Support for Workers/ Economists Who Deserve Love

New Yorkers Show Support

As concerned folks gather in state capitals and urban centers across the country gather to support the last bastion of the rapidly disappearing middle class, ie: workers right to organize and bargain collectively, another huge rally is taking place in Madison. Today police are throwing out protesters with sleeping bags, tomorrow, Sunday, they are going to clear the building of people who have been camped out there for eleven days. At that point the protesters will have three options: 1. To walk out willingly when requested. 2. Make it clear that they are leaving against their will and leave in handcuffs. 3.Resist and be carried out. Options 2 and 3 may result in a misdemeanor arrest and fines.

Since the not-so-great economic collapse and recession this queer and aging hippie has become a bit of an armchair economist following a few leftward bound stars of the profession. Let's hear a shoutout for Paul Krugman, in spite of the fact that he works for the NYTimes, his pithy insights into the recent crash have given encouragement to all of us lowly working stiffs. In that linked article he gives tribute to another of my favorites, Naomi Klein, militant and erudite author of "The Shock Doctrine." Another Marxist of note is Richard Wolff, star of the video, "Capitalism Hits the Fan," which explains in laywoman's language the events which led to our present predicament. Now local Berkeley guy Robert Reich has spoken up eloquently about income inequality and support for public sector workers. My significant other (sig-o?) and I even ran into him in a local chain pharmacy I will not name. At about four-feet, nine inches tall, he's hard to miss. She tapped him on the shoulder and said, "keep up the good work!" Here's a recent piece of his defending social security. And last, but not least, the ever-informative, The Economic Collapse Blog by Michael Snyder.

We Need a Viable Third Party!

I don't care what name we give it. We could call it the Labor Party, like in the UK except without the u. Call it the Coffee Party or any other beverage that isn't taken but the fact is we need a viable alternative to the Republicans and Democrats. True, with Republican attack on unions and public sector workers has successfully caused the Democrats to step up their game. That is encouraging but it's not sufficient. We have to be united and fortified to ride out the coming attacks against us. Yes, we have been engaged in open class warfare since the economic meltdown of 2008 and, in case you haven't guessed, we have been hammered. Now they are just trying to drive the nails in our coffin. But surprise, surprise, we were not dead, only sleeping. Can a million Lilliputians defeat the sleeping giant of corporate greed? Can David slay Goliath? You know the answer already. We just have to get out butts in gear and full speed ahead!

As of today, the Wisconsin assembly railroaded through and passed the bill eliminating pubic sector workers bargaining rights. The measure now goes to the senate where Democrats have been absent for a week, trying to prevent the chamber from achieving a quorum.

Article from Alternet: Uniion Busting is Theft and St. Louis Post Dispatch: On Madison, class warfare comes out of the shadows.

Pink Slips, Pills, War on Women

Walker has now begun sending out as many as 6,000 layoff notices to public sector employees in Wisconsin. Even Lisa Fitzgerald, the wife of republican and state senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald has gotten one. This is a familiar strategy to try to scare folks into compliance. Just last year on March 5, 2010 the then mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom sent out more than 15,000 pink slips to city workers threatening us with termination.

In 1994, every employee of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Newspaper Agency went out on strike. We were tired of working without a contract and going without cost of living raises for so long. After about one week of walking the picket lines, management sent out certified letters to all employees that said we would lose our jobs if we didn't come back to work. Luckily, when I answered my door, my porch was covered with strike/picket signs. The postman said he had a certified letter for some of this name, mine, but it was clear that she wasn't home to sign for it. "Yes," I replied, "she is gone and no-one knows when she'll return." I experienced so many acts of solidarity during that brief, 11 day, strike. BART employees gave us free rides, truckers brought us big boxes of burgers, it felt like a huge extended community.

Well, there seems to be a double dip in the housing crisis. Prices are still falling and new home sales are diving faster than a cormorant on cocaine, Obama's loan modification program has not functioned very well due to lack of cooperation from the banks, gas, food and the prices in general keep rising. Now, the media keeps telling us the recession is over, thinking if they repeat it often enough we will start to believe it.

And, if that's not enough salt rubbed in our wounds, yesterday I saw a televised ad for a new anti-depressant. The commercial begins something like...are you having money troubles, family problems?...Well, ain't that a kick in the head, sell us medication to take while you rob and rape us! This brings me to the GOP's new war on women. Their prescription for returning women to a subordinate class: make abortion illegal, change the definition of rape, and in Iowa and South Dakota there are bill being presented todecriminalize the murder of doctors in clinics that give women access to abortion. So much for all their talk about "right to life."

Obama and DOMA Split-up/ Punked Walker Praises NYTimes

At long last Obama's arc seems to be bending a bit toward justice in the case of queer civil rights. He has instructed his justice department to discontinue its practice of defending marriage as an exclusively heterosexual prerogative, to ignore section 3 of DOMA. Is it conceivable that our asleep at the wheel president is finally waking up the concept of equal rights for all? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, the terminally fascist-leaning governor of Wisconsin was duped into believing that he was speaking to Tyranny Party representative, super-capitalist David Koch when he was actually chatting the progressive editor of the Buffalo Beast, Matt Taibbi. During their extensive phone conversation, Walker praised a front-page article from the New York Times, vilifying "evil" public sector workers and stirring up resentment and misinformation in an attempt to divide and conquer the working class. After all, why punish the actual bankers and venture capitalists who caused this mess, when we can just turn our anger against each other. So much for the mainstream media and its complicity, lies and corruption!

La Lucha Continua...

Today in Wisconsin the AFL-CIO endorsed a general strike on the day Walker signs his "budget repair bill." The last massive and successful general strike in the US occurred in San Francisco in 1934. It was started by longshoremen but grew to include all workers, union and non-union.

Democratic lawmakers in Indiana have followed the example of their Wisconsin colleagues and fled to avoid a quorum on a "right to work for lower wages" bill. Today, February 22, protestors are on all floor of the State Capitol building in Indianapolis. And all the legislators have fled to the state of Illinois. Will there be a hot time in the old town tonight, Chicago?

A major protest is being organized in Columbus Ohio to fight against proposed anti-labor legislation there.

This New American Struggle for Justice is catching fire in a country reeling from job losses, foreclosures and being robbed blind by Wall Street thugs who recieve handsome rewards for their graft and extortion. Click here for the latest updates on the situation and here for data compiled by Mother Jones illustrating the growing abyss of economic inequality in third-world America.

Class War in Wisconsin

Mubarak of the Midwest

Onward street fighters in the state of cheese! Mubarak of the Midwest, Scott Walker, is determined to bring Republican, T-Party style (that's Tyranny Party in case you didn't know) martial law and authoritarian government to our new third-world economy with his refusal to negotiate on anything short of the elimination of collective bargaining rights. Middle class, Sorry I hardly knew ye! Yes, we may not win but at least now we are not lying in the road waiting for the steamroller. Keep on keepin' on sisters and brothers, the rest of the country is rooting for you.

Read more here: Invitation to Class War,
AFL/CIO--Wisconsin is about every worker

The Dyke factor in the Queer Equation

Equality Means Recognizing Difference

Yes, I want unity, I want solidarity with my leftist constituency and for the underdogs to fight and win against the powers that be. But I also want to be accepted for who I am in the context of that struggle. I remember the first time I saw an open lesbian in a performance where the audience was mixed, queer and straight. It was a Lily Tomlin show, "The search for signs of intelligent life in the universe," and oh, I was searching. I enjoyed the show but what surprised me was a homophobically charged encounter with some upper crust type of straight women seated behind us. I don't even recall exactly what transpired but the thing that confounded and amazed me was their homophobic atitudes in spite of the fact that they were watching an "out" dyke, Lily Tomlin, perform.  I'm sure that this kind of thing happens with African-Americans all the time. You know, the famous ones are ok but the regular ones...

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area so, if you are of an optomistic bent, you would think that the people I work with, run into etc. have arrived at a state beyond homophobia. You would be wrong. Although some perceptive and intelligent folks have LGBT people in their conciousness, and in thier FGs (friendship groups), many do not. Some folks are friends with gay men but have never encountered a lesbian. To assume that being cognizant of the issues affecting lesbian, gay bisexual and trans folks by schmoozing with charming and powerful gay men just doesn't cut it. It would be like saying that I'm aware of the issues Muslims face because I know Tariq, Mohammed and Suleman. But until you speak to Fatima, Aisha and Yasmine you don't know squat.