Nicholas Johnson Speech On The Origins And Future Of Radio

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Trish Nelson

nicholas johnson thumbnailFormer FCC Commissioner and UI Law professor Nicholas Johnson gave a speech to commemorate the third birthday of community radio station KHOI 89.1 FM in Ames on Sunday, August 23rd. Below are excerpts from Nick Johnson’s blog, fromdc2iowa reposted here with permission. To listen to the audio of his entire, amazing, 40 minute speech – think of it as a free crash course on the history of media – click here. To read the 21-page research notes and citations click here.

“But even though the miracle of radio was barely understood in 1926, there was an awareness of the risk of monopoly power and ownership. And one member of the House, from Texas, Luther Johnson — no relative of mine or of Lyndon’s — said, “American thought and American politics will be largely at the mercy of those who operate these stations. For publicity is the most powerful weapon that can be wielded in a Republic, and when such a weapon is placed in the hands of one, or a single selfish group is permitted to either tacitly or otherwise acquire ownership and dominate these broadcasting stations throughout the country, then woe be to those who dare to differ with them.”

Woe be to those who dare to differ with them. How prescient can you be?  He concludes,

“It will be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people.”

The Origins And Future Of Radio

by Nicholas Johnson

Here are transcripts of some selected portions of the audio that will provide at least some sense of the content of the talk.

“This is an incredible accomplishment! I’m not sure if those of you here, and affiliated with this station, and fans of it, are aware of that fact. I read in Forbes recently that something like 80 percent of all the businesses that start up — profit, non-profit, whatever — 80 percent have gone belly up after 18 months. You have been around for three years. You are in the top 20 percent of American enterprise. I think that is an extraordinary accomplishment in just three years. Give yourselves a hand for that.”

# # #

“What we’re doing with these low power stations is a major building block in trying to build the social capital that supports a civic society. That’s really what this is about.”

# # #

“Locally focused radio has been a consistent purpose and presence in America’s broadcasting from its very beginning until today, and has never been more needed than it is now.”

# # #

“Nothing has ever come along as good as radio [for communicating over distance without wires] — this invisible electromagnetic energy that is capable of carrying whatever information we can embed in it and send along with it at 186,000 miles a second.”

# # #

“At that time [1927] what we had as radio is very similar to what you are doing with your station. These were relatively low power stations, in relatively small towns — much smaller than Ames is now — that were of necessity putting out local programming because there wasn’t anything else. But they were also mindful of the purpose that served and why that was desirable. Those are some of your station’s ancestors — those early 8,500 amateur radio stations, those 700-plus broadcasting stations putting out programming and music and speech.”

# # #

“But even though the miracle of radio was barely understood in 1926, there was an awareness of the risk of monopoly power and ownership. And one member of the House, from Texas, Luther Johnson — no relative of mine or of Lyndon’s — said,

“American thought and American politics will be largely at the mercy of those who operate these stations. For publicity is the most powerful weapon that can be wielded in a Republic, and when such a weapon is placed in the hands of one, or a single selfish group is permitted to either tacitly or otherwise acquire ownership and dominate these broadcasting stations throughout the country, then woe be to those who dare to differ with them.”

Woe be to those who dare to differ with them. How prescient can you be? He concludes,

“It will be impossible to compete with them in reaching the ears of the American people.”

# # #

“There was equal concern about the coming of advertising. At the time of the Radio Conferences that Herbert Hoover called in the 1920s — 1922, ’23, ’24, ’25 — he said, ‘It is inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service to be drowned in advertising chatter.’ Can you imagine that today?”

# # #

“Another sort of example of your ancestors is [that what] the FCC was asking for in the ‘Blue Book’ [Responsibility etc 1946?] was similar to what radio was in 1915 to 1920.”

# # #

“[I]t has reached the point where John Oliver -– a standup comedian -– now seems to be America’s most reliable source of the data and analysis necessary for American citizens to address their most serious public policy challenges.

Regional and statewide news coverage has suffered from many of the same pressures [as national news has from Wall Street insistence on profit maximization].

Which brings us full circle round to the role you and other non-profit local radio stations play in today’s media environment. It is, as it turns out, very similar to where radio broadcasting began 100 years ago, and where the FCC’s Blue Book told broadcasters they ought to be 70 years ago.

There is a there there. And you are there. The state of radio is good -– both as a technology and as a local civic service, an endeavor that comes as close as any can to the potential for rebuilding the sense of community we so desperately need in these times.

Thanks to you for the invitation. Happy Birthday. And now it’s party on.

nick johnson rolling stone

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Prairie Dog’s Fall Reading List

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Trish Nelson
Prairie Dog

Prairie Dog

Reprinted with permission from the Fall 2015 issue of  The Prairie Progressive, Iowa’s oldest progressive newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr.!!  Send check to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244.

Incarnadine by Mary Szybist

Sometimes spiritual, sometimes erotic, always brave and beautiful – these are poems that will haunt you deep into the autumn night.  Szybist is deft and audacious, able to seamlessly weave words from a George W. Bush address to Congress into an Annunciation (both religious and political) about a young girl in a meadow, engrossed in a book.

The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson

The most talented of all Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates creates a mysterious, bleakly entertaining world of NATO intrigue, military bungling, madness, and betrayal in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As the protagonist Nair says, “Never go back the way you came.” As Prairie Dog says, never invite anyone from a Denis Johnson novel into your home.

Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner

During the idyllic Batista years, American sugar kings and their families drink, have sex,  throw elaborate parties for their fellow expatriates, and look over their shoulders at the hills where Castro’s rebels lurk. Kushner’s debut novel, before The Flame Throwers, is a delicious melange of politics, passion, and psychology in a decadent world on the edge of disruption.

Cuba Straits by Randy Wayne White

Cut to contemporary Cuba, where White – a Davenport Central High grad – sets a hilarious saga of Santeria, smuggled baseball players, rare turtles, letters to a mysterious woman from Fidel and Raul, and a cast of Carribean characters worthy of a Carl Hiaasen crime caper.

The Things They Cannot Say by Kevin Sites

A collection of eleven harrowing portraits of soldiers and marines that could easily be titled The Things They Cannot Forget. Sites deals in raw and ugly truths about killing and surviving in battle, and how combatants live with what they’ve done and seen. Most don’t live with it very well, including embedded journalist Sites, who struggled for years to come to grips with his own complicity in allowing a man to die. For others, redemption comes only through efforts to help others heal from the horrors inflicted on those whose government has sent to fight its wars.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Also about redemption, and difficulty of finding it within America’s criminal justice system. Stevenson, a Harvard-trained lawyer choosing to work with prisoners condemned to death in the South, is arguably America’s most successful enemy of capitol punishment, as well as a gifted storyteller who will discuss his life and books at the Iowa City Book Fest this fall.

Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald

Paul “Prairie Mouse” Ingram of Prairie Lights Books calls Fitzgerald’s recently re-printed novels “witty and politically astute,” especially this one about workplace courage and cowardice in London’s BBC offices during the blitz.

Everyday White People Confront Racial and Social Injustice edited by Eddie Moore, Jr., Marguerite Penick-Parks, and Ali Michael.

If you grew up in the USA, racism in one way or another has shaped your life. Thec hallenge for Whites who want to confront racism is to confront their own – over and over and over. Moore, who founded the White Privilege Conference while teaching at Central College in Pella, Iowa, and his colleagues have gathered the stories of 15 white activists who continue to battle their own prejudices and privileges even while working against them.

Body Counts by Sean Strub

Born and raised in Iowa City, Strub survived AIDS, politics in New York and Washington, and a Catholic upbringing to become a successful direct-mail fundraiser, organizer/agitator, and magazine publisher.  His vivid autobiography chronicles the struggles of a young man on the verge of coming out, the protests and deaths that punctuated American life in the 80s and 90s, and the heroes and villains he met along the way (Tennessee Williams, Larry Kramer, and the closeted elected officials who voted for homophobic legislation during the day and hustled men in gay bars at night).

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Another British recommendation from Prairie Mouse, in which a mother and daughter make a living after World War II in humiliating fashion (for them) by housing strangers in their home. Hijinks ensue when the daughter falls in lust with the wife of one of the paying guests.

West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan

One of America’s greatest novelists lands on Prairie Dog’s Reading List for the third time. Having burrowed into the hearts and minds of cops, veterans, teen-agers, middle-aged married couples, elderly widows, and fastfood workers, O’Nan turns his  keen attention to more glamorous figures, with equally astonishing results. The imagined lives of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in their post-Gatsby years are as rich in detail as any biography, and as emotional and deeply felt as Fitzgerald’s finest fiction.

You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman

Dark and silly, much like most of our day-to-day lives. You might find yourself identifying uncomfortably with the main characters (named A, B, and C) as they navigate an American landscape strangely obsessed with bodies, especially those of women.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Paying homage to James Baldwin, to whom he’s often compared, and describing the mind-blowing impact of Howard University on his view of black history and culture, Coates writes with beauty and artfulness.  But the power of this book lies in its unsparing anger at the country where, as Malcolm X said, “If you’re black, you’re born in jail.”

– Prairie Dog

 

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Full Video: University of Iowa President Bruce Harreld’s Public Forum And Q & A

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Trish Nelson

“Why did the board of regents install an overpaid puppet? What is their agenda? Where is the protest?”

 

In order to understand what has just happened,one has only to look at Republican governors across the country enacting the ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) agenda to privatize/profitize/dismantle public/higher education.

Governor Branstad is a founding member of ALEC  and has been its loyal servant. Linda Upmeyer, ALEC national chair in 2014, was recently installed as speaker of the Iowa House to replace Kraig Paulsen, who presided over the passaage of a bi-partisan supplemental education funding bill last session that was subsequently vetoed by Branstad.  After the session was over, Paulsen resigned for no apparent reason.

ALEC was established in 1973 (2 years after The Powell Manifesto) and today ALEC corporate members write corporate-friendly state laws and wine and dine state legislators (yes, Iowa legislators) who take bills back to their state capitols and push them through, frequently with campaign contributions as a reward.  These bills typically have nothing to do with what would be good for Iowa.

For deeper political background that will expose the long range planning of conservatives to take down intellectual thought on college campuses, read The Lewis Powell Memo of 1971 or The Powell Manifesto.  Conservatives, paranoid about liberalism, particularly on college campuses, laid out a multi-pronged plan to save the country from what they viewed as an attack on the free enterprise system from the intellectual left.

The Powell memo “influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s ‘hands-off business’ philosophy…Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and [conservative] movement-building.”

Well worth the time to read The Powell Memo in its entirety here: reclaimdemocracy.org/powellmemolewis

The most effective action to take at this time can only be found if it is fully understood what has just happened and how it happened. This was more than simple political payback because Branstad and his BOR cronies don’t like the UI (although they don’t). It is in fact part of a long range plan by conservatives; call it a vast right wing conspiracy if you will, but the facts are well documented and cannot be denied.

You can access these ALEC “model” bills privatizing schools and higher education here: BillsAffectingAmericansRightstoaPublicEducation

The Wisconsin based Center for Media and Democracy has done extensive research and investigations of ALEC. Their website has links to ALEC activities in the states including Iowa. alecexposed.org/ALECExposed

ALEC WATCH: New Report Details Corporate Influence in Iowa progressiowa.org/sections/progress-report

So “What can be done to keep the faculty from storming Jessup Hall with pitchforks?”  I don’t know, other than stop electing Republicans.

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Bakken Pipeline Protest Party

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Trish Nelson

Bakken Pipeline Proposed RouteClimate Action Now

Hughie Tweedy is a farmer in southeast Iowa near Montrose, whose property is in the path of the proposed Bakken oil pipeline. On August 29, 2015, he threw a party protesting the pipeline, and thousands showed up. Ed Fallon interviews Hughie, as well as Keith Puntenney, a lawyer who is working to protect landowners in the proposed path.

“My father was a conservationist and naturalist and planted these trees… you think I’m gonna let a pipeline go through here? I planted 30,000 trees on this farm by hand. This land is my father’s legacy, my family’s heritage, my sacred earth, and it is not for sale.”

 

To submit a petition to the Iowa Utilities Board to protest the use of eminent domain for the proposed Bakken oil Pipeline, go to http://www.nobakken.com/wp/2015/01/12….

To read about Ed’s travels as he walked along the Iowa route of the proposed Bakken oil pipeline, and when he first met Hughie, go to http://fallonforum.com/iowa-pipeline-…. Press Next to scroll through his journey.

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A Political Revolution

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Trish Nelson
hillary Beijing speech

Click on the image to view Clinton’s speech at the 4th Women’s Conference in Beijing, China.

In “Not Ready for Hillary” I wrote that Hillary Clinton has a progressive heart with a conservative mind, and that I hoped to see on the campaign trail the progressive-feminist Hillary, who I still believe, is the real, authentic Hillary. I felt we did not get the real Hillary in the campaign of 2008. It felt like we got a fake Hillary, one who her handlers thought she needed to be to win. I ended up caucusing for Barack Obama and do not regret having done so.

Recently, a Washington Post reporter was in Iowa on a mission to write a derisive, hatchet piece about Hillary. As a female, I am in a category of people who have to wonder whether such attacks are gender-based. Probably, it was not. But something about this male reporter trying to belittle her had the effect of making me want to defend her. I found myself being more open to a Hillary Clinton presidency.

I consider myself a feminist. In grad school I took all of the women’s studies courses I could. I read Emma Goldman’s “Living My Life,” both volumes, cover to cover. My first realization of how we are all brainwashed by media happened when I saw Jean Kilbourne’s “Killing us Softly” documentary and presentation, a feminist and scholarly analysis of images of women in advertising and how it affects our collective psychology – in both men and women.

I abandoned active participation in the feminist movement some time after grad school because it just seemed so hopeless.

So now like others, I’m trying to decide who to support for president in 2016 and it is between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. There is not much not to like about Bernie Sanders. He is out there hammering out the truth and saying it in a way that people can connect with. He is boldly calling for a political revolution. He has steadfastly refused to go negative on Hillary. He is an awesome candidate and I feel the Bern like anyone else who has a brain and a heart and is paying attention. And yet…

Hillary Clinton has probably done more for women and girls around the globe than any single person. She has dedicated her life to fighting the fight for equality. She has always fought for policies and programs that benefit women and children. As Secretary of State, she used her position to make women’s rights a central part of U.S. policy. She reframed violence against women as a human rights violation, calling for women to be treated with dignity and respect in every nation. Her statements – from “I’m not going to just sit around baking cookies,” to “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all,” as she said at the Beijing women’s conference in 1995 – tell me that she is my candidate.

Bernie Sanders is an inspirational candidate as well and of course is supportive of women’s issues. And President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Act, equal pay for equal work, as his first act as President.

But I want a female president. No, I want a feminist, female president who is smart and qualified and progressive. I want a feminist, female president who will truly represent me and my kind, 52% of the population. I want someone who will not put issues of importance to women on the back burner; someone who gets that global problems need solutions that involve women; someone who will not accept the inequality, misogyny, and violence, against women that is the undercurrent of virtually every society, including ours.

That would be what I would call a political revolution.

Reprinted with permission from the Autumn 2015 issue of  The Prairie Progressive, Iowa’s oldest progressive newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr.!!  Send check to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244.

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Union Difference: Fair Wages and Benefits

Posted on September 7, 2015 by bfiaralphscharnau

labor movementThe continuing debate over our economic inequality focuses on globalization and technology. These are seen as the determinants of our transformed economy and rising inequality. Remedies usually focus on better education and more training.

But this explanation largely omits discussion of unions and workers’ power. Americans are already better educated than ever, with high school and college graduation rates at record levels. Rapid technological change is not unique to the present as it occurred in other eras since World War II as well. Globalization, furthermore, is not a force of nature but rather a set of trade, tax, and corporate policies that largely benefit employers.

While most workers are producing more and earning less, corporate profits soar. Last year the pay gap between CEOs and typical workers widened to 373-l. Over the last fifteen years, even college graduates have seen little or no economic gains.

In 2014, only 11 percent of all US workers belonged to a union. Rather than just falling victim to natural causes, unions were assaulted. Beginning in the mid-1970s, corporations launched campaigns depicting unions as obstacles to competition, hired union busting law firms, and convinced Congress to pass laws banning effective union organizing tactics. Multinationals wrote trade and tax rules that facilitated moving jobs abroad and threatening labor at home.

The decline of union bargaining power correlates with the wage stagnation over the last five decades. Besides pushing down the wages of the working class, it also increases the incomes of the wealthiest 10 percent.

In much of America today, work no longer results in a decent paycheck and a rising standard of living. The portion of the economic pie that goes to working people currently stands near the smallest on record since 1947. Similarly the gap between worker pay and labor productivity has widened since the 1970s. In a healthy economy, wages and productivity would rise in tandem, but in recent decades, productivity gains have flowed increasingly to executive compensation and shareholder returns, rather than wages. The low-wage business model has essentially turned public aid into a form of corporate welfare.

Restoring shared prosperity and rebuilding the working and middle classes requires recognizing the role of the workforce in creating wealth. Reviving unions will take new forms of organizing, new alliances, and new thinking. In Los Angeles, a creative union movement helped elect officials who then used government procurement and zoning powers to demand that companies pay decent wages, adhere to labor standards, and end sabotage of worker organizing. In last summer’s fast food walkouts, new alliances with religious and community groups and support from elected officials protected workers and helped enlist consumer support for better wages. In Seattle, unions played a major role in the successful push for the $15.00 minimum wage.

Despite opposition from some employers, conservatives, and public officials, unions have brought diverse voices together, and their struggles have elevated the working conditions, the standard of living, and the recognition of not just their members, but of all who labor. Labor’s power comes not from dollars, but from organizing. Unions’ have the ability to take bold action to defend workers’ rights in the workplace, in the street, and at the ballot box.

The challenge for organized labor is to translate the real dismay about wage stagnation and economic inequality into collective action that raises wages and ensures prosperous companies share more of their profits with their workers. This won’t be easy in today’s entrenched big money politics. The first step is to focus on empowering workers to organize and bargain collectively, and thereby rebuild a strong worker voice in both the workplace and in our politics.

Ralph Scharnau teaches U.S. history at Northeast Iowa Community College, Peosta. He holds a Ph.D. from Northern Illinois University. His publications include articles on labor history in Iowa and Dubuque. Scharnau, a peace and justice activist, writes monthly op-ed columns for the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.

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Two Things About Labor

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Paul Deaton
Working the Alley

Trash Picker Working the Alley

As a child Dad would take us to the Eagles hall for a Labor Day event sponsored by his union. There were speeches and socializing, food and beverages, and one year I won a canned ham in a raffle which I proudly brought home to Mother. A lot of people attended and I got to know some of them after joining the union to work at the meat packing plant for a couple of summers while I was an undergraduate. It was an open shop, but I joined the union and still have my union retirement card.

After college, I joined the U.S. Army and was assigned to an infantry company. In the military, and in a number of government and private jobs, I was occasionally a worker, but mostly have managed people and resources over a 40-year worklife. I’ve viewed unions from multiple perspectives, with a personal stake in the union-management relationship. Two things seem most important about the changes in worklife over the years.

Work is not valued adequately. The rise of management consulting firms—that purport help companies drive profitable growth through the effective use of compensation—have methods of assigning value to work. What they do is help companies optimize and reduce human resources costs. Private business has been working to shed people-costs for years and some believe there is an application for these skills in government as well. The growth of outsourcing, temporary job agencies and part time workers are all part of this successful-for-business movement.

What is the value of food security, a livable homelife and a strong social support network? People who do the work to provide these things are taken for granted.

Compensation is a murky endeavor at best. At a job interview in 2014, the district manager of an international service organization emphasized there were no benefits in his company which employed more than 20,000 workers. The work was part-time, and under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, companies who employed people more than 30 hours per week are required to provide health insurance. The company kept employees under 30 hours per week.

The starting hourly wage was above average for the kind of work in the area. To get health insurance mandated by the ACA, people who worked there when I did often turned to the ACA health exchanges for coverage and subsidies. My policy through the exchange costs about $1,200 per month without subsidy. There are stories of much higher premiums for families. If you take the premiums divided by the number of hours worked, it amounts to a $9.89 per hour subsidy of my worklife.

Businesses have methodologies to understand the value of benefits packages. Workers often don’t. While some appreciate the fact that an employer will provide a benefits package, few workers I know put a pencil to it. The focus is almost totally on wages that can be spent and this distorts the value of working for a company. Too, it is hard to define the value of benefits like disability insurance, life insurance, paid time off, and employee appreciation days. People who focus solely on hourly wage rates often don’t understand the broader context in which wages exist in society.

It’s a personal tradition to work on Labor Day. Even when I worked for an oil company, I drove to the office on Labor Day. Besides security, I was often the only person in the high rise office building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

These days the jobs I work are part time and temporary. Working on Labor Day now means finding my way to a home writing table to work on a freelance article, or making a trip to the garden to pull weeds. All of this has value, just not monetary value. Maybe that’s my point.

What is the value of living a reasonably secure life? It’s a lot higher than it feels for working people.

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Are Pentagon Contractors Driving U.S. Foreign Policy?

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Paul Deaton

GUI LogoColonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005 and expert in foreign policy and national security affairs, will speak on the excessive political influence of Pentagon contractors on U.S. foreign policy at Drake University.

The event will be held at Drake University, Des Moines, on Thursday, Oct. 22, from 7 until 8:30 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

Col. Wilkerson was also associate director of the State Department’s policy planning staff under the directorship of Ambassador Richard Haass. During his thirty-one years in the U.S. Army he served as Deputy Executive Officer to then-General Colin Powell when he commanded the U.S. Army Forces Command, and Special Assistant to General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Wilkerson is an outspoken critic of the Obama and Bush administrations’ policies in the Middle East. A member of the Republican Party, he is a regular expert commentator on television news talk shows providing analysis and opinion.

He is currently the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William & Mary.

Wilkerson’s tour in Iowa is organized by AFSC’s “Governing Under the Influence” project, which calls attention to the excessive political weight of corporations that are able to invest millions of dollars in lobbyists, campaign donations, and advertising to secure lucrative government contracts and policies. As a part of the project, residents in Iowa and New Hampshire are trained to engage presidential candidates in direct dialogue (bird-dog) on the corporate influence behind militarism and incarceration. For more information go to http://gui.afsc.org/

Sponsors: American Friends Service Committee, Iowa Veterans For Peace, Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility and Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship.

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Lincoln: Labor Is The Superior Of Capital

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Dave Bradley

Happy labor dayAs yet another Labor Day rolls by, there is optimism among the ranks of labor unions that they will once more hold a prominent place in the economy of our country. With the rise of the right wing in this country with Ronald Reagan, labor has been beaten mercilessly in Congress, in statehouses across the country, and in a nearly 100% corporately owned media. This is a concerted effort to bust unions in every walk of life from the class room teacher to fast food workers to industrial workers who have seen their jobs sent to other countries by so-called “American” companies at at an alarming rate.

When Republicans want to claim moral high ground on race they always reach way back to Abraham Lincoln to remind folks he is the “great Emancipator.” But Republicans are all about suppressing wages and busting unions, so they seldom remember that their hero Lincoln also was a believer in in the superiority of labor to capital. In case you have never seen this quote, it may be good to have in your back pocket to pull out when you run into some union basher:

It is not needed, nor fitting here [in discussing the Civil War] that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.

This was from a speech Lincoln gave concerning the Civil War to congress on Dec. 3, 1861.

The next election will be crucial, very crucial to labor. Be sure to vote and get your friends to vote. And be sure to vote for candidates who actually believe in policy that is in line with labor. Hopefully, those so called “Reagan democrats” have learned their lesson.

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Sunday Funday: Loyalty Oath Edition

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Dave Bradley
memories of loyalty oath days

memories of loyalty oath days

Who couldn’t help but laugh their butt off Thursday with the contrived spectacle of the Donald signing a loyalty oath to the Republican Party, then having a news conference where he declared it was the best damned loyalty oath ever!

Remember this is the guy who has signed thousands of legal contracts and then ended up suing or being sued for violating said contracts. This is a guy who has filed bankruptcy four times, thus stiffing thousands of creditors and employees. This is a guy who has dumped wives and girlfriends on a whim. And Reince Preibus thinks the Donald will be good to his word? Seriously?

One should ask the Donald if loyalty includes not speaking ill of fellow Republicans. So far he is doing a trash job on his opponents that is warming the hearts of Democrats across the land.

Were you paying attention last week? It was a good one.

1) Federal judge David Bunning became a household name due to the marriage equality case in Kentucky. Who is David Bunning’s father?

2) If you want to be president, you have to think big. What Republican presidential candidate proposed a very long wall between us and Canada?

3) Ah, the horse race. In Iowa, Republicans now have dual leaders in the presidential poll. Which two are tied? (Monmouth University poll)

4) Barbara Mikulski of Maryland became the 34th senator to declare her support of what, thus stopping senate Republican’s plans?

5) In Rowan County Kentucky, 5 of the 6 deputy clerks said they would issue marriage licenses. Who was the 6th that wouldn’t?

6) President Obama found a refuge from the heat last week when he visited where?

7) Politicians in what state squealed like stuck pigs when President Obama officially renamed a mountain in Alaska?

8) Visitors to Auschwitz last week were unnerved by what as they entered the former concentration camp?

9) If you win the lottery in Illinois now you will get what?

10) the U of Iowa’s new president experience includes a stint as president of what company? This should serve him well in his new post.

11) Governor Branstad took the credit, but expansion of broadband in Iowa was really done by what other branch of government?

12) All firms selected by Iowa to run our Medicaid program have what in common?

13) Did 99 people come out to see him? What Republican presidential candidate completed a goal of visiting all 99 of Iowa’s counties last week?

14) September 5th & 6th, 1972 the world stood mesmerized as what played out at the Olympics in Munich?

15) DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is reported to have blocked a vote on what at the DNC meeting 10 days ago?

16) To counter Stephen Colbert’s premiere week on CBS’ Late Show, the Tonight Show on NBC has booked what big name?

17) The perpetrator of an attack on a police car that caused it to crash and burn in Massachusetts turned out to be who?

18) The first Labor Day celebration was held Sept. 5,1882 in what city?

19) Labor Day became a national holiday in what year?

20) Lindsey Graham had a unique perspective in the Rowan County Kentucky clerk controversy. Graham said Kim Davis should do what?

Sometimes it almost gets a bit depressing going back over the week’s news. Cheer me up and get 100%.

1) Former baseball star and Republican senator from Kentucky, Jim Bunning. David Bunning was appointed by George W.

2) Scott Walker. Brilliant!

3) Ben Carson and Donald Trump – a brain surgeon and a person with no brain.

4) The Iran deal

5) County Clerk Kim Davis’ son Nathan

6) Alaska – even going above the Arctic Circle

7) Ohio – the mountain was Mount McKinley an Ohio born president

8) A mist of water that was reminiscent of a gas spray that greeted Jews during the Holocaust. The water was meant to be cooling during a heat wave.

9) an IOU. Budget stalemates have dried up funds in Illinois for now

10) Boston Market. Also a VP at IBM.

11) Congress passed the expansion and funded it

12) They all have a history of mismanagement of Medicaid programs in other states.

13) Rick Santorum. In one county only the county chair showed at his appearance.

14) The Israeli olympic team being held hostage by the PLO

15) a resolution supporting the President’s Iran deal

16) Donald Trump

17) The officer that was driving that car. Car totally destroyed.

18) New York City

19) 1894

20) He said she should comply with the law or resign.

Have a great and meaningful Labor Day.

united we stand, divided we suffer

united we stand, divided we suffer

Posted in Humor | Comments Off on Sunday Funday: Loyalty Oath Edition