Say Anything Blog

Sad to hear that the wife of Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee’s last socialist mayor passed. She lived in the same home they bought in 1946 until the end. The house is located smack dab in the heart of Milwaukee’s inner city. Met her once, and she was a beautiful lady.

After her husband’s death, she made sure to go to the annual event commemorating the shooting deaths of seven labor marchers in the 1886 Bay View Tragedy. Her husband was no longer there to read the names of those killed, but she was still there to hear them.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/obituaries/61599942.html

The continuing and justified tough talk about big business by the Obama Administration has taken its toll. The message to Obama: keep your mouth shut about big business or pay the consequences. What a system we have!!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/24/AR2009092404906.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Argentinean workers, who watched their country’s strong labor laws slowly erode after the right wing military coup in the 70’s, are fighting back at corporations who are abandoning factories and moving their operation to more “corporate friendly” locations.

Workers are reclaiming the abandoned factories and are trying to make a go of it by themselves.

Says Marie Trigona, a journalist and filmmaker: “reclaiming factories that have been abandoned by owners provides workers with a way to counter the self-interest of some employers.”

Nearly 20 factories have been occupied since 2008, and 33 new cooperatives have been officially registered with the government in the past few months.

http://www.indypendent.org/2009/08/13/worker-run-businesses/

Corporations successful attack on union organizing shows in the statistics: today only about 8% of workers in the private sector are unionized compared to their post WWll peak of 35%.

With the decrease came the concomitant hardship on state and federal government to aid workers who were once earning enough to support a family because of the many strong labor unions.

Today government is forced to help poverty line wage earners with food stamps, child nutrition programs, direct government payments, and other government services like medicaid.

The latest attack is on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Even the company Whole Foods, which has a reputation of being a proponent of fair trade and wages, is getting in on the assault.

The so-called worker friendly company is joining in with WalMart, Hormel, Smithfield, and McDonalds to strip a key provision in the bill called the “card-check” provision, which would require employers to recognize its employees’ union once a majority has signed union authorization cards. Currently, employers often refuse to recognize new unions even if all their employees have signed up.

Let’s hope the food giants will be stopped from stripping the bill of key provisions like this one. At stake are the wages of food workers who have taken serious hits over the past few years.

For example, supermarket workers’ real average earnings fell by 31% between 1978 and1996. Similarly, wages in the meatpacking sector have declined in real terms by 45% since the 1980’s.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/22-2

It seems that the Poles have taken a liking to Starbucks- not so much their coffee, but their shops.

Why would a country with the avereage yearly wage at $17,000 be enamored with a coffee shop that charges $4.00 for a cup of coffee?

Says Damian Strzeszewski, a sociologist at Warsaw University:

“After 1989 we fell in love with American stuff, Many people move to Warsaw from poorer places, and a cup from Starbucks is a relatively cheap way to mark their social status. The coffee is awful compared with a lot of traditional cafes, but it’s not about coffee.”

Local shops are copying Starbucks with English ads suggesting that you’re buying a piece of America by stepping into their coffee shops.

O Moj Boze! Where have my Polish brothers and sisters gone wrong.

http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/08/06/poland-starbucks-conquers-again/

Ever wonder why the U.S. has embargoes and travel restrictions to Cuba? Ever wonder why the U.S. government has tried to kill Fidel Castro?

Obviously, it is to prevent revolution, and to perpetuate the myth that socialism is evil. For example, I wonder how many Americans know about ELAM?

ELAM is a Spanish acronym for the Latin American International School of Medicine.

And it is quite different than the American medical schools because it is free. Yes, forget your brainwashed capitalistic belief that nothing is free. Kinda hard to do that, right?

Over 120 very lucky U.S. students have attended ELAM since 1998, receiving a full ride scholarship worth over $200,000.

In exchange for the free education, the Cuban government asks students to commit to serving in medically underserved communities in their home countries after graduation.

Said Pasha Jackson who is specializing in geriatrics:

“This program has allowed me to really get back into the real things in life, where you can dream, It gives me a chance to be a doctor, but be a doctor without being a slave. This program is free.”

Long live the Cuban Revolution!

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Cuba-med-school-lets-students—dream-

Supreme Court says coal company can’t buy judge. Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito disagree.


Say you own a big coal company that’s been sued for fraud, and hit with a judgment for $50 million. Not small change, right? Of course you have to appeal. This is “bet the company” litigation, and you have to win.

And let’s say that there happens to be a judicial election coming up. What do you do? Well, maybe you drop $3 million on the election campaign of one of the candidates, more than all his other supporters, including his election committee, combined. and he wins by 50,000 votes.

And then you have to do your appeal in front of the court that now contains the candidate you spent $3 million to elect.

What does he do? Does he recuse himself? Does he tell the world that you’ve invested all that money in him and he can’t judge the case fairly? Or does he decide that the appearance of impropriety is enough to mandate that he recuse himself?

No, in this case what he does is stay in the case and then rule in favor of the coal company that gave him $3 million. Probably just a coincidence.

Although that’s not how the Supreme Court saw it. What they decided today is that all of us, even those of us who don’t have $3 million to spend on a judge, have the right to due process of law, and that includes the right to have a court that hasn’t already been bought and paid for by the other side.

At least, that’s what the majority thinks. The minority, Bush’s two appointees and the Scalia/Thomas twins, take a different view. They think it’s going to be too burdensome for a court to decide if the judge was unduly prejudiced by the pots of money that the corporate party (and it’s always going to be a corporate party, isn’t it?) has thrown around. After all, we can’t really expect a court to spend the effort to make sure its processes are fair, can we?

So when the Senate is considering the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Court, and deciding whether she’s too biased to sit on the Court because she likes to eat beans, think about the four right-wingers who are on the Court now, and how they favor a party that would spend millions of dollars to buy a vote on an important case.

When President Johnson and Interior Secretary Mo Udall set up the national trails system in 1968, their goal was to have a contiguous cross-country trail from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.

That goal has come closer to being reached some 41 years later when President Obama signed a bill creating the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail and two others.

His designation means that the trails will be eligible to recieve money to connect all portions of the trail, build bridges and other improvements, and erect signs and access points along its length.

The trail, which is connected to the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, means a person could hike from near the Mexican border, up to North Cascades National Park, east to Glacier National Park, and then down to the Mexican border again, making it only 900 miles short of Johnson’s and Udall’s dream.

Ron Strickland, a former Washington resident who first proposed the Pacific Northwest trial in 1970, said that he would like to see the remaining miles designated in time for the 50th anniversary of the National Trails System in 2018.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_pacific_northwest_trail.html

Today, after reading a message board post by a Southerner who was defending someone for proudly displaying the Confederate flag, I was reminded of an experience I had in Thailand in the Air Force in 1968:

It is hard to forget my first day in Thailand as a 20-year-old Airman in the U.S. Air Force. The date was April 4, 1968.

As I was boarding the plane to go to Thailand, a close African American friend of mine, James Brown, looked ashen pale with tears running down his face. He turned and said, “they killed my man.” He was referring to MLK, who was shot moments earlier in Memphis, Tennessee.

The plane ride was quiet. I noticed another African American from D.C., who was a chaplain’s aid, crying silently as he sat two rows behind me.

When we got to Thailand, we were shown our living quarters- a room with two bunk beds and a single bed. I took the top bunk, and James settled in a room across the hall.

As I climbed to my top bunk, there was a commotion going on in the room partitioned next to me.

There were five servicemen having what sounded like a party. And to my surprise right on the same wall near my bed a huge Confederate flag was displayed.

Being curious, I walked to the room and was told by my new neighbors they were celebrating the death of Dr. Martin Luther coon. They said it sort of quietly to me, obviously worried over the fact that nearly 25% of the floor was African American.

I was amazed that this brazen and open racist group was tolerated by the many African American troops on the floor. And I knew this would soon change with James Brown there.

He was a huge guy who lifted weights and was far ahead of my politically naive 20- year- old mind, which was more interested in going to town every night.

Ironically, a year after leaving Thailand, I was in charge of marching Air Force prisoners to chow every day in Denver, Colorado (Lowry AFB.) James Brown was one of the prisoners.

His final week in Thailand, he almost beat a Southern Airman to death for calling him a stupid ######. Those were some hostile times and James just lost it for a moment.

However, one of his accomplishments was leading a group to rip the Confederate flag off the wall and destroying it. First, James went to the higher ups to complain before taking any action, and I and five others stood behind him.

Nothing was done. The flag stayed, and I will never forget James’ words to the Lt. Colonel as he left the room- “We are going to rip that mother ####er down if you don’t.” I nearly peed my pants, asking, “what did I get myself into.” But when I saw the Colonel do nothing when James said that, I was even more shocked.

I later learned that the Colonel had a Quaker background and probably sided with us, but did not show it.

The flag was torn down and burned by James a week later. I am proud to say it was my nervous and somewhat drunken hand which ripped it off the wall and handed it to James and 4 others in our party while the rednecks were eating in the chow hall before going to their midnite shift.

I am truly not trying to impress anyone for my actions in this story; if it had not been for James, the flag would have stayed there, and my naive self would have probably slept for the rest of the year across from it.

This old duffer just wanted to reminisce and also respond to the message board remarks about the Confederate flag. I believe the Confederate flag, like the swaztika, has no place in any civilized society other than to be scorned for what it represents. Those that identify with that flag are not doing so because of Southern culture or tradition; they are doing so out of hatred and a yearning to go back to the more oppressive past. Peace

Could it be possible that U.S. neocolonialism is on the wane? If you look at the recent threats by developing nations to challenge the power which oil companies wield, it might indeed be in its last days:

Chevron, for example, could face up to $27 billion in liability in Ecuador for pollution of the jungle, and Exxon Mobil is being sued by Indonesian villagers from the province of Aceh who allege human rights violations committed by soldiers hired to guard a natural gas plant.

Many of the suits are made possible because of the Supreme Court decision which gives foreign victims of human rights abuses a measure of access to American courts.

The highest profile foreign suit is the case in Nigeria involving the late Nigerian author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa who was murdered 14 years ago by Nigeria’s former military regime.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a law firm specializing in human rights, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s son and other plaintiffs who fled Nigeria’s military regime. The lawsuit claims that “a Shell official identified Mr. Saro-Wiwa as being ‘influential’ in organizing the protests and sought the assistance of the Nigerian government to silence him.”

Mr. Saro-Wiwa, who founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni Peoples in 1990, was one of the most vocal critics of Shell for the damage done to the delta communities, including gas flaring and the destruction of mangroves to make way for pipelines.

So far, there has been little prosecution under the new laws, but several cases are still in the court system. One sign of progress is the case in Burma where Unocal, a California oil company accused of using slave labor in the construction of a pipeline in Burma during the 1990s, agreed to compensate villagers there. The terms of the settlement were not made public.

To be sure, develpoing nations have a long fight ahead of them to end both the environmental damage and economic exploitation for which the powerful oil companies are responsible. But the reports of poor villagers organizing and fighting these monsters coupled with the good work by human rights’ lawyers are very encouraging.

Thank you Ken Saro-Wiwa for giving your life to help end the living hell of U.S. neocolonialism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/business/global/22shell.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=global-home

It looks like the unemployed workers of Louisiana will get some $98 million in federal money for expanded unemployment benefits which up and coming Republican “superstar” governor Bobby Jindal was against. And he got no help from his Republican colleagues, either. Why, you ask? Because they were too stupid to read the bill.

The House adopted the amendment without questions and then quickly approved the bill, sending it to the Senate for debate with a 99-0 vote. During the final vote, House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown, was heard asking an aide, “What does the amendment do?” The aide responded that she didn’t know.

It seems the Repubs are upset because the language was slipped into the bill by Dems at the last minute.

Boo freekin hoo for the whiners. At least the money will help all the unemployed of the state who lost their jobs. Jindal was concerned that Louisiana businesses will be hurt because they will have to pay higher taxes. Ain’t that just like a Republican. Ha!!
http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20090520/NEWS01/905200321

Study: Gay marriages pump $111 million into Mass.

AMHERST, Mass.—A study says the over 12,000 same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts since 2004 have pumped over $111 million into the state’s economy.

The report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law says a typical same-sex couple spent about $7,400 on their wedding, with one in ten couples spending over $20,000.

A second study by the same group found that young, highly educated people in same-sex relationships were 2.5 times more likely to move to Massachusetts after 2004 than before gay marriage became legal.

M.V. Lee Badgett, a researcher at the University of Massachusetts and a study co-author, says allowing gay couples to marry has helped businesses in tough economic times.

Sunday marks the five-year anniversary of Massachusetts recording its first same-sex marriage licenses.

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Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of the Fifth Fleet:

“Our authorities came directly from the president,” he said. “And the number one authority for incidents if we were going to respond was if the captain’s life was in immediate danger. And that is the situation in which our sailors acted.”

After the rescue ended, White House officials immediately offered expanded information about Obama’s role, though the president simply released a statement praising the troops and expressing pride in the captain’s bravery.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/12/AR2009041203002.html?wpisrc=newsletter

I was one lucky kid growing up in Milwaukee in the 50’s.

I lived in walking distance of the old County Stadium where arguably the greatest baseball team of all time played- the 1957 Braves, who won the world championship against the Yankees.

On that team were three hall of famers- Ed Mathews, Warren Spahn- the winningest left handed pitcher in baseball history, and my hero, the game’s home run king (screw Barry Bonds) Henry Aaron. Notice that I called him Henry, because that’s what they called him back then- Hammerin Henry!!

I have his autographed picture- which I got from him outside the Stadium in 1959 after a baseball game. I can still see him signing it, with a marlboro cigarette hanging in the corner of his mouth. LOL!!

Here is an interesting article about my boyhood hero:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0408/p09s02-coop.html

I find it amusing that the right is still not taking responsibility for the destruction their policies have done. What happened to the accountability that they always harp about? Besides leaving a trail of blood in Iraq and international disgrace and embarrassment, they have destroyed our economy with their perverse reverse robin hood approach- Rob from the poor and give to the rich. Here is a great article on the new America created by Bush&company. I love this remark:

The simple fact, criminologist James Alan Fox said, is that more Americans are struggling.

“The American dream to them is a nightmare, and the land of opportunity is but a cruel joke.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/07/AR2009040703979.html?wpisrc=newsletter