Monday, September 6, 2004

Labor Day FEATURED ARTICLES - Why Democrats Shouldn't Be Scared, by Michael Moore, USA Today - Compare Presidential Candidates on Working Families Issues, AFL-CIO - Bush Uses Annual Job Reshuffling to Hide Worsening Job Situation, Democrats.com - Life in Bush's "Ownership Society", By Greg Palast - Liberation and Labor Day, By James M. Lawson, Jr., AlterNet QUOTE OF THE DAY "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." - - Ralph Waldo Emerson KNOW YOUR HISTORY - Labor Day The first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883. In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday." http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm RHINO HERE: The Rhino here-now honors all those patriotic Americans who dropped all else last week & marched on the streets of The Big Apple to express the outrage of so many Americans, & so much of the world at what the shrub gang has been doing to the planet. For those watching on TV, who didn't get to see the hundreds of thousands in the streets, & who may be frightened at the pro-bush momentum the tri-letter broadcasters helped to create in the minds of their viewers, here's a perspective from just an average American who attended the convention. Why Democrats Shouldn't Be Scared by Michael Moore, USA Today, 9/2/04 ...Exactly what moment was it during the convention that convinced [Dems] that the Republicans had now 'connected' with the majority of Americans and that it was all over? Arnold praising Richard Nixon? Ooooh, that's a real crowd-pleaser. Elizabeth Dole decrying the removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse wall in Alabama? Yes, that's a big topic of conversation in the unemployment line in Akron, Ohio. Georgia Sen. Miller, a Democratic turncoat, looking like Freddy Krueger at an all-girls camp? His speech - and the look on what you could see of his strangely lit face - was enough for parents to send small children to their bedrooms. My friends...do not be afraid. Yes, the Bush Republicans huff and they puff, but they blow their own house down... MOORE AT: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/2004-09-02-moore_x.htm Today being labor day, it's appropriate to consider the differences between the 2 presidential candidates regarding issues of import to working families. Here's a comparison, issue by issue, provided by the AFL-CIO. Below that link is another leading to a variety of actions you can do to help take back America. Compare Presidential Candidates on Working Families Issues http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/kerry_compare.cfm This Labor Day - Take Action http://www.aflcio.org Democrats.com had this to say on Republican claims that joblessness in the U.S. is on the wane. Bush Uses Annual Reshuffling of Jobs in August to Hide Worsening Job Situation Democrats.com, 9/4/04 Just about every American over the age of about 16 knows that every August, there is a major reshuffling of jobs. School kids leave summer jobs, which are then filled by new people, while schools and colleges do their annual hiring for the fall. But again, these are annual, not new, jobs. Yet because it coincides with the big convention week PR blitz, the Bush administration is manipulating figures and rhetoric again to make it APPEAR that companies are adding to payrolls right and left. The only people who really ARE taking on new hires are temp agencies. And we hardly call this "progress." Worse, the phony song and dance is hiding the truth: the economy is getting WORSE: Buried in this typically Bushie Reuters report is this little "nugget":"Economists noted a 152,000 fall in the civilian labor force that potentially accounted for at least part of the jobless rate decline. The labor force often falls when job-seekers abandon the hunt for work." Job Picture Brightens, More Aug Hiring By Glenn Somerville, Reuters , Sep 3, 2004 ...The White House stressed the positive aspects of the jobs report, with President Bush declaring at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania: "It shows that our economy is strong and getting stronger." The Democrats, though, emphasized the net loss of private-sector posts during Bush's tenure. Job Picture This month, Greg Palast releases "Bush Family Fortunes," a doc based on his investigations for BBC TV. Here's a recent piece of his exposing the shrub gang's plan to raid social security just in time to burn the baby boomer generation. "SEND THIS ARTICLE TO A REPUBLICAN!" Life in Bush's "Ownership Society" By Greg Palast, AlterNet, September 3, 2004 Of all the bone-headed, whacky, breathtakingly threatening schemes George W. Bush tried to sell us in his acceptance speech is something he and his handlers call, "the Ownership Society." Sounds cool, "ownership." Everyone gets a piece of the action. Everyone's a winner as the economy zooms. All boats rise. Sure. Behind the hooray-for-free-enterprise crapola is that dog-eared game-plan to siphon off Social Security revenues to pay for making Bush's tax cuts for the rich permanent....  I'm talking about the class war that Dubya and his Dick Cheney have waged on the average working person. We're talking an economic Pearl Harbor here. ... MORE: http://www.alternet.org/election04/19776 Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is by Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Los Angeles and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. He was a working colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1957 to 1968. 7:04:22 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Liberation and Labor Day Liberation and Labor Day By James M. Lawson, Jr., AlterNet, September 3, 2004 I was the first of 45 demonstrators to be arrested for civil disobedience a few weeks ago in Los Angeles. All of us were sitting in the middle of a normally busy intersection in the city's financial district, surrounded by several thousand cheering hotel workers and their allies, and by scores of police officers, batons at the ready. A few minutes before, we had watched Victoria Vergara, a hotel housekeeper who came here from Mexico, frenetically make up 25 beds, just as she does in the course of a day's work, except the beds were in the street, arranged in a circle like the spokes of a wheel. Victoria put on display, for everyone to see, the hidden labor that sustains L.A.'s lucrative tourism industry. She brought the world of her work into the bright light of a summer afternoon. And that light illuminated a singular truth about our country: we are a nation dependent on services provided by immigrants, women, and people of color. Yet their employers refuse to accord them the respect, the dignity and the reward they deserve. I call this "plantation capitalism." Service sector work today is increasingly the province of a caste, of men and women deemed unworthy of basic human rights. It matters not how hard they work nor how valiantly they strive: they are condemned, as are their children and their children's children, to forever toil in the wilderness. The promise that defined life in America for so many generations and that gave this nation a true "middle class" does not extend to them: work hard, play by the rules, and you will get ahead. But Labor Day is not the time for lamentation over what was or even what is. Let us be inspired, instead, by those who have a vision of what can be and, moreover, are pursuing their vision with strategy and passion. Hotel workers are being arrested in the streets of Los Angeles. They are marching in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and many other cities in North America. What do they want? You may not yet be aware of it, but a powerful idea has gripped the minds of tens of thousands of these "outcast" service workers, and it will not let them rest. They believe their labor should and can lead to a better life, and they intend to make that happen. After all, Jesus of Nazareth said, "The laborer deserves his wages."... MORE AT:  http://www.alternet.org/story/19769/ "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:38:22 AM    comment

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