THE WORKING PERSONS RIGHT TO HAVE A UNION

In the colonial era, we lived under royal governors and were happy to abide by laws made half a world away. That was America then, but it’s not America now.
In 1783, the revolutionary War ended and soon we had a constitution. We could make our own laws, but there was no bill of rights. That was America then, but it’s not America now.
Men with property could vote, but most people could not. That was America then, but it’s not America now.
Before 1865 African Americans were enslaved by law. People could say in dispassionate conversation that they did not believe these people should have rights. It wasn’t a dispassionate issue with African Americans. Slavery was never right, but that was America then. It’s not America now.
Before 1920 most women could not vote. People dispassionately argued that women were not mature or intelligent or tough enough to make good choices with a vote. It wasn’t a dispassionate issue with women. It was never right, but that was America then. It’s not America now.
In the 19th and early twentieth century’s, Americans could not join unions legally. Children were forced to work; families labored long hours and still could not earn enough to live. People who favored the bosses could dispassionately say that there was no need for a minimum wage, or safety laws, or old age pensions, or eight hour days, or unemployment compensation. They could say that if you didn’t like the wage or your wretched working conditions, you should go somewhere else. It wasn’t a dispassionate issue with the working people who wanted decent homes, time with their children, a chance for their children to get an education, and enough food on the table. It was never right, but that was America then. It’s not America now.
Some think that we should politely discuss it and then let them take our workers rights away. That we should dispassionately let “democracy” take our workers rights away. Just like the night rider’s who took away the freedom of African Americans for a hundred years. Just like the elected government that sent women’s rights activists to jail in world war one. Just like the legislators that passed poll taxes and literacy laws to disenfranchise people in the south. The supporters of those attempting to take away union rights say “elections have consequences”. In 1948 our country signed the Universal declaration of human rights. Article 23 read:
1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Some things can be changed by majority vote, but rights are not one of those things. When people are deprived of their rights by law, the law itself becomes illegitimate, and people have the right to organize collectively and demand the restoration of those rights. That is what is happening in Madison Wisconsin today. I went to march with many others and I am proud to say that I stand for workers rights. It isn’t an abstract, dispassionate, issue for discussion. It’s a matter of the preservation of the American way of life. If you let those with the wealth and power buy elections and take away these rights, your rights will surely be next. I don’t want that America of then to become the America of now. Depriving workers of their rights is in the most elemental way Un-American.

I OBJECT

"African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing." - Jefferson Davis

A house in Lancaster at the corner of Pine and Jefferson streets has a Confederate flag flying (the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia). It is at the top of a long flag pole. No national flag flies above it. I can only imagine what the reaction to this would have been in the latter half of the nineteenth century, for this city sent many of its sons to fight against the slavery and rebellion represented by this flag. Many did not come home. To see a symbol such as that flag flying in the streets of their beloved city would probably have been cause for severe action. This county was also the home of the Pleasant Ridge African American community, many ex-slaves. Brave men paid a very high price to keep the nation whole and end the scourge of African-American slavery. Seven hundred men from Grant County were killed or wounded. Jefferson Coates lost his eyes in the Battle of Gettysburg and won a Medal Of Honor. General Callis, from Lancaster, was gravely injured there, and lay on the battlefield for three days. They fought at Antietem and Vicksburg and a hundred other places. There are as many stories as men who volunteered to fight for The Union, and now we have a flag, detestable to them and even more so today flying in our city. Of course the owner has the right to fly anything he wants, but I object.

Dennis Wilson

THE CONTROVERSY IS NOT NEW. WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN?

In this age of conflict over abortion it might be interesting to read the news of one hundred years ago. A judge ruled that life begins at birth and not before, and used the Bible as part of his rationale.

The Year Of Political Insanity

America has a long history of anti-intellectualism, but this election year is something much more than that. It is almost as if some infectious form of insanity (ergot poisoning?) has seized a large portion of the population and set them into a fool’s dance of self destruction. Of course the drumbeat for this dance is courtesy of FOX News. If Hitler had had FOX he wouldn’t have needed to burn the Reichstag or employ the services of Joseph Goebbels. FOX would say it and people would believe it. I have encountered more lunatic statements this year than ever before. A few examples: “Obama is a Muslim”, “Obama was born in Kenya”, “Obama wants to sell out our country to (you fill it in)”, “If you are a progressive you are a Communist”. This is not just normal political hyperbole. This is racism, and the members of the TEA party, and other right wing fringe groups now brought into the spotlight are preaching “Americanism”. If we don’t agree with them we are Godless Communists, and need to be exposed by Glen Beck. The last time I recall the term “Americanism” being used was in the 1920’s, and then by the Ku Klux Klan. So much about the TEA party reminds me of the Klan of the 1920’s: misplaced anger, rampant xenophobia, viewing anyone who disagrees as a “Progressive=Socialist= Communist” according to Glen Beck, the tear shedding, sometimes hysteric orator and hero of these folks. An ideological test is needed in their opinion to decide if you are a patriot: if you love your country. If you don’t agree with them, you’re a Communist trying to subvert the educational system and ruin the nation. Quack history is used to label Franklin Roosevelt as a Communist. I have even heard Glen Beck say that FDR caused the war. Honest to goodness. Do they have to try to fight the New Deal all these prosperous years later? That seems to be the agenda. According to them teachers are part of a plot to brainwash all children to accept a Socialist takeover. At one time people would have nervously laughed at such over the top paranoids. But now- now there is a willingness to believe any sort of conspiracy theory as an explanation for the failures of our society. After all, we couldn’t as a people be responsible for our own woes, so it must be some group of evil manipulators infiltrating us to bring us down. Education is failing our children we hear. It’s the bad teachers. But maybe, just maybe it is the bad parenting, the lack of time spent, the dearth of expectations that children study and learn. It’s just too easy and simple to say it is the bad teachers and their bad unions. And so they go running after bogeymen, after scapegoats, and there is no end of Glen Beck’s and Rush Limbaugh’s willing to get rich convincing you that it is all a conspiracy of the left. And apparently people believe it. They seem willing to flock to the polls to vote for people who will privatize their Social Security, end their Unemployment benefits, deny them health care, and pander to the rich sharks who run this country and the co-opted religionists who carry their water. I think that Lincoln may have been wrong with regard to Americans when he said “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time”. It is starting to look to me like you sure can – with enough money behind you.
UPDATE!!!! TODAY GLEN BECK ANNOUNCED THAT ALL ENVIRONMENTALISTS WORSHIP AN ANCIENT BABYLONIAN NATURE GOD. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT!

A Timely Criticism of Big Money and Right Wing Religion

“The people have had of late no word in making and executing the laws; not more than five hundred men are the sovereign of the land and those are controlled by a religious faction on the one hand and moneyed sharks on the other. The republic, founded upon the principles of liberality and equality, is being transformed into a dogmatic hierarchy, under the assumption of being the only representations of law and order, and under this guise or pretext, they make war upon those who differ with them. If this crew of hypocrites, political and religious manipulators, were sailing under their true colors – a sect of religious fanatics of the old Puritan school – they would not be permitted to control State legislatures, cities and villages throughout the country. Laws have been enacted contrary to the spirit of true Democracy, as well as contrary to true Christianity.” ----- The Blunderbuss, Lancaster Wisconsin, July 1874

The Pleasures of a Camera and a Flower

I admit it. I love to photograph flowers. They show an endless display of colors and shapes. They just make me feel renewed and energized. Lots of people look at flowers, but not many really see them. Few look at them from all angles, compose them within their milieu, and look for the deeper meanings about life that they convey. A flower is a master of survival, but it uses its beauty to survive. For what it needs to live it gives back an enjoyment equaled by few things in this life. Maybe that is why, at this time of year most of us make our annual pilgrimage to purchase flowers to plant around our homes. What would springtime be without flowers?

Northern Lights - Do I see a face?