The Need For A United Labor Movement

I have always thought the the American got screwed by Samuel Gompers….I know who?

Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) was the first president of the American Federation of Labor, the first enduring national labor union. He served as president from 1886 until his death in 1924, except for a single year, 1895. Born in London, he immigrated to the United States at the age of 13, and worked as a cigar-maker. He became the leader of the cigar-makers’ union, and transformed it into one of the country’s strongest unions.

Gompers believed that labor had the most to gain by organizing skilled craft workers, rather than attempting to organize all workers in an industry. He refused to form an alliance with the Knights of Labor. “Talk of harmony with the Knights of Labor,” he said, “is bosh. They are just as great enemies of trade unions as any employer can be.”

Gompers repudiated socialism and advocated a pragmatic “pure and simple” unionism that emphasized agreements with employees–which would spell out for a stipulated period the wages, hours of work, and the procedures for handling grievances. Gompers proposed that agreements contain clauses stipulating that employers hire only union members (the closed shop) and that any employee should be required to pay union dues. Employers advocated the open shop, which could employ non-union members.

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm

He seemed to think that the worker should go for economic power instead of political power….I believe he shafted the workers.

Look at labor today….did the economic power work out for them? Maybe in the earlier days but now they are spinning their wheels and falling for any lame ass promise some random politician gives them.

We on the Left have been advocating a unified labor movement for many decades….this is from 1933 and the rise of fascism….

‘The Need for a United Labor Party’ by A.J. Muste from Labor Age. Vol. 22 No. 1. February-March, 1933.

I agree that a functioning labor party would have and will make the workers the strongest subset in American politics….but from the shadows the corporate slugs and their minions in politics will do everything possible to prevent the workers from gaining any power at all.

This concept needs revisiting in these days of loss of income and livelihood….time to ask the important questions….but will we?

The real problems is that we do not elect more workers because the campaigns have gotten out of hand and the candidates owe too much to the fat cats that fund them.

But if one wants more information on that thought….

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/28/why-we-need-to-elect-more-workers-to-public-office

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

cogito ergo agito

A Return To Religious Coercion

The rise of christian nationalism is turning this country onto its head.

Donny and his band of religious cutthroats are doing all they can to force America into some form of MAGA christianity.

I have a huge problem with this.

I for one do not think that christianity is has anything to do with governing…..on a personal level I have no problem with people and their religious beliefs….just not forcing me and others into believing in something that we chose not to follow.

I mean what happened to freedom of choice?

That is just like everything else in the Constitution….being stripped away by the thugs in the government.

This is not something new….it has happened several times in this country (and yes a history lesson is involved)

American revival movements have always contained two competing impulses: the belief that all people possess equal moral worth before God, and the belief that society must be disciplined into righteousness whether it wants to be or not. That tension runs throughout the history of American Christianity. It shaped the First and Second Great Awakenings, fueled both abolitionism and moral policing, and inspired democratic reform movements—all while simultaneously justifying social hierarchy and coercion. If you’re wondering how the MAGA movement can speak constantly in the language of Christianity while bearing intense hostility to many traditional Christian virtues themselves, we can look to this history, which is now repeating itself.

There has been a great deal of discussion on the right in recent years about whether the United States is experiencing some kind of new religious revival. Church attendance remains historically low by many measures, most notably in the mainline churches that have historically fostered religious moderation and created communities of believers from across the political spectrum. That said, religious identity is also increasingly central to American political conflict. Christianity, particularly conservative Christianity, often functions as a marker of political and cultural belonging on the American right. The result is a society that may be becoming less religious overall while simultaneously becoming more religiously polarized. To understand this moment, it helps to revisit the Great Awakenings in U.S. history, when Americans renegotiated the meaning of freedom, morality, and identity on a national scale.

The First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s challenged older religious hierarchies by emphasizing direct spiritual experience and personal conversion. Revivalist preachers like George Whitefield insisted that ordinary people could experience God directly without relying on established church authority. These ideas also intensified preachers’ use of emotionalism and encouraged suspicion toward institutional authority that would echo throughout American history. The emphasis on inward spiritual experience eventually fed into later forms of American individualism, including nineteenth-century Transcendentalism and the broader tendency to treat authenticity and inner conviction as sources of moral authority.

But it was the Second Great Awakening, stretching roughly from the 1790s through the 1830s, that most profoundly shaped American political culture. Massive revival meetings swept across the early republic, with Evangelical Protestantism rapidly expanding on the frontier and in growing northern cities. Preachers such as Charles Grandison Finney taught that both individuals and society itself could be morally transformed.

https://newrepublic.com/article/214330/maga-christianity-return-religious-coercion

This coercion is unacceptable to me and I shall fight it as best I can.

What say you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Hamilton May Have Been On To Something

****Please keep any abortion comments to yourself this post is about our loss of freedoms….if you comment stick to the post….we already have enough manure being spread****

Year after year we have watched the states go about taking rights away from their residents and few have anything to say about it other than the old ‘state’s rights’ dodge.

One state has stated that the people do not have a fundamental right to vote….while others are taking the freedom of choice away from the voters….etc etc I am sure that you have some sort of horror story along these lines coming from your state legislature.

That intro leads me to the point of this post….

Hamilton believed that the US should be one strong unit as opposed to smaller units….

Alexander Hamilton believed that America need- ed a strong central government. Instead of let- ting the states mostly govern themselves, he wanted the federal government to hold more power. This led him to support the approval of the Constitution and affected what he did as the country’s first Treasury secretary.

Hamilton believed that a strong Government is necessary to protect and preserve liberty. He regarded anarchy—exemplified in the French Revolution—as freedom’s worst enemy. He feared that the American people, if allowed to freely express an exaggerated concept of liberty, could destroy the benefits of our Revolution.

Hamilton wanted a new national government that had complete political authority. He disliked state governments and believed that they should be eliminated entirely. In fact, Hamilton believed that the perfect union would be one in which there were no states at all.

A government that gives too much power to the common people cannot be trusted. Wealthy, educated, public-spirited men should lead the country. Alexander Hamilton: How strong should our national government be? We should have a strong national government that unties the states and keeps order among the people.

To keep it simple….Hamilton thought the US should be one country under uniform law not individual states with their own constitution and laws.

The American people basically have two sets of laws they must conform to on any given day.

Got it now?

As the title infers I believe that Hamilton was on to something….one country divided into districts with representatives in the capitol to deliver the wants of those districts.

The whole state’s rights thing is just a powder keg waiting to ignite….and it is a smoldering mess now.

Problems that state’s rights promotes…..

Conflict of Authority – The biggest problem that arises when you have two bodies of
government in power is the power struggle. Both central and state government intend to
assert their power over the other which at time causes conflict between them. Even the long-
term conflict between the central and state government can create hurdles in way of national
development and prosperity.

(We see this today with states usurping federal law)

Regionalism Over Patriotism – The mark of a great country is just how patriotic and
prideful the citizens is to be a part of it. Federalism, since it promotes smaller level of
government, it also promotes smaller levels of pride. It can begin to pit one region against
another and take away from the feeling of patriotism that should be present all over the entire
country.

(Red State vs Blue State is making regionalism the priority among certain states….patriotism is gone)

Inequalities Between States – The federal form of government allows for regional
inequalities between different states. For example, instead of education funding throughout
the country being the same, since it is a state issue, some states will spend more, per capita,
on education than other states, causing what could be considered a disparity. The same goes
for other things, as well, such as taxes, health care programs, and welfare programs which
increases regional inequality amongst the different states.

(We see this in most Southern states that are lagging behind most of the wider nation)

The Blockage of Nationalist Policies by States – States can fight against the existence of
certain national laws by challenging them in court, or going out of their way to not enforce
those national laws, or even deliberately obstructing enforcement of national laws

(Again the states are changing voting laws, freedom of choice, and condemning the population into poverty and hunger)

SO I say once again…I believe Hamilton was on to something.

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

“cognito ergo me agitare”

Will US Have a “Lost Decade”?

If you have been watching the economic drama unfolding in this country then you have heard terms like “Lost Decade” and “Zombie Banks”. But just what is meant by all this? Let us look at the 1990’s in Japan. A little knowledge of history can go a long way at preventing a totally wasted period in American economic activity.

Beginning in 1991, Japan experienced a financial crisis that has been documented and studied by many. Japan’s crisis was triggered by a real estate and equity price bubble followed by a collapse of equity and real estate prices. But unlike the examples I cited above, Japanese policymakers met the crisis with prolonged denial and then, when conditions forced recognition of the severity of the problem, very halting steps to address it. Banks were not forced to recognize the condition of their balance sheets and were encouraged to continue lending to firms that were themselves unprofitable. Anil Kashyap labels these “zombie firms.”

Zombie banks continued to direct capital to zombie firms. This charade continued for more than a decade, with the result that the once-powerful Japanese economy was completely stagnant for that period. The government’s main response was to dramatically increase spending on infrastructure and frantically try to get Japanese households to save less and consume more. The resulting “lost decade” of economic growth cost Japan more than 20% of GDP.

Does any of this sound familiar? Can you connect the dots? As we wring our hands about getting more involved in the financial sector and saving the jobs in the auto sector, and as we watch the many inefficient industries line up for help, it behooves us to ask: Which of these are zombies? If there is one lesson that seems to leap out at us, it is that, however great the short-term costs, the costs of keeping zombies alive is much greater. With stopgap measures in place, designed as much to sustain the zombie illusion as anything else, it becomes harder and harder for legislators to tap into the political will for painful but essential remedies.

So far all the government is doing is looking like the same thing Japan did…throw money at institutions that are already dead. I think the American people are starting to realize the fact that these institutions are dead and it is time to let them be buried. It is costing way too much to keep practicing the “voodoo” of economics trying to secure something that cannot be.