"Handicaped by History"

"[Helen] Keller, who struggled so vaiantly to learn to speak, has been made mute by history."

-James W. Lowen

Helen Keller was a "radical socialist." She was born in 1880, and grew up in upper class home in Alabama. It seems her communist comminment came from her empathy for handicaped people, many whom made up the working class, injured from factory and other laborious work. She said, "I have visited sweatshops, factories and crowded slums. If I could not see it, I could smell it."

Before she became a socialist, she was beloved because of her endearing struggle as a blind, deaf and mute child. As soon as she became an outspoken communist and rebelled against President Wilson's ant-democratic policies, such as racially segregatiing the federal government, militarily intervening in foreign countries, she became not so adored. Newspaers constantly wrote negatively about her handicaps, saying that because of her "limitations of her development," she had no "independent sensory" and was prone to error. I cannot iunderstand this idea when she was born deaf, blind and mute and overcame these things, graduating from Radcliffe in 1904, founding the American Civil Liberties Union and supporting the NAACP financially and through an essay in The Crisis; she also was on the forefront of the women's rights movement... ofcourse she had independent, and very acute, mental abilities and empathy for the world around her, more empathy and understanding than those who can see and hear the world around them.

In a letter to a a fellow communist, Elizabeth Flynn, then leader of the American Communist party, Helen Keller wrote, "May the sense of serving mmankind bring strength and peace into your brave heart!"

*the title is taken from a chapter in Lies my Teacher Told Me written by James W. Lowen 1995

"Capitalism has failed. We bailed them out, which is Socialism," my cousin told me during a converstaion we had Friday night. She has a very good point that not too many people seem to be concerned about. I hear many people complaing about Unions and taxes, which the Republicans dont want to cut out to save Americans money and solve the deficit problem and create jobs, but they want to "starve the beast" cut out social programs that make living barable for the lower classes of society. The lower classes are a symptom of something greater in this Capitalistic society. They always come for education first- the foundation of society. I think the less educated someone is, the harder their life will be and the more likely they are to be on supplemental assistance. How can the Republicans be concerned about the economic state of this country when they were so busy sending American, union jobs to Asia and the Central and South Americas? Thus, putting more people on welfare, and needing unemployment benefits. No one understands that by supporting WalMart we are supporting China, communism and killing the American economy? We borrow money from China for the wars, then we pay them back, AND give them our hard earned money by buying from places like WalMart, and Target and pretty much anywhere else that has a name we are familiar with. Why do people not realise that if we bust all the unions that we are left vulnerable to falling back into the gnashing machine of worker abuse that was the Industrial Revolution? Because of collective bargaining workers can negociate contracts that ensure their rights, saftey, pensions, AND help the company remain competive. Where I work, Shoprite, is unionized and we are able to keep low prices in this econmoy while still paying union wages to the workers and negociating the fairest possible contracts.

Too many people seperate themselves from the world around them. Portable electronics are great for communitcating, but it discourages observation of the world around them. What affects the poorest village in some unknown thrid world country will make its way into our world. We all need to step back and look at the entire working of the world's economies, social issues, labor practices, culture.... We need to pay attention from where our stuff, our food, clothing, cell phones, comes from and what it took to get it to us. Who burrowed into the mines to dig out the colbalt that is in your cell phone? Who assemembled your laptop or sneakers? How much oil did it take to make it? How much oil are we using to deliver the protein rich soybeans to farms for the cows (why dont we just eat the soy instead to get the protein instead of butchering the cows?)Everything in the world is connected and affects us ALL. Why not work together?

Union Busting

I read an article in my most recent UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) union magazine that I really liked:

UNION BUSTING, THEN AND NOW

"The phrase 'union busting' describes the many ways in which employers, often with outside assistance, try to prevent their employees from seeking union representation at the workplace.

In the past, companies deployed Pinkerton agents, street thugs and even National Guard troops to beat, shoot and intimidate striking employees and union organizers. These days, employers are more discreet as they go about violating their workers' human rights.

Through the years, they have become expert at exploiting weaknesses in federal and state laws that were initially written to protect the rights of the workers to organize themselves and bargain collectively for their wages, benefits and working conditions.

Upon hearing the faintest whisper of pro-union sentiment, companies routinely hire highly-paid "consultants" to advise them of "union avoidance" strategies. Employers also deploy lobbyists and make campaign donations in order to enact laws that make the environment even more difficult for union organizers.

Workers can experience union-busting tactics in many ways. They mights overhear someone spreading anti-union lies in the break room. They might be forced to attend high-pressure "meetings" in which those same lies are expressed in a more forceful and direct manner. All too frequently, they will see their pro-union coworkers harassed, transferred to graveyard shifts and even fired. Recently, we've observed how state governments can engage in blatant union busting as they strip teachers and other public-sector workers of their collective bargaining rights.

In fact, we are in a new golden age for union-busters. A factory on Danville, Va., that makes furniture for Ikea provides a case in point.

IKEA UNDER FIRE

When the Swedish retail giant came to Danville to build its first production facility in the United States, workers in the region were hopeful that Ikea, which has a worldwide reputation for progressive ideas, would become a model employer.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The 335 employees at the non-union plant complain of erratic scheduling, compulsory overtime work and canceled promises of wage improvement. They are paid wages that are far lower than those earned by Ikea's unionized workers in Sweden, where minimum wage is close to $19 an hour.

The workers reacted to these abuses by seeking union representation. Ikea's U.S. subsidiary responded by hiring a notorious anti-union law firm and forcing the workers to attend anti-union propaganda sessions.

This is just one example of the realities that America workers experience every day.

They aren't carrying clubs and shotguns, but the union-busters are out in force. Confronting them will require all of the dedication and courage we can muster. We've worked too hard to get what we have to let them take it away from us."

-written by Anthony Benigno, UFCW Secretary-Treasurer

I had a bad night last night. I don’t know why I write, I just feel compelled to write what I see in my head, yet I suppose it is a form of therapy, since I am very shy, and have a hard time describing my thoughts and ideas aloud before people
I polished off a 1/2 pint of whiskey alone in my room. Tears heavy with heartache. I soaked my pillow so much that if it were filled with feathers, they would never fly again. My mind falls victim to my pillow harboring ominous ideas that wait in shadows to become nightmares.
When I drink to excess I have vivid dreams and the next day I cannot separate reality from my dreams. What people do in my dreams I think really happened.( a kinda funny one, I woke up one morning thinking the Leaning Tower of Pisa fell!) The shows on TV enter my mind as I lie half awake between dreams and slipping away into another. Lat night in my dream my brother was acting schizophrenic and speaking vulgarly to me and today while driving I had to really try to think if that really happened. I know now, it didn't. My sleep is fitful. I sometimes yell out, waking people in other rooms, and also my dog, who runs to my door to see if I'm ok.

At first, when I start drinking my head euphorically spins- mind is suspended in a fragrant warm pool of water- that bitter, burning, sweetness of bipolar ecstasy… a warm rush, spinning euphorically in your own mind, then, restless anger, desire to rebel and be heard and understood, then defeat and overwhelming sadness, yet still feeling, I am grateful for- a passionate feeling.

When I drink in bars, I often get into confrontations and wake the next day with the soft skin around my wrists bruised from pounding my fists on the bar. More than once I have been rescued by family members from these places, only to have me climb out my window, or leave their couch and wander out into the woods, lie in the grass, pretending to stir the stars with a stick I found. I am not easy to take. I have physically fought with my father and got thrown into the car because I wouldn't leave willingly with my parents. I have been bitten by a dog, blood running down my leg, my nose almost broken from falling and I didn't even know it. I was still screaming and arguing about something I cannot remember now.

I went this past week without a drink and felt great. Yesterday, alas, I let myself drink. I didn't even want to. I just told myself I need something to drown my thoughts, or numb me from them for a little. Yet, when I got to the bottom of the bottle, they were there waiting, more intense and painful than before. They followed me into my dreams, made my head pound, and my stomach acidic and nauseous. I writhed in bed all night.

As the birds were summoning the glowing, grey morning light, from the rain soaked tree, looking like spilled ink, I stared up out the window above, my aching head on my pillow. I turned again and tried to sleep. I felt a sick heaving wave in the ocean of my stomach. As I drift slightly, I heard a sound from a bird I had never heard before and I felt it was a message from some other greater Spirit around me letting me know it'll be ok now; it is a new day, a different one and in the grand scheme of things, my life is just a little moment, though it is intolerably painful sometimes, there is nothing God will let happen that you cannot handle with what you have been equipped with inside. I have the ability to bring peace to my body by meditating on God and asking for help. Even though my life is a fleeting moment in the Grand Universe, it is not lost from God. Today is a new day to start over, to start healing.

This time of year is so enchanting!

When the clutch of Winter loosens, and the haughty howls of the cold are soothed by nurturing Spring. Trembling rain drops, like delicate pearls adorn the tree branches full burgeoning buds.

Soon, my yard will look like Heaven spilled a milk pail of tiny purple and blue flowers- turning my yard into an ocean of fairy flowers and the sighs of wild honeysuckle will float on the breeze with the butterflies as I doze in the grass.

I want to work WITH Nature. Surely we can energize and sustain our planet with the more benevolent elements of the Earth- a celestial sphere that delicately exists on the Great Cosmic tree, like the trembling rain pearls. Let us harness the energies of sunlight, water and air- not Uranium. Reuse our waste to fuel machines and vehicles.

I think then the Earth Mother may be happier with us, kinder to us. I feel she is sick and we need to help her get well! We need to come together and help each other and our Earth!

There Was Time Now

How I love old books! Torn, stained unraveling books! My best friend recently gave me an old book from 1926, called Wisp:A Girl of Dublin by Katharine Adams. It was from a library in Charleston, West Virginia. The other night I discovered the library card sleeve and inside an original check out card; the most current return date was March 17, 1931! And here I hold it in my hands in March 2011! A little thing, but I find it haunting.

All throughout the book as I turn the pages, learning more and more about the characters, I find smudges and fingerprints- these people are all probably dead and buried now, but they live on through these now ghostly fingerprints; my thumb landed almost directly on top of a rouge colored thumb print as I turned a page. I get distracted from the story and wonder what the person who held this book in their hands 80 years ago was doing as they read. Was it for school they had to read it? What did they think of it?

There is a small scrap of paper that was probably once white; age has stained the paper and impressed its shadow on the pages. Some nights, I notice when I go to save my place for the night, I fold the top corners at the same places the readers before me have. There are sloppy little side notes and thread peeking out from the pages just before the title page. It is alive with the words of the author, but also with the marks of the people who brought it into their lives briefly. The book and its pages don't erase time or memory; a book gains more character- spirit as it is stained by Time. Books build layers of remnants that become part of the story for every new reader to discover. Not only can you learn from and be entertained by the words of these old volumes, you can FEEL and smell the history as your finger tips grace grains of time.

I don't ever want print to go away!

Power to the People!

I have some catching up to do... so forgive me for the late news!

It is because of unions and negotiations that employers give their workers health insurance, raises, time and a half, paid holidays, vacations and sick days. Unions set the standard of what is acceptable as a employer-employee relashionship. Collective bargaining allows for a representative of the worker and the employer and a representative of the local gov't to sit and discuss a reasonable agreement that benefits both the employer and employee. Why are we people letting unions loose their power!? The people, workers united made unions! Employers are not doing us a favor by giving us a job. They need us to have a successful business. Unions are a necessary voice that works to prevent the worker from being taken advantage of.