Hickey's 1,000th Post - With Johnny Rivers and Orestes Brownson

Looks like I batted out a grand of these posts. Good practice and exercises each morning along with my prayers and devotions amid sets of 100 push-ups/pull ups/sit-ups and throw-ups. Toweling off the beads of sweat and penitential droplets of tears, I think of what to write about usually after a bracing cup of hot coffee from Kean or perhaps a hotter bit of news.

I work in the poor side of town and have the greatest regard for the families who struggle to meet tuition costs with the heroic help of the Leo Alumni. This is a BS-free Black and White Educational Coalitional - no Progressive helps in any way, shape, or form.

So to celebrate, click my post title for vintage Johnny Rivers* and read some youthful 19th Century American Thought by a guy buried at Sared Heart Chapel at Notre Dame, but by Progressive intellectual bigots - Orestes Brownson.

From Protestant Journalism in Brownson's Quarterly Review

We distinguish between the journal and the newspaper. The newspaper originated some three hundred years ago, if we are not mistaken, in the commercial city of Venice, and was designed chiefly to communicate such intelligence as was of special interest to merchants and bankers, or, as we say now, to the business classes. Gradually it enlarged its scope, especially when transferred to England, and gave political intelligence, as well as banking and mercantile information; but it confined itself to giving current news, and avoided all political and other discussions. It grew naturally out of the invention and general adoption of the art of printing, and simply superseded the intelligence which had been, from time immemorial, communicated by written instead of printed letters. The newspaper was not only a harmless, but a useful invention.

The journal may indeed publish news, but it is not by any means a newspaper. It is of recent origin, and owes its birth to the French revolution of 1789, that fountain of so many evils, and, to human eyes, of no good. The design of the journal is to influence and control public opinion, and, through public opinion, to influence and control public action. The public to which it is addressed may be a party, a faction, a coteric, or a sect, but its design is always to influence and control the thought and action of its public, whether its public be larger or smaller; and it seeks to do this by discussion, by arguments addressed to reason or prejudice, and by declamation, or inflammatory appeals to passion. The so-called independent journalism, represented by such journals as the N. Y. Herald, the N. Y. Tribune, and the N. Y. Sun of this city, professes to be independent of all parties, sects, and cliques, and to set forth the views and convictions of its management alone, or what its management believes, or pretends to believe, is for the public interest. But it must have popular support, a wide popular circulation, and, to gain this, it must court popular opinion, and study not to outrage popular prejudice. It can afford to have no unpopular principles, nor to support an unpopular cause. Indeed it cannot afford to have any principles, especially any religious principles, for any decided principles are sure to be unpopular with one or another section of the public. It, in fact, has no positive religion of any sort; and whatever religion it favors, is so vague and indeterminate that it is as good as none at all. Its influence in regard to religion is either to encourage infidelity pure and simple, or perfect indifferentism. Its religions is secularism, and it is less really independent and more fatal to all the great interests of society than even the partisan or sectarian press.

Satan never made a better hit than when he invented independent journalism; and the New York Herald, which so admirably represents the spirit of the age, should be, as we have no doubt it is, a great favorite with him. None but a renegade or bad Catholic could ever have founded and sustained such a marvellous journal; nor could even a bad Catholic have done it without extraordinary satanic assistance. The very design of the journal is satanic. It throws the forming and directing of public opinion and action into the hands of men who are responsible only to the laws, and hardly to them; who have and can give no guaranty of their wisdom, who scout all authority but their own, and proceed always on the assumption of their own infallibility, and that of the public to which they appeal. Independent journalism is Protestantism raised to its highest power, the deification of private judgment, and a fitting forerunner of Antichrist. Its power is immense, and its despotism is in proportion to its power. . . .

The greatest difficulty a Catholic reviewer encounters is in convincing Catholic laymen and journalists that catholic means catholic. The difficulty is almost as great as that of convincing certain routinist philosophers that nothing is nothing, not something. If religion is catholic, it is supreme and universal, the supreme law in every department of life, extending to every species of human activity. Whether we eat or drink, whether we sleep or wake, whatever we do, we are to do it for the glory of God. The goods of this life, whether national or political, social or economical, are never secured, or, if secured, cease to be goods,

http://www.orestesbrownson.com/index.php?id=5

* Poor Side of Town was a signal to every hormone bursting (abeit, tempered by a Powerful Catholic counter-balance of moral and ethical dignity and the gentling balm of our better natures) south side male (circa 1967) that a 'two-hander' dance would put you in close proximity to the iconic beauties of parish life - Sharon Monahan, Nancy McNicholas, Marita McEnery, Joanne Stefanu, Carolyn Velos, Cynthia Prochaska, Shirley Ward, Rose Proszak, Dianne Zackevich, Denise O'Malley, Ginny O'Malley, Eileen O'Connor, Michele Fiscelli, and Mary Gill. As the needle cut through those grooves, young men were transported to Elysium** - in Little Flower Gym, Leo Cafeteria, and at Mendel, Marist, Brother Rice and I am sure at the public schools.


"Poor Side Of Town," signaled a significant change in Johnny Rivers' musical direction. "I had this tune I'd been working on, and I kept playing it for Lou," Rivers says. "It took me about six months to finish. We cut it with Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn and Hal Blaine. I did my vocal performances live with the band. I sat and played my guitar and sang. There weren't any overdubs. So we said it could use some singers and maybe some strings. That's the time we got together with (arranger) Marty Paich."

Paich, who arranged for Mel Torme and Ray Charles, put lavish strings on "Poor Side.'' However, Adler and Rivers found Imperial reluctant to tamper with a winning formula. "Al Bennett and those guys were goin' 'Man. don't start comin' out with ballads. You're gonna kill your career. You got a good thing goin' with this funky trio rock sound, stay with that."' "Poor Side Of Town" became Rivers' first #1 record.

http://www.johnnyrivers.com/hits.html

**

And those that have three times kept to their oaths,
Keeping their souls clean and pure,
Never letting their hearts be defiled by the taint
Of evil and injustice,
And barbaric venality,
They are led by Zeus to the end:
To the palace of Kronos

Hell, we usually went to Atlas Hamburgers at 79th & Winchester.

Three Card Monte With President Obama

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday left open the door to creating a bipartisan commission that would investigate the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects, and he did not rule out taking action against the lawyers who fashioned the legal guidelines for the interrogations.

Pressure Grows to Investigate Interrogations (April 21, 2009)
The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.

Mr. Obama, who has been saying that the nation should look ahead rather than focusing on the past, said he is “not suggesting” that a commission be established.

But in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, he said, “if and when there needs to be a further accounting,” he hoped that Congress would examine ways to obtain one “in a bipartisan fashion,” from people who are independent and therefore can build credibility with the public.

or as Rahm Emmanuel said two days ago,

EMANUEL: 'Yes, but those who devised policy, he believes that they were -- should not be prosecuted either, and that's not the place that we go -- as he said in that letter, and I would really recommend people look at the full statement -- not the letter, the statement -- in that second paragraph, "this is not a time for retribution." It's time for reflection. It's not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and any sense of anger and retribution.' (This Week, ABC News, April 19, 2009)

or, ANY and EVERY Person who served in the George W. Bush Administrations 2000-2008 - Lawyer Up!

You think Water Boarding is Torture? Now, this will be Torture!

Lard-Asses and Methane Gases! Al Gore and Mike Moore Give Cheeseburgers Passes!

Lard Asses are Rocking the Green Boat! As the Tubby Stubby Kaye sang in Guys and Dolls:

I sailed away on that little boat to heaven
And by some chance found a bottle in my fist
And there I stood,Nicely passin' out the whisky
But the passengers were bound to resisist
For the people all said beware
You're on a heavenly trip
People all said beware
Beware, you'll scuttle the ship.
And the devil will drag you under
By the fancy tie 'round your wicked throat
Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down
Sit down, you're rockin' the boat

Green Hates Lard - 'Carbon FootPrint! Carbon Footprint! Kill Them or at least render the lard down to something useful!' Says The Sweating Toned, Geek Bike-Hatted Progressive, Hot from the Cross Bar of His Schwinn Phantom ( fenderlight, springer fork, chrome fenders, tank, rack, chainguard, balloon tires, and large saddle--all hallmarks of cruiser bikes.)1954~!

Dr Phil Edwards, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Moving about in a heavy body is like driving in a gas guzzler.”

Each fat person is said to be responsible for emitting a tonne more of climate-warming carbon dioxide per year than a thin one.

It means an extra BILLION TONNES of CO2 a year is created, according to World Health Organisation estimates of overweight people.

The scientists say providing extra grub for them to guzzle adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests. The environmental impact of fat humans is made even worse because they are more likely to travel by car — another major cause of carbon emissions.

Progressives the World Round Hate Overweight Folks - who tend to be married with children ( Fatties Don't Seem to Abort!), pay mortgages instead of rent ( are not transient demographics), tend to smoke and drink beer and do not have memberships in health clubs - Demographer Joel Kotkin explained this years ago -

The new progressivism reflects largely the narcissism of its political base in the urban core and a few elite suburbs. Liberal “progressive” activists in affluent,largely childless places like San Francisco, Manhattan, Seattle, Portland, and Boston see the world as needing simply to become more like themselves. As The
Stranger, a Seattle weekly, put it, they perceive themselves as “islands of sanity,
liberalism and compassion” compared with the suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas
where “people are fatter and slower and dumber. “

That is why Lard Asses pay more on United Airlines - unless you happen to be Al Gore, Keith Olbermann or Mike Moore - Progressive Lard asses!

Olbermann & Maddow Seek Joint Custody of Somali Pirate Waif - Our Own MSNBC Canute!

Abduhl Wali-i-Musi has captured the hearts of MSNBC and they will want you to know that -'It's Alright to Pour Out Your Heart to Abduhl Wali-i-Musi !'

Two Single - UnMarried ( He Can't Get a Date and She Can't Get a License-for Now!) -MSNBC Anchors Rachel Maddow and Tubby Olbermann have opened their hearts to the Kid from the Horn! The Kid with the Heart to Know that Seals Were About to Light Up His Life! Abduhl Wali-i-Musi our Own American Canute ( you know the! . . .The Squarehead Polar Bear Cub) who will Steal our Hearts after Stealing our Ship!'

Show the Love! Laughter is harder... Discover where the emotion is...the friendship is...and the laughter is...Abduhl Wali-i-Musi is here to stay and get richer than Johnny Depp! . . .And He Will!!!!! The Pirate Who Will Scuttle Your Heart -Abduhl-Wali-i-Musi - A Smile That Can Light Up a Room -Dropped the AK-47 to Light Up Sailors!

Friendship is stronger... Trust is deeper... When it comes from the heart. Abduhl Wali-i-Musi MSNBC's Heart is Yours! CNN wanted it but they keep tripping over their own wee-wees as we say here.

This story has got Oscars written all over it!!! Boffo!

Rosie O'Donnell IS Keith Olbermann!

Sean Penn is Rachel Maddow - Together on the Big Screen and DVD's Pirated in Asia!

How about Alec Baldwin as Little Abduhl Wali-i-Musi and Susan Sarandon as His Ma? Bill Maher the Narration!

Kids! Get Dad's Story Board and a Twelve Pack of Leinie!

These Two Terrorists Were Water Boarded 266 Times- That's All??????

President Obama ordered that all documents reveal everything about the shocking treatment our guests in Gitmo were treated to and frankly, I am shocked.

You mean to tell me that these two were only watreboards 266 times between them? These two mopes* merit more wet and wild! Much, much more! The Waterboarding Park is Closed Permanently - well, until 2012 anyway.

It'll be back open.

*

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11th attacks, a man who called himself a "jackal" and who explained away the 3,000 victims of that day by saying "the language of war is victims." At least that is what he has told American interrogators, and what he said at a closed hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after being held in secret prisons for close to four years.

On Dec. 8, 2008, Mr. Mohammed, along with four co-defendants, sent a note to a military judge at Guantánamo asking to confess and to plead guilty.

Mr. Mohammed, an ethnic Baluchi, was born in Kuwait on April 24, 1965. He is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. After graduation from secondary school, he enrolled at Chowan College in Murfreesboro, N.C. and then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He graduated in 1986, earning a degree in mechanical engineering.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, his only involvement with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was conversations with Mr. Yousef, and some contributions to the conspirators. He traveled to the Philippines with Mr. Yousef in 1994 and worked on the Bojinka plot -- a plan to explode 12 commercial jets over the Pacific. They also made plans to assassinate President Clinton on his November 1994 trip to Manila. The Bojinka plot fell apart and in 1995 Mr. Yousef was arrested in Pakistan.

Mr. Mohammed was indicted in the United States on charges stemming from the Manila plot, but he eluded the F.B.I. in Qatar in 1996. He fled to Afghanistan and met with Osama Bin Laden, where he proposed a plan to train pilots to crash 10 planes into targets in the United States. Mr. bin Laden was not persuaded but he asked Mr. Mohammed to join Al Qaeda, an offer he declined. After the 1998 African embassy bombings by Al Qaeda, however, he accepted Osama’s invitation to move to Afghanistan and pursue the 9/11 plan.

In addition to directing the 9/11 plot, Mr. Mohammed was involved in several other plans, according to the 9/11 report, including sending Dhiren Barot to the U.S. to check out targets in New York City, as well as plans for attacks in Israel, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia.

In October 2001, Mr. Mohammed became one of the 22 men on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists As an operations chief for Al Qaeda, he launched plots including a suicide hijacking over the Pacific and plans to blow up gas stations and bridges (according to Defense Department documents).

He was captured on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. For the next several years, Mr. Mohammed was held in secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency. In September 2006, Mr. Mohammed and 13 other “high value’’ Al Qaeda prisoners were transferred to the detention center in Guantánamo.

At a hearing held there released in March 2007, Mr. Mohammed took full credit for the 9/11 attacks and a number of other plots. He also asserted that he had personally decapitated Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The scope of his confessions led some human-rights advocates to wonder if they reflected the effect of his captivity and harsh interrogation. Other intelligence experts wondered if he were claiming so much to provide cover for former colleagues who might have been involved.

The Times reported on April 20, 2009, that a 2005 Justice Department internal memo said that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Mr. Mohammed. The Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.

The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Justice Department under the Bush administration declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.

Related: Osama Bin Laden | Sept. 11, 2001

Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 after a gunfight with Pakistani security officers backed by F.B.I. and C.I.A. officers. Bush administration officials portrayed him as a Qaeda leader. That judgment was reflected in an Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion signed by Jay S. Bybee, then head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo summarized the C.I.A.'s judgment that Abu Zubaydah, then 31, had risen rapidly to "third or fourth man in Al Qaeda" and had served as "senior lieutenant" to Osama bin Laden. It said he had "managed a network of training camps" and had been "involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by Al Qaeda."

The memo reported the C.I.A.'s portrayal of "a highly self-directed individual who prizes his independence," a deceptive narcissist, healthy and tough, who agency officers believed was the most senior terrorist caught since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In April 2009, the release of a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum revealed that C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding at least 83 times against him in August 2002 - and that the interrogation technique had been ordered based on a highly inflated assessment of his importance.

An article in The Times on April 18, 2009, said that Abu Zubaydah had revealed nothing new after being waterboarded. A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew. In April 2009, Mr. Kiriakou disputed the Times article, saying that he believed that after unspecified "techniques" were used, Abu Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh.

The Times article, based on information from former intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. The article said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding.

The United States had first begun interrogating him, according to multiple accounts, in Pakistan, and continued the interrogation at a secret C.I.A. site in Thailand, with a traditional, rapport-building approach led by two F.B.I. agents, who even helped care for him as his gunshot wounds healed. Abu Zubaydah gave up perhaps his single most valuable piece of information early, naming Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom he knew as Mukhtar, as the main organizer of the 9/11 plot.

The conclusion that he revealed no new information after being waterboarded appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been "unnecessary" in his case. An official with direct knowledge of the case told The Times that watching his torment caused great distress to his captors.

Andy Stern's SEIU Murders School Reform and Buys A Lotto!

Here's Andy looking down on his membership! They can Blackmail a Bank, Buy a Lotto and Kill School Reform with their Dues! Now, That's Collectivist Bargaining!

Andy Stern is busier than a dog gifted by nature with a surplus of male reproductive appendages!

1. Stern is out to Destroy Charter Schools and Murder School Reform in Chicago

2. Andy Stern's SEIU is blackmailing Bank of America CEO into backing Card Check Legislation

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/26649c82-2d44-11de-8710-00144feabdc0.html

3. Andy Stern and Ivy League Commies of the SEIU Leadership are Buying the California Lottery

SEIU donates to lottery ballot measure
By Anthony York | 04/17/09 12:00 AM PST

The state’s largest public employee union has given $300,000 to the campaign for Proposition 1C, the lottery modernization measure that would allow the state to borrow up to $5 billion from lottery proceeds.

The money comes as deep divisions swirl among the Service Employees International Union over how to play in the May 19 special election. SEIU’s state council has opposed Proposition 1A, the state spending limit measure, and opened an account earlier this week to launch a formal campaign against 1A.

But SEIU has endorsed Proposition 1C, and a spokesman for Local 1000 said it makes sense for the union to support the measure.

“Our position on Prop 1C is consistent with our position that the state of California could be generating more money out of the lottery if it had a different managerial structure,” said Local 1000 spokesman Jim Zamora.

SEIU’s contribution did not go to the committee controlled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political team, which is pushing for passage of all of the May 19 measures. Instead, the money went to a committee sponsored by GTECH, a Rhode Island-based company that contracts to supply lottery equipment to the state.

Roger Salazar, a spokesman for the Yes on 1C committee, welcomed news of the contribution. “One thing we all agree on is that if we can generate additional state revenues without tax increases, it makes sense for everyone,” Salazar said.

But the big question remains the extent to which the state council will fund the No on Proposition 1A campaign.

Stay tuned.
« Done

Rich-urd Da Turd - Uh ShakesPeer Story Sed'n Ol' Days

CHICAGO - In honor of William Shakespeare's upcoming birthday, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has proclaimed "Talk Like Shakespeare Day" in the city.
Although Shakespeare's actual birth date is not known, many scholars believe it to have been on April 23, 1564, since the poet and playwright is known to have been baptized three days later. This year, April 23 is Thursday. In his recent proclamation, Daley urged Chicagoans to celebrate the occasion by bringing the spoken words of Shakespeare into their daily lives. Shakespeare, who died in 1616,

Now's Da winner of R disconten'
Made Glor Yus summer by Dis sun a York; (Sunna York? Was Dis? Okay.)
En a clouds that lour'd upon R house
In Da deep bo-sum of da oshun berry'd.
Now R R brows boun' wit victor-yus wreats;
R broos'd R'ms hung-up fur mon-Yaments;
R stern alarums chayng'd ta merry meetin's, (Merry Meetin' Never Seen One)
R dredful marches to da--lightful meshurs.

Hey, All did stuff is gettin goofier !
Look, We got the Read a Book already on
Cable Access! Okay!!!!!!!Jackie, Rememer' who
Signs Yer Checks! . . .

Grim-visig'd war hat smoo'd his wrinkld frunt;
En now, 'stead a mountin' barbered studs
Ta fright da souls a fearful adversaries,
He capers nim'ly in a lady's chamber ( Dis is goin' too far Look I' Gay Mayer an Alll But I gotta go out at night en all !)

To the lasivus pleasin of a lude.
Bud eye, dat am't shap'd fur sportive tricks, ( Dat Hooker Talk?)
Normade ta court a am'r'us lookin'-glass;
I, dat am rudely stamp'd, en wan love's madgessteey
Ta strut before a wantin ambling nymph; ( Jezzus D'll Kill me Wit Dis!)
I, dat am curtail'd of this fair pruporshun,
Cheated of feature by dissemblin' naychure,
Daformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
En Dat so lam'ly and unfash'nable
Dat dogs bark at me as I halt by Dem; ( en fine out wooz lettin' Dogs Run Loose aroun' here! I'll getiz Card Yank'd)
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain dese fair well-spok'n days,
I am determinta prove a villain
En hate da idle pleasures of dese days.
Plods have I laid, induckshuns daneg-rus,
By drunk'n prof-sees, lie-bells n dreams,
Ta set my brudder Clare-rence . . .I god a Mike n a Billy n a Johnny -no Brudder Clare-rence . . .and Da king Dat's Me!)
In deadlee hate da one against da udder:
Anif King Edward ( dat's a Ol' Cigar Ain't It?) be as true an just
As I'm subtle, false en trech-russ, ( Jackie Did Dat Basturd Kass Write Dis en Trow Id In?)
Dis day should Clare-rence clos'ly be mew'd up, ( Clarence Gotta Cat?)
Abouda proph'cy, which says that 'G' ( Dat's Fitzy Ain'Id?)
Of Edwerd's heirs the murd'rer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down ta my soul: here ( points)
Clarence comes. ( Comes Where? I can' wade'll dis day's over!)

Happy St. Alphege's Day & President Barack Unræd: St.Alphege, Pray for Us!

I love Mass at Sacred Heart, the little French Mission Chapel located east of Morgan Park at 116th % Church Street. It is a rickety little place, rickety simple souls pray for their families and community.

Mass is always said by retired priests of the Archdiocese or from the Missions. Smart old guys with miles of experience and leagues of learning.

Today's Gospel came from John - odd ball stuff usually. The tale of doubting Thomas and etc. but the treat came in the homily about St. Alphege* - English monk, hermit, abbot and adviser to King Ethelred.

King Ethelred the Unready sent Alphege to treat with the invading Danes. Ethelred the Unready. I went back to my Bright's Old English Grammar and Reader after Mass and recalled that unready or Unræd means -badly advised. Despite Alphrege's piety and learning the members of Witan (Anglo Saxon Council) pushed Ethelred to policies that caused England's enemies to defeat it at every turn Ethelred means 'Wise Council,' but the unfortunate kings full name is Æþelræd Unræd or 'Wise Council Unadvised.'

This put me in mind of President Obama a talented man Unready for the Presidency and Mal-Advised - or Advised by the Unwise.
President Obama The Unready - Barack Unræd

I do Hope that I am wrong. So, far President Obama has lived up to my very low expectations. Good Lord talk about unwise advice!

Janet Napolitano
Tim Geithner
Hillary 'Pirates Make Me Giggle' Clinto
Eric 'Y'all Cowards' Holder



Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!
John, to stop Arthur's tide in the whole,
Hath willingly departed with a part;
And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,
Whom zeal and charity brought to the field
As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear
With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,
That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,
That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,
Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,
Who having no external thing to lose
But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that;
That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,
Commodity, the bias of the world—
The world, who of itself is peised well,
Made to run even upon even ground,
Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
This sway of motion, this commodity,
Makes it take head from all indifferency,
From all direction, purpose, course, intent—
And this same bias, this commodity,
This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,
Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,
From a resolv'd and honourable war,
To a most base and vile-concluded peace.
And why rail I on this commodity?
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet;
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
When his fair angels would salute my palm,
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich.
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.
Since kings break faith upon commodity,
Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.

Act II of King John



*St. Alphege
Feastday: April 19
1012


Archbishop and "the First Martyr of Canterbury." He was born in 953 and became a monk in the Deerhurst Monastery in Gloucester, England, asking after a few years to become a hermit. He received permission for this vocation and retired to a small hut near Somerset, England. In 984 Alphege assumed the role of abbot of the abbey of Bath, founded by St. Dunstan and by his own efforts. Many of his disciples from Somerset joined him at Bath. In that same year, Alphege succeeded Ethelwold as bishop of Winchester. He served there for two decades, famed for his care of the poor and for his own austere life. King Aethelred the Unready used his abilities in 994, sending him to mediate with invading Danes. The Danish chieftain Anlaf converted to Christianity as a result of his meetings with Alphege, although he and the other chief, Swein, demanded tribute from the Anglo-Saxons of the region. Anlaf vowed never to lead his troops against Britain again. In 1005 Alphege became the successor to Aleric as the archbishop of Canterbury, receiving the pallium in Rome from Pope John XVIII. He returned to England in time to be captured by the Danes pillaging the southern regions. The Danes besieged Canterbury and took Alphege captive. The ransom for his release was about three thousand pounds and went unpaid. Alphege refused to give the Danes that much, an act which infuriated them. He was hit with an ax and then beaten to death. Revered as a martyr, Alphege's remains were placed in St. Paul's Church in London. The body, moved to Canterbury in 1023, was discovered to be incorrupt in 1105. Relics of St. Alphege are also in Bath, Glastonbury, Ramsey, Reading, Durham, Yorkminster and in Westminster Abbey. His emblem is an ax, and he is depicted in his pontifical vestments or as a shepherd defending his flock.

SEIU and CTU Have Been Murdering School Reform!

Andy Stern's Purple Finger prints are all over Marilyn Stewart's CTU work to murder School Reform in Chicago. Stern and radical activist Mike Klonsky are old hands at this stuff. Work within the system and you really get to blow things up!

From Dist 299 -

SEIU Organizing Charter School Teachers
A couple of posts down, Mike Klonsky highlights the fact that some charter schools in other places -- NYC, LA -- have organized teachers, and that it hasn't always been via the teachers local. (I know that substitutes sometimes end up being organized by nonteacher locals, too.) In LA it was SEIU, for example. What I'm wondering is whether SEIU does any better than CTU would do, what folks think about the idea of charters under union agreements, and...well, mostly those two things.

Here is the concern of a Charter teacher on that same site.

I think one issue is whether SEIU would do any better. As someone in a charter school I have no interest in belonging to CTU (and by law, I actually can't).

Unionizing charters will be hard for a number of reasons. Each charter school would have to have their own contract with their teachers, or suddenly every charter school would have to have the same hours, prep periods, class sizes, school years, etc., and then the point of charters being able to decide these things independent of the school district would be lost.

I think you'll also see a lot of resistance from some of the larger national charter school funders, many of whom aren't the most union friendly groups in the world.

I don't see any need for a union at my school right now, I was given a fair review and a chance to negotiate my own contract, and when it comes down to it, I'd rather be the one at the bargaining table. The only people I know who wouldn't are those teachers who don't deserve a raise anyway.

That being said I'm sure there are other charters where teachers probably aren't treated with the same level of respect, and I'm sure if charters start to unionize, they'll be the first to go. Either way, it will be interesting to watch what happens. It would definitely be a blow to the neo-cons.

Posted by: Charlie | July 26, 2007 at 01:45 PM

Not to Neo-Cons, Charlie. To School Reform. You sound like a professional and that is what education needs.

Real Unions in Danger = Stern's SEIU

Andy Stern and Anna Burger are destroying the American Labor Movement - Labor Leaders who have anything to do with these two career Lefty sneaks help them destroy Labor.

Here in Chicago, CTU lead by the oafish Marilyn Stewart want Charter School teachers to turn their backs on the contracts that each one of them signed in good faith and seek cover in Chicago Teachers Union. School Reform means nothing to CTU. Charter teachers who signed to join CTU are breakers of oaths, they want to be treated as professionals and act like whiny fools. The work loads that they contracted to do - agreed to do, for the pay and position with International Charter Schools are now too much of a burden on them.

Quit.

Join CTU and Chicago Public School System and all that goes with that shameful and corrupt, incompetent, lazy and greedy system. I know many heroically dedicated Public School teachers and they too are ashamed and disgusted by the stupidity and cant of CTU leadership and that comes from it.

SEIU needs an unskilled workforce to add greater numbers to its sad and 'going-nowhere' membership.

SEIU need to bring down the trades as well as the Schools.

Here's one of the Stern Gang writing about his covert work to undermine the Carpenters Union.

Labor’s New Deal – Douglas McCarron’s Raw Deal for the UBCJA
By Chris the Abducted Alien
Rated "G" by the Author.
Last edited: Sunday, April 27, 2008
Posted: Sunday, April 20, 2008



The article written by Andy Stern outlines the history of the beginnings of our labor in America starting with Calvin Coolidge who once famously declared, “The chief business of the American people is business.” Coolidge’s heirs today are corporatists who have succeeded in rolling back many elements of the New Deal and the subsequent reforms that helped create a great American middle class.

Franklin D. Roosevelt understood that in addition to government programs, a balanced economy requires strong labor unions. Then, as now, increased unionization created higher wages and benefits for both union members and unorganized workers. As unionization increased, the middle class grew. And as the percentage of workers represented by a union has declined in the past three decades, the disparity of wealth has increased in the corporate world.

We need to take into account the vast changes that have occurred since the New Deal, and we must continually adjust as new changes take place. America still needs strong unions--as well as a government on the side of working people--as part of the solution to rebalance power, provide greater fairness, make work pay and ensure that the dreams of all American children can still come true.1

Let’s fast forward to the present...



The plan by the wealthy leaders in our world, including Bush & Company and the representatives in his current regime, has been to steamroll and eliminate the middle class at warp speed. Let’s see what part the UBCJA under General President Douglas McCarron has had in this plan...


General President McCarron tightened his control of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners at the union’s convention in Las Vegas on August 25, 2005, when delegates voted to give him a third five-year term. The pro-democratic opposition slate, “Restore the Vote” team, did not have a chance...

Since then, he has run our union like it is his personal property. He has given himself dictatorial powers in our Constitution; he has amassed delegates, most of whom are beholden to him for jobs. Just like some of our individual carpenter locals continue to do today to most of our members.
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Note: Articles, sources, and citations are given at the end of my article.
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McCarron basically has been running our carpenters union like a corporation. He even boasts that centralized leadership is more efficient and attractive to employers and would produce more jobs for working carpenters. What he does not tell us is that his plan was to replace us, the professional carpenter with people that the corporate contractor will train to be uneducated and unthinking, just a robot, to service the employer in our trade, kept ignorant to our bargaining agreement, and happy to make less than our current union scale. This person is less likely to give our corporate unions any problems and our Regional Councils can make as many concessions with our bargaining agreements as needed to keep our coffers full at our corporate Regional Councils, thus letting America know we still have strong unions.


The many younger members, and all the new journeyman carpenters who are allowed to buy their union cards when they come along with a newly signed non-union contractor, do not know the carpenters history behind our bargaining agreement and how it came to be. They do not know how the carpenters in the late 1800s and early 1900s fought and died for the rights and wages we have enjoyed up till now...it is the members in all unions that are the ones who make up a good portion of the middle class in America...


I would like to make it very clear right now, that what I am getting ready to talk about does not involve every Regional Council, Executive Officer, or Officer at a local. We have been infiltrated with McCarron representatives at every level. These are men and women who believe and work towards McCarron’s plan and takeover of the UBCJA. Some of our representatives and members are still passionately unaware of the New Global Union plan for our UBCJA by McCarron.


Opposition from union carpenters continues to grow across America for UBCJA General President Douglas McCarron. He has taken the vote away from the rank and file carpenters and given it to himself and transferred that ability to all the Regional Councils left in our UBC. McCarron has even stepped over the border with his bullying in Canada.


Some of the men and women that now run the various Regional Councils across America and Canada are acutely aware of what is really happening but have been placed between a rock and a hard place because of the bullying with threats of losing their jobs and dictatorship policies made by McCarron. But many others are falling in line with the McCarron republican corporate labor union plan.


If we do not stand up and fight, we the rank and file, the working carpenters and our children that come after us are all going to lose...but our union administrators will continue to get their fat salaries and double pensions!


Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and UNITE-HERE are thought of as the reformers of anti-democratic behavior within our various unions. So why did the newly formed federation Change to Win Coalition invite General President McCarron to become part of the seven partner unions?


Andy Stern, who is the president of the SEIU, has always criticized President George W. Bush’s domestic and foreign policies. I wonder how Stern is dealing with McCarron today, knowing that McCarron is Bush’s darling Republican labor leader who gets to ride on Air Force One? McCarron has been meeting with Bush since his election as General President of the UBCJA in 1995...


There is no longer any mention of the UBCJA being part of the Change to Win Coalition in 2008.

The following is a statement by Anna Burger, Chair of Change to Win Coalition:

WASHINGTON DC, May 11, 2007 -- “On behalf of the six million members of Change to Win unions and its Leadership Council, we are disappointed that House Democratic leaders joined with the Bush Administration yesterday to announce a trade deal that is more free than fair.

The agreement does not represent the basis for the type of new U.S. trade policy that this nation desperately needs. Despite improvements in labor and environmental standards, workers remain at risk because the proposal fails to address how to protect U.S. jobs or create new ones. It undermines our prevailing wage and Buy America laws. And it hands foreign firms operating here more privileges over U.S. companies. For working America, that is not a deal.

Quick policy fixes won’t help workers achieve the American Dream in the 21st century– they need a whole new trade model equipped to meet the realities of today’s global economy.

Without significant changes, this agreement opens the door for subsequent harmful trade policies that resemble NAFTA/CAFTA – trade deals that have led to the loss of millions of good jobs at home, a surge in undocumented immigration, the soaring trade deficit, declining wages, and a deterioration of labor standards.

Change to Win stands for fair trade that promotes prosperity at home and abroad so that workers can achieve the American Dream in an era of globalization. Fair trade helps create standards that will stimulate development, protect and create new U.S. jobs, and maintain high wage standards around the globe – the Peru/Panama trade agreement falls far short of this.

It’s time for an alternative approach to this current failed model. We call on Congress to get back to work craft meaningful policies in current and future trade negotiations. We need to ensure that workers, not just corporations and CEOs, fairly share in the benefits of today’s global economy.”

Story by Steven Greenhouse on February 21, 2008 -- Change to Win gets behind Obama. In a conference call this morning, four of the coalition’s unions — the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers and Unite Here — voted to back Mr. Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. With their votes, they ensured that unions representing two-thirds of the coalition’s members were backing a candidate, triggering the group’s endorsement.

The three other unions in the coalition — the Laborers, the UBCJA and the United Farm Workers — abstained. The carpenters union had initially endorsed Senator John Edwards, while the farm workers, easily the smallest union in the coalition, have endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

The Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters had this charade late last year in the Chicago area, actually in Iowa, with the current Presidential primary, and the UBCJA giving $500,000 of our money to an unknown person, Senator John Edwards to run in the primary for President. We had two perfectly good Democratic candidates already running in the primary...why was the UBCJA backing Edwards? Why did our Regional Councils go along with it? Why did none of our members (working carpenters) know about this? And why have we not heard any more about it? McCarron again did this without the permission or vote of the members...


All 50,000 of our members here in the Chicago area received a letter announcing the UBCJA backing John Edwards the same day he, John Edwards, dropped out of the Presidential primary. That was the first time many of the carpenters heard of John Edwards!


Again, carpenters here do not know what our Regional Council was thinking; they are not talking and continue to have meetings in secret and without all members knowing what their plan is. I personally feel this was one of the biggest mistakes our union in Chicago could have done...not allowing the rank and file (working carpenters) in on what has been happening with our Labor union(s). Now, all of the deceit and manipulation that is occurring in the UBC is on our shoulders. Many carpenters here in the Chicago area are continuing to talk about them and are starting to think they are part of McCarron’s Republican plan.


I attended the International Convention in Las Vegas in 2004 and heard Douglas McCarron speak. I have been giving him the benefit of a doubt as to what I heard him say at the convention and have been continually questioning his speech and the statements made by him...was this guy for real? He was talking about opening up diversity to people of color and women in our union so we could help to keep it strong. And then going on to say, also allowing the women who were and are part of this union to organize and now help to work to be part of the century old union. I never thought I would hear something like that from a union guy in my lifetime! It was just too good to be true , I was dumbfounded!


But now, in 2008, my take on this is McCarron is just another carpenter talking out the side of his mouth. “Doublespeak” has been practiced by politicians for decades. It is also now known as the ultimate betrayal by our union administrators who have learned the practice well! In society today nothing has been more widely accepted, used and promoted then the art of “Doublespeak.” McCarron continues to tell the union members what we want to hear, so he and his administration can complete the republican plan. He has been trained to complete this plan well from Bush and Company...as to what has to be done with middle class Americans in order for the Unions to survive in America...


We have seen no labor unity between UBCJA and the other Change to Win Coalition and AFL-CIO affiliate unions in the current race for the presidential primary. All the other unions are either backing Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. This tells me we have a few defectors to democracy in our unions, and one of them is our UBCJA...


The working carpenters here in the Chicago Regional Area are getting ready to get into serious difficulties with concessions being given to contractors with our Bargaining Agreements for several of the counties that are coming up this year 2008. The “Raw Deal” is already happening across America in the Carpenters and other unions. I predict concessions will be given to the employer’s big time this contract year...all in the name of our failing ECONOMY precipitated and planned by Bush and company and advantageously completed by McCarron in the carpenters union and by others in the other unions...


Here is an overview of what is happening in our Carpenters unions and our agreements across America and Canada:


First, millions of Americans are starting to become aware of what the Republicans have been planning over the past two decades. This is to eliminate the middle class by busting the unions to destroy our economy, our education system, and turn all of us against each other over hate for one reason or another, and now by allowing the immigrants to take over jobs in the United States for less pay.


McCarron’s plan has been no different; it has become the Corporate UBCJA. Get the undocumented workers who are mostly already uneducated, who know nothing about our bargaining agreements or our laws and are willing to work for less money than union scale carpenters are making under our current agreements. The immigrant’s loyalty is to the Regional Council and the puppets that run some of the locals. Some of our Regional Councils and locals are assisting the illegal immigrants to get Department of Homeland Security working cards in the United States, even though they are still not registered as legal residents in the United States. And there has been very little talk about the immigrants being dual citizens of both the United States and the other countries (where they were born).


McCarron and his kingdom of Regional Councils have been pandering to the contractors union and non-union (big business) and destroying our current bargaining agreements within our union across America and Canada. The Brotherhood of Carpenters is going to “hell in a hand basket,” and they are selling the rank and file working carpenters down the river...

November 7, 2005 – “UBCJA President McCarron in Washington DC is threatening American-style bully tactics to conduct a hostile takeover of the autonomous BC Carpenters Union.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBCJA) sent a letter last Friday to the BC Provincial Council of Carpenters elected President, Len Embree, threatening to impose immediate "supervision" over the independent BC Carpenters Union, its 7000 members, and their union's assets.”

This story by EDMONTON/630 CHED, September 20, 2007 - - The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the Alberta Building Trades Council have taken out ads warning carpenters they could face criminal charges or civil action if they don't return to work.

Headline News: “Threats of criminal charges for striking workers in Alberta, Canada. Federation Labor laws are being fought by over thousands working carpenters at a rally in Alberta, Canada. The Alberta Labor Code is dead!

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has dealt a fatal blow to these oppressive Labor Laws and the future for Canadians in Alberta is beginning to have promise.

Saturday, September 22, 2007 the funeral for the Alberta Labor Code will be held at the Alberta Labor Relations Board - 10808 - 99 Avenue at 12 noon and a Funeral parade will head to the Alberta Legislative building where the Alberta Labor Code will be put to rest.

For two days, beginning September 6, Alberta carpenters rallied in front of the Alberta Labor Relations Board to affirm their right to take collective action to defend their interests. On Thursday, September 6 more than 200 carpenters rallied outside the Alberta Labor Relations Board (ALRB) in downtown Edmonton where yet another employer complaint was being heard. On Friday, their numbers grew to more than 600 and the carpenters were joined by members of other unions. They filled the room where the hearings were taking place and closed the entire street in front of the ARLB offices.”


Corruption continues to run rampant in the Chicago and across America and Canada. From what I remember on the history of labor I read...it was the Canadians that started the rank and file working carpenters labor movement. Peter J. McGuire’s movement in 1881 started for the carpenters here in the United States after the Canadians fought and won for their rights in Canada. McGuire’s plan was taken from the Canadians...


Sheet rockers in Baltimore and Vancouver got the raw end of the deal along with Southern California style drywall piece rates in union contracts. The Southern California Nevada Regional Council of Carpenters continue making concessions to the contractors, it has become a way of life out there. It does not seem to bother the Business Representatives that concessions are “okay” and that the fact is the UBC gave up piece work 120 years ago...this drywall clause was clearly a travesty of justice under our current union contracts.


Clearly three-fourths of the members are currently deprived of the right to vote through the manipulation of our locals to keep members away from meetings. And the apathy and lack of education to our bargaining agreements by our members to get involved has not helped. It clearly places a minority in control of our unions.


The piece work clause is still in our By-Laws and Working Rules currently here in the Chicago area...but Immigrant drywaller’s are allowed to get their money by piece work right now. And again, some of our union business agents and organizers look the other way. Similar issues arise with the siders, roofers, and insulators. When carpenters are asked to bring a manual or power tool on the employer’s jobsites and our union allows it. Our union here even allows the transportation of the employer’s tools in the carpenter’s vehicles, and again the business agents and organizers look the other way.


New York also has many concessionary agreements of its own that are now part of its bargaining agreement. Fred Devine, the former administration President for the New York District Council of Carpenters and now convicted felon, started the ball rolling in 1993.


In the 1993 agreements with the associations, Devine gave up double time for overtime, and now all carpenters will only get time and a half for work after seven hours, except on Sundays and legal holidays. The District Council (now called Regional Councils) also agreed to allow contractors to use only apprentices for the unloading and distribution of carpenter materials on jobsites, turning the apprentices into cheap delivery labor and denying journeymen opportunities for overtime.

This story by Gregory A. Butler, carpenter in New York:

“Union carpenters in New York City in 1999 are at a crossroads. For the first time since 1915, we have a District Council leadership that does not have ties to La Costa Nostra, but we are actually worse off than we were under the wise guys.

There is a building boom, and only 1,300 or so brothers and sisters on the list out of 20,000, but there are also about 20,000 non-union brothers and sisters out there in our trade.

Not only are the non represented carpenters doing virtually all the new houses in Staten Island, and all the apartment renovations in Harlem, the South Bronx, South Jamaica, Bedford Stuyvessant and East New York, but much of the storefront work in the Financial District, Midtown, the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side and even high-rises on W 40th Street and that big MTA command center on 54th Street. And, even the sidewalk bridges around a lot of sites are non union, and we owned that work just 4 years ago.

In New York, McCarron’s organizers have been attempting to set up multiple scales, to attract the rat contractors. With the scaffold contractors, Rockledge and Colgate, who used to be union until former District Council President Fred Devine gave them a contract that exempted them from 50/50 hiring from the hall, enabling them to go 100% non union, McCarron's organizers, is rewarding them for going scab.”

Our unions continue to hire people off the street, even though the indentured apprentices and journeyman continue to be without jobs. Unions pay people living in the street and wives or girlfriends of carpenters to walk pickets, instead of asking for volunteers from the carpenters out of work. This brings up another matter...our carpenter trade union in the Chicago jurisdiction still will not appoint woman carpenters as organizers, but continue to allow the wives and girlfriends of carpenters to walk the pickets and pay them. This has been going on forever...now if that is not discrimination I do not know what is?


The council will close down the permit office every once in a while to pacify the other out of work carpenters, but the process continues. This concession was to allow contractors to hire diversity, but it has given these contractors the ability to pay less than scale to these people hired off the street. They know only what their union employer is telling them, they are being manipulated and lied too about what they should receive as union scale and benefits. These people are mostly people of color, women and easily manipulated uneducated white men. Our union does support discrimination by our union contractors. Because the business agents and organizers are to busy getting more jobs for us to work on, but does not have the time to support our rank and file members unless it benefits their plan.


At this point, I also have to include the apprenticeship programs...I am sure this occurs at many of the apprenticeship schools across union America. Bring the new people in by the thousands and let them run wild with no support from our Trustees or our Apprenticeship Administration. If it were not for the marvelous Instructors that work at the schools, the apprentices would get no support at all. This is of course unless they are favorites or in a union family. Fairness is not practiced here either…


Most of the new apprentices are left to fend for themselves. If our apprentice coordinators can find them leads on jobs, and if they can find a union contractor to hire a person of color or a woman, then they might work for a few months. More money goes into our coffers...and that is more money for the Executive and local administrators to provide salary increases and to make their wages secure and some of their double pensions fatter...and unions get stronger.


Some of the people in my union have been stonewalling my efforts to develop an evening class to educate all union carpenters to our Area Agreements, our UBCJA Constitution, and our union member rights for over ten years. Instead they make a video and leave it up to the individual member to watch and understand. Most of the members do not even watch it. Good job guys, keep the plan rolling along...keep doing it your way!


The Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters Apprentice & Training Program has a Labor Management Relations class for first year apprentices. None of the other Instructor’s were ever trained to teach this class…I had to educate myself about the bargaining agreements, By-Laws & Working Rules, and our UBCJA Constitution so I felt comfortable teaching it to the apprentices. Some of the business agents, stewards on job sites, and organizers are still clueless to our area agreements or UBC Constitution.


The comments I have received from the working apprentices in the field are horror stories about what the union contractors are making them do in violation of our contracts…this has been occurring for the past fifteen years and is continuing to get worse. Our business agents and the hundreds of male organizers we pay continue to look the other way.


We are currently bringing in 3000 to 4000 apprentices for training in our program every year, but only 700 to 800 graduate...what does it matter; right? Most of them did work for an hour or more, or maybe a year or two before they disappeared. Our coffers are getting fatter because of these people...


Story from a sister Carpenter in another state:

“We have a local here that I say is about 70% African American. It happens to be a local that is paid a lesser rate because it is a housing local not commercial. Almost ALL of the women and men of color that come in through the pre-apprentice programs are assigned to that local. They don't get the same elective of being assigned to the local in their area like most of the white apprentices. The leadership of that local is 100% white. Go figure. This, in one the largest unionized cities on the east coast. Most members are just glad to be working.”


TEAMSTERS (IBT) - Chicago Local in Turmoil over Officer Elections

“Dissident members of a Chicago Teamsters union have charged the hierarchy with subverting the victory of their candidate for president in elections conducted Oct. 17, amid allegations of corruption linked with mob influence, kick-backs, and underhanded job-shifting schemes against the current hierarchy, led by Robert Walston. Local 743 represents more than 12,000 health care, manufacturing, insurance and university workers in the Chicago area.


An opposition slate led by Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) activist Richard Berg was ahead in the ballot count 788 to 781. About 200 ballots -- most from a shop that supported Berg -- remained to be counted when those votes were challenged. Local 743 bosses initially said that they would recognize the votes that had been challenged, but after checking the current tally changed their minds and decided to hold a new election entirely.


Local 743 attorney Bill Widmer said Berg himself asked for the election to be voided because voters had supposedly been disenfranchised. But Berg said the union dismissed numerous other protests he had filed, and than decided to grant one and ordered a new election when his win looked likely.” [Chicago Maroon, 10/28/04: Cleveland Plain Dealer, 10/22/04]


Story by two sister Teamsters from the Chicago area:

“We are in a local on the southern area of Chicago that consists of all women, only the two of us are citizens of the U.S. All the other women are Hispanic and have U.S. Department of Homeland Security working cards. But they are not residents of the U.S. All of the officers in our local are white men who put fear into the women when we have anything to say about our employers not giving us our contracted scale or working more than eight hours and still getting paid the same as an eight hour day. The officers will not give us information as to our bargaining agreement and continue to threaten us with our jobs if we do not shut-up.”


Our Chicago area administration signed an agreement with what is called, Furniture Contractors. The concessions given to this type of contractor allows them to hire twenty apprentices to one journeyman carpenter on every one of their union jobs. Business agents have been placing mostly people of color and women with these contractors. These apprentices have no possibility of becoming journeyman carpenters. These type of contractors do not train people in the carpentry skills needed to gain journeyman status...so, near the end of their four year apprenticeship they only have two options left...start the apprentice program all over again or quit the carpenters union for another type of job.


You see, if they start all over again, they will continue to put money into our corporate Regional Councils coffers for all vested carpenters in our unions and they will again have a steady job for another almost four years at the apprentice rate. Good deal huh?


Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters administration gave up overtime on Saturdays for Residential Carpenters in our area...they raised the union dues fifteen dollars more for first and second year apprentices because they know most will not be in our union after the second year. Journeymen only received a three dollar increase...

In various other unions across America, and in some instances here in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa immigrant workers, people of color, and women are being placed into separate locals to allow the men that run that local to control and manipulate them. These people are not given their By-Laws and Constitution booklets, nor are the officers at those locals educating them to their rights under our bargaining agreement. In some of the more depressed areas of our three state county regions, locals are bullying their members and manipulating them into believing that they will not be able to get a job or ever work as a carpenter again. And again, these are mostly people of color, women or uneducated white men. People of color and women are constantly intimidated into not participating at their local meetings. Some of the apprentices that want to speak up at a meeting are still told to “shut your fucking month and sit down,” when it is a concern that the officers do not want to address. They also allow their members to bully the new members coming in, especially if that new member is a woman.


The immigrants only have employment cards from the Department of Homeland Security to work in the United States, and these people are constantly fearful of doing anything that could have them deported back to their countries. So they work for their union employers, accepting anything given to them. The Regional councils and the business agents again look the other way...


Any time a person of color or a female carpenter fights for their rights under our union contract they are blackballed and not able to work for that contractor again...


In September 2004, Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin reported that Andy Ryan, 19, son of Tom Ryan, Business Representative/Secretary Treasurer out of Carpenter Local 13, was hired as a building inspector even though the city requires all inspectors to have completed a four-year apprenticeship and have two years work experience. The Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters was Mayor Daley’s largest campaign contributor in 2003. After more investigation it was found that another son of a Business Representative was also hired by the Chicago Building Department a year prior. Carpenter Local 13 was credited with being one of the prominent locals to negotiate a bargaining agreement with the City of Chicago, Building Inspection Department a year earlier...


I did not see young Ryan or any of his brothers in the Apprenticeship school until after the corruption charges were filed with the Chicago Building Department…then several of the brothers started in the apprenticeship. I heard one has since been appointed as a Business Representative in our CRCC union.


We have Executive Business Agent/Directors in charge of certain committees in our area; one is the called Mentorship Committee in which the President of a Carpenters Local and also an Executive Business Representative is in charge and has the title of Mentorship Director. There has not been a mentorship committee in this or other locals since the Las Vegas Convention in 2004. Yet I was told that it existed before 2004. It’s a big joke to this guy...if there is or was a mentorship committee in any carpenter local, it was because of the men and women carpenters in those locals made it happen, not because of this so-called Business Representative/Mentorship Director. Word is he received this position because it was the worse committee to be on, and they had to put him somewhere...


What our Unions have done over the past decade is to pander to the Corporations leaving the working carpenters to fend for themselves. As long as the union Corporations pay into the benefits fund, our unions will continue to be a strong hold in America, but this time at the cost to the uneducated workers, the immigrant workers or the uncaring and ignorant uneducated indentured apprentices and journeymen that continue to look the other way...


The same concessions have been happening here in the jurisdictional counties in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa and it is getting worse...and the excuse we, the working carpenters will be given is we are in a recession, and there is nothing that the Regional Council can do...


This same plan has been in effect in other unions across America and Canada as well. Part of the plan is to lower the wages of all union carpenters. The Corporate UBC and the Regional Councils however will continue to get there money to keep the union strong because the corporate contractors continue to pay into the benefits at higher amounts, possibly with the promise of better health care for union workers. Even though wages will be down and immigrants are always willing to work hard and receive lower wages. History repeats itself again...


UBCJA General President Douglas McCarron has been part of the RAT BRIGADE (Corporate Contractors) all along!


McCarron has been in on this plan since his first election in 1995 and started negotiations in 2000 with Bush and the Republican Party, his administrations goals have been to continue making the unions strong at the expense of the working carpenters and undocumented immigrant workers. These unions were once run by the working carpenters, now it is a Labor Union Corporation and the UBC and the Regional Councils have taken control. The union workers' rights under our agreements have been violated continuously over the past decade, and no one in our administration has been supporting the union workers rights. The Equal Rights amendment and all of the other laws are not enforced. It is like they have been put in place by our government and our unions but were written with disappearing ink...they are no more, nor have they really been!


The only right that our unions have been supporting with their millions of dollars a year attorney firms, which we pay for, is for the corporate labor unions, their administrations and contractor corporations’ rights.


We no longer have a voice or vote in our unions, and pretty soon we will no longer have a voice or vote in America! Corruption, deceit, and manipulation are alive and well in our unions…

“We, as carpenters, both union and non-union, have to build a new type of unionism. Our goal is and has always been for a better life and a higher standard of living for EVERY carpenter, White, Black, Latino, Polish, Asian, man or woman. We should not be on the same side with ANY contractor, rat or union. And, we do not have much use for leaders like Doug McCarron.” – Gregory A. Butler, union carpenter Blog

I second that notion...Wake up people, fight back!

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People really need to educate themselves to what is happening on in our Nation...

READ, THINK...EDUCATE

If you are just a passionately unaware American, please evaluate your thinking as to who is the best candidate to be our leader...the next President of the United States...

SWAY THE OBAMA WAY!

Time for Illinois Labor Leaders - the Real Ones - to get wise and give Andy Stern the tune-up he needs.

Trades Unions! Watch. When CTU Murders Charter Schools, Apprenticeship Programs Will Be Next. SEIU and Andy Stern Want it So!

SEIU wants to Kill School Reform and they have the money and muscle to do it. Killing School Reform, which actually means the advent and genuine success of Charter Schools in America, is a means of killing the Bureau of Apprenticeship Programs in Illinois and other States in favor of a State run Apprentice Program - run by a local politician like James Meeks, as Emil Jones will be at an undisclosed off-shore paradise.

Card check will be the key and Teachers Unions are already thugging it up.

appeasement on vouchers only whets unions appetites for eliminating all meaningful types of choice. With voucher programs facing termination in Washington, D.C., and heavy regulation in Milwaukee, the teachers unions have now set their sights on charter schools. Despite their proclamations about supporting charters, the actions of unions and their allies in state and national politics belie their rhetoric.

In New York, for example, the unions have backed a new budget that effectively cuts $51.5 million from charter-school funding, even as district-school spending can continue to increase thanks to local taxes and stimulus money that the charters lack. New York charters already receive less money per pupil than their district school counterparts; now they will receive even less.

Unions are also seeking to strangle charter schools with red tape. New York already has the "card check" unionization procedure for teachers that replaces secret ballots with public arm-twisting. And the teachers unions appear to have collected enough cards to unionize the teachers at two highly successful charter schools in New York City. If unions force charters to enter into collective bargaining, one can only imagine how those schools will be able to maintain the flexible work rules that allow them to succeed.

Good schools and solid Trades Programs are paths to success. Andy Stern can not and will not have that. SEIU sucks up unskilled and no skilled members, who are not and will not have an opportunity to train and study for a path into the American Middle Class. That was the Old Way - This is Change America, Sweetheart!

In Change America, group think and group wage will be based upon what the Tax-levying bodies in each State ( soviet) dole out to the rank and file.

Andy Stern wants an end to all Trades Apprenticeship Programs - no longer will the Pipefitters, Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, Sprinkler-fitters, of Engineers set standards for application to Apprenticeship Programs, nor will they run training schools.

SEIU will determine who does and gets what through each State's James Meeks, or some other Purple Approved Legislator.

Play ball with Andy Stern and you will get a knife in kidneys for your troubles.

SEIU is ACORN with an Advanced Degree ( Social Work @ University of Pennsylvania usually) and they need millions more members to feed the PAC. There are many more spineless politicians to buffalo and millions more children that Andy Stern needs for future harvests of no skill and unskilled members. That harvest is threatened by School Choice - Catholic Schools, Private Schools and especially Charter Schools.

Progress Illinois Andy Stern's graphic novel ( comic book)of propaganda is going flat out to help the oafish Marilyn Stewart's Chicago Teachers Union geld Charter Schools.

The Wall Street journal offers this roadmap:

When charter schools unionize, they become identical to traditional public schools in performance. Unions may say they support charter schools, but they only support charters after they have stripped them of everything that makes charters different from district schools.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have given speeches promoting charter schools. Despite their talk, charter spending constituted less than one-quarter of 1% of education spending in the stimulus package. And the Obama administration has done union bidding by killing the D.C. voucher program. They did this in the face of solid evidence of academic progress for the voucher students, and despite their stated commitment to do "what works for kids" regardless of ideology.

Vouchers made the world safe for charters by drawing union fire. But now that the unions have the voucher threat under control, charters are in trouble. It's time for reformers to increase pressure on politicians bending to the will of the unions and close the new education gap -- the one between what Mr. Obama and Mr. Duncan say about education and what they do.

Killing School Reform through unionizing Charter Schools is a step to killing Trades Programs. Kill competency and grow fat on millions of locked-in, impoverished and no skill members is the goal of Andy Stern, SEIU, Card Check,and Chicago Teachers Union.

CTU Hellbent on Destroying School Reform - Progressives Help Them!

Progress Illinois is a comic book published by Andy Stern's SEIU -the folks who worked over-time with Rod Blagojevich to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate after working hand in pocket with Rod Blagojevich for the good part of his two years in office.

SEIU had a starring role in the December 9th Criminal Complaint against Celebrity Survivor Ingenue the disgraced former Governor of Illinois. SEIU is Lefty PAC masquerading as a Labor Union. Members dues go to frightening spineless elected officials and papering the lampposts of Blagoshere with hit pieces on political enemies ( William Daley, Mayor Daley, Mike Madigan, John Shimkus, Mark Kirk, Tom Cross and Jim Durkin) with Progress Illinois staffed by the kids of Old Radicals and Leftists like Angela Caputo who takes another salary of Sun Times News Group - for now.

Progressive and the tax-salaried American Federation of Teachers and their Banana Republic branch -Chicago Teachers Union want to kill school Reform.

Vouchers and Charter Schools are the only hope for the already hopeless Chicago Public Schools.

Catholic Schools outperform Public Schools and save Illinois tax-payers millions of dollars.

Angela Caputo is tasked with doing hit pieces on Charter International and its Educational Management Organization (EMO) Civitas.

Read the 'All Hail the Working class' rhetoric in Ms. Caputo's giggle piece - funny like cancer.

Click my post title for the full nonsense.

Here is the most idiotic paragraph.

Because the staff (and public) is largely kept in the dark about the administration of charter schools, it's hard to know how CICS' books have changed in recent years. What's clear is that the instability at these particular schools had led to an increased rate of teacher turnover, a concern raised by Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) in a report (PDF) last fall.

Shall we, Chicago taxpayers, demand an open accounting of Marilyn Stewart's Chicago Teachers Union?

The great Labor Force that spent the better part of a year firing and locking a Union Leader -Ted Dallas - out of the Headquarters?

Oh, Let's do !

Start here -

Cashing out sick days is a common practice at the Union, he says, but he says he is charged with doing it “without approval.” He says that because Stewart does not study Union policy and past practice, other staffers have been able to cash out sick days after discussions at meetings, and that the policy of going through the Executive Board has not been followed because Marilyn does not follow rules.


Those amounts contested for Dallas are peanuts, when compared to many of the expenditures by Stewart, Dallas noted. For example, he cited the $850,000 laid out at the May House meeting by John Feldman, American Federation of Teachers CPA, as spent by the Stewart administration in a policy which allowed the officers and staff to cash out “compensatory days” for extra work on weekends during 2006. Feldman said that this plan was to be revenue neutral, but that now the officers know it to have been a mistake.


Dallas says he is also charged with helping Presidential Aide Diana Sheffer cash out her sick days at $63,543.80 when it became evident that President Stewart was on a vendetta to fire all those who disagreed with her policies. Sheffer was fired in December 2007, with security walking her out of the Union offices.


The Dallas “trial” will be conducted by the Union Executive Board — dominated by Stewart loyalists — on June 12th at the Union offices at 4 p.m. Dallas’ supporters are encouraging Union members to attend.


The case against Treasurer Linda Porter is still in limbo. In December, 2007, President Stewart took away all of Porter’s fiduciary responsibilities as Treasurer and gave them to her new Chief of Staff, John Ostenburg. Ostenburg was formerly the editor of the union newspaper. He has never taught in Chicago’s public schools. He is the mayor of Park Forest and a former members of the House of Representatives in Springfield. Ostenburg was one of those Stewart did not fire in August 2004. The first page of the 112-page complaint against CTU vice president Ted Dallas. The complaint was brought to the union's executive board by two union members who should not have had access to all of the internal union financial data that they used against Dallas.

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=78

Todd Stoger - I'm Feeling You, Cousin!

Jesus, I feel for Todd Stroger. I am a cousin, too. ( much to the chagrin of many of my hundreds of Chicago cousins and even a few, I am sure, back in County Kerry) However, I would be the cousin resigning - no doubt. Thank the Good Lord Cousins, that I still manage to eke out a living away from the family trades - carpenters, plumbers,electricians and engineers. Likewise, I have managed to avoid Public Service in the employ of City, County, State and Federal programs. Remember that flood in the early years of Mayor Daley's reign? That would have been my doing.

America was built on Family and Family Obligations. My own paternal family came to this country as teenagers - Left County Kerry, Ireland after the families - Sullivan and Hickey - threw an American Wake*. A little girl, Nora Sullivan, age 13 was treated to a party by the family and neighbors in Cahirciveen** and Larry Hickey, age 14, the same on Crinna Mountain, Castleisland***. They would most likely never go home again. My grandfather returned but my grandmother had 'no desire to return whatsoever!'

They met in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood at a Ceili ( an Irish Dance)fell in love and started a family. They brought their young brothers and sisters to America with pennies they saved from cooking for the rich Yanks and working in the Stockyards.

Cousins were taken care of as well. Anyone from miles around their home towns in Kerry were helped to secure work here in Chicago. Strikes and Depressions and hardships were met head-on and better life was formed here in Chicago and more cousins arrived.

I have been taken care of by uncles and aunts and cousins. Many times much to their disappointment -'That nephew of yours in useless!' One of the most important admonitions learned was 'Don't Kill the Job! Your uncle Dan went to bat for you - it is his word that you are working.'

I became a teacher because I liked to read. Teaching made me less of a burden on a family of highly skilled tradesmen with singularly dedicated work ethics. However, I fully understand the familial nature of helping out cousin. As my particular talents and shortcomings do not lend themselves to helping secure work, I am rarely - if ever - asked to 'go to bat' for a cousin.

Todd Stroger placed a cousin on the job. He stuck his neck out for a family member. The Holier Than Everyone Crowd ( Academic Affirmative Action Time-Servers, News Hound Free-Buffet Investigative Journalist -'Where's My V.I.P Passes to the Taste?' and your Boiled Beet Progressives) will heap scorn on Todd Stroger.

I feel for the guy. The bright spot, Mr. Stroger, is that I am not your cousin - you would really be in the jackpot!

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's cousin has quit her job as the county's chief financial officer amid questions about her relationship with a fired county employee.

Stroger told the Chicago Tribune on Friday he asked Donna Dunnings for her resignation and Dunnings agreed.

Stroger spokesman Sean Howard says the resignation follows Stroger's firing of the patronage worker after learning he had a felony criminal conviction. Howard says that after the man was told he was fired he made "explosive" allegations against Dunnings.

Stroger won't detail the allegations or provide information about the relationship between the man and Dunnings. But he says Dunnings has bailed the man out of jail a number of times. Dunnings has an unlisted telephone number and couldn't be reached for comment.
Information from: Chicago Tribune, http://www.chicagotribune.com

*American Wake

Open up the door, she's standin' there
With the smile in her eyes but the gray in her hair
Betrays the fact you strayed far from home
With your drinkin', your smokin', your whorin' around
Sit down by the fire, put your feet on the grate
Spend the night reminiscin' 'til the hour grows late
Always remember at the end of the day
You can always go home - you just can't stay

Then it's off to the pub for to see your old mates
Ah, they all look older, but nothin' has changed
And you drink 'til you're nearly out of your head
"Hey, what are yez all doin' snakin' off to bed"
Then you're outside her flat but she's no longer there
And the tears scald your eyes as you think of her hair
In the photo they sent you of her wedding day
You can always go home - you just can't stay

Then you see her at Mass with the kids at her side
And it all comes back in the blink of an eye
The tears and the laughter, the love and the lies
And that dress she wore the night you said good-bye
Then her husband says "it's good to have you back"
And she smiles for a moment and squeezes your hand
But you know what she's thinkin', she doesn't have to say
You can always go home - you just can't stay

And you swear to yourself time and time again
It was all in the past, she don't mean anything
Now your life is full of laughter and bars
What did you leave behind, just the sun, the moon and the stars

Then it's up in the mornin' at the crack of dawn
With your stomach churnin', she says "c'mon now, Sean,
You'll be late for the plane," but that crack in her voice
Betrays the fact that you made your choice
A long time ago, now there's no turnin' back
'Cause last night you had your American Wake
And the bells are still ringin', can't you hear what they say
You can always go home - you just can't stay

Say good-bye in the wind and the pourin' rain
One last drink at Shannon Airport, then we're outa here,
History around here, catch you again next year
Landin' at Kennedy, all you feel is the pain,
But it's too late, 'cause last night you had your American Wake.
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© Larry Kirwan

http://www.celtic-lyrics.com/forum/index.php?autocom=tclc&code=lyrics&id=21


**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahersiveen

***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castleisland