turning points in Iraq that never quite lead to a secular democracy.
Not only is the sheer volume of outrages impressive; consider the diversity. You’ve got corruption, contempt, coverups, catastrophic negligence, endless war, torture, illegal domestic spying, leaks, perjury, all-out war on science and the Constitution, rampant politicization of government, people getting shot in the face, and… gay hookers. Hell, I’m already in double digits, and that’s only a partial list of broad categories.
There have been so many times I thought that maybe, just maybe, this will be the one to finally reveal BushCo. and the GOP as a thuggish criminal enterprise fronted by a craven, smirking moron, but their image never quite seems to take a direct hit.

True, that.

2007-07-28T09:44:00.001-04:00

Do you ever read something that makes you wish you could write that well? Something that pithily takes what you've been struggling to say and just jots it down, and makes it look easy to do so? I have that feeling often when I read Digby. The latest example:

Why are so many of these people such children in these matters? Rod Dreyer read "All Quiet On The Western Front" a couple of weeks ago and was so moved that he actually felt compelled to write a column about it. (I did too. In the eight grade --- only I called it a book report.) I guess I thought everyone knew that war was a crazy, fucked up enterprise filled with great drama and boredom and courage and loss of humanity and that most of the simplistic mythic clap trap that society uses to compel young men into doing it was pretty much propaganda. Sure, it still has to be done sometimes and it takes great physical courage and commitment to throw yourself into the meat grinder, but that doesn't change the fact that it is, on many levels, a total debasement of your humanity. Like most things in life, it's complicated.

Apparently, an anomyous soldier wrote a column in the New Republic describing some of the workaday cruelty and boredom towards other soldiers and Iraqis that he's experienced in Iraq. For doing so, he's been crucified by the right wing for selling out 'the troops.' Or something.

Well anyway, what Digby said above is how I feel. I just sort of assume that people know instinctively that sending lots of people off to go kill other people is going to be a complicated mess, and we should undertake such messes only very rarely, and then only under extremely special circumstances. The crowd whose every answer to any problem is to bomb the shit out of them are frightening psychopaths. I guess my problem is that not everyone knows this to be the truth. Lots of people idolize the military without ever having a living understanding of what war actually does to people.

When I was speaking back at home with one of a very right wing conservative talk show hosts and after, thank God, after we were off the air, I said something that I assumed he would agree with and I just said ‘you know, I’m really worried about these guys and gals, but mainly guys, that have gone, that they’ve been redeployed now three and four times’ — he came back to me and said ‘you know what, they should have thought about that before they enlisted, before they signed up.’ He said ‘it’s their fault.’

Another example of this kind of sheer criminality of thought processes is the fact that the far-insane Heritage Foundation ran a study of what actually bombing Iran would do to our economy (forget the actual effects of bombing the Iranians. No one cares what happens to them.) They concluded it would be bad for lots of reasons. But since, as Kevin Drum writes, they are committed ideologically to bombing the shit out of anyone they don't like, they re-ran the study and changed a few of the criteria. Voila! Bombing Iran would be great for America!

The mind reels that these people are not only taken seriously, but given access to key decision makers in the country, and actually provided the opportunity to peddle these 'ideas' as 'advice.' And what is more frightening is that not only are they not laughed out of the room or put in a rubber room, but that often, this advice is followed.

Now, that's good news

2007-07-21T09:52:00.000-04:00

North Dakotans are hoping to aid their farm economy by legalizing industrial hemp (which can't be smoked to get high). It's a move in the right direction, one that I often wish tobacco farms would embrace. Hemp has tons of uses, like soy, and could be a great and reliable cash crop.

The only thing that bugs me about that article is its tone, which screams "Rural white people want to do this, so it can't be sketchy, it has to be a wholesome idea. You know, not like it's cooked up by hopeless dope addicts in the ghetto or patchouli-wearing hippies. That would make it A Bad Idea."

You know, I've never lost my legs for my country

2007-07-21T08:54:00.000-04:00

But if I had, and the President were standing if front of me, I bet I'd want him to say something other than "He's a good man, we're going to get him some new legs."

It somehow comes off, oh, I don't know, a little condescending and trite.

Well, that was nice.

2007-07-20T20:03:00.000-04:00

After getting back from vacation (which is a good thing) I spent all last week consumed with work (which, since I love my work, is also a good thing). I haven't been much up on the news. I'll try to get something together soon.

Internet access has been hit or miss in the past couple of days.

2007-07-13T10:44:00.000-04:00

Jackson, WY is a weird place.

These are some of those Utah fires that have been in the news.

Bryce Canyon, Utah.

Rock squirrel begging for food. Seriously. Three more joined him after this picture was snapped.

Where we were yesterday.

2007-07-10T11:17:00.000-04:00

Where we are.

2007-07-09T09:19:00.001-04:00

Hint: It's on vacation, and not in the Chicago suburbs. Yesterday we saw two moose, four eagles, nearly two dozen elk, five beavers, several dozen buffalo and a chipmunk. Yes, a chipmunk. I couldn't believe it either.

George Bush's history on fighting 'excessive punishments' for convicted felons

2007-07-05T12:53:00.001-04:00

Let's just say it's less than stellar:

Serving twelve years for a rape that DNA testing shows you didn't commit does not get you a pardon. Being represented by a lawyer who slept through large chunks of the trial does not get you a pardon. Being convicted of murder in proceedings that a court-appointed special master describes as ""a breakdown of the adversarial process" caused by the incompetence of your lawyer does not get you a pardon, even when someone else confesses on tape to the murder you were convicted of. Likewise, when someone else confesses to the murder you were convicted of and you ask for a stay of execution in order to conduct tests that will establish your innocence, no dice. And when you are unquestionably incompetent to assist in your own defense but no one seems to take that fact into account, or tells the jury, that's just too bad.

Awesome! And let's not forget how that paragon of humility and forgiveness, George W. Bush, mocked a woman he was about to put to death, Karla Faye Tucker:

Tucker Carlson of Talk magazine described the smirk Bush wore as he mimicked convicted murderer turned Christian Karla Faye Tucker begging, "Please don't kill me," something she never actually did.

How very Christian of you, sir! But the coup' de gracie (as my Mom would say) is that there is someone serving 33 months in jail, right now, for the very same crime that Bush's pal Scooter Libby is guilty of. He's only served his country in two wars, though, not by taking a dive for Team Caesar Augustus. Pity, that.

That about nails it. Happy 4th of July.

2007-07-04T08:15:00.000-04:00

On this most sacred of national holidays, after our nation has apparently given up the rule of law for something else altogether, I have to ask, what the fuck?

Glenn Greenwald pens the kind of essay that does the President's commutation the justice it sorely deserves, and which is sorely lacking in the kind of coverage it has received in the media.

The reason people like me get pissed about the woeful state of media coverage is that it is supposed to represent the first draft of history, and so often it is either glaringly inaccurate, hopelessly incomplete, and yet usually it supposes that it knows best. We don't want media coverage to be more liberal, just to do its fucking job and speak truth to power. Afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted, and all that.

We have been asking questions for the past six years like: "Who are we as a nation? Why do we allow our leaders to literally get away with murder? Why are the deaths of several hundred thousand Iraqis and several thousand US troops not newsworthy? Who gives a shit about Paris Hilton, and why does she get more coverage than these issues?"

These questions get no public airing, other than what we type to each other on our websites that no one reads. Sometimes we see these absurdities, and we curse them. With foul language, no less. Sometimes, that is all you can do.

To the official timekeepers in Washington however, dirty language is more objectionable than the crimes which elicited the curses.

Here's the problem:

You can vote Republicans out of office, and some things may change. You can vote Democrats out of office, and other things may happen (which we've seen over the past six years). What we can't do is vote out of office the completely vapid, morally vacant and utterly useless press corps which holds up this entire rotting system and defends it from any kind of challenge. We can't vote out Tim Russert, or Fox News, or any of the rest of them who enable this sad process to degrade our nation any further.

Happy 4th of July.

Hamas Rising in the West Bank

2007-06-16T10:21:00.000-04:00

This subject is a bit off topic from what I devote most of my time time to (limited though it is) on this blog, but if you're like me, when you heard that Hamas was about to take over the West Bank, you greeted this news with shudder. I thought to myself "This cannot be good." And it's not.

But I learned more from this short post by MJ Rosenberg about the struggle there than I have in a year watching TV for information on this subject.

Read it,

Dammit, here comes the substance

2007-06-11T19:37:00.000-04:00

It will be in bullet form. Here are things which deserve commentary:

Iraqi oil workers went on strike. They're upset about a new law which would hand over control of the oilfields to private corporations; land they were promised--but never received, new salary increases, and job security. The joke is on them though, because the Iraqi army managed one of its first complete solo victories by surrounding them and forcing their strike to back down. Smell the freedom.
Remember Ms. Evelyn Coke? Real nice lady. She was fighting for overtime pay that she should have earned through her employment. Sorry sucka! No overtime for you!
Hey, it's not like she needed it, right? Or the one million other workers who are impacted by that ruling.
And keeping the good news rollin', an Oregon strike by carpenters and drywallers has split the labor movement in Oregon. Good work guys!
This next piece is so awful, I'll just quote what Paul Waldman at Tapped has to say about it:

"Since no one else here at TAPPED has discussed the fact that in Iraq we are now arming Sunni militias if they agree to help us fight al-Qaeda, I'll go ahead and say it:
Given our highly nuanced understanding of all the individuals and groups competing for advantage in Iraq; and given the relatively uncomplicated ethnic, political, and security situation there; and given this administration's excellent track record on predicting the outcome of events; and given how small the possibility is that a move like this might have unintended consequences...

Why the heck not? After all, what could possibly go wrong?

On the other hand, CNN just told me that we're not giving them our really top-of-the-line weaponry, just run-of-the-mill guns and stuff. So that should ease your worries."

On the other hand, CNN just told me that we're not giving them our really top-of-the-line weaponry, just run-of-the-mill guns and stuff. So that should ease your worries."

See, to me, this just sounds like a buddy comedy movie--I'm just waiting for the hilarity to ensue!

Why write anything of substance when I can post videos?

2007-06-11T07:42:00.001-04:00

That's a great question. Here's my response: Against me! as a new video out for their new album.

Uh oh,

2007-05-30T09:21:00.000-04:00

I have reverted to a lazier, video-posting shell of my former self.

Sorry.

This is a sad excuse for a post...

2007-05-25T08:50:00.000-04:00

I have been hella busy with work as of late, what with saving the world from economic injustice one worker at a time and all, but I found this, and I thought you'd enjoy it:

And democratic leadership, I just wanted to say thanks! Thanks for screwing us on the Iraq issue!

My Favorite New Song This week

2007-05-06T08:19:00.000-04:00

Via Tbogg:

Now that's smart

2007-05-04T17:11:00.000-04:00

Three years ago, California grocery workers went out on strike to protect their pension benefits and health insurance. They got their asses handed to them after a 141-day strike that included management collusion among the big grocery chains. Essentially, they conspired to protect their declining profits together throughout the strike, which is perfectly illegal. What was completely illegal was that they hired striking workers back using fake Social Security numbers.

So workers have been living under a terrible contract for three years. Their contract is up this year, and they've started courting local government officials for support. This is not unusual. What is unusual is that they've been pressuring officials who issue liquor licenses to hold out on giving them to the chains until they agree to treat employees with respect and pay them good wages and benefits.

So essentially, if the chains continue to hardball the unions, they'll simply hardball back--where it hurts--with their liquor, beer, and wine profits.

Well, I'll be.

2007-05-03T09:18:00.000-04:00

Apparently, during the 50's we made May Day into "Loyalty Day".

No kidding.

Happy May Day

2007-05-01T08:54:00.000-04:00

It's here, the day when workers all around the world throw down and rally. Here in the greater Chicagoland area, I'll be attending a Haymarket memorial, then joining the immigrant rally for worker justice.

All in a day!

Wal-Mart: Yup, still evil

2007-05-01T08:49:00.000-04:00

Human Rights Watch compiled 210 pages of union-busting goodness that Wal-Mart has been up to its neck in. Included are the 'rapid response team' of union-busters that's flown in to each store should an organizer show up and start talking to folks about their rights. Then there's the video surveillance on the premises that videotapes employees talking to each other. It all adds up to a climate of fear and intimidation that makes organizing rather unlikely. My favorite quote:

She said the [rapid-response] team also tells workers that unions are outdated and are represented by "aggressive, harassing and unsavory people," she said.

I want that on my tombstone--here lies an aggressive, harassing, and unsavory person.

More dirt

2007-04-29T08:33:00.000-04:00

This is rich.

Randall Tobias, our man in the thick of the DC hooker ring scandal, required all groups receiving money to fight AIDS to take anti-sex-worker oaths. That is, they wouldn't use any US funds to educate sex workers on how to protect themselves from AIDS or any other aspect of sexual health education.

Brazil lost $40 million from one of its most successful anti-AIDS programs because of this dictat.

Well, one wonders if he followed his own advice when he procured the services of his 'masseuses'. Presumably there was no need.

Terrorist Plot averted

2007-04-28T09:40:00.000-04:00

You didn't hear about it because the terrorists were white Christians, not scary Muslims.

In Alabama, BATF officials raided the coffers of the Alabama Free Militia in four separate counties and uncovered:

130 grenades,
an improvised rocket launcher
2,500 rounds of ammunition

What on earth were they planning to do with all this ammo? The feds haven't been able to identify a target for their wrath--yet.

Not to worry, their lawyer says it's all 'much ado about nothing.' Hey, many's the time I've hoarded automatic weaponry, so we've all been there.

Finally, a sex scandal. Now can we impeach him?

2007-04-28T08:42:00.000-04:00

After the lying, obfuscation, war, pestilence, plague, and famine that have come to define the Presidency of George Bush, we finally have a sex scandal.

Seems Randall Tobias, the Undersecretary of State got caught in a web of a DC madam's prosecution. She's not going down without a fight, so she's naming names.

The best part--he's the AIDS czar in charge of the administration's abstinence and faithful monogamy iniatives. Of course he's married. That goes without saying.

Can we go ahead and get rid of Bush now? Or do we have to wait until he lies about it and then impeach him?

This just in--the facts have a pro-union bias!

2007-04-24T16:45:00.000-04:00

Wal-mart has responded to the 3rd certification of a union in one of its Canadian branches by arguing (and why would I make this up) that the very Canadian courts themselves have an anti-Wal-Mart bias.

"After losing in the high court, you'd think they have run out of stalling tactics,'' said Michael Forman, spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents the workers.

Yes, Mr. Forman, you might think so.

By the way, I saw Bright Eyes last night. Underwhelming, to say the least. This led to a discussion between Dr. Mrsinallmyyears and myself that our days of live-music-show-attending are probably behind us. Good God, it pains me to type this. We're not even in our thirties. Isn't this a discussion to be held once we're jaded 40-somethings? And yet...I really can't remember the last show that I attended which wasn't marked by the jostling crowds of preening high schoolers. It's been similarly awful for the past few years. I actually loathe all-ages shows now.

Do I have a case of early-onset old-man crotchetiness?

The Magic 8-ball says 'yes.'

"We don't want any troublemakers around here, do we?"

2007-04-19T18:35:00.000-04:00

Nice video.

On Imus

2007-04-19T10:45:00.000-04:00

Much has been said about his ouster. But no one says it as well as Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi:

"Because we love our black jokes, we love our Jew jokes, we love our redneck jokes, and we love our misogyny -- we just don't want it all on the wrong network in the wrong time-slot, coming from a white guy, in whose mouth it might very well sound like the bigot in all of us. And when it does pop up in the wrong place, coming from the wrong person, we've got to pull the "I'm shocked, shocked" act and pretend it's a criminal aberration. Because that's much easier than facing the truth about what we just heard."

Overtime for home health care workers--a victory

2007-04-16T08:58:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about the case of Ms. Evelyn Coke, a retired home health care worker who was suing her employer for back overtime wages.

She won.

The 2nd circuit court of appeals ruled that exempting workers like Coke is inconsistent with other Labor department rules and Congressional intent in writing the overtime law.

One thing that I learned that from the NYT update is that when the overtime law was written, it passed with the support of racist segregationists who excluded agricultural and domestic employees. I've always wondered what was the basis for those exclusions in the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act.

Republican politics, 101

2007-04-13T09:43:00.000-04:00

“We don’t do well until we have a common enemy,” Mr. Dawson said. “Right now, our enemy is ourselves.”

"The culture of life is like a butterfly."

2007-04-12T20:03:00.000-04:00

"Contraception is like eating the apple in the garden of eden."

These people are batshit insane.

via.

A penny a pound more for Immokalee workers, plus a little dignity.

2007-04-11T09:15:00.000-04:00

So a scrappy band of tomato pickers from Florida took on the world's largest fast-food company and won. They demanded that McDonald's pay them a penny more per pound of the tomatoes they pick, and that they get some basic working conditions protected. It took two years, but they did it.

Change is possible. If you had told these folks to give it up, they probably would have told you that they don't have time for that bullshit, because they have work to do.

And they did it. These are proud people, and they know they're worth more than their meager incomes.

In that spirit, the Illinois Labor History Society is planning a May Day action on Tuesday, May 1 at 11:00 am at the Haymarket Memorial (on Des Plaines Ave. between Randolph and Lake).

Yay for Rob

2007-04-09T10:08:00.000-04:00

I've worked with Rob Bisceglie on several occasions, and I've come to know him as a hardworker who is dedicated to turning DuPage into a competitive county for Democrats to run for office. He's much more of a centrist than I am, but he's a good guy, and good for the DuPage Democrats.

A small quote, with truth behind it.

2007-04-09T09:54:00.000-04:00

"How Democrats approach the labor community has changed,'' said Jenny Backus, a Democratic political consultant in Washington who worked for the 2004 ticket of Senator John Kerry and Edwards. "You have to approach each group individually. Labor power has become decentralized.''

Let's think about this for a minute. This quote comes from a story about John Edwards' attempt to get to the White House by focusing his attention on individual unions at the local level in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other early primary states.

If true, this is a good thing. It used to be that candidates could drop by the International union office, kiss the ring of the high poo-bah, collect their check, and move on. That they now have to spend more time with actual, you know, workers, will lead them to take worker issues more seriously.

Edwards will be the first to participate in the "Walk a day in my shoes" program that the SEIU is launching. All candidates have to walk a day in the shoes of a union member. It's that simple. If they screw that up, no endorsement.

Isn't that how it should always work? That this is a new campaign says volumes about how slack labor has been in giving away its endorsement lovin'.

Good news

2007-04-09T09:32:00.000-04:00

The International Labor Organization, a UN body that oversees global labor standards, has ruled that North Carolina's ban on collective bargaining for public employees is illegal.

This is significant, because while NC public employees can 'join' unions, they don't have the power to bargain, or represent anyone. Most public employees in North Carolina are women, or people of color.

Two Democrats have introduced legislation to repeal the state statute that bans collective bargaining.

Dear sweet lord

2007-04-05T11:00:00.000-04:00

John McCain has hired a Jew-counting dog-barbecuer to spice up his campaign finance operations.

I am not capable of making this up.

Way to go, Striaght Talk Express!

Gulf Coast Shipyard workers settle strike

2007-04-04T11:04:00.000-04:00

Workers at the massive Pascagoula shipworks complex walked off their jobs in early March. All 7,000 of them.

They conducted their strike in dignity, marching downtown to Pascagoula to seek support from local merchants. When the 2,000 person-strong march arrived, merchants greeted them with food, water, and well-wishes.

The strike happened amidst the backdrop of Katrina-ravaged Mississippi. One union electrician had this to say about the strike, his boss, and things in general:

"Since Katrina, you can't get housing," he said. "People raised the rents up so high, they pretty much price-gouged. ... All we're saying is, let us have some pride and dignity. ... We'll keep fighting for that until we get what's fair."

They have settled their strike, and won some increases in pay from the military contractors who run the shipyard. But it's kind of sad. The first year guarantees an increase of $1.68 an hour, with two .55 cent per hour increases in the 2nd and 3rd year of the contract. The company offered a deal with $1.10 an hour in the first year, followed by identical raises in the 2nd and 3rd year. This from one of the wealthiest government contractors around--they usually earn $5 billion a year in contracts from the DOD. It drives home just how little people are really asking for, and the lengths they have to go to get it.

Two things:

2007-04-04T10:45:00.000-04:00

One, Dr. Mrsinallmyyears I truly wish I was at home right now, instead of where I'm at. I miss you terribly.

Two: In our 'Hey, we're apparently already at war with Iran!' files, it turns out we've been sponsoring, well, terrorism against the Iranians from the Pakistani border.

And I can't pass without posting this picture of Dick Cheney lurking in the background at yesterday's tantrum meeting the Preznit held. Marvel at the bad optics:

When the annals of this administration have been written, let no one wonder why Dick Cheney gets made fun of for being an evil Svengali, Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter type. It's an earned distinction.

Senate Iraq supplemental, the minimum wage, and the President

2007-03-29T08:18:00.000-04:00

Lost in all the discussion about the vote to end the war and bring our troops home, which was tied to the emergency funding for the war in Iraq was the fact that the minimum wage got tied it to it too.

Which is a very smart move. The President has already threatened a veto of the spending, since it mandates that troops come home by spirng of '08. Americans overwhelmingly are against the surge, they don't think it will do what the President said it would, and they don't trust the President to do anything right. So he's already under a lot of pressure to cooperate, which he has of course, refused to do.

If he vetoes that bill, he'll be forever tied to the failed war, and his refusal to cooperate to end it with dignity. He'll also be tied to the failure to raise the minimum wage.

Lots of other comentators have noted that people whose support for the war is based on the "If we fail, it will be the WORST THING OF ALL TIME" theory, they often overlook one fact. We don't have competent people in charge who can pull this off, we have George Bush & Co. You can hope and pray that they'll see the light and start acting like professionals. Like a grizzled old Marine once told me

"Shit in one hand, wish in the other hand. See which one fills up first."

I have no idea what that means (and the visual is disturbing), but what I think that Marine was saying is that hoping for something isn't the same thing as having that hope come true. Wishing that we had adults in charge won't put them in charge at this point. We had that chance, it was the 2004 elections. People chose poorly.

George Bush: the intervention

2007-03-29T08:14:00.000-04:00

Some folks have problem with drinking, others with drugs, still others have a problem invading countries. They need an intervention. Below is the chronicle of one such man, George W. Bush:

Change To Win

2007-03-27T08:24:00.000-04:00

Apparently the Change To Win coalition is undergoing some, well, labor pains. Other than the progress of the SEIU in organizing Houston, and UNITE HERE, which won some good hotel worker contracts this past year, the Teamsters have failed to organize much, the Laborers' have done squat (so far as I can tell) and so have the Carpenters. The UFCW continues to take hits, and while they've tried valiantly to organize Smithfield foods, it hasn't happened so far.

On the Attorney General Scandal

2007-03-26T08:30:00.000-04:00

Some call it the grand unifying corruption scandal. Maybe that's so. Josh Marshall says that worrying whether your US Attorney is prosecuting only Democrats and laying off Republicans is a bright line we'd never see crossed. To wit:

"What we seem to see are repeated cases in which US Attorneys were fired for not pursuing bogus prosecutions of persons of the opposite party. Or vice versa."

That's about right to me.

But let's think about this for a minute. Maybe we Democrats are getting off pretty easy here. I mean, sure, apparently the Federal Government views it as their job to squash our every activity, and yes, they're moving to ensure that no corrupt Republican is left behind from the cash gravy train--but wait. Given that they view us as treasonous, mentally diseased, the modern heirs to fascism, and even the Party of Death--Death!--I say we're getting off easy. They could really have taken the gloves us, I suppose.

Gee, I wonder why Houston is sticking it to the SEIU protestors so hard?

2007-03-25T10:26:00.000-04:00

So the protestors who successfully brought Houston Janitorial companies to the bargaining table (and won big) are facing up to $2,000 in fines for tying up traffic. The city is taking a very hard line against people who essentially broke traffic and public congregation laws to bring attention to people making starvation wages. So are they being punished for that, or because they won?

Revisiting the Minimum Wage: Home Health Care Aides

2007-03-25T09:53:00.000-04:00

It's a little-known fact that there are millions of Americans who are not covered by the national minimum wage (now set at $5.15 an hour). These include workers with disabilities, babysitters, federal criminal investigators, of course waitresses and food servers (who are covered by a patchwork of state laws), and fishermen. Also listed are 'companions to the elderly', a category that includes the rapidly-growing sector of home health care aides. These are workers for county governments, private companies, and non-profits. They attend to every personal need of house-bound elderly with no one else to take care of them. They literally feed and bathe the old that many would prefer not to see. It's an invaluable service to society.

But they are not eligible for the basic right to a criminally low wage (a wage, I might add, that hasn't been raised in ten years, while Congress has raised its pay up to $31,000 in the same time period). They're also not eligible for overtime, meaning they can worked to their breaking point with no relief. Think about that. They're taking care of your parents and grandparents.

So Ms. Evelyn Coke (Supported by the SEIU, and the AARP) has filed suit for back wages. That suit will go to the Supreme Court. Ms. Coke worked up to three 24-hour days a week during some parts of her career, and is now too old and sick to continue work herself. Opposing her are a collection of employing agencies, and interestingly billionaire NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. They're claiming that to bring these people up to the federally-mandated minimum would bankrupt their agencies and deny elderly the proper care that they're due.

They're not arguing that these people don't deserve the money, just that if they earn it, they'll bankrupt the system. Of course, Michael could just cough up the $250 million himself, and he'd still be sitting pretty. He might help 60,000 people by doing so, however, so it's not likely to happen.

But this raises some questions. Why are some employees exempt from the law at all? Even if the suit prevails, employees hired by individual families still won't be covered. Categories like the ones mentioned above will not be affected by the suit. Is it just to avoid paying people what the law says is the absolute minimum that a human's labor is worth? The lawyer for Ms. Coke said that the law isn't intended to apply to 'neighbor-to-neighbor' relationships like babysitting, and that since the home healthcare industry has blown up, it should be clearly covered by the minimum wage. But shouldn't your relationships with your neighbors be governed by laws like the minimum wage?

(Ms. Coke and her son--NYT)

Hope Dies Last

2007-03-24T18:04:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's just my personality. I tend to focus (sometimes to the exclusion of all else) on those things needing to be changed. The wrongs that we need to right. The wrongs which will never be righted. The gray areas in between. The space that's created by just discussing and thinking about these issues is part of the moral imperative where I live. It's one part what's possible, one part what's wrong, and a few parts doom and gloom.

In my professional life, this works great. In my mental life, well, let's just say I'm not much fun to watch the news with.

While I was down in Florida a few weeks back, I picked up Hope Dies Last by Studs Terkel. It's a collection of short essays of the kinds of American characters you'd expect from Studs. Dennis Kucinich has a short passage that talks about his poor upbringing (he lived in twenty places by the time he graduated high school, and two of siblings died in childbirth). There are couple of freewheelers in the mix too, like the interview with a bike messenger.

But the part that spoke the most to me are his passages on those in the labor movement, and organizers, who are detailed in a chapter called 'Discovering Power'. In their voices is a lot of sadness, disappointment, and a certain degree of jadedness. Roberta Lynch, who is one of the top bigwigs in AFSCME of Illinois says, "I would not describe myself as an optimist...I would just say that I am person who is periodically visited by hope."

This is how, on a day to day basis, the professional troublemaker often feels (at least, it's how I feel). After all, the poor still are poor, the hungry hunger, and the powerful retain their lofty perches. We lose a lot. Like in that song by Randy, "Karl Marx and History":

It sure rains on our parade,
The winds will change, the clouds will fade.
But change will come eventually.
So says, Karl Marx and history.

But the title of the book gives the game away. Studs is pushing 100 years old himself, and you don't make it that long on a steady diet of cynicism. The rest of the chapters lay out what what a popular psychology for the organizer might look like. Ken Paff, of Teamsters for a Democratic Union talks about a life spent in the pursuit of democratic, shop-floor militancy. How the miracle that Ron Carey's election pushed the Teamsters to strike (and win!) against UPS in 1997 for their part-time employees. He's a man with hope.

Much space in the book is devoted to the characters who won a living wage for Harvard's janitors several years ago.

Young people who did the sitting-in talk about being jeered at by their classmates for caring about people that most of the students didn't even see. But they won. They brought Harvard to the table, and they won.

The custodians are hoepful people. They went from being nobodies, to getting respect on their job, and they made billionaires sitting on a $2 billion dollar endowment, give up just a little of it so that their janitors might live a little better. They did that when all the trustees wanted was to say 'no', and have them go away. But they won.

Bob Kelly, who describes himself as a 'glorified custodian' recalls how blue collar people used to view college protestors in the '60's, and how the Harvard campaign led him to realize "Instead of [thinking] "We're taking care of spoiled little rich kids," it's "Can you believe they're doing this for us?"...Boy, people can surprise you."

Edward Childs, a cook at Harvard for 27 years tells how he went from being asked by a friend to help the cooks get a 50 cent raise to putting in a career at Harvard: "I got the union bug, and the union bug is much stronger than anything else."

It is. Boy, it really is. The message is delivered again and again in this book: hope isn't something you pray for, it's something you live. And when your life is dedicated to busting the odds, it's something you better take to heart. You can't ask people around you to take on the biggest issues, their bosses, the system, racism, war, whatever, and not live hope. Because you will be disappointed.

But then, after a hard fought won, or an equally hard fought loss, you will hear what IAF Organizer Mike Gecan calls 'the most beautiful question you could hear in organizing'--what do we do next?

This video will probably not change anyone's views of the labor movement.

2007-03-17T08:47:00.001-04:00

But it's pretty funny.

We're AFSCME, and we're the fuckin' union that works for you.

Hey everyone

2007-03-11T09:52:00.000-04:00

I have been lazy recently. I have no good explanation for why, either. It's not as though things haven't been happening.

I got my car back from the repair shop (three months after my wreck put it there);
I attended a talk yesterday with Michael Honey, who wrote a great book on the Memphis Sanitation Workers' strike and how it played into the events surrounding Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination (he was supporting the Memphis strikers when he was shot);
I attended a rally last weekend supporting Resurrection Health Care Workers in their efforts to organize a union (by the way Gerry McEntee is a helluva speaker)
I've been working on efforts to plug local democrats into the campaign to reform Illinois school funding;
I generally have been rockin' out.

Now, I bring all of these things up not as a way of proving how awesome I am (it's self-evident), but as a way of explaining my tardiness in making regular posts on this webspace.

Hey, you're not paying for it.

The House passes the Employee Free Choice Act

2007-03-01T17:17:00.000-05:00

This is exceedingly good news. Amid the miring down of the Iraq debate, the house has moved decisively, giving workers some more power than they currently have. The Employe Free Choice Act would allow unions to be certified by a majority of workers signing union cards, and if they can't finish a contract within 3 months, one is decided by neutral arbitration.

It's a big win. It also stiffens penalties for companies who violate federal labor law when workers organize. A worker is fired every 23 minutes for exercising their rights to lawful union representation.

Of course, the opponents will raise the hoary trope of union thugs pressuring decent workers into signing cards they don't wish to sign, but as one of those union thugs, I can tell you, this is not how it works in the real world. In the real world, you have conversations with people about what their concerns are, and once you have a decent relationship with them, then you point to how collective bargaining can address those concerns. There's no smoke, no mirrors. It's just conversations, one after the other.

And despite what you may think, the organizer has no power over workers who don't want union representation. It doesn't happen.

In fact, federal researchers have been able to find 42 instances in the past 60 years where there have been documented cases of union intimidation during an organizing process. Which sounds bad until you compare to the 30,000 documented times the employer has harassed workers seeking to lawfully organize.

Watch the video below of George Miller (D-CA) making the case for the EFCA:

Look, the bottom line is that you cannot find a free country anywhere without a vibrant and free labor movement. Where you find tyranny, you find weakened, diminished worker rights. They all go hand in hand.

And now, for your viewing puh-leasure

2007-02-25T13:49:00.000-05:00

Our president, George W. Fucklewit:

Some things are easy, like grabbing low-hanging fruit off a tree. This is one of those things. But like grabbing low-hanging fruit off a tree, I enjoyed doing it, and I didn't strain my back.

Well good.

2007-02-22T22:39:00.000-05:00

It's nice to see an industrial union win a strike every once in damn while. Harley-Davidson strikers got 12% increases in their new contract, no new payments on their health care, and they retained the pay and benefits structure for new employees.

Good for them.

Steve Jobs, you and I are in disagreement

2007-02-22T08:51:00.000-05:00

I like Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple. I think he makes a good product and has done a lot of good work as a philanthropist. But his recent tirade against teachers and their unions reveal that he doesn't have a clue about how public education unionism works.

He falls into the typical trap of CEO's who think that public schools should be run like private companies, when they are in fact not private companies. They're public schools.

See the difference?

Sure you do, and you aren't no fancy CEO of a big 'ol Fortune 500 company. Apple computers doesn't have to take in any computer user, regardless of their desire to use an Apple, their ability to use an Apple, or their own personal problems. If users of Apple computers fail in their use, no one at Apple is held to account. However, this is exactly the premise of public schooling, where allcomers are welcomed, regardless of personal situation, talent, intelligence, or willingness to learn. Public schools are totally unlike any other institution in society in this way.

And I'm sure it's just a coincidence that no aspect of Apple's production is unionized. I'm sure Jobs would freely allow his employees to choose union representation for themselves. Yep. I'm positive of it.

Jobs railed against due process for teachers and bemoaned the fact that principals can't just fire teachers whenever they please.

People have a false idea of what 'tenure' means for teachers. Tenure doesn't mean you can't be fired, it just means that your manager has to actually manage you--provide support if you need it, document your failings as an employee, and if you don't improve, then out you go. It's true that not many teachers are fired once they get tenure, but what is less known that many are simply forced out if they're bad teachers. The union encourages them to take early retirement, their districts encourage them to leave, and if there are serious problems, then an exit that's beneficial to everyone is negotiated.

That's it.

And don't give me the malarkey about how unions hold this process up. Everyone has worked in a non-union environment where the worthless employees are protected for one reason or another, and it's not the union that holds up their exit. It's poor management, people who don't want conflict, or are terrified of their own managerial shadows.

Although at least he didn't compare us to Al Qaeda, like Sean Hannity did.

Dump Roskam!

2007-02-22T08:46:00.000-05:00

Man, now here's a blog I can get behind. Dedicated to tracking all of Pete's various positions, votes, and public comments, this should be a great resource for those of us in the reality-based community.

Al Franken is in

2007-02-15T20:56:00.000-05:00

Al Franken is running for the Senate in Minnesota. Some of you may not know who is, some of you may have followed his show on Air America, and some of you may know him as Stuart Smalley, the character from Saturday Night Live.

I want you to watch his video announcing his candidacy. He's not your typical candidate. He comes across like an actual human being, more so even than on his syndicated radio show. The way he describes how government assistance has meant the difference in his family, and how his wife's family depended on good government to see them through the tough times. I know what that's like, and he gives it the most charitable possible face. The way he explains it, it's why I'm involved in politics.

Happy Valentine's Day from Chicago

2007-02-14T12:42:00.000-05:00

It's snowly. Very snowly.

I. Have. Had. It.

2007-02-14T12:13:00.000-05:00

After two bloggers for John Edwards' campaign for president were forced out for mildly criticizing Catholic church doctrine, I thought that the silly season was upon us. I mean, criticizing church doctrine--how shocking!

As usual, I was wrong.

Apparently the treason season is upon us. Frank Gaffney is the kind of dangerous asshole who gets audiences among the most powerful people in the nation. He's not two, near-anomymous bloggers who say rude things, drop the f-bomb, and are part of the great unwashed masses. He has power. And he thinks that the Senators and members of Congress who are now challenging President Chuzzlenuts' completely screwed-up war should be hung. For treason. He's not being coy. He's saying they should be killed for articulating the position of the majority of Americans--namely that we should be bringing our troops home sooner rather than later.

So if that's how you feel, you should be hung too.

This morning I was thinking how I didn't know what was more upsetting--the fact that we're apparently gearing up for our third war in five years, or whether no one seems to give a shit.

I have seriously reflected upon whether or not my position on the war is the right one. I've prayed on it. I've read on it. And still, I'm not altogether sure--I mean, things could get worse if the troops come out of Iraq, right? How can I know these things? I have to take some kind of comfort in the fact that (finally) I'm not alone in my feelings.

How a man like Gaffney can act with such utter conviction--to the point where he wants people who disagree with him killed--is what makes him a truly dangerous man. Would that he were alone in the world, without access to the kinds of people who control bomb payloads and troop deployments. Would that he were merely content to write spy novels or something.

Instead, we're saddled with his bloviating. I'm an enemy. You're an enemy. Everyone's to blame except for the pricks like Gaffney who led (some of) us down this primrose path. The answer clearly isn't that war without end is the problem. The problem is that some of the dirty citizenry have woken up to the fact that these people are deeply disturbed and have pushed their elected representatives to act on this knowledge. That's the problem.

I need a drink, and it's not even noon.

Just in case you thought I was making up hyperbole about Iran:

2007-02-12T09:02:00.000-05:00

"Some senior administration officials still relish the notion of a direct confrontation. One ambassador in Washington said he was taken aback when John Hannah, Vice President Cheney's national security adviser, said during a recent meeting that the administration considers 2007 "the year of Iran" and indicated that a U.S. attack was a real possibility. Hannah declined to be interviewed for this article."

In other news, the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west. Jesus, these people could not be more frightening.

Via thismodernworld.

Yesterday I saw the future.

2007-02-12T08:44:00.000-05:00

And I wasn't dropping acid. Honestly.

Through a co-worker I snared some tickets to go watch Barack Obama be welcomed home from his whirlwind Springfield-to-Iowa tour. It was held at the UIC Pavillion in Chicago, and a crowd of thousands waited expectantly for hours while Barack arrived late.

The man is good, but one of the things that I noticed that impressed me was the way he handled a group of demonstrators who proceded a chant calling on him to cut off funding to the war. Without mocking or telling them to shut up, he gracefully let them know he was getting to the war (but first he had to finish his plea on healthcare). When they didn't stop, he just waited and halted his speech like I've seen teachers do when their students won't shut up. When the crowd started yelling "O-BA-MA!" the protestors got the point and allowed him to finish. He said "I'm glad those guys are up there, because this is an urgent issue that needs to be resolved."

He's a pretty classy guy, best as I can tell.

I've long stated my torrid political yearnings for John Edwards (and my heart still burns when I hear him talk about unions--it's not a punchline for him, it's a real feeling). He's a great candidate. But so is Barack Obama. In fact, for the first time in my memory, there are actually several candidates whom I wouldn't mind seeing elected. The only one I have strong feelings against is Hillary, for lots of reasons I don't have time to go into right now.

On the other hand, none of the Republican candidates scares me all that much. The air is running out of the McCain Balloon, Mitt Romney will not win over the Republican base, and neither will Rudolph Giuliani. Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback are also-rans.

It will actually be a good time to be a liberal running for office.