WHAT WE BELIEVE--WHY WE ARE HERE
Let’s begin with some truth telling: we are always irritated about something, big or little, no matter, it’s in our blood, our genes, or perhaps we read too many books and newspapers, whatever the cause we feel duty bound to offer a corrective message against the insults, hypocrisy, stupidity, mendacity, hubris, and outright evil that envelops us like the oppressive humidity in our part of the country. And here’s another truth we hold dear: the majority opinion is just another opinion; that lots of people believe something to be true does not make it so. Remember, this is the country where a majority twice elected Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush President.
We believe that if you aren’t alienated over something, you aren’t paying close attention to your life. We know that institutions are corrupt for their lack of memory, mercy, and responsibility. We think that anyone who calculates a small handful of people as trusted friends leads a worthy life. We believe that having an intimate companion makes everything else small by comparison.
We hold no absolute party allegiance, although when Barack Obama won the election we did drink Ouzo and roamed aimlessly through the streets for two days, if only for the possibility that he might be the real thing, not the certainty of it.
Our shared view of the world and our place in it does not come from a common taproot. We are cracker South and rural New England; we grew up in a trailer park and a five bedroom home; we are authors from two wildly different genera; we are mixed gender co-bloggers; one of us is well known and the other is a discounted big fish in a small pond; we have been around and done some things, just not the same things, or together. But these differences are but white background noise beside our shared satisfaction at a well-turned sentence and our distress at a missed opportunity to make a better world.
Fight the power.
Dr. Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys
Thursday, April 23, 2009
HOMELAND SECURITY & DOMESTIC TERRORISTS
HOMELAND SECURITY & DOMESTIC TERRORISTS
Some news people are amused and some conservatives are pissed off at the Homeland Security report which predicts a rise in extreme right-wing violence by “lone wolves” or domestic terrorists. Smirking news people believe such violence unlikely, but they love those angry conservatives who make good TV by defending the nameless extremists, as if conservative talking heads know what they are talking about. Flash—the people vaguely referred to in the HLS report do not go to Republican Party block meetings.
Some news people are amused and some conservatives are pissed off at the Homeland Security report which predicts a rise in extreme right-wing violence by “lone wolves” or domestic terrorists. Smirking news people believe such violence unlikely, but they love those angry conservatives who make good TV by defending the nameless extremists, as if conservative talking heads know what they are talking about. Flash—the people vaguely referred to in the HLS report do not go to Republican Party block meetings.
Do you know how to tell the difference between a fairy tale and a war story? A fairy tale begins, “once upon a time.” A war story begins, “this is no shit.”
Well, this is no shit. At a recent gun show, a skinny white kid with black cowboy hat, a sleeveless T-shirt, and a drawl that placed his geography at one of our local rural towns, approached me to say that a particular weapon I had on the table would sell fast. Good for home protection, says he. And now I offer an unembellished summery of the monologue which followed. That president (the lad could not say the president’s name) and the liberals in congress already have legislation written which lays out an 18 month plan to first register and then confiscate all firearms in the country. A Gestapo-like national police force will be organized to carry out the program. Foolish and uninformed citizens who trust the government will register their guns, making them easy prey when confiscation time comes. But others will not be so easily fooled—no registration for them, no confiscation of their weapons, no trampling on their Second Amendment rights!
The confiscation program, combined with extreme taxation and other liberal policies, will bring about chaos, mostly between armed citizens and the government police, until the armed violence spreads throughout the nation. In the civil war that follows, 40% to 60% of the American people will die, “you know, the kind that work at McDonalds and Burger King”. Real Americans will fight on to protect the constitution.
Get the picture? This is about gun control and race, swaddles in 21st century euphemisms. Trust me or not, believe me or not, I have heard variations of this story no less than a dozen times since January, the last time being yesterday at a place of business.
And there is more. My gun-show, new BFF explained the details of patriotic preparedness. “You need to have at least a 400 yard, clear field of fire on all sides of your house." To reach out and accurately touch the confiscation police at the outer perimeter, it’s best to have good-quality scoped rifle, at least a 4x scope on a .223 or 5.56 caliber, such as an AR 15, or even a Ruger Mini 14. As the government agents move closer (200 yards and under), switch to your AK 47, or if you’re working the low-end budget for your weapons, an SKS. When the agents get close enough to read the names on their tactical vests, switch to your sawed-off, pump shotgun loaded with double 00 buckshot; you will need at least three of these strategically place around the house. Once the perimeter of the house is breached, you will need several handguns, preferably one in every room with several, high-capacity magazines for each; nothing smaller than a .45 caliber (only liberals think a 9MM is a real gun).
Oh, ya, a couple of other essential points: have at least 2,000 rounds of ammo for each weapon and a secure safe room (read bomb shelter for those who remember an earlier time of government-generated national hysteria).
Believe me or not, trust me or not, the dismissive news people and foolish conservatives are both wrong, and if you doubt it, come to my world and let us go together to the next gun show. Good judgment and safety suggests you wear casual clothes and for God’s sake, leave the cameras at home. Strike up a conversation or two, pay attention, eves drop, ask the right casual questions, don’t argue, talk less, listen more, it’s out there. And those fuckers are serious.
And if you remain unconvinced, we’ll go just down the road from yesterday’s place of business and stop at a gun shop where, if you have the correct posture, language and style, you could be recruited to join the KKK, believe me or not, trust me or not.
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Dr. Huesos
Thursday, April 2, 2009
SECOND CHANCES
SECOND CHANCES
1964 was the year of my first presidential vote. I was living in an area that heavily favored Barry Goldwater, and everyone there was certain he would win because everyone they knew was planning to vote for him, a matter of simple math. I had a state by state side bet with 2 to 1 odds on every Southern state; of all of them, I called Georgia wrong. But here’s the thing: I voted for LBJ because he was the guy who promised not to send American boys to fight a war in Vietnam, even as he was manufacturing a lie to do exactly that. Since then, I have lacked sufficient trust and confidence in any candidate to give the process a second chance, until now, and I have so much faith in Barack Obama, I don’t even second guess him (well, except for Afghanistan, and even there I deep down hope he gets it right). It’s been a long recovery from LBJ’s big lie, a long time before I was could give that second chance to any candidate for the presidency.
Let me tell you who I do like, this guy Robert Gates who is getting a second chance to shake off the taint of being appointed by George W. Bush. I was glad when Obama kept him on, not just because changing the Secretary of Defense while fighting two wars seems stupid on its face, but because Gates alone, when he came to the podium as a nominee, did not flash his vanity by talking about policy, strategy, programs, or his resume, he spoke of his patriotic duty to respond to his President’s request. A class act always deserves a second chance.
I trust in second chances, maybe even more than seconds, as well I should. I was 6 years getting out of high school and took sophomore English 4 of those 6 before I got it right. But I was just playing out the hand I dealt myself. Mickey Roark, now there’s a guy who made good use of a second chance. The director of the Wrestler wanted him for the role, but warned the truculent former boxer that he was to do exactly as he was told, no more, no less, or no deal. If only Mickey had a second chance with his plastic surgeon. John Travolta had used a string of foolish movies to run his career down to where he was getting second billing to child actors when out-of-the-blue smart Quentin Tarantino cast him in Pulp Fiction, and Travolta turned it into a big pay-back second chance—“Do you know what they call a Big Mac in Amsterdam?”
Bill Clinton needs a second chance, for my sake. I want to consider the good his foundation has done around the world, particularly with AIDS in Africa, without reservations, without having to think about a blue dress with a stain down the front.
George W. Bush, Dick Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld have squandered all the second chances any three people deserve in a lifetime, several lifetimes. They are war criminals many times over, shit-wallowing swine who murdered thousands of Americas’ sons and husbands and tens of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis all rationalized behind conscious lies and egomaniacal visions. I want to see the three of them locked up in a community cell inside a Guatemalan prison filled with full-body-tattooed gang bangers who eat acid by day and shoot crystal meth all night. I want them to live out their lives in the fear and brutality they have visited on so many blameless people in this world. Then I want them to burn in an endless, fiery Hell. I want them to suffer because they deserve to and because their suffering might be a note of caution for the next group of evil dregs who gain power and seek to abuse it.
But here’s the thing, boys and girls, you got to smarten up enough to want it, and then play it right if you get it. And if you get your hands on power or authority of any measure, use it in such a manner that you don’t need a second chance, for redemption or salvation.
Dr. Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys
1964 was the year of my first presidential vote. I was living in an area that heavily favored Barry Goldwater, and everyone there was certain he would win because everyone they knew was planning to vote for him, a matter of simple math. I had a state by state side bet with 2 to 1 odds on every Southern state; of all of them, I called Georgia wrong. But here’s the thing: I voted for LBJ because he was the guy who promised not to send American boys to fight a war in Vietnam, even as he was manufacturing a lie to do exactly that. Since then, I have lacked sufficient trust and confidence in any candidate to give the process a second chance, until now, and I have so much faith in Barack Obama, I don’t even second guess him (well, except for Afghanistan, and even there I deep down hope he gets it right). It’s been a long recovery from LBJ’s big lie, a long time before I was could give that second chance to any candidate for the presidency.
Let me tell you who I do like, this guy Robert Gates who is getting a second chance to shake off the taint of being appointed by George W. Bush. I was glad when Obama kept him on, not just because changing the Secretary of Defense while fighting two wars seems stupid on its face, but because Gates alone, when he came to the podium as a nominee, did not flash his vanity by talking about policy, strategy, programs, or his resume, he spoke of his patriotic duty to respond to his President’s request. A class act always deserves a second chance.
I trust in second chances, maybe even more than seconds, as well I should. I was 6 years getting out of high school and took sophomore English 4 of those 6 before I got it right. But I was just playing out the hand I dealt myself. Mickey Roark, now there’s a guy who made good use of a second chance. The director of the Wrestler wanted him for the role, but warned the truculent former boxer that he was to do exactly as he was told, no more, no less, or no deal. If only Mickey had a second chance with his plastic surgeon. John Travolta had used a string of foolish movies to run his career down to where he was getting second billing to child actors when out-of-the-blue smart Quentin Tarantino cast him in Pulp Fiction, and Travolta turned it into a big pay-back second chance—“Do you know what they call a Big Mac in Amsterdam?”
Bill Clinton needs a second chance, for my sake. I want to consider the good his foundation has done around the world, particularly with AIDS in Africa, without reservations, without having to think about a blue dress with a stain down the front.
George W. Bush, Dick Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld have squandered all the second chances any three people deserve in a lifetime, several lifetimes. They are war criminals many times over, shit-wallowing swine who murdered thousands of Americas’ sons and husbands and tens of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis all rationalized behind conscious lies and egomaniacal visions. I want to see the three of them locked up in a community cell inside a Guatemalan prison filled with full-body-tattooed gang bangers who eat acid by day and shoot crystal meth all night. I want them to live out their lives in the fear and brutality they have visited on so many blameless people in this world. Then I want them to burn in an endless, fiery Hell. I want them to suffer because they deserve to and because their suffering might be a note of caution for the next group of evil dregs who gain power and seek to abuse it.
But here’s the thing, boys and girls, you got to smarten up enough to want it, and then play it right if you get it. And if you get your hands on power or authority of any measure, use it in such a manner that you don’t need a second chance, for redemption or salvation.
Dr. Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
REWARDS
REWARDS
My time as a university faculty member dragged on far too long. Teaching undergraduates kept me at it. Most were eager, attentive, and as business-like as students as their instructor were in response; the smart ones had unerring bullshit detectors. Others wanted only to skate into the next semester as effortlessly as possible; burdened early in life with a sense of entitlement that I could only attribute to over-indulgent parents and brow-beaten high school teachers, they felt put upon by demands such as arriving at class on time and taking exams when they were scheduled—but Dr. Huesos, can’t I take the midterm exam another time? This really cute guy wants to take me to the beach that day! But the good ones, not necessarily the smartest, but the ones I remember best, figured out they could learn some things—that is, get an education--while they were getting a college degree. Two of my favorite written student evaluations are symbolic of my relationship with students: First, “Dr. Huesos is the anti-Christ”. Second, “Dr. Huesos is the anti-Christ superstar.”
The anti-intellectual arrogance of administrators and the unconscious spinelessness of most faculty colleagues eventually made my life among them impossible, made me feel like I was sipping poison every time I was among them. I never shook off the toxic after-effect of one particular incident. An untenured junior faculty member made a couple of unpardonable errors: he was brighter than the rest of us and he ran with the wrong crowd in the department. Without notice or warning—or good cause--the dean told the department chair to get rid Dr. S. The dutiful, toady chair huddled with a few of his sycophantic cronies to invent a set of bogus guidelines, issued them to Dr. S one week, and terminated him the following week. The department, which on paper was democratic and sovereign, voted 2 to 1 against approving the guidelines, or applying them to new faculty, specifically Dr. S. No matter, the thugs moved ahead with the termination.
Of the 30 or so members of the department, approximately 90%--the watered-down liberals and the thugs—walked away from the situation once they cast their votes. Three of us aggressively organized on behalf of our ousted colleague and 1 other assumed the role of honest broker. We were joined by a handful of students who put everything on the line over a matter of principle, something abandoned by most of their professors. The struggle dragged on for months—petitions, news releases, TV interviews, rallies, letters and conversations with people of power and influence, but nothing worked. When the dean received a copy of Dr. S’s formal appeal he figured out what we knew all along--any impartial faculty procedure would beat the dean like a rented mule; he skulked around until finally issuing an ultimatum: Dr. S could take a year off with pay to work on his book and accept a stipend for legal fees, or wait for another year to be fired properly.
The abbreviated telling of this story does no justice to the dedicated hard work of the students, the only class of people more vulnerable than my soon-to-be-departed-friend. They, like many of us when we were coming along, believed in the ideals of university life, of academic freedom, of the free exchange of ideas, of judging people on their merit, all the rich values that had once made academic life attractive. For their commitment, the students learned a cruel education about the potential miseries of the professional life they sought; and they learned those lessons from the very worst among us.
Word spread fast when the deal was struck between Dr. S and the administration. A lot of upset followed. One graduate student in particular (BK) was outraged that after all the effort made on Dr. S’s behalf, we had advised him to take the deal, which to this graduate student was nothing short of folding under pressure, leaving the battle unfinished. As part of a lengthy conversation that followed, I tried to explain the nut of the situation: Dr. S could take the offer or wait a year and be fired without recourse. With the brokered deal, Dr. S would receive full salary, teach no classes, work fulltime on his book and job hunt while he still had a position, a big plus in the academic market place. BK was not be appeased. Nothing practical or philosophical cut his anger or his sense of betrayal. The call ended on a bad note, although I admired his principled determination throughout the struggle and understood his anger.
BK and I remained friends. Dr S. published a prize-winning book and is a department chair at a major university. Of the 3 who tried to aid Dr. S, one fled the university in disgust, was awarded an endowed chair at a premier university, and published a book that won 17 prestigious awards of excellence, an unmatched achievement by any one’s memory. The honest broker is the only other former colleague I remain in touch with.
But catching up with the cast of characters is not the point here. Several years after the incident, BK, by then a PhD with a decent university position, returned for a visit. We spent a good bit of time together, reminiscing and telling stories, and then BK got serious and asked did I remember our phone conversation about the deal struck between Dr. S and the administration. I said I did. Then he walked me through all the details of our conversation in a question and response sequence, asking me to recall what he had said and how I had responded. I did remember the details for I had understood his disappointment. Then BK asked did I recall what I said to him at the close of the call. I said I did. He looked at me sideways with raised eyebrows, as if to say, OK, hotshot, what did you say? I remember telling him that what I was about to say would not give him comfort at his moment of anger and disappointment, but if he held onto the idea, it would have meaning in the future. What I said was, “BK, sometimes the only reward is in the struggle itself.” He looked at me and said, “I want you to know I get it now. Sometimes the only reward is in the struggle itself. And, yeh, sometimes that has to be enough. I get it now.”
That was as good a moment as I ever had as a university professor, or as a friend.
Dr. Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys.
My time as a university faculty member dragged on far too long. Teaching undergraduates kept me at it. Most were eager, attentive, and as business-like as students as their instructor were in response; the smart ones had unerring bullshit detectors. Others wanted only to skate into the next semester as effortlessly as possible; burdened early in life with a sense of entitlement that I could only attribute to over-indulgent parents and brow-beaten high school teachers, they felt put upon by demands such as arriving at class on time and taking exams when they were scheduled—but Dr. Huesos, can’t I take the midterm exam another time? This really cute guy wants to take me to the beach that day! But the good ones, not necessarily the smartest, but the ones I remember best, figured out they could learn some things—that is, get an education--while they were getting a college degree. Two of my favorite written student evaluations are symbolic of my relationship with students: First, “Dr. Huesos is the anti-Christ”. Second, “Dr. Huesos is the anti-Christ superstar.”
The anti-intellectual arrogance of administrators and the unconscious spinelessness of most faculty colleagues eventually made my life among them impossible, made me feel like I was sipping poison every time I was among them. I never shook off the toxic after-effect of one particular incident. An untenured junior faculty member made a couple of unpardonable errors: he was brighter than the rest of us and he ran with the wrong crowd in the department. Without notice or warning—or good cause--the dean told the department chair to get rid Dr. S. The dutiful, toady chair huddled with a few of his sycophantic cronies to invent a set of bogus guidelines, issued them to Dr. S one week, and terminated him the following week. The department, which on paper was democratic and sovereign, voted 2 to 1 against approving the guidelines, or applying them to new faculty, specifically Dr. S. No matter, the thugs moved ahead with the termination.
Of the 30 or so members of the department, approximately 90%--the watered-down liberals and the thugs—walked away from the situation once they cast their votes. Three of us aggressively organized on behalf of our ousted colleague and 1 other assumed the role of honest broker. We were joined by a handful of students who put everything on the line over a matter of principle, something abandoned by most of their professors. The struggle dragged on for months—petitions, news releases, TV interviews, rallies, letters and conversations with people of power and influence, but nothing worked. When the dean received a copy of Dr. S’s formal appeal he figured out what we knew all along--any impartial faculty procedure would beat the dean like a rented mule; he skulked around until finally issuing an ultimatum: Dr. S could take a year off with pay to work on his book and accept a stipend for legal fees, or wait for another year to be fired properly.
The abbreviated telling of this story does no justice to the dedicated hard work of the students, the only class of people more vulnerable than my soon-to-be-departed-friend. They, like many of us when we were coming along, believed in the ideals of university life, of academic freedom, of the free exchange of ideas, of judging people on their merit, all the rich values that had once made academic life attractive. For their commitment, the students learned a cruel education about the potential miseries of the professional life they sought; and they learned those lessons from the very worst among us.
Word spread fast when the deal was struck between Dr. S and the administration. A lot of upset followed. One graduate student in particular (BK) was outraged that after all the effort made on Dr. S’s behalf, we had advised him to take the deal, which to this graduate student was nothing short of folding under pressure, leaving the battle unfinished. As part of a lengthy conversation that followed, I tried to explain the nut of the situation: Dr. S could take the offer or wait a year and be fired without recourse. With the brokered deal, Dr. S would receive full salary, teach no classes, work fulltime on his book and job hunt while he still had a position, a big plus in the academic market place. BK was not be appeased. Nothing practical or philosophical cut his anger or his sense of betrayal. The call ended on a bad note, although I admired his principled determination throughout the struggle and understood his anger.
BK and I remained friends. Dr S. published a prize-winning book and is a department chair at a major university. Of the 3 who tried to aid Dr. S, one fled the university in disgust, was awarded an endowed chair at a premier university, and published a book that won 17 prestigious awards of excellence, an unmatched achievement by any one’s memory. The honest broker is the only other former colleague I remain in touch with.
But catching up with the cast of characters is not the point here. Several years after the incident, BK, by then a PhD with a decent university position, returned for a visit. We spent a good bit of time together, reminiscing and telling stories, and then BK got serious and asked did I remember our phone conversation about the deal struck between Dr. S and the administration. I said I did. Then he walked me through all the details of our conversation in a question and response sequence, asking me to recall what he had said and how I had responded. I did remember the details for I had understood his disappointment. Then BK asked did I recall what I said to him at the close of the call. I said I did. He looked at me sideways with raised eyebrows, as if to say, OK, hotshot, what did you say? I remember telling him that what I was about to say would not give him comfort at his moment of anger and disappointment, but if he held onto the idea, it would have meaning in the future. What I said was, “BK, sometimes the only reward is in the struggle itself.” He looked at me and said, “I want you to know I get it now. Sometimes the only reward is in the struggle itself. And, yeh, sometimes that has to be enough. I get it now.”
That was as good a moment as I ever had as a university professor, or as a friend.
Dr. Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
WHAT WOULD A WOBBLIE DO
WHAT WOULD A WOBBLIE DO
Sometime during the fast-paced years of the 1960s I was in Washington, D.C. at a hearing held by a committee of the House of Representatives, a group of doughy-faced white men in suits who were quizzing a number of college students to find out what hell was wrong with them, why did they have to cause so much trouble over such things as civil rights, free speech, the war in Vietnam, why couldn't’t they be satisfied to study, graduate, and get a job as they were expected to? The hearing dragged on through the day as polite student body presidents tried to explain something they knew little about—what was really going on among radical students on their campus. At the back of the room, sat an elderly man (probably about my age now) waiting patiently to he heard. Late in the afternoon, there were smiles all around as he made his way to the front of the room, humor born from the odd juxtaposition of a old, white-haired man in work clothes following a group of earnest, fresh-faced kids in coats and ties. Apparently he was on the agenda, for the committee chair confirmed the man’s name and then asked his business. The man identified himself as a long-time member of the IWW, the International Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies.
With that news, a few of us sat up a little straighter and paid more attention, respectful attention, because sitting at the witness table in front of us was a genuine, honest-to-god, in-the-flesh member of a labor union that we idolized and romanticized—the Wobblies were the toughest, most radical, most demanding, most uncompromising, and sometimes most violent men and women in the history of the labor movement in the Unites States. They were also the most courageous and most victimized by violence at the hands of corporate bosses, shotgun-toting company thugs, armed mobs, local sheriffs, state police and the National Guard.
Founded at the turn of the twentieth century, the IWW was the first union to organize unskilled workers—lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest, miners in Wisconsin, Montana and Minnesota, mill workers in New England, and migrant farm laborers wherever crops were being harvested. When the IWW called a strike, men and women dropped their tools, jumped on rail cars and headed cross country in support, sometimes showing up in such numbers their rough-edged presence changed the nature of contract negotiations. Those were the days before any child labor laws, mine, mill and factory safety laws—any laws protecting workers from accident, injury and abuse, laws which the IWW pushed for as they organized under the slogan “an injury to one is an injury to all.” But most threatening, the Wobblies believed their ultimate work was to create “one big union” and to organize until workers controlled all the means of production, positions which had earned the IWW a place on the federal government’s subversive list, which was supervised by the House committee of the day.
As the elderly gentleman addressed the committee, he spoke softly about fair wages, safety regulation, health care, job protection, a long list, and as he raised each issue, he referenced a recent accident, injury, or abuse of some sort which underscored the need for greater worker protection. He finished to a quiet room. The committee chair thanked the man for his concerns, and asked, was there a specific reason why he was before the committee that day. The man said he wanted the IWW taken off the subversive list. There was just a flicker of smiles among the committee members as the chair asked, why, after so many years, did he want the IWW removed from the list.
The man answered, “Because our work remains to be done.”
Let today’s union leaders judge their actions by that earnest man’s simple manifesto. The United States has, at heart, always been anti-union, sometimes violently so. But there have been times when presidents and congress have curbed the power and abuses of rapacious capitalism by encouraging labor unions, priming them in one way or another to create a counter balance to the big corporate giants, who say, might squander money on private jets and pay themselves millions in bonuses while seeking greater government protection or assistance. (Let us pause here for a quick fact check: John McCain among others likes to quote 26% as the tax rate on American corporations, which is correct, until you get to the deductions, which drops the average rate to 3%, the second lowest in the industrial world). Other presidents trimmed their sails for a different tact, such as Ronald Reagan who broke the Air Traffic Controllers union, which stared an avalanche of union busting and gave big business notice that a no-foul rule was in effect for them—-anything goes, boys, greed is a patriotic duty.
Now comes payback time with the economic mess, and what do we hear from the talking heads and so many politicians. Oh, those unions, they make it so costly to make a car, don’t they, Harriet. Yes, they do, Ozzie, gosh darn it. At the same time, people in power and press are mouthing whispers of concern about the decline of the middle class. Well, check it out, fools, the rise of the middle class accompanied the rise of post-war industrialization and the unions, which promoted and protected worker rights. Those unions were the lever that elevated workers into the middle class and yielded corporations and stock holders unimagined profits and luxuries.
Now that the high cotton has been harvested and the dry spell has come upon us, politicians, pundits and corporate leaders are talking about the “shared sacrifices” needed to save big industry, particularly auto manufacturers. In contract after contract the leadership of the United Auto Workers union has made concessions after concession: weakened job security, reduced wages, agreed to manipulating overtime, shortened lunch hours—and, check this out—most recently, the union has assumed major responsibility for the health care of current and retired workers. And, you might ask, what did Ford Motors barter away in exchange? Why, compensation to the union in the form of FORD MOTORS STOCK!
What would the Wobblies do? Turn this corporate-generated economic mess to their advantage. They would stiffen the backbone of their members, send organizers to every factory and shop where workers are being shorted or laid off, recruit new membership with the promise of solidarity and security—-people died for the rights that are being squandered-—“Big Bill” Haywood, Mary Harris Jones (AKA “Mother” Jones, Eugene V. Debbs and their Wobblie comrades would convince workers that power and wealth is never willingly shared—-it must be seized, and a crisis is the perfect time to begin.
Sometime during the fast-paced years of the 1960s I was in Washington, D.C. at a hearing held by a committee of the House of Representatives, a group of doughy-faced white men in suits who were quizzing a number of college students to find out what hell was wrong with them, why did they have to cause so much trouble over such things as civil rights, free speech, the war in Vietnam, why couldn't’t they be satisfied to study, graduate, and get a job as they were expected to? The hearing dragged on through the day as polite student body presidents tried to explain something they knew little about—what was really going on among radical students on their campus. At the back of the room, sat an elderly man (probably about my age now) waiting patiently to he heard. Late in the afternoon, there were smiles all around as he made his way to the front of the room, humor born from the odd juxtaposition of a old, white-haired man in work clothes following a group of earnest, fresh-faced kids in coats and ties. Apparently he was on the agenda, for the committee chair confirmed the man’s name and then asked his business. The man identified himself as a long-time member of the IWW, the International Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies.
With that news, a few of us sat up a little straighter and paid more attention, respectful attention, because sitting at the witness table in front of us was a genuine, honest-to-god, in-the-flesh member of a labor union that we idolized and romanticized—the Wobblies were the toughest, most radical, most demanding, most uncompromising, and sometimes most violent men and women in the history of the labor movement in the Unites States. They were also the most courageous and most victimized by violence at the hands of corporate bosses, shotgun-toting company thugs, armed mobs, local sheriffs, state police and the National Guard.
Founded at the turn of the twentieth century, the IWW was the first union to organize unskilled workers—lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest, miners in Wisconsin, Montana and Minnesota, mill workers in New England, and migrant farm laborers wherever crops were being harvested. When the IWW called a strike, men and women dropped their tools, jumped on rail cars and headed cross country in support, sometimes showing up in such numbers their rough-edged presence changed the nature of contract negotiations. Those were the days before any child labor laws, mine, mill and factory safety laws—any laws protecting workers from accident, injury and abuse, laws which the IWW pushed for as they organized under the slogan “an injury to one is an injury to all.” But most threatening, the Wobblies believed their ultimate work was to create “one big union” and to organize until workers controlled all the means of production, positions which had earned the IWW a place on the federal government’s subversive list, which was supervised by the House committee of the day.
As the elderly gentleman addressed the committee, he spoke softly about fair wages, safety regulation, health care, job protection, a long list, and as he raised each issue, he referenced a recent accident, injury, or abuse of some sort which underscored the need for greater worker protection. He finished to a quiet room. The committee chair thanked the man for his concerns, and asked, was there a specific reason why he was before the committee that day. The man said he wanted the IWW taken off the subversive list. There was just a flicker of smiles among the committee members as the chair asked, why, after so many years, did he want the IWW removed from the list.
The man answered, “Because our work remains to be done.”
Let today’s union leaders judge their actions by that earnest man’s simple manifesto. The United States has, at heart, always been anti-union, sometimes violently so. But there have been times when presidents and congress have curbed the power and abuses of rapacious capitalism by encouraging labor unions, priming them in one way or another to create a counter balance to the big corporate giants, who say, might squander money on private jets and pay themselves millions in bonuses while seeking greater government protection or assistance. (Let us pause here for a quick fact check: John McCain among others likes to quote 26% as the tax rate on American corporations, which is correct, until you get to the deductions, which drops the average rate to 3%, the second lowest in the industrial world). Other presidents trimmed their sails for a different tact, such as Ronald Reagan who broke the Air Traffic Controllers union, which stared an avalanche of union busting and gave big business notice that a no-foul rule was in effect for them—-anything goes, boys, greed is a patriotic duty.
Now comes payback time with the economic mess, and what do we hear from the talking heads and so many politicians. Oh, those unions, they make it so costly to make a car, don’t they, Harriet. Yes, they do, Ozzie, gosh darn it. At the same time, people in power and press are mouthing whispers of concern about the decline of the middle class. Well, check it out, fools, the rise of the middle class accompanied the rise of post-war industrialization and the unions, which promoted and protected worker rights. Those unions were the lever that elevated workers into the middle class and yielded corporations and stock holders unimagined profits and luxuries.
Now that the high cotton has been harvested and the dry spell has come upon us, politicians, pundits and corporate leaders are talking about the “shared sacrifices” needed to save big industry, particularly auto manufacturers. In contract after contract the leadership of the United Auto Workers union has made concessions after concession: weakened job security, reduced wages, agreed to manipulating overtime, shortened lunch hours—and, check this out—most recently, the union has assumed major responsibility for the health care of current and retired workers. And, you might ask, what did Ford Motors barter away in exchange? Why, compensation to the union in the form of FORD MOTORS STOCK!
What would the Wobblies do? Turn this corporate-generated economic mess to their advantage. They would stiffen the backbone of their members, send organizers to every factory and shop where workers are being shorted or laid off, recruit new membership with the promise of solidarity and security—-people died for the rights that are being squandered-—“Big Bill” Haywood, Mary Harris Jones (AKA “Mother” Jones, Eugene V. Debbs and their Wobblie comrades would convince workers that power and wealth is never willingly shared—-it must be seized, and a crisis is the perfect time to begin.
Monday, March 16, 2009
A DRAFT DODGER CALLS FOR NATIONAL SERVICE
A DRAFT DODGER CALLS FOR NATIONAL SERVICE
When President John F. Kennedy spoke to the nation about giving back, rather than expecting more, his call resonated to the generation behind him. For the baby boomers, most of who were growing up in a comfortable middle class and had no expectations of ever leaving it, life seemed perfect, and clear. During the early 1960s, if you asked a college class, “do you believe in my country right or wrong,” only the odd-person-out would fail to raise a patriotic hand in affirmation. Many bright, excited students debated whether to join the Peace Corps or the CIA, whether to spy on the Soviet Union or help dig wells in Africa—both were considered equal as service to the nation’s New Frontier.
But for many of that generation, something had slipped off the tracks by 1966, the year a notice arrived for me to take my draft physical, the same year the U.S. had 400,000 troops in Vietnam, and the life expectancy of a combat platoon leader was measured in minutes. If you had reservations about the war, a draft notice presented no good choices, one only slightly less objectionable than another: you could apply for Conscientious Objector status, with little hope of receiving it; you could refuse induction into the army and head for prison; you could go underground and resist the war, knowing that inevitable you would go to jail; you could go to Canada, leaving home and family, perhaps forever; or go into the army. Author and Vietnam vet Tim O’Brien wrote about this dilemma, about agonizing over what to do, even came within a step of Canadian soil before he decided that he could not risk losing the respect of his family and community, could not bring down small-town shame and humiliation upon his mother and father, so, despite his reservations, he later wrote, “I was a coward. I went to the war.”
When I boarded the bus-load of potential draftees, including my best friend from high school, I shared O’Brien’s anxiety over what to do. But I was one of the fortunate few—the vision in my left eye was 20% beyond what the draft would accept. I had no idea until the black corpsman who did my eye exam said, “baby, you’re out, gone. If the Viet Cong hit the beach in California, the army ‘ill give you a typewriter.”
My relief was short lived. On the three-hour bus ride home I looked at those who had shared the day-long journey of medical poking and probing, mostly poor, rural white and black kids who were destined for a stop at boot camp on their way to the jungles of Vietnam. I imagined the misery that awaited them and perhaps their families, and I began to consider the war in different terms, still a reckless venture by the U.S. government yet made more personal by the faces of a bus load of kids. That day, when I was exempted from the war, my resolve against it hardened. (My high school buddy spent 20 plus years in the Marines Corps and remains my long-time, best friend.)
In the following years, as the war grew, so too did my opposition, and joining in fellowship with thousands of others, I wrote pamphlets, gave speeches, organized, marched, demonstrated, did draft counseling, and, like the pretentious radical I considered myself to be, did all I could to stop the war and disrupt the government—and drove myself half-mad in the process of failure.
A couple of decades after the war ended I went on a road trip with a friend, an acquaintance really, about whom I knew very little at that time. We headed for a small beach town that was gearing down to half pace for the winter season. Arriving in dark, misting weather we parked out bikes and reasoned that a bar was the best place to find relief from the fall chill. We ate fish and drank Tequila shooters while harmlessly flirting with the groupies who had accompanied the band up from Tampa.
As the drinking got serious, so did the conversation as I drifted into a story that had come to symbolize the defining years of my life. In November, 1969, during The March of Death--an anti-war demonstration of 500,000 people in Washington, D.C.--I had been a low-level officer, training marshals, helping with communications, doing this and that, anything to be part of what turned out to be the largest demonstration against the Vietnam War. I rambled on to my friend, explained how exhilarating it had been to be among like-minded people who had come from around the country for a shared purpose; but I also recalled in detail the sad, sorrowful events that filled the three day event, including the testimonials of weeping mothers and wives of sons and husbands never to return.
My friend was a patient listener. He ignored my hard-edged political narrative in favor of telling a story, his story actually. He had graduated from college in 1969, the year of some 3,000 antiwar demonstrations, including The March of Death, but those activities had no appeal to him. At that time he felt blessed, having been raised by good parents, educated at college, and living in a country he held dear as the greatest in the world. Uncertain what to do after graduation, he decided he should do something to show his thankfulness, to return some of the bounty he had been given, so he enlisted in the army and volunteered for service in Vietnam.
As I listened, I felt rebuked, thought he was defining patriotism in the narrowest way to suggest that following the government was the single, true path to responsible citizenship. But I was wrong. His was not a war story. It was a story about character. As he continued, he spoke of his experiences of the 60s and 70s that had caused him to make the choices he had: a belief in the promise of his country, a need to be take responsibility for its action, a sense of obligation to make a mark on behalf of the public good before setting out to make a mark for himself.
I pulled away from feeling scolded, and as we drank and talked we agreed that the same impulses, the same feelings of duty, the same need to act for the common interest that sent him into the army had sent me into the streets on behalf of civil rights and in opposition to the war. And that our very different experiences in those worrisome times had defined our lives in very similar ways, giving back to us more than we could have ever imagined: a since of community in an alienating world, a gift of being part of something larger than ourselves, and an understanding that a rich and full life must transcend personal glory and gratification. Those times, we agreed, more than any other, had defined us, had given us the values and ideals by which we judged our world and our place in it.
I trust the message of this lengthy narrative is obvious: during this time of redefining America, find something that moves you, join the cause, give of yourself, enlist in a purpose for the national good--it will reward you in ways you cannot imagine.
Dr. Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys.
When President John F. Kennedy spoke to the nation about giving back, rather than expecting more, his call resonated to the generation behind him. For the baby boomers, most of who were growing up in a comfortable middle class and had no expectations of ever leaving it, life seemed perfect, and clear. During the early 1960s, if you asked a college class, “do you believe in my country right or wrong,” only the odd-person-out would fail to raise a patriotic hand in affirmation. Many bright, excited students debated whether to join the Peace Corps or the CIA, whether to spy on the Soviet Union or help dig wells in Africa—both were considered equal as service to the nation’s New Frontier.
But for many of that generation, something had slipped off the tracks by 1966, the year a notice arrived for me to take my draft physical, the same year the U.S. had 400,000 troops in Vietnam, and the life expectancy of a combat platoon leader was measured in minutes. If you had reservations about the war, a draft notice presented no good choices, one only slightly less objectionable than another: you could apply for Conscientious Objector status, with little hope of receiving it; you could refuse induction into the army and head for prison; you could go underground and resist the war, knowing that inevitable you would go to jail; you could go to Canada, leaving home and family, perhaps forever; or go into the army. Author and Vietnam vet Tim O’Brien wrote about this dilemma, about agonizing over what to do, even came within a step of Canadian soil before he decided that he could not risk losing the respect of his family and community, could not bring down small-town shame and humiliation upon his mother and father, so, despite his reservations, he later wrote, “I was a coward. I went to the war.”
When I boarded the bus-load of potential draftees, including my best friend from high school, I shared O’Brien’s anxiety over what to do. But I was one of the fortunate few—the vision in my left eye was 20% beyond what the draft would accept. I had no idea until the black corpsman who did my eye exam said, “baby, you’re out, gone. If the Viet Cong hit the beach in California, the army ‘ill give you a typewriter.”
My relief was short lived. On the three-hour bus ride home I looked at those who had shared the day-long journey of medical poking and probing, mostly poor, rural white and black kids who were destined for a stop at boot camp on their way to the jungles of Vietnam. I imagined the misery that awaited them and perhaps their families, and I began to consider the war in different terms, still a reckless venture by the U.S. government yet made more personal by the faces of a bus load of kids. That day, when I was exempted from the war, my resolve against it hardened. (My high school buddy spent 20 plus years in the Marines Corps and remains my long-time, best friend.)
In the following years, as the war grew, so too did my opposition, and joining in fellowship with thousands of others, I wrote pamphlets, gave speeches, organized, marched, demonstrated, did draft counseling, and, like the pretentious radical I considered myself to be, did all I could to stop the war and disrupt the government—and drove myself half-mad in the process of failure.
A couple of decades after the war ended I went on a road trip with a friend, an acquaintance really, about whom I knew very little at that time. We headed for a small beach town that was gearing down to half pace for the winter season. Arriving in dark, misting weather we parked out bikes and reasoned that a bar was the best place to find relief from the fall chill. We ate fish and drank Tequila shooters while harmlessly flirting with the groupies who had accompanied the band up from Tampa.
As the drinking got serious, so did the conversation as I drifted into a story that had come to symbolize the defining years of my life. In November, 1969, during The March of Death--an anti-war demonstration of 500,000 people in Washington, D.C.--I had been a low-level officer, training marshals, helping with communications, doing this and that, anything to be part of what turned out to be the largest demonstration against the Vietnam War. I rambled on to my friend, explained how exhilarating it had been to be among like-minded people who had come from around the country for a shared purpose; but I also recalled in detail the sad, sorrowful events that filled the three day event, including the testimonials of weeping mothers and wives of sons and husbands never to return.
My friend was a patient listener. He ignored my hard-edged political narrative in favor of telling a story, his story actually. He had graduated from college in 1969, the year of some 3,000 antiwar demonstrations, including The March of Death, but those activities had no appeal to him. At that time he felt blessed, having been raised by good parents, educated at college, and living in a country he held dear as the greatest in the world. Uncertain what to do after graduation, he decided he should do something to show his thankfulness, to return some of the bounty he had been given, so he enlisted in the army and volunteered for service in Vietnam.
As I listened, I felt rebuked, thought he was defining patriotism in the narrowest way to suggest that following the government was the single, true path to responsible citizenship. But I was wrong. His was not a war story. It was a story about character. As he continued, he spoke of his experiences of the 60s and 70s that had caused him to make the choices he had: a belief in the promise of his country, a need to be take responsibility for its action, a sense of obligation to make a mark on behalf of the public good before setting out to make a mark for himself.
I pulled away from feeling scolded, and as we drank and talked we agreed that the same impulses, the same feelings of duty, the same need to act for the common interest that sent him into the army had sent me into the streets on behalf of civil rights and in opposition to the war. And that our very different experiences in those worrisome times had defined our lives in very similar ways, giving back to us more than we could have ever imagined: a since of community in an alienating world, a gift of being part of something larger than ourselves, and an understanding that a rich and full life must transcend personal glory and gratification. Those times, we agreed, more than any other, had defined us, had given us the values and ideals by which we judged our world and our place in it.
I trust the message of this lengthy narrative is obvious: during this time of redefining America, find something that moves you, join the cause, give of yourself, enlist in a purpose for the national good--it will reward you in ways you cannot imagine.
Dr. Huesos is an unrepentant New Leftist who rebuilds old Harleys.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
A CELEBRITY RELOCATION PROGRAM
Our culture has countless well-known figures whose status escapes me, defies any formula for me to understand how they got to do what they do and why anyone allows them to continue. I have a suggestion or two about professional relocation programs for some of them, call it a celebrity protection program--to save us from them. I refer here not to the easy gimmies, such as Zaza Gabor or Paris Hilton, cheap shots who cover half a century of "celebrity", people void of creditable contributions who would cause us to care for a single moment where they were or what they were doing.
Assume with me the Wicken golden rule of "first do no harm" while considering the following.
Who was not proud when Nancy Peloci became the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives? Even cretin President #43 was generous--bordering on eloquent--when he acknowledged her success in the chambers of the House. But that jump start was the single bright flash in her new stature. She has mismanaged legislation, insulted enemies who might have been allies, and seems ignorant of a trusted rule of public service--a well-done job is more important than gloating before the TV cameras. Get her out of the House and set her up as the manager of a nail salon in Marin County, California.
Step up to the Senate and meet Harry Reid, who may be a powerful force behind the closed doors of smoked-filled rooms where deals are hammered out and lasting alliances are made, but that's a claim hard to make from what can be seen of him. Should competence seek its proper level, Reid would be the principal of a junior high school that educates the pale-skinned sons and daughters of gated communities.
While we're in the Senate, lets take a quick glance at Joe Liberman. Did being cheated out of the vice presidency by the clumsy workings of democracy in Florida and the Supreme Court rot his brain to the point he succumbed to the Stockholm Syndrome and became the sycophantic sidekick to the next presidential candidate of the party that screwed him over? During the last presidential campaign be acted as though he had a message pined to his lapel that read: "Return to John McCain" if found aimlessly wandering around in the blighted wilderness of American politics. With his perpetual smile and banal comments, he could be the poster boy for coal mine safety in America.
And who are these previously obscure pinched-faced Republicans such as Eric Cantor who have stepped up to make a grab at party leadership? I have not seen so many razer-cut hair styles in a quarter century. Do they have an aged barber and shoe shine man held captive in the basement of Congress where they are forced to survive on Republican table scraps and support their families on a fiscally conservative tipping philosophy? Cantor has the look and style of a first-year graduate student, one of those over-achieving undergraduates who does not understand he is playing a new game in a bigger league--he talks too much, says little of substance, and assumes an air of importance all out of proportion to his apparent abilities. In a fair and just world, the best he could hope for would be a position as a suit salesman at a tony Georgetown men's store.
And how about some of those TV news personalities?
Rich Sanchez has a fixed smile/smirk of self-satisfaction as he announces every news item with equal high drama, be it the hit and run of a beloved neighborhood dog or the test firing of a nuclear rocket by Iran. It's all the same to him as he switches to the Tweeter Board, as if anyone cares. His indiscriminate giddiness suggests he would benefit from a stay in Dr. Drew's Pasadena rehab clinic, where he might learn to play the piano, and after getting on better meds, he could slide right into a job as a lounge singer on a cruise ship.
When Rick leaves the clinic, we must fill the vacancy with Ann Coulter, the meanest, most crazed woman in America who wears a short, black cocktail dress for every occasion, defamed the 9/11 widows as greedy, suburban scum, and would guaranty Dr. Drew lifetime work because nothing could ever restore her humanity. She would turn Dr. Drew's clinic into the Hotel California, where she can check in, but never leave.
Joe Scarboro, is he the news man, or what? "Morning Joe" replaced "Imus in the Morning" as MSNBC's 3-hour morning show after Don Imus proved what a lot of us who listened to him on the radio in the 1970s already knew--without drugs and alcohol, he was a doomed man. But I have to confess that Imus' thoughtless, crude and often cruel comments, were easier to stomach than beedy-eyed Joe Scarboros' boring stupidity. Yes, yes, I know. Scarboro was elected to Congress!! Sent to Congress from a part of the country where you can still find a KKK Klavern to hang with. He is ill mannered, smug beyond reason, flawed in his history, insulting to his co-host (who is a fool to take his crap), and makes stupid comments such as, "Barack Obama is just like the guys I went to law school with." Ya, right, Joe, the past editor of the Harvard Law Review is just like the guys you drank your way through the University of Alabama Law School with. Joe's defiant tone and pompous style makes him a perfect candidate to train those low-lifes who work the phones for debt collection agencies.
Lou Dobbs is a guy with a world view that commands respect, a view that stops at the borders of the United States where he sees illegal immigrants pouring across to pollute our beloved mixed-breed nation. How can a guy like that make a living singing the same song every night, night after night--"plug up the borders; don't we deserve a government that works?" No we don't, Lou, or we would have a government that works, and I can't understand how you can pose that question after shilling for #43 for 8 years. In Lou's future, I see him as a construction foreman in the Southwest, a high pressure job to which he tries to faithfully apply himself, without any Mexican or Mexican-American workers. Lou might not get the irony of that concept, but anyone in the construction industry is nodding their head and smiling--the people you want sent away, Lou, are the ones who get it done for America.
I promised not to stoop for the cheap shot, but how can I ignore Rush Limbaugh? He makes the village idiot sound like a Nobel Laureate. After we coach Rush through a 48-step rehab program (no 12-step program could touch his bad habits) we will set him up with a gig hustling for Jenny Craig on TV. But then again, perhaps we should leave Rush on the radio where he can continue to serve up dirt sandwiches for the Republican Party every day.
Dr. Huesos is an unrepetant New Lefist who rebuilds old Harleys.
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