ROSA PARKS
She was a small, quiet black woman. She worked hard as a seamstress all day. All she wanted to do was take a bus home from work on December 1, 1955 in her home town of Montgomery, Alabama. But there was a city ordinance that said she had to give up her seat on the bus if a white person wanted it. A white man asked for her seat and she refused to give it up. She was arrested and a local young preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr. took up her cause and started the year-long boycott of the city bus system which changed the rules and blacks no longer had to sit in the back of the bus or let whites take their seats. This began the modern civil rights movement that led to massive changes in the 1960’s.
Today I witnessed George W. Bush praising Rosa Parks on TV. The irony and hypocrisy of this event cannot go by without comment – at least not by me. As a person who has done much to crush dissent in this country, Mr. Bush is not qualified to utter Ms. Parks name. Long after he is gone and forgotten (and that cannot come too soon), her name will be known as one of the brave people who stood up against the bullies like him. Bush is the anti-Rosa Parks: a person born into privilege who has not a shred of compassion for those less fortunate. She had the strength and courage to defy an unjust system.
Rest in peace, Rosa. You did good.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Saturday, October 15, 2005
THE AMERICAN DREAM
THE AMERICAN DREAM
I’m a dinosaur. It came to me suddenly as I was thinking about the state of the world and of this country. I’m a throwback to an earlier era, a museum piece, a curiosity. Allow me to explain.
I’m a member of the last generation to expect life to be better than my parents. When I grew up in the 1950’s, we just assumed that the good life would be there for us. Call it the American Dream if you will, but it was always there.
I’m a “war baby”. We came before the baby boom of the post World War II period. The war was well under way and my Dad was in the army when I was born. After the war, my dad worked a number of dead-end factory jobs. We were poor. I didn’t know we were poor, but we were. Then, in 1949, came our salvation. Dad got hired at Oldsmobile in Lansing, Michigan and our lives changed for the better. He apprenticed as a carpenter and became a journeyman, a skilled worker with good pay and benefits, thanks to the UAW.
The United Auto Workers was recognized by General Motors after the sitdown strike of 1937 in a Fisher Body plant in Flint, Michigan. The workers, tired of being mistreated and abused, took over the plant and occupied it for 44 days. Strikers and their supporters were attacked and beaten by police and thugs hired by the corporation. The National Guard was called in to restore order. Eventually, GM capitulated and the modern era of the labor union was born, bringing workers into the middle class and expanding markets for homes, autos and many other consumer goods and services, thus expanding the American economy over the next 50 years. Living wages and benefits were enjoyed by millions of Americans, union and non-union because of the leadership of the labor unions.
After working in a couple of dead-end jobs in the early sixties, I was also hired by General Motors in Lansing, Michigan in 1965. I worked there until my retirement in 1998, among the last generation to work for 30 years for the same employer and to retire with a pension and benefits. Manufacturing jobs are being outsourced and benefits are being eliminated. GM was the largest private (non-government) employer back when they hired me. Today, the largest employer is Wal-Mart, who hires mostly part-time workers to avoid paying benefits and who has proven to be very anti-union for obvious reasons. Young people coming into the non-skilled workforce today are forced to work multiple jobs without benefits just to eke out a living for the families. The American Dream is dead. Labor unions are dying. What happened?
I believe it has to do with empire. Empires need to constantly expand to satisfy their need for cheap labor and natural resources. At some point, the empire becomes too large and unwieldy to manage or it runs out of fuel for its ever-expanding engine. It happened to Rome. It happened to Britain. Now it’s our turn. Colonies are getting very hard to come by these days. You can no longer just plant a flag and declare this place a colony. Now you have to buy the place or invade and occupy. Not many countries are for sale, so we are forced to go the “invade and occupy” route. This is easier said than done.
Apparently, some people don’t like being invaded and occupied. These people are called “insurgents”. They do not understand that we need their resources to expand our economy and to perpetuate our domination of the planet. They don’t realize that God loves America and wants us to rule the world. They don’t appreciate that we pay a huge price through our taxes to support a gigantic war machine larger than anything the world has ever known. We have to pay lobbyists and legislators to insure that our corporations won’t have to be held responsible for their actions and to see that they don’t pay taxes. All this is very expensive and totally dependent on our access to their resources.
So, like all empires, we send our young people over to fight and die “for their country”. We wrap their caskets with flags and talk about their sacrifice and climb in our Lincoln Navigators and drive 1200 miles to look at pretty scenery and exclaim what a great country we live in – except for the damn gasoline prices.
I’m a dinosaur. It came to me suddenly as I was thinking about the state of the world and of this country. I’m a throwback to an earlier era, a museum piece, a curiosity. Allow me to explain.
I’m a member of the last generation to expect life to be better than my parents. When I grew up in the 1950’s, we just assumed that the good life would be there for us. Call it the American Dream if you will, but it was always there.
I’m a “war baby”. We came before the baby boom of the post World War II period. The war was well under way and my Dad was in the army when I was born. After the war, my dad worked a number of dead-end factory jobs. We were poor. I didn’t know we were poor, but we were. Then, in 1949, came our salvation. Dad got hired at Oldsmobile in Lansing, Michigan and our lives changed for the better. He apprenticed as a carpenter and became a journeyman, a skilled worker with good pay and benefits, thanks to the UAW.
The United Auto Workers was recognized by General Motors after the sitdown strike of 1937 in a Fisher Body plant in Flint, Michigan. The workers, tired of being mistreated and abused, took over the plant and occupied it for 44 days. Strikers and their supporters were attacked and beaten by police and thugs hired by the corporation. The National Guard was called in to restore order. Eventually, GM capitulated and the modern era of the labor union was born, bringing workers into the middle class and expanding markets for homes, autos and many other consumer goods and services, thus expanding the American economy over the next 50 years. Living wages and benefits were enjoyed by millions of Americans, union and non-union because of the leadership of the labor unions.
After working in a couple of dead-end jobs in the early sixties, I was also hired by General Motors in Lansing, Michigan in 1965. I worked there until my retirement in 1998, among the last generation to work for 30 years for the same employer and to retire with a pension and benefits. Manufacturing jobs are being outsourced and benefits are being eliminated. GM was the largest private (non-government) employer back when they hired me. Today, the largest employer is Wal-Mart, who hires mostly part-time workers to avoid paying benefits and who has proven to be very anti-union for obvious reasons. Young people coming into the non-skilled workforce today are forced to work multiple jobs without benefits just to eke out a living for the families. The American Dream is dead. Labor unions are dying. What happened?
I believe it has to do with empire. Empires need to constantly expand to satisfy their need for cheap labor and natural resources. At some point, the empire becomes too large and unwieldy to manage or it runs out of fuel for its ever-expanding engine. It happened to Rome. It happened to Britain. Now it’s our turn. Colonies are getting very hard to come by these days. You can no longer just plant a flag and declare this place a colony. Now you have to buy the place or invade and occupy. Not many countries are for sale, so we are forced to go the “invade and occupy” route. This is easier said than done.
Apparently, some people don’t like being invaded and occupied. These people are called “insurgents”. They do not understand that we need their resources to expand our economy and to perpetuate our domination of the planet. They don’t realize that God loves America and wants us to rule the world. They don’t appreciate that we pay a huge price through our taxes to support a gigantic war machine larger than anything the world has ever known. We have to pay lobbyists and legislators to insure that our corporations won’t have to be held responsible for their actions and to see that they don’t pay taxes. All this is very expensive and totally dependent on our access to their resources.
So, like all empires, we send our young people over to fight and die “for their country”. We wrap their caskets with flags and talk about their sacrifice and climb in our Lincoln Navigators and drive 1200 miles to look at pretty scenery and exclaim what a great country we live in – except for the damn gasoline prices.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)