Labor Struggles

¡Hola! Everybody…

It is Labor Day -- people died so you could have this day off; for the right to bargain collectively, for the 40-hour week, and paid vacations. People died so that you could enjoy workplace safety and work while maintain at least a semblance of human dignity and living wage. The freedom to work with human dignity, and more, is what is under attack by the conservatives seeking to take us back to a time that never existed and into a neoliberal global slum.

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-=[ The Ludlow Massacre ]=-

Fascism should be more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

-- Giovanni Gentile

Happy Labor Day, and I hope that you have had an opportunity to gather with friends and family to observe the many that died in order to make fair wages, the 40-hour week hour week, and vacations a reality.

Not familiar with the history of labor struggles? That’s OK, our Corporate Media and their bland whores -- the well-paid, hair-sprayed teleprompt readers -- would never focus on such a history. No, I don’t blame you for forgetting about Labor and its impact on our lives. After all, there’s much more important stuff to think about.

The history of Labor in the USA is one that is rarely ever discussed and until recently, you would be hard put to find any historical documentation on the history of Labor. There is a good reason for this: it’s not a very pretty history. For those of us of a conservative orientation mouthing empty clichés about the “good ole days,” well, Bubba, they weren’t so good.

Not unless you consider child labor, or the lack of responsible overview in the workplace, as good. One school teacher, Samuel Yellin, wanted to teach Labor history to his high school students but was unable to find a textbook, so he wrote his own, American Labor Struggles. Until Howard Zinn and others who would come after, this was the only book that documented the history of the US government’s and Big Business’ vile response to the Labor movement.

One of the more heinous of episodes in the history of Labor struggles, The Ludlow Massacre (click here for a more in-depth treatment), reads like something out of the history of a fascist state -- which is what corporatization (rule by corporations) is, in fact. When I first read this as part of a deal I made with my then high school-aged son, I was shocked that such things, with all our lip service to individual freedom and fairness, happened in the United States:

On April 20, 1914, 20 innocent men, women, and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. For some time, coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) for years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

As a result, for their striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The ensuing massacre was a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strikebreakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later, investigations would reveal that the tents were intentionally set on fire. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that the corporate-hired thugs would randomly shoot through the tent colony. The women and children were found dead, huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.

The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency had been brought in to suppress the Colorado miners. They brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun (the Death Special, they called it) that roamed the area spraying bullets. The day of the massacre (April 20^th), the miners were celebrating Greek Easter. At 10:00 AM, the militia ringed the camp and began firing into the tents upon a signal from the commander, Lt. Karl E. Lindenfelter. Not one of the perpetrators of the slaughter was ever punished, but scores of miners and their leaders were arrested and black-balled from the coal industry.

A monument erected by the UMWA stands today in Ludlow, Colorado in remembrance of the brave and innocent souls who died for freedom and human dignity.

Today, people enjoy taking potshots at Unions. Much of this is the result of a media controlled by the very forces that opposes unionization; some of it is the result of bonehead actions taken the union leaders themselves. However, the only thing standing between you (if you’re not a CEO) and complete servitude are unions, which is why conservatives abhor the Labor Movement.

I find it hard to write about individual improvement when there is so much denial going on in our country. To stay quiet during times of atrocity is to be complicit in its crimes. This is true of almost anyone who lived in Nazi Germany. Most of those people weren’t evil, they simply didn’t act. Like us today in the USA, there was too much to do, they were too busy, going about the time-consuming activities of daily living, to speak out. So after they came to get the butcher, then the teacher, and finally the neighbor, there was no one around to help when the same forces came for them because there was no one left to speak out against the evil.

In the past, people have asked me to write about actions we can take to improve things. That comes later. Before we can act, we must become aware. I write in the hopes that even one person can gain some awareness. Mass movements of social change are founded in this notion of enlightening one mind at a time. History shows us, as Margaret Meade observed many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” The fact remains that the same mindset that is the cause of the problem can never be used to bring about a solution. Solutions require a change of mind, an evolution of the individual and collective consciousness.

I will leave you with the words of someone who was a lot better at this than I will ever hope to be:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” Edward R. Murrow said in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Remember to give thanks to all those men, women, and children who had the fuckin’ cojones to lay down their lives for their convictions so that we could enjoy better lives.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Anchorage, Alaska in the 1970's.

This is the Anchorage I remember.  Before the oil money started to pour through the city streets, and we learned that cash was the key to happiness, while trading away our soul in exchange for strip malls and cookie cutter housing developments.

4th Avenue, at that time the heart of the city.

Seedy bars, adult book stores, and houses of worship were often seen only blocks apart on the same street.

Pre-fab housing Alaska style.

Did you know Anchorage had a Drive-in theater?

Two actually, and in the summer it was too light out to see a damn thing on the screen, and in the winter we froze our asses off while trying to make out the actor's faces through the haze of drifting exhaust emanating from our idling automobiles.

Spenard Road, where massage parlors lined the street all in a row, and the prostitutes too nasty to get jobs in them waved at you as you drove home from school.

I delivered the Anchorage Daily News, every morning at 6:00 a.m. to this one.

This is essentially what every neighborhood I lived in looked like back then.

I have to say that the city is a whole hell of a lot tidier these days, but there certainly was something raw and untamed about the Anchorage of the 1970's. Come to think of it, most of US were raw and untamed back then as well. 

To see many more great photos, just click here.

Lawrence O'Donnell helps to identify Mike Huckabee as a 9-11 profiteer, and a crappy history teacher.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Personally I believe that ANY parent that subjects their child to these insultingly inaccurate "history" lessons should be charged with child abuse.

I love how O'Donnell ponders whether or not Huckabee will identify the religion of EVERY historical figure that's discussed in the tapes. I think I already know the answer to that one.

SarahPAC paid $13,708 to decorate Sarah's bus so she could go on a five day vacation. How is that fiscal conservative BS working for ya? Update!

Courtesy of The Note:

Sarah Palin spent almost $14,000 to adorn her “One Nation” tour bus with larger-than-life renditions of the Constitution, Liberty Bell, and her signature.

That’s one of hundreds of expenditures listed in SarahPAC’s semi-annual FEC report, which was filed online today. The former Alaska governor’s political action committee paid $13,708.44 to the Tennessee company Fast Signs for “Bus Wrap” on May 26, three days before her tour of the northeast kicked off.

Unbelievable that the poor, undereducated paint chip eaters that are still dreaming of a Sarah Palin Presidency, spent almost $14,000 to decorate a bus so that their idol (And the only family member that could stand her) could visit tourist attractions for five days, while continuing to play the political prick tease in order to attract the publicity that she so desperately craves.

That is almost $3000 a day!  And what did the Palin-bots GET for their hard earned money?

This:



And of course this. Not to mention this. And really who could forget this? Which of course inevitably led to this.

Well gee that was such a good investment I wonder what else Palin spent her supporter's retirement savings on?

SarahPAC raised $1,658,897 during the first six months of 2011 and spent $1,591,520. The PAC has $1,402,368 cash on hand. In a statement, SarahPAC treasurer Tim Crawford told ABC News that the group “more than doubled the amount we raised as compared to the same time period in 2009. We received more than 36,700 contributions from over 24,000 contributors.”

Among SarahPAC’s other noteworthy disbursements:

-- $26,295.47 to a Visa/BankCard payment center in Dallas, Tex. for “Air Fare, Lodging, Car Rental, Wireless.” The date of disbursement is June 2, the day she visited Massachusetts and New Hampshire. 
Presumably, the sum accounts for some of the cost of her “One Nation” tour. 


So besides the $14,000 she wasted on this "bus tour" she also spent an additional $26,000 on air fare, lodging, and "CAR RENTAL!"  What the hell for? She had a bus with $14,000 worth of decorations on it that she could both live in AND use for transportation!


-- $5,794 to Israel’s Sar-El Tours and Travel for a“Tour of Holy Land.” Palin visited Israel in March and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Oh yeah, that trip ALSO turned out well.

-- $18,700 to Young America’s Foundation, a conservative outreach organization aimed at students.

Is that how much the brain washing of young people costs these days? How much do you want to bet she could not get HER kids to attend if she duct taped them to the top of her car and drove their ass there?

-- $10,000 to Peter Schweizer for “Research Consulting.” Schweizer is a conservative author based in Florida who Palin hired as her foreign policy adviser in May.

I wonder if part of his advice was for Palin to hide in her room for two days while visiting India in order to avoid the locals?

-- $5,416.66 to Anchorage, Alaska’s True North L'Attitudes for scheduling.

-- $683 to the Nashville, Tenn. store Nico & LaLa for bookmarks.

There is in fact much more in these filings, which you can find here.

I have a feeling that this is just the beginning and that we will learn much more about how Sarah wastes her supporters money in the days, and weeks ahead.

You know some days I feel bad for the people who are so besotted with Sarah Palin that they will allow her to take such advantage of them.  Today is not one of those days.

You people are idiots, and she's a fraud, move on!

Update: It looks like the Washington Post has uncovered evidence that Palin's bus tour might actually have cost even MORE than we thought. Seriously?

But the total for the trip is likely much more, because many bills came in after the June 30 filing deadline, Sarah PAC treasurer Tim Crawford said in an interview. In addition, many other expenses associated with the trip, such as photography, videography, Internet fundraising and airfare, are more difficult to account for. (One item in the report describes $6,999 paid to an air charter company called Republican Presidential Travel on June 9, at the tail end of “One Nation.”)

Wait, what?  There is a such thing as a "Republican Presidential Travel" airline?  I have never heard of that.

And by the way neither have the folks over at Talking Points Memo. But they did learn THIS:


Doug Garrett, the former owner of Moby Dick Airways, told TPM that Republican Presidential Travel is headquartered in Alaska and under an agreement with the new owner of Moby Dick Airways only does charters in Alaska. He referred questions specifically about the services his company provided to Palin to SarahPAC.

Okay by a show of hands, does ANYBODY have any doubt that this airline is somehow ONLY providing flights to a certain half-term governor?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Frank Schaeffer reveals how Fundamentalist religions are destroying the world. They're playing my song baby!

Courtesy of Alternet:

The deluded religious belief that any people or nation or church is a "chosen" people is the root of almost all our troubles. So is the lunacy of believing in "Truth" revealed through one special prophet to one special peoples and/or tribe, be they Jews, Muslims or American Evangelical Christians, or conservative Roman Catholics who believe in the special primacy of their popes.

Eliminate willful self-serving tribal religious delusion from the globe and there might be hope for the survival of the human race. Combine tribalism and religious conviction with nukes and the "right" to exploit the earth and disaster looms.

It's no accident that the most dangerous cultures today are also the most religiously observant societies. The ultra-religiously observant USA embraces perpetual war as a way of life. With our notion of "exceptionalism," we fear the "other" who might challenge our notion of having been chosen by God for some special task.

This is a great article and I urge you to spend the time to read all of it.  However I will let you know that this next part is my favorite portion.

Someday these "special" and "chosen" countries will cease to exist as will all nation states. Someday they will not even be remembered because all things pass from time into oblivion, nor will their "holy" books and "holy" places exist forever, simple geology will take care of that. What makes them dangerous today is their shared religious delusion that they are somehow essential and eternal.

I know that for religious people this is a very difficult concept to grasp, that their nation, and even their religion, may someday disappear into the mists of time, but anybody who has studied even junior high school history cannot deny the reality of that statement.

I remember once making a born again Christian hopping mad at me for referring to his religion as a mythology.

"No it is not!" he said.

"You're right." I replied. "It's not a mythology, today. But someday it WILL be, unless of course it is not remembered at all."

I was kind of a jerk in those days, and loved to rattle people's cages concerning their sacred cows.  I am much more mellow, and less combative, these days but the truth of my prediction is no less valid.

What has to be remembered is that thousands of years ago armies of "chosen" warriors marched to war after giving offerings to,and receiving the blessing from, Gods that you and I have never even heard of.  Yet they had complete faith that these long forgotten deities would keep them safe, or provide a place for their spirit to reside if they were felled in battle.

Millions have died under the swords of armies who believed that their gods had given  them license to destroy those who dared to worship at "sacrilegious" altars. And that faith allowed them to do so without even a hint of guilt at the wholesale murder of entire civilizations.

Now be honest, from that time to this, has mankind REALLY evolved that much?  And if not, why not?

The Reagan Con, pt. II

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’ll admit to missing Keith Olbermann (KO). The man called it as he saw it and it was rare he got his facts wrong. Plus, I just loved his tweaking the noses of bullies like Beckerhead (Glenn Beck, who’s self-destructing as we speak), Bill-O-the-Clown (Bill O’Reilly), and Blimpie (Rush Limbaugh), among others. I swear, Reagan’s birthday wasn’t the same without KO blasting the truth about him. He’s back (click here), or will be very soon, and my mother and I and about 1 million other nightly viewers will be looking forward to it.

As promised, the truth on the demented imbecile, Ronnie Raygun...

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-=[ The Reagan Con: Winter in America ]=-

We did not -- repeat, did not -- trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.

-- Ronald Reagan to a Televised national audience

Hopefully, you have read some good posts (here and here) separating the man from the myth. What follows is my own documentation of the failures and most egregious crimes of Reagan. But before that, I want to contextualize the so-called “Reagan Era.” I was a young man when Reagan and the “new” right ascended into power, forever changing America for the worst. Some of the consequences of Reagan’s policies (such as the Savings and Loan debacle) still haunt us. Most of all, Reagan was the ultimate inheritor of the “southern strategy,” the strategy to bring together disaffected (mostly southern) whites who wanted to blame minorities and civil rights gains for what they perceived as their losses.

Reagan was good at using the newer, coded, but no less racist language that attracted whites in large numbers. For example, Reagan never mentioned race overtly, but his discredited bullshit story of the “Welfare Queen” who drove a Cadillac didn’t have to mention skin color -- his base filled in the blanks. Similarly, when Reagan was asked to speak at the site of murdered civil rights workers, he invoked the right-wing meme of “states rights.” Many saw this as support for segregationist sentiments (who to this day still use the same “states rights” racial code). In fact, Reagan is on record as describing the Voting Rights Act as, “humiliating to the South.”

Ultimately, the greatest harm committed by Reagan, was his validation of the redefinition of “freedom” as corporate freedom. Government was the enemy and Reagan and his henchmen wanted to shrink it enough to drown it in a bathtub. Our current economic fractures have their root in Reagan’s misguided policies. But as fucked and cruel and vacuous as he was (his mind was most likely corroded by disease for at least one third of his two-term administration), he’s soft compared to his current day descendants -- all of whom are now trying to rewrite Reagan’s legacy...

As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan informed on fellow actors to the FBI.

As with all chickenhawks, Reagan was essentially a scared bully. For example, Reagan conducted one of the most absurd invasions of American history, targeting the tiny island of Grenada.

The Reagan administration was one of the most corrupt in American history, including by one estimate 31 Reagan era convictions, including 14 because of Iran-Contra and 16 in the Department of Housing & Urban Development scandal. By comparison, 40 government officials were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate. 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring during the Clinton administration itself.

Using a looser standard that included resignations, David R. Simon and D. Stanley Eitzen in Elite Deviance (click here for sources), say that 138 appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned under an ethical cloud or were criminally indicted.

Four members of the Reagan cabinet came under criminal investigation, as compared with five in the Clinton cabinet.

During the Reagan administration the number of families living below the poverty line increased by one-third.

Reagan's policies led to the greatest financial scandal in American history: the Savings & Loan debacle which cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

Julian Bond, president of the NAACP: “He was a polarizing figure in black America. He was hostile to the generally accepted remedies for discrimination. His appointments were of people as equally hostile. I can’t think of any Reagan policy that African Americans would embrace.” That was, however, before Barack Obama (who claims to admire the man and whose policies mirror Reagan’s) came along.

Reagan made major cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, aid to families with dependent children, and school lunch programs.

Reagan fired 13,000 air traffic controllers in a devastating blow to government union members from which the labor movement never recovered. While union jobs were slashed dramatically during Reagan’s terms, manufacturing was outsourced overseas, leading to large sectors of unemployed Americans.

The Washington Post (yes, that Washington Post) wrote: “Reagan, during his 1980 campaign, blamed trees for emitting 93 percent of the nation's nitrogen oxide pollution -- giving rise to jokes about ‘killer trees.’”

The national debt tripled under Reagan.

The AIDS crisis exploded (with 20,000 deaths) before Reagan could even bring himself to address the issue six years later. In his authorized biography, he is quoted as saying, “maybe the Lord brought down this plague,” because “illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments.”

Washington Post: “The administration in 1984 secretly sold arms to Iran -- which the United States considered a supporter of terrorism -- to raise cash for Nicaraguan contra rebels, despite a congressional ban on support for the Latin American insurgency. An independent investigation concluded that the arms sales to Iran operations “were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan [and] Vice President George Bush,” and that “large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials.” . . . Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel who ran the inquiry, said there was “no credible evidence” that Reagan broke the law, but he set the stage for the illegal activities of others. Impeachment, Walsh said, “certainly should have been considered.”

On April 17, 1986, the Reagan Administration released a three page report acknowledging that there were some Contra-cocaine connections in 1984 and 1985, arguing that these connections occurred at a time when the rebels were “particularly hard pressed for financial support” because U.S. aid had been cut off. The report admitted that “We have evidence of a limited number of incidents in which known drug traffickers have tried to establish connections with Nicaraguan resistance groups.” The report tried to downplay the drug activity, claiming that it took place "without the authorization of resistance leaders.”(click here)

(U.S. Concedes Contras Linked to Drugs, But Denies Leadership Involved", Associated Press, 17 April 1986)

His administration was responsible for numerous brutal actions in Latin America, including massacres in El Salvador and the war against Nicaragua. In fact, Reagan had a major hard-on for Latin America and supported some of the most vicious groups of the era, accounting for tens of thousands of "disappeared" Latin@s brave enough to resist.

The claim that Reagan won the Cold War is pure rightwing propaganda. The Soviet Union had long been far weaker than many American leaders knew, or wished to acknowledge, thanks to CIA gross overestimates of its economy. The Soviet Union was brought down by a number of factors including the inherent weaknesses of dictatorship, the costly war in Afghanistan, and ethnic divides that eventually forced its breakup. Also, almost no due is given to the left-wing activists in the Eastern bloc for their role in setting themselves free from the USSR.

After a major tax cut, there was a long recession and unemployment that hit ten percent.

It was Reagan who first proposed a missile defense system -- immediately dubbed “Star Wars” by skeptical reporters -- in a March 23, 1983 speech from the Oval Office. However, as Frances Fitzgerald reveals in her brilliant history “Way Out There in the Blue,” Reagan didn't get his plan from the scientists or the generals. The Pentagon wasn't even notified of his speech ahead of time. Reagan stole Star Wars directly from -- yup, you guessed it -- the movies!

Finally, I came upon this revealing nugget of information: In 1966, Alfred Hitchcock released a Reagan favorite, “Torn Curtain,” in which an American agent played by Paul Newman works on developing an anti-missile missile. In words that must have made Ronnie tingle, Newman’s character says: “We will produce a defensive weapon that will make all nuclear weapons obsolete, and thereby abolish the terror of nuclear warfare.” Sound familiar? Reagan used almost the exact words in selling missile defense from the office, 17 years later.

As a young man during the ascendancy of the right, I saw the Reagan years not as Morning, but Winter in America...

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization...

Puerto Rican History: Eugenio Maria de Hostos

¡Hola! Evertybody...
The following was taken from a talk by one of my s/heros, Aurora Flores. Journalist, educator, activist and swinging musician (her band, Zon del Barrio rawks!), I always enjoy her contributions. Today she pays tribute to one of the greatest Latin@s ever, Eugenio Maria de Hostos (she’s his great grand niece). This man’s vision and work still reverberates throughout the world.

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-=[ Eugenio Maria de Hostos: Educator, Writer, Patriot ]=-

By Aurora Flores (great grand-niece of Hostos)

Remarks written & delivered at the 30^th Anniversary Celebration of the Founding of Hostos Community College: March 25, 2006 (click here for audio)

“Ideals that take days to conceive, mature over centuries of struggles,” wrote Eugenio Maria de Hostos in the late 1800s. One of the most distinguished and illustrious men in Puerto Rico’s history, Hostos was known worldwide as educator, humanist, abolitionist, feminist, philosopher, writer, politician and above all an early advocate of self-government for Puerto Rico. A Renaissance man of the Caribbean with a clear, liberal, international and pragmatic mindset, he educated an entire continent and was called “Citizen of America.” He advocated for a Federation of the Antilles embracing Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic and devoted his life to seeking the political independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico.

His many essays, articles and books reflect his philosophy on social justice, political science, virtues and moralities for social reform and advocacy. He was an important advocate for the abolition of slavery, the rights of Chinese laborers in Peru and the higher education of women in law and science in Chile playing an important role in reforming the educational system for women throughout Latin America. He established the first teacher’s colleges and advanced methods for teaching throughout the Caribbean, in particular the Dominican Republic. He was known throughout Latin America as a publicist of civic reforms, a rationalist in ethics who believed that “to be civilized and to be moral is the same thing.” And as a writer of graceful and didactic prose.

Eugenio Maria de Hostos y Bonilla was born on January 11, 1839 in the village of Rio Cañas near Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. He was the first of the Ostos family originating from Spain and settling in Cuba to be born in Puerto Rico. First educated in San Juan, he was sent to Spain at 13 to study at the Institute of Higher Education in Bilbao earning a law degree at the University of Madrid. As a student in Madrid, he became interested in politics. While studying law, he wrote newspaper and magazine articles on the need for autonomy for the Spanish West Indies.

He distinguished himself as an essayist and orator in the movement to abolish the slave trade with Africa and to liberalize colonial rule. Already he had conceived the hope that Spain’s territories in the Antilles might be confederated as an independent republic.

He joined the Spanish Republicans because their leadership promised autonomy for Cuba and P.R. To express that hope, he wrote the first of more than 50 books, the allegorical novella La Peregrinación de Bayoán in 1863, describing the voyage to Spain by the Arawak leaders of Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic advocating independence and self governing autonomy for these island nations. When the republicans triumphed over the monarchy three years later in 1869, Hostos’ hope for peaceful change was dashed when the new Spanish constitution left colonialism firmly in place. After realizing the betrayal, he refused the post of Governor of Barcelona and headed for New York.

Once in N.Y., Hostos joined the Puerto Rican Section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party organized by Cuban poet and patriot Jose Marti becoming editor of a "La Revolución," the journal of the Cuban revolutionary movement. He was joined here, with his ideas embraced by, Ramon Betances, leader of the "1868 Grito de Lares" uprising along with Segundo Ruiz Belvis. Here Hostos advanced his formula for an independent Antillean Confederation with a base in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

However he was also disappointed that in Cuba and P.R. there were many who wanted their independence from Spain but who did not agree with the revolutionary ideals. Instead, they preferred to be annexed by, and become a part of, the U.S.

Three years later he embarked on a tour of South America to promote the ideals of a united Antellano Federation, recruit support and raise funds for this liberation movement. He traveled within the U.S. France, Colombia, Panama, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, St. Thomas, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and P.R. And although he had come from a family of privilege, wherever he traveled, he lived humbly among the people and the leaders he was cultivating.

In Peru, he helped to develop the country’s educational system and spoke out against the harsh treatment and exploitation of the Chinese immigrants.

In Chile, he championed the cause of women’s education, particularly in law and medicine.

Hostos arrived in Chile in December of 1871. As professor at the University of Chile he gave a speech titled “The Scientific Education of Women” proposing that the government permit women into their colleges.

He immediately began a controversial campaign of lectures and essays defending the women’s right to education observing and comparing the plight of women as: “…a plant that vegetates without a clue of its existence.” (“Es una planta que vegeta, sin una conciencia que conoce su existencia.”) Hostos turned it around on the men claiming that, “If women are charged with the upbringing of our children, how can they teach those children and develop their intellectual and mental capacities if she does not know how to direct her own life.”

Hostos went on to condemn the educational system in Chile with respect to women by pointing out the following:

“They have taught her to read so that she can read ‘novellas.’ Sometimes she reads novels of religion, sometimes she seeks refuge in the religion of the novel; she has been taught to write so that she may write the novel of her love in the stereotypes from the most stupid teachers who happen to be at hand; she has been taught to pray so that her lips may mechanically evoke what her conscious mind fails to understand; she has been taught to work so that she may do the same work mechanically every day; she has been taught to sing in order to enhance her attractiveness; she has been taught to play the piano all her life, to accompany the dancing of those who are fit only to dance; she has been taught to mistreat a foreign tongue so that she can forget or abuse her own; she has been taught to draw so that she can embroider to perfection or occupy her periods of boredom with the ideal of a man whom she cannot find around her.

Woman have been reduced to the level of a two-legged animal that procreates its kind, that feeds its offspring from its breasts, that sacrifices to the life of the species its own individual existence.”

He went on to reason with the male educators saying: The only thing needed for education is intellectual capacity and the exercise of reason: Reason has no gender, no sex, “La razon no tiene sexo.” It is the same faculty in men as in women operating and functioning precisely in the same manner. (“Y es la misma facultad con sus mismas operaciones y funciones en el hombre y en la mujer.”) If a man can recognize truth through the use of reason, so can a woman. In short, if a man is capable of higher learning, so are woman.

Soon after, Chile allowed women to enter its college educational system.

In Argentina, he campaigned for the construction of the first trans-Andean railroad that, when built, was named in his honor. In Brazil, as correspondent for the Buenos Aires journal La Nación, he wrote a series of articles on the country’s natural history.

After a brief return to New York in 1874, Hostos continued his travels first to the Dominican Republic where he founded the first college for teachers implementing advanced teaching techniques before going to Venezuela where, in 1877 he married the Cuban-born Belinda de Ayala. P.R. poet Lola Rodriguez de Tio, was their maid of honor.

Hostos’ career as an educator began in 1879 when he established himself in the Dominican Republic as founder and director of that country’s first teachers college. First son Eugenio Carlos was born during this year.

For the following nine years Hostos worked intensively to reform the educational system in D. R. often undertaking on his own the writing of the textbooks used. By 1881, his first daughter Luisa Amelia was born followed by the birth of his second son, Bayoan Lautaro in 1882. In 1887 son, Adolfo José was born as the first graduates of the Dominican Teacher’s College were inducted as alumnus of the “Instituto de Señoritas” led by Salome Ureña de Henriquez. The following year Hostos creates the Night School for the Working class: “La Escuela Nocturna para la clase obrera.” He writes his classic book, “Moral Social.”

At the request of President Balmaceda of Chile, Hostos moved to Santiago in 1888 along with his wife, his children, Eugenio Carlos, Luisa Amelia, Bayoan and Adolfo who were born in D.R. He traveled to Chile via Panama and Curazao.

Hostos became the Chair in Constitutional Law at the University In Chile and undertook another nationwide project in pedagogical reform. His pilot school became one of the leading educational centers in Latin America. While in Chile, his son Filipo Luis Duarte was born in 1890.

Hostos returned to Cuba in 1895 to take part in the renewed struggle for independence. In 1898, he returned to New York and founded the “Liga de Patriotas” where he was named president. He then traveled with a delegation of Puerto Rican leaders including Julio J. Henna, Manuel Zeno Gandia and Rafael del Valle to Washington, D.C. to argue with President McKinley for the independence of Puerto Rico. Again, Hostos’ hopes were squashed as the United States government decided to retain Puerto Rico as a territory.

He returns to P.R. just long enough to establish “el Instituto Municipal” in Mayaguez.

Shortly thereafter, the Dominican government called him to reorganize the public education system of the island.

Hostos returned to the Dominican Republic in 1900 as director of the Central College and General Inspector of public education. He continued to play a major role in reorganizing the educational and railroad systems until his death on August 11, 1903 at his home in Las Marias, Santo Domingo where he remains buried in the Panteon Nacional until, as he requested, Puerto Rico is independent.

He wrote his own epitaph that says: “I wish that they will say that in that island Puerto Rico a man was born who loved truth, desired justice and worked for the good of mankind.”

In 1938, the 8th international Conference of America celebrated in Lima, Peru posthumously paid tribute to Hostos and declared him ”Citizen of the Americas and Teacher of the Youth.” Puerto Rico declared his birthday an official holiday. There is a monument honoring Hostos in Spain. In P.R. there are two monuments dedicated to Hostos, one in his native city of Mayaguez, created by renowned sculptor Tomas Batista and another in San Juan created by Jose Buscaglia Guillermety. In NY there is the Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community college of the City University of NY.

Hostos’ voluminous body of writings includes critical studies of Hamlet; Romeo and Juliet; An Historical Description of Puerto Rico; Lessons in Constitutional Law; Reform of Legal Education; Science of Pedagogy; Administrative Decentralization; Project for a General Law of Public Education; The Scientific Education of Women; Sociology and Social Ethics.

* * *

¡Despierta Boricua!

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization...

Cuckoos and Neocons

¡Hola! Everybody...
If you’re throwing stones at Ines Sainz (for having to experience sexual harassment), then perhaps you suffer from a rape mentality. I’m sorry, what a woman wears never excuses sexually predatory behavior. Besides, sexual harassment and rape are still against the law.

* * *

-=[ Of Cuckoos & Neocons ]=-

Facts are stupid things.

-- Ronald Reagan, 1988

The best analogy I’ve heard regarding the neoconservative movement is the one using the nesting habits of the cuckoo bird comparison. Cuckoos employ a rather interesting reproductive strategy involving what is known as “nest parasitism.” Briefly, the female cuckoo lays an egg in the nest of another species of bird (after first removing an egg from the host’s nest). Upon hatching, the baby cuckoo goes on to banish the remaining eggs and hatchlings of the host, at which point it becomes the sole focus of the host parent’s interest.

By now you’re probably asking why the host parents don’t push out the alien egg before the troubles begin, or at the very least abandon the parasitic baby cuckoo once it has grown to a size far larger than host parents themselves.

The problem, of course, is that birds lack the thinking skills necessary to recognize the parasite. They take note of the eggs, of the sight of a baby bird’s features and cries, and follow a “care for egg/hatchling in nest” instinctual pattern. It does not demand much of a masquerade on the part of the cuckoo to abuse the host’s instincts. All that is necessary is the initial neural imprinting by the parent host on the baby parasite’s signals.

One cannot help but be struck by the remarkable parallels between the nesting line of attack of the cuckoo and the infiltration of the conservative movement beginning in the 1970s by the neo-conservatives or “neocons.”

Just as the parasitical cuckoo bird ingratiates itself into the nest of an unsuspecting host, eventually driving out the rightful offspring, so did the neocons come to dominate, to the point of exclusion, what passes today for “conservatism” and “the right.”

Intelligent men and women assure me that there are reasonable conservatives capable of logic, so this will be the only point I will cede on their behalf. I’m told by good sources that republicans were once conservatives -- a political philosophy which literally encompasses the notion of conservation. Those Republicans wanted to conserve important things -- like the public infrastructure, the rule of law, public education, and even our environment. During the last 30 years, though, like my cuckoo birds, the GOP has systematically dumped these classic conservatives from office, replacing them with right-wing, laissez-faire parasites. The neoconservative movement, which bloomed during the Reagan years, is a warped mutation of true conservative ideals. Furthermore, neo-conservatism grew out of racist and classist ideology. Modern conservatism is characterized by a resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality; and some of the common psychological factors linked to it include fear and aggression, dogmatism, and an intolerance of ambiguity.

First, I have to begin with the Biggest Lie -- the myth of Ronald Reagan. I have had it up to here

::grabs testicles::

... with the constant idolization of what was in fact an incompetent (and very likely cognitively impaired) president. In the pantheon of the neocon iconography, Reagan is only slightly lower than the Baby Jesus.

Even Reagan disciples like David Stockman have long since admitted that no one was home at the Reagan White House, that then-Vice President George Bush the Elder was out of the loop, and who today in the right mind could deny that the “Trickle Down” approach to tax reform was a disaster? Today, the Randroids, starting with Greenspan, admit those policies were ineffective and destructive. Even Reagan shill Peggy Noonan admitted in her book “What I Saw at the Revolution,” that he didn’t “really hear very much,” and that his appearance of constant good humor was connected to his deafness. He missed much of what was not said directly to him, but he assumed it was good.

In other words, he was not all there -- nobody home!

Now, I don’t say this to poke fun at a very serious disease, Alzheimer’s. I know people struggle with this disease and I am aware of the suffering it entails. However, we had a president who was quite likely not all there and his adherents constantly attempt to paint him as something great when in actuality, he set in motion many of the dynamics that have contributed to the collapse we’re now experiencing. It didn’t start with Bush the Younger, it started with Reagan.

Hopefully, historians will prove less easily convinced, I dunno...

Love,

Eddie

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce...

I promised myself I wouldn’t post this again. It's been said that history repeats itself -- first as tragedy, then as farce... and that is all I see today, farce. If we really want to honor those who perished on this day, we should start by calling out the shameless bastards using 9/11 to advance their selfish political and economic agenda.

* * *

-=[ Remembrance ]=-

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.

-- John F. Kennedy

I refuse to watch the obscenity that has become the remembrance of 9/11. to me, it’s porno for the masses. I find it repugnant.

Most of us experienced the events that transpired at the World Trade Center vicariously through television.

I didn’t... I was there.

I lived in the vicinity of what is now called “ground zero” since 1969. When the towers collapsed, my building shook. I watched from the roof of my17-story building in horror as people jumped from the Towers.

I heard my neighbor’s horror-filled scream as she stood next to me and watched people who chose to plunge rather than burn. I saw, with my own eyes, that horror, something my mind refused to accept at first. I thought -- I wanted so much to believe -- those little dots was debris, but they were humans.

I walked in silence with the throng of humanity that marched through the streets of lower Manhattan, a mass shrouded in white ashes. The day was a beautifully clear day, the sun shining, as thousands walked in silence, ashen heads bowed.

I saw a woman wander aimlessly, in shock, bleeding from a wound on her head. I saw another limping, and as I heard her whimpering to herself, my heart broke -- again. I saw bits of human beings mixed in with all those billions of bits of papers and files...

I lived in the shadows of the towers all those years. I used to party there every Friday when I was a young man working at the nearby Woolworth Building, almost across the street from the “World Trade,” as I used to call it. When I was 14-15, I took a summer job as a messenger at a printing company where my uncle worked, and I would deliver blueprints to the architects at the World Trade site. At the time I had developed an interest in architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright, and I thought it was pretty cool to see the architectural monstrosity rise (let’s not allow too nostalgic indulgence warp the truth: The Towers were pretty much bland-looking).

I even had sex in the shadows of the WTC -- a youthful impulse early one hot summer morning in the throes of a passionate summer love. Once looking up on my walk to work, I saw a man climbing up the outside one of the Towers – “Spider Man!” blared the headline the next day. In the 70s, a famous tightrope walker walked across a cable stretched between the Twin Towers. There was a lot personal history there in those towers. At least for me, anyway. I also had many friends who worked there, at one time or another. I remember that no matter how drunk I got, all I had to do to make it home was look up to the night sky and point myself in the direction of the Towers.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I had just started working at my current job and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I worked from 12-8. Annoyed that I had no milk for my coffee, I went out in my pajamas to the corner store and when I looked up I saw the back end of a plane sticking out of one of the Towers. I thought it was fucked up, but this is New York, things happen all the time, weird shit always happened at the Towers.

On the way back home, I felt the second plane hit. I felt it. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I won’t retell that tale, we all know it... we saw it replayed on the TV countless times (was it really necessary?)

I took the elevator to my 17^th floor apartment and watched... I watched from the roof, where some of my neighbors had congregated.

I saw thousands of people walking silently, heads bowed, covered in white ash. It was strange to see so many people in one place and feel that silence. I saw people helping one another, stores giving away free water, others helping the wounded. A priest and I helped some who were walking around in shock. That day, I witnessed the nobility of my fellow New Yorkers. I experienced the true potential of the human spirit that day, even in the midst of all that carnage and ugliness.

It was what I saw immediately after that scared me. And as it turns out, I had every right to be scared.

That day, I saw the religious whackos in full force before the dust had settled (literally), handing out pamphlets proclaiming the end times. I saw people buy right into that. It was a scary time, and people were confused, easily swayed.

I saw hatred.

The next day, there was a call for volunteers to escort Muslim women and children because they were being attacked. I saw a lot of anger and fear and I feared that there were forces that would use that tragedy to exploit, to manipulate. I witnessed a bellicose and washed up mayor resuscitate his political career while literally standing on the charred bodies of the dead. He has since made millions from the events of 9/11.

I saw an incompetent president take us to a meaningless war and the shredding of the Constitution -- all in the name of all those dear dead people, in the name of my fellow New Yorkers, all who stood bravely and came together when it was most needed. I saw our leaders take that nobility and turn it into something ugly, something for hatred and greed.

I smelled, everyday, that strange smell emanating from the charred pile that was once the Towers. It was hard ftp describe -- like rotted meet mixed with something else, something unidentifiable. I coughed what we began to call the “downtown cough.” My lungs have never been the same since that day... Through various degrees of separation, everyone one in New York was connected somehow to a death in those towers and I heard the many stories, I experienced the sadness...

We must never forget those who died that day, those nine years ago. We must never forget human spirit that arose that day -- that one sliver of light in that day -- where we all came together as one. But we must also never forget that some used that to lead us into darkness.

If we forget that, then all those people will have died for nothing...

Eddie

Labor Struggles

¡Hola! Everybody…
It is on days like today that I miss great Americans like Howard Zinn, who never failed to remind us never to forget…

* * *

-=[ The Ludlow Massacre ]=-

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

-- James Baldwin (1924–1987)

I hope that you have had an opportunity to gather with friends and family to observe the many that died in order to make certain things we take for granted today. Stuff like fair wages, the 40-hour week hour week, and vacations, for example, are a reality today because people fought for those rights.

That's OK, our Corporate Media and their bland whores -- the well-paid, hair-sprayed teleprompt readers -- would never focus on such a history. No, I don’t blame you for forgetting about Labor and its impact on our lives. After all, there’s much more important stuff to think about.

The history of Labor in the USA is one that is rarely ever discussed and until recently, you would be hard put to find any historical documentation on its history. There is a good reason for this: it’s not a very pretty history. For those of us of a conservative orientation who like to mouth clichés about the “good ole days,” well, they weren’t so good.

Not unless you consider child labor, or the lack of safety in the workplace leading to disease and death, as good. One school teacher, Samuel Yellin, wanted to teach Labor history to his high school students but was unable to find a textbook, so he wrote his own, American Labor Struggles. Until Howard Zinn and some others, this was the only book that documented the history of the US government’s and Big Business’ shameful response to the Labor movement.

One of the more heinous of episodes, now known as the Ludlow Massacre, reads like something out of a fascist government -- which is what corporatization (rule by corporations) is, in fact. When I first read this as part of a deal I made with my then high school-aged son, I was shocked that such things, with all our lip service to individual freedom and fairness, happened in the United States:

On April 20, 1914, 20 innocent men, women, and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. For some time, coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the UMWA for many years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

As a result, for their striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The ensuing massacre was a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strikebreakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later, investigations would reveal that the tents were intentionally set on fire. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.

The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency had been brought in to suppress the Colorado miners. They brought with them an armored car mounted with a machine gun--the Death Special-- that roamed the area spraying bullets. The day of the massacre, the miners were celebrating Greek Easter. At 10:00 AM, the militia ringed the camp and began firing into the tents upon a signal from the commander, Lt. Karl E. Lindenfelter. Not one of the perpetrators of the slaughter were ever punished, but scores of miners and their leaders were arrested and black-balled from the coal industry.

A monument erected by the UMWA stands today in Ludlow, Colorado in remembrance of the brave and innocent souls who died for freedom and human dignity.

Today, people enjoy taking potshots at Unions. Much of this is the result of a media controlled by the very forces that opposes organized labor; some of it is the result of bonehead actions taken the union leaders themselves. However, the only thing standing between you (if you’re not a CEO) and complete servitude are unions, which is why Corporate Christianity abhors the Labor Movement.

I find it hard to write about individual improvement when there is so much denial going on in our country. To stay quiet during times of atrocity is to be complicit in its crimes. This was the example of the Wiemar Republic -- the epitome of Western Civilization. Most of those people weren’t evil, they just didn’t act. There was too much to do, they were too busy, going about the time-consuming activities of daily living to do anything. So after the butcher, the Jew, the homosexual, and then the teacher were gone, there was no one around to help when they came for them.

In the past, people have asked me to write about actions we can take to improve things. That comes later. Before we can act, we must become aware. I write in the hopes that even one person can gain some awareness. Mass movements of social change are founded in this notion of enlightening one mind at a time. History shows us, as Margaret Meade observed many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

I will leave you with the words of someone who was a lot better at this than I will ever hope to be:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” Edward R. Murrow said in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Remember to give thanks to all those men, women, and children who had the fuckin’ cojones to lay down their lives for their convictions, so that we could have better lives.

Love,

Eddie