With a Steel Column, a Tower Will Reclaim the Manhattan Sky
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
The first column of the 100th floor of 1 World Trade Center is
expected to be put into place on Monday afternoon.
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
If the winds are forgiving enough over Lower Manhattan — up where
workers can see the whole outline of the island's tip — a steel column
will be hoisted into place Monday afternoon atop the exoskeleton of 1
World Trade Center and New York will have a new tallest building.
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1 World Trade Center will soon overtake the Empire State Building as
the city's tallest building.
More important, downtown will have reclaimed its pole star.
Poking into the sky, the first column of the 100th floor of 1 World
Trade Center will bring the tower to a height of 1,271 feet, making it
21 feet higher than the Empire State Building.
After several notorious false starts, a skyscraper has finally taken
form at ground zero. At first, its twin cranes could be detected
creeping over the jumbled tops of nearby towers. Then, at the rate of
a new floor every week, it began reshaping the Manhattan skyline as
seen from New Jersey. By late last fall, it could be spotted from the
control tower at La Guardia Airport, eight and a half miles away.
A tower has again become an inescapable presence at the southern end
of Manhattan.
The author Neal Bascomb, who drives into New York every few weeks from
Philadelphia, where he lives, recalled a growing awareness that 1
World Trade Center was visible from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and
that it was ratcheting perceptibly taller on each visit. "You know, I
was happy to see it," he said. "I thought, 'Wonderful.' "
From a construction point of view, the completion of the framework,
known as the topping out, will be a more significant milestone. That
is to occur in a couple of months, when 1 World Trade Center reaches
1,368 feet at its rooftop parapet, identical in height to the first 1
World Trade Center, which was destroyed, with the rest of the complex,
in the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. The ultimate topping out
will be the completion next year of an antenna that will bring the
structure's overall height to 1,776 feet.
Yet there is an excitement to this moment that was conveyed by Patrick
J. Foye, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey, which is one of the developers of 1 World Trade Center.
"You've got floor-to-ceiling views in every direction," he said in an
interview last week. "If you strain your neck and look carefully
enough, to the west you can see Alaska."
Not Russia? "Not quite yet," he said. "Maybe when we get to the
observation deck."
This is the second time a skyscraper called 1 World Trade Center has
edged over the Empire State Building. The first was on Oct. 19, 1970,
when a section of steel framework elevated the north tower of the
trade center to 1,254 feet, four feet above Empire State's 1,250-foot
benchmark.
The first trade center was seen as a threat to the real estate market.
Owners and builders fought it fiercely. Their ranks included Lawrence
A. Wien, who controlled the Empire State Building, and Seymour Durst,
who headed the Durst Organization and whose son Douglas is developing
1 World Trade Center. On May 2, 1968, a committee headed by Mr. Wien
took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times showing the
silhouette of a jetliner headed straight for the upper floors of 1
World Trade Center. The problem, the ad averred, was air traffic, not
terrorists. But the it said presciently, "The total potential hazard
is staggering."
By contrast, the current management of the Empire State Building
released this statement about the new 1 World Trade Center: "The
world's most famous office building, the ancestor of all super-tall
towers, welcomes our newer, taller cousin to the skyline. We've
watched you grow, and now we salute you." What they are really
thinking at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street is impossible to discern
since the building's public relations firm, Edelman, declined to
answer questions and ruled out interviews with Peter L. Malkin and
Anthony E. Malkin, the key owners.
Mr. Bascomb's 2003 book, "Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the
Making of a City," chronicled the contest in 1929 between the Chrysler
Building and 40 Wall Street to be the tallest building in the world, a
contest Chrysler won, only to be quickly overshadowed by the Empire
State Building. There is no exhilarating race now, he said.
"This is not really a victory of any sort or even necessarily
something to be celebrated," Mr. Bascomb said about 1 World Trade
Center overtopping the Empire State Building. "It's kind of like
competing against a ghost."
Of course, the stakes are much different than they were in 1929.
Unlike its predecessor, the new 1 World Trade Center is not the
tallest building in the world. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai holds that
title. It is not even the tallest in the United States. That would be
the Willis Tower in Chicago, once known as Sears Tower. One World
Trade Center is, however, the tallest building between Vesey, Liberty,
West and Church Streets. That may be what matters most.
Enlarge This Image
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
The tower has been growing at the rate of a new floor every week.
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"It's the marker for the memorial," said David M. Childs, the
architect who led the design team at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where
he is now a consulting partner. "If you're coming in from Newark
Airport, this is the one you'll look to. Somebody will say: 'You see
that tall building? That's ground zero.' "
Mr. Childs said the tower would also play the necessary civic role of
being the "answering spire" to the skyscrapers of Midtown. "In a way,"
he said, "it ties together Manhattan, which lost something because of
that emptiness in the sky."
Carol Willis, the founder, director and curator of the Skyscraper
Museum in Battery Park City, said 1 World Trade Center also helped
knit together the neighborhood itself.
"I'm very pleased that downtown has an axis around which the rest of
the buildings can revolve; to use a Jungian term, the axis mundi," she
said. "Downtown desperately needed it and now it's got it back."
Her words come with particular grace, since Ms. Willis acknowledges
that the Empire State Building is her favorite. So does Prof. Mark
Kingwell of Trinity College at the University of Toronto, who wrote
"Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and American
Dreams" (2006).
"I like the renewed visibility it has enjoyed during the last decade
as, once again, the city's tallest," he said last week. "But the
origin of that visibility was political darkness, and anyway the
Empire State Building has nothing to prove. Say what you like about
the symbolism of tall buildings, they do express civic pride. It's
high time for a tower to scrape the sky again in Lower Manhattan."
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/nyregion/1-world-trade-center-will-reclaim-the-sky-in-lower-manhattan.html?pagewanted=2&hp
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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Sunday, April 29, 2012
Fwd: [Why boys need parents
-------
Why boys need parents....
| If you don't send this to a few old friends (figuratively speaking, of course), there will be fewer people laughing in the world. |
-- Warm Regards DOC ___________________ ~ ~ (_____(*)___________} } }
--
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Jack Reese, 17, Gay Utah Teen, Commits Suicide After Bullying In School
Jack Reese, Gay Utah Teen, Commits Suicide After Allegedly Being
Subjected To Bullying In School
Friends and family are mourning the death of Jack Reese, a gay Utah
teen who took his own life last week after allegedly being subjected
to anti-gay bullying at school.
Though details of the 17-year-old Reese's suicide are scarce, his
boyfriend Alex Smith spoke frankly about the repeated bullying the
teen had experienced at school. Smith, 18, reportedly recalled the
incidents at a community event earlier this week at which a bullying
film was being screened.
As one official is quoted as telling Ogden OUTreach off the record:
"It happens here about once a week, but officially, you know, it
doesn't happen here."
An obituary describes the teen as having been "very good with
computers and loved to play his X-Box games."
"Jack loved animals and will miss his cat, Cat," the obit continues.
"He was also very good with kids and loved taking care of them. Jack
was learning to speak Japanese and loved anything to do with Japan. He
was also very good at drawing and photography."
A Facebook group in memory of the teen has been established. "His
suicide has impacted so many people," one user wrote. "I HONESTLY hope
things will change because of this, but I also wish that it didn't
have to come down to this for awareness to actually be seen in others
who decide to bully others for their sexuality."
The local chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and
Gays (PFLAG) expressed its sympathy to Reese's family in a statement:
"Today, along with the leaders of PFLAG Ogden and the entire
community, PFLAG National mourns the loss of Jack Reese as well as the
other young people in the Ogden community who have died in similar
circumstances. The local chapter of PFLAG along with a broader caring
group of adults have been working together tirelessly to address
issues of the importance of family acceptance to the youth in this
community and similar communities all over the state; sadly, the death
of Jack Reese is a reminder that there is still much work to be done."
As Pink News is reporting, OUTreach announced that an urgent meeting
will be held on May 1 to address LGBT bullying and suicide in northern
Utah. A candlelit vigil will be held May 1 at the conclusion of the
event in memory of Jack.
Take a look at other LGBT teen suicides and bullying cases below:
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/29/jack-reese-gay-teen-suicide_n_1462594.html
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Subjected To Bullying In School
Friends and family are mourning the death of Jack Reese, a gay Utah
teen who took his own life last week after allegedly being subjected
to anti-gay bullying at school.
Though details of the 17-year-old Reese's suicide are scarce, his
boyfriend Alex Smith spoke frankly about the repeated bullying the
teen had experienced at school. Smith, 18, reportedly recalled the
incidents at a community event earlier this week at which a bullying
film was being screened.
As one official is quoted as telling Ogden OUTreach off the record:
"It happens here about once a week, but officially, you know, it
doesn't happen here."
An obituary describes the teen as having been "very good with
computers and loved to play his X-Box games."
"Jack loved animals and will miss his cat, Cat," the obit continues.
"He was also very good with kids and loved taking care of them. Jack
was learning to speak Japanese and loved anything to do with Japan. He
was also very good at drawing and photography."
A Facebook group in memory of the teen has been established. "His
suicide has impacted so many people," one user wrote. "I HONESTLY hope
things will change because of this, but I also wish that it didn't
have to come down to this for awareness to actually be seen in others
who decide to bully others for their sexuality."
The local chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and
Gays (PFLAG) expressed its sympathy to Reese's family in a statement:
"Today, along with the leaders of PFLAG Ogden and the entire
community, PFLAG National mourns the loss of Jack Reese as well as the
other young people in the Ogden community who have died in similar
circumstances. The local chapter of PFLAG along with a broader caring
group of adults have been working together tirelessly to address
issues of the importance of family acceptance to the youth in this
community and similar communities all over the state; sadly, the death
of Jack Reese is a reminder that there is still much work to be done."
As Pink News is reporting, OUTreach announced that an urgent meeting
will be held on May 1 to address LGBT bullying and suicide in northern
Utah. A candlelit vigil will be held May 1 at the conclusion of the
event in memory of Jack.
Take a look at other LGBT teen suicides and bullying cases below:
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/29/jack-reese-gay-teen-suicide_n_1462594.html
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
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Re: BOEING 797
It was sent to me with a quick followup with 3 hox links including snopes.
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On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 8:51 AM, Keith In Tampa <keithintampa@gmail.com> wrote:
Good Morning Travis!It's not a total "hoax". Boeing is working on the "Blended Wing & Fuselage" design, but these pictures are bogus, and the craft is by no means ready for service.Babs and her fine husband Milquetoast Mikkleson don't have this one exactly right either:
On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 9:43 AM, Travis <baconlard@gmail.com> wrote:
Hot dang, looks exctiting. Pity it is a hoax.
BOEING 797
It can comfortably fly 10,000 Miles (16,000 km) at Mach 0.88 or 654 mph (1,046 km/h)
with 1000 passengers on board !They have kept this secret long enough.
This shot was taken last month by an amateur photographer.
The BOEING 797
Boeing is preparing this 1000 passenger Jet Liner that could reshape the Air Travel Industry. Its radical "Blended Wing & Fuselage" design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with NASA Langley Research Centre. The mammoth aircraft will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to 211 feet of its 747, and its been designed to fit within the newly created Air Terminals for the 555 seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide.
The new 797 is Boeing's direct response to the Airbus A380, which has racked up orders for 159 already. Boeing decided to kill its 747X Stretched Super Jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown for it by Airline Companies, but continued to develop its "Ultimate Airbus Crusher", the 797 at its Phantom Works Research Facility in Long Beach, California.
The Airbus A380 had been in the works since 1999 and has accumulated $13 Billion in development costs, which gives Boeing a huge advantage. More so because Airbus is thus committed to the older style tubular structure for their aircraft for decades to come.
There are several big advantages in the "Blended Wing & Fuselage" design, the most important being the 'Lift to Drag' ratio which is expected to increase by an amazing 50%, resulting in an overall weight reduction of the aircraft by 25%, making it an estimated 33% more fuel efficient than the A380, and thus making the Airbus's $13 Billion Dollar investment look pretty shaky.
"High Airframe Rigidity" is another key factor in the "Blended Wing & Fuselage" technology. It reduces turbulence and creates less stress on the airframe which adds to fuel efficiency, giving the 797 a tremendous 10,000 Mile range with 1,000 passengers on board cruising comfortably at Mach 0.88 or 654 MPH, which gives it another advantage over the tube-and-wing designed A380's 570 MPH.
The exact date ! for introduction of the 797 is as yet unclear, but the battle lines are clearly drawn in the high-stakes war for future civilian aircraft supremacy.
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May Day's Radical History: What Occupy Is Fighting for This May 1st
Find a nearby city with planned actions:
http://occupywallst.org/article/may-day/
May Day's Radical History: What Occupy Is Fighting for This May 1st
Occupy actions planned on May Day are tied to the generations-long
movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant workers, to police
brutality and repression of the labor movement.
April 27, 2012 |
American general strikes—or rather, American calls for general
strikes, like the one Occupy Los Angeles issued last December that has
been endorsed by over 150 general assemblies—are tinged with
nostalgia.
The last real general strike in this country, which is to say, the
last general strike that shut down a city, was in Oakland, California
in 1946—though journalist John Nichols has suggested that what we saw
in Madison, Wisconsin last year was a sort of general strike. When we
call a general strike, or talk of one, we refer not to a current mode
of organizing; we refer back, implicitly or explicitly, to some of the
most militant moments in American working-class history. People
posting on the Occupy strike blog How I Strike have suggested that
next week's May Day is highly symbolic. As we think about and develop
new ways of "general striking," we also reconnect with a past we've
mostly forgotten.
So it makes sense that this year's call for an Occupy general
strike—whatever ends up happening on Tuesday—falls on May 1. May Day
is a beautifully American holiday, one created by American workers,
crushed by the American government, incubated abroad, and returned to
the United States by immigrant workers.
The history of May 1 as a workers' holiday is intimately tied to the
generations-long movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant
workers, to police brutality and repression of the labor movement, and
to the long tradition of American anarchism.
Perhaps the first nation-wide labor movement in the United States
started in 1864, when workers began to agitate for an eight-hour day.
This was, in their understanding, a natural outgrowth of the abolition
of slavery; a limited work day allowed workers to spend more time with
their families, to pursue education, and to enjoy leisure time. In
other words, a shorter work day meant freedom. It was not for nothing
that in 1866, workers celebrated the Fourth of July by singing "John
Brown's Body" with new lyrics demanding an eight-hour day. Agitating
for shorter hours became a broad-based mass movement, and skilled and
unskilled workers organized together. The movement would allow no
racial, national or even religious divisions. Workers built specific
organizations—Eight Hour Leagues—but they also used that momentum to
establish new unions and strengthen old ones. That year, the Eight
Hour Movement gained its first legislative victory when Illinois
passed a law limiting work hours.
The demand for an eight-hour day was about leisure, self-improvement
and freedom, but it was also about power. When Eight Hour Leagues
agitated for legislation requiring short hours, they were demanding
what had never before happened: that the government regulate industry
for the advantage of workers. And when workers sought to enforce the
eight-hour day without the government—through declaring for
themselves, through their unions, under what conditions they would
work—they sought something still more radical: control over their own
workplaces. It is telling that employers would often counter a demand
for shorter hours with an offer of a wage increase. Wage increases
could be given (and taken away) by employers without giving up their
power; agreeing to shorter hours was, employers knew, the beginning of
losing their arbitrary power over their workers.
The Illinois eight-hour law was to go into effect May 1, 1867. That
day, tens of thousands of Chicago's workers celebrated in what a
newspaper called "the largest procession ever seen on the streets of
Chicago." But the day after, employers, en masse, ignored the law,
ordering their workers to stay the customary 10 or 11 hours. The city
erupted in a general strike--workers struck, and those who didn't
leave work were forced to by gangs of their colleagues roaming through
the streets, armed with sticks, dragging out scabs. After several days
of the strike, the state militia arrived and occupied working-class
neighborhoods. By May 8, employers and the state they controlled had
won, and workers went back to work with their long hours. The loss of
the eight-hour-day movement led also to a massive decline in unions,
and the labor movement would not pick up in such numbers for almost
two decades.
The Illinois law and its defeat, however, were not forgotten. By the
1880s, a new labor movement had grown up in Chicago. This one was more
radical and was dominated by immigrant workers from Germany. They
remembered 1877, when a strike by railroad workers spread around the
country. For a brief moment, as strikers took control of St. Louis and
Pittsburgh, staring down the national guard and local police, nobody
knew what would happen. But President Rutherford B. Hayes called out
the army and brutally repressed the strike. They also remembered the
state was rarely if ever on the side of the worker. Yet they also
remembered the brief shining moment when it appeared that there might
be an eight-hour day.
So in 1886, the Chicago Central Labor Union again demanded an
eight-hour day. Led largely by anarchists like August Spies and Albert
Parsons, this renewed movement demanded "eight for 10"--that is, eight
hours' work for 10 hours' pay. Throughout the winter of 1886, they
successfully organized and won a series of small victories, largely in
German butchers' shops, breweries and bakeries, where owners agreed to
recognize unions and grant shorter hours. Then they issued a new
demand: that again on May 1, Chicago would go on a general strike and
not return to work unless employers agreed to an eight-hour workday.
The demands of the militant Chicago anarchists coincided with a
massive upswing in other militant movements. Workers and Texas farmers
were rebelling against a monopolistic railroad system. The Knights of
Labor were rapidly organizing and spreading their vision of a
cooperative, rather than capitalistic, society. "What happened on May
1, 1886," writes James Green, the most recent and most accessible
historian to have written about it, "was more than a general strike;
it was a 'populist moment' when working people believed they could
destroy plutocracy, redeem democracy and then create a new
'cooperative commonwealth.'"
Four days later, it all came crashing down. On May 3, police had shot
to death six strikers at the McCormick Works, where a long-standing
labor dispute had turned the factory into an armed camp, and beaten
dozens more. On May 4, anarchists held an outdoor indignation meeting
at a square called the Haymarket to protest the police murders.
Anarchist leader Samuel Fielden was wrapping up his speech when the
police, led by the same inspector who had led the charge at McCormick
the night before, moved in to disperse the crowd. "But we are
peaceable!" Fielden cried, and just then somebody wasn't. Somebody
threw a bomb at the police, the police open fire, and the course of
American history changed.
To this day we do not know, nor will we likely ever know, who threw
the bomb. Some say it was an agent provocateur. Some say it was an
anarchist. If it wasn't an anarchist, it surely could have been, since
there were indeed anarchists who made bombs and would have thrown one
given the opportunity. But we also know that many of those who died
that night, including police, were felled by the police bullets.
We also know that the effect of the Haymarket bombing was far greater
on the labor movement than it was on the police. Eight anarchist
leaders were rounded up and put on trial for the murder of a police
officer. No evidence was ever given that any of them threw the bomb,
and only the flimsiest evidence was presented that any of them were
remotely involved. All eight were convicted, and seven were sentenced
to hang. Two of these had their sentences commuted, and a third—Louis
Lingg, undoubtedly the most radical and militant of them—cheated the
hangman by chewing a detonator cap and blowing off his jaw. The
remaining four—August Spies, Albert Parsons, Samuel Fischer, and
George Engel—were hanged on November 11, 1887. They went to their
deaths singing the Marseillaise, then an anthem of the international
revolutionary movement, and before he died, Spies shouted out his
famous last words: "The time will come when our silence will be more
powerful than the voices you strangle today."
Before that happened, the state ensured more silence. The strike
collapsed. Police around the country raided radicals' homes and
newspapers. The Knights of Labor never recovered. In the place of the
radical industrial labor movement of the mid-1880s rose the American
Federation of Labor, the much more exclusive and conservative
organization that would dominate the labor movement until the 1930s.
Meanwhile, it would take until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to
finally enshrine the eight-hour day into federal law.
May 1 would live on, mostly abroad. In 1889, French syndicalist
Raymond Lavigne proposed to the Second International—the international
and internationalist coalition of socialist parties—that May 1 be
celebrated internationally the next year to honor the Haymarket
Martyrs and demand the eight-hour day, and the year after that the
International adopted the day as an international workers' holiday. In
countries with strong socialist and communist traditions, May 1 became
the primary day to celebrate work, workers and their organizations,
often with direct and explicit reference to the Haymarket Martyrs. May
Day remains an official holiday in countries ranging from Argentina to
India to Malaysia to Croatia—and dozens of countries in between.
Yet in the United States, with some exception, the workers' tradition
of May 1 died out. Partially this was because the Knights of Labor had
already established a labor day in September. Opportunistic
politicians, most notably Grover Cleveland, glommed onto the Knights'
holiday in order to diminish the symbolic power of May 1. In 1921, May
Day was declared "Americanization Day," and later "Loyalty Day" in a
deliberately ironic attempt to co-opt the holiday. Even that was not
enough, though, and in 1958 Dwight Eisenhower added "Law Day" to the
mix, presumably a deliberate jibe at the Haymarket anarchists who
declared, "All law is slavery." Today, few if any Americans celebrate
Loyalty Day or Law Day—although both are on the books—but the origins
of May Day are largely forgotten. Like International Women's Day
(March 8), which also originated in the U.S., International Workers'
Day became a holiday the rest of the world celebrates while Americans
look on in confusion, if they notice at all.
Yet May 1 lives on, and indeed has been rejuvenated in the United
States in the past few years. In 2006, immigrant activists organized
"a day without an immigrant," a nationwide strike of immigrant workers
and rallies. It was perhaps the largest demonstration of workers in
United States history. These immigrants, mostly from Latin America,
had brought May 1 back to its birthplace, and in so doing they
resurrected its history as a day specifically for immigrant workers.
It is appropriate that when the Occupy L. A. first issued its call for
a general strike this May 1, it said the strike was "for migrant
rights, jobs for all, a moratorium on foreclosures, and peace." The
order was significant, for migrants in the United States have been the
ones who have made sure that the voices the state strangled that
November day have remained so powerful. And regardless of what happens
on Tuesday—and of course an actual general strike, in which cities
grind to a halt and workers control what activities occur, is
unlikely—we can, through a national day of action for the working
class, work toward a new cooperative commonweath. We have a
opportunity now to create and renew the labor movement, through new
tactics, but ones that pay homage to the generations that preceded us.
More:
http://www.alternet.org/story/155182/may_day%27s_radical_history%3A_what_occupy_is_fighting_for_this_may_1st_/?page=entire
Find a nearby city with planned actions:
http://occupywallst.org/article/may-day/
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
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http://occupywallst.org/article/may-day/
May Day's Radical History: What Occupy Is Fighting for This May 1st
Occupy actions planned on May Day are tied to the generations-long
movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant workers, to police
brutality and repression of the labor movement.
April 27, 2012 |
American general strikes—or rather, American calls for general
strikes, like the one Occupy Los Angeles issued last December that has
been endorsed by over 150 general assemblies—are tinged with
nostalgia.
The last real general strike in this country, which is to say, the
last general strike that shut down a city, was in Oakland, California
in 1946—though journalist John Nichols has suggested that what we saw
in Madison, Wisconsin last year was a sort of general strike. When we
call a general strike, or talk of one, we refer not to a current mode
of organizing; we refer back, implicitly or explicitly, to some of the
most militant moments in American working-class history. People
posting on the Occupy strike blog How I Strike have suggested that
next week's May Day is highly symbolic. As we think about and develop
new ways of "general striking," we also reconnect with a past we've
mostly forgotten.
So it makes sense that this year's call for an Occupy general
strike—whatever ends up happening on Tuesday—falls on May 1. May Day
is a beautifully American holiday, one created by American workers,
crushed by the American government, incubated abroad, and returned to
the United States by immigrant workers.
The history of May 1 as a workers' holiday is intimately tied to the
generations-long movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant
workers, to police brutality and repression of the labor movement, and
to the long tradition of American anarchism.
Perhaps the first nation-wide labor movement in the United States
started in 1864, when workers began to agitate for an eight-hour day.
This was, in their understanding, a natural outgrowth of the abolition
of slavery; a limited work day allowed workers to spend more time with
their families, to pursue education, and to enjoy leisure time. In
other words, a shorter work day meant freedom. It was not for nothing
that in 1866, workers celebrated the Fourth of July by singing "John
Brown's Body" with new lyrics demanding an eight-hour day. Agitating
for shorter hours became a broad-based mass movement, and skilled and
unskilled workers organized together. The movement would allow no
racial, national or even religious divisions. Workers built specific
organizations—Eight Hour Leagues—but they also used that momentum to
establish new unions and strengthen old ones. That year, the Eight
Hour Movement gained its first legislative victory when Illinois
passed a law limiting work hours.
The demand for an eight-hour day was about leisure, self-improvement
and freedom, but it was also about power. When Eight Hour Leagues
agitated for legislation requiring short hours, they were demanding
what had never before happened: that the government regulate industry
for the advantage of workers. And when workers sought to enforce the
eight-hour day without the government—through declaring for
themselves, through their unions, under what conditions they would
work—they sought something still more radical: control over their own
workplaces. It is telling that employers would often counter a demand
for shorter hours with an offer of a wage increase. Wage increases
could be given (and taken away) by employers without giving up their
power; agreeing to shorter hours was, employers knew, the beginning of
losing their arbitrary power over their workers.
The Illinois eight-hour law was to go into effect May 1, 1867. That
day, tens of thousands of Chicago's workers celebrated in what a
newspaper called "the largest procession ever seen on the streets of
Chicago." But the day after, employers, en masse, ignored the law,
ordering their workers to stay the customary 10 or 11 hours. The city
erupted in a general strike--workers struck, and those who didn't
leave work were forced to by gangs of their colleagues roaming through
the streets, armed with sticks, dragging out scabs. After several days
of the strike, the state militia arrived and occupied working-class
neighborhoods. By May 8, employers and the state they controlled had
won, and workers went back to work with their long hours. The loss of
the eight-hour-day movement led also to a massive decline in unions,
and the labor movement would not pick up in such numbers for almost
two decades.
The Illinois law and its defeat, however, were not forgotten. By the
1880s, a new labor movement had grown up in Chicago. This one was more
radical and was dominated by immigrant workers from Germany. They
remembered 1877, when a strike by railroad workers spread around the
country. For a brief moment, as strikers took control of St. Louis and
Pittsburgh, staring down the national guard and local police, nobody
knew what would happen. But President Rutherford B. Hayes called out
the army and brutally repressed the strike. They also remembered the
state was rarely if ever on the side of the worker. Yet they also
remembered the brief shining moment when it appeared that there might
be an eight-hour day.
So in 1886, the Chicago Central Labor Union again demanded an
eight-hour day. Led largely by anarchists like August Spies and Albert
Parsons, this renewed movement demanded "eight for 10"--that is, eight
hours' work for 10 hours' pay. Throughout the winter of 1886, they
successfully organized and won a series of small victories, largely in
German butchers' shops, breweries and bakeries, where owners agreed to
recognize unions and grant shorter hours. Then they issued a new
demand: that again on May 1, Chicago would go on a general strike and
not return to work unless employers agreed to an eight-hour workday.
The demands of the militant Chicago anarchists coincided with a
massive upswing in other militant movements. Workers and Texas farmers
were rebelling against a monopolistic railroad system. The Knights of
Labor were rapidly organizing and spreading their vision of a
cooperative, rather than capitalistic, society. "What happened on May
1, 1886," writes James Green, the most recent and most accessible
historian to have written about it, "was more than a general strike;
it was a 'populist moment' when working people believed they could
destroy plutocracy, redeem democracy and then create a new
'cooperative commonwealth.'"
Four days later, it all came crashing down. On May 3, police had shot
to death six strikers at the McCormick Works, where a long-standing
labor dispute had turned the factory into an armed camp, and beaten
dozens more. On May 4, anarchists held an outdoor indignation meeting
at a square called the Haymarket to protest the police murders.
Anarchist leader Samuel Fielden was wrapping up his speech when the
police, led by the same inspector who had led the charge at McCormick
the night before, moved in to disperse the crowd. "But we are
peaceable!" Fielden cried, and just then somebody wasn't. Somebody
threw a bomb at the police, the police open fire, and the course of
American history changed.
To this day we do not know, nor will we likely ever know, who threw
the bomb. Some say it was an agent provocateur. Some say it was an
anarchist. If it wasn't an anarchist, it surely could have been, since
there were indeed anarchists who made bombs and would have thrown one
given the opportunity. But we also know that many of those who died
that night, including police, were felled by the police bullets.
We also know that the effect of the Haymarket bombing was far greater
on the labor movement than it was on the police. Eight anarchist
leaders were rounded up and put on trial for the murder of a police
officer. No evidence was ever given that any of them threw the bomb,
and only the flimsiest evidence was presented that any of them were
remotely involved. All eight were convicted, and seven were sentenced
to hang. Two of these had their sentences commuted, and a third—Louis
Lingg, undoubtedly the most radical and militant of them—cheated the
hangman by chewing a detonator cap and blowing off his jaw. The
remaining four—August Spies, Albert Parsons, Samuel Fischer, and
George Engel—were hanged on November 11, 1887. They went to their
deaths singing the Marseillaise, then an anthem of the international
revolutionary movement, and before he died, Spies shouted out his
famous last words: "The time will come when our silence will be more
powerful than the voices you strangle today."
Before that happened, the state ensured more silence. The strike
collapsed. Police around the country raided radicals' homes and
newspapers. The Knights of Labor never recovered. In the place of the
radical industrial labor movement of the mid-1880s rose the American
Federation of Labor, the much more exclusive and conservative
organization that would dominate the labor movement until the 1930s.
Meanwhile, it would take until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to
finally enshrine the eight-hour day into federal law.
May 1 would live on, mostly abroad. In 1889, French syndicalist
Raymond Lavigne proposed to the Second International—the international
and internationalist coalition of socialist parties—that May 1 be
celebrated internationally the next year to honor the Haymarket
Martyrs and demand the eight-hour day, and the year after that the
International adopted the day as an international workers' holiday. In
countries with strong socialist and communist traditions, May 1 became
the primary day to celebrate work, workers and their organizations,
often with direct and explicit reference to the Haymarket Martyrs. May
Day remains an official holiday in countries ranging from Argentina to
India to Malaysia to Croatia—and dozens of countries in between.
Yet in the United States, with some exception, the workers' tradition
of May 1 died out. Partially this was because the Knights of Labor had
already established a labor day in September. Opportunistic
politicians, most notably Grover Cleveland, glommed onto the Knights'
holiday in order to diminish the symbolic power of May 1. In 1921, May
Day was declared "Americanization Day," and later "Loyalty Day" in a
deliberately ironic attempt to co-opt the holiday. Even that was not
enough, though, and in 1958 Dwight Eisenhower added "Law Day" to the
mix, presumably a deliberate jibe at the Haymarket anarchists who
declared, "All law is slavery." Today, few if any Americans celebrate
Loyalty Day or Law Day—although both are on the books—but the origins
of May Day are largely forgotten. Like International Women's Day
(March 8), which also originated in the U.S., International Workers'
Day became a holiday the rest of the world celebrates while Americans
look on in confusion, if they notice at all.
Yet May 1 lives on, and indeed has been rejuvenated in the United
States in the past few years. In 2006, immigrant activists organized
"a day without an immigrant," a nationwide strike of immigrant workers
and rallies. It was perhaps the largest demonstration of workers in
United States history. These immigrants, mostly from Latin America,
had brought May 1 back to its birthplace, and in so doing they
resurrected its history as a day specifically for immigrant workers.
It is appropriate that when the Occupy L. A. first issued its call for
a general strike this May 1, it said the strike was "for migrant
rights, jobs for all, a moratorium on foreclosures, and peace." The
order was significant, for migrants in the United States have been the
ones who have made sure that the voices the state strangled that
November day have remained so powerful. And regardless of what happens
on Tuesday—and of course an actual general strike, in which cities
grind to a halt and workers control what activities occur, is
unlikely—we can, through a national day of action for the working
class, work toward a new cooperative commonweath. We have a
opportunity now to create and renew the labor movement, through new
tactics, but ones that pay homage to the generations that preceded us.
More:
http://www.alternet.org/story/155182/may_day%27s_radical_history%3A_what_occupy_is_fighting_for_this_may_1st_/?page=entire
Find a nearby city with planned actions:
http://occupywallst.org/article/may-day/
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Voting Rights Uprising: Activists in Three States Help GOP's Targets Get Voter ID
Voting Rights Uprising: Activists in Three States Help GOP's Targets
Get Voter ID
Grassroots groups in Wisconsin, Tennessee and Colorado help GOP
targets obtain credentials to vote in 2012.
April 24, 2012 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
Join our mailing list:
Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.
The GOP-led effort to disenfranchise likely Democratic voting blocks
by enacting tougher state voter ID laws has run into a new obstacle:
targeted populations are fighting back as voting rights advocates are
helping people obtain the necessary ID.
Grassroots efforts in Tennessee, Wisconsin and Colorado are profiled
in a new report, "Got ID? Helping Americans Get Voter Identification,"
from Common Cause, Demos, Fair Elections Legal Network, and the
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The report is an
important counterpoint to persistent progressive messaging about the
GOP's attack on voting rights that typically has not informed people
how to overcome the barriers.
"This report gives Americans the tools they need to fight back and
make their voices heard," said Jenny Rose Flanagan, director of voting
and elections at Common Cause.
The battle over tougher ballot access is a years-long fight where
proponent's arguments are not supported by facts on the ground and
mask their partisan goals—shaping the electorate to achieve or
maintain political power. There is nothing new about enacting laws (or
running campaign ads) to discourage voting.
In 2003, states began enacting photo ID laws. Pushed by Republicans
and a few conservative Southern Democrats, the goal was to restrict
voting by slices of society the power-brokers considered undesirable:
minorities, low-income people, students, the disabled and elderly—the
very people likely to vote against them. Proponents proclaimed photo
ID laws would protect election integrity of the process by prevent
unregistered voters from casting ballots, and preclude miscreants from
voting more than once. They said people could not board a flight
without a photo ID, so why not require the same for voting, which is
far more important than merely taking a trip.
The problem is that not everyone has a state-issued photo
ID—particularly people who do not drive, such as many inner city
residents, students and older people. Moreover, voting fraud—or posing
as another person and casting a ballot—is rare. If it does happen, it
usually is singular instances that are typically caught by election
officials and prosecuted. Even right-wing provocateur James O'Keefe's
recent gambits to try to fraudulently vote (such as in the 2012 New
Hampshire Primary) saw him flee—for fear of being arrested.
Nonetheless, GOP majorities have passed tougher state ID laws,
affecting millions, knowing that elections can turn on very slim
margins.
To date, 30 states require voters to show ID to get a ballot. The
toughest version of this law, requiring residents present a specific
state-issued photo ID, are in place in five states: Indiana, Georgia,
Kansas, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Other states have passed photo ID
laws, but those changes have either been rejected by the U.S.
Department of Justice in South Carolina and Texas, which has
jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act, or face a pending DOJ
decision (Alabama), or have been suspended by a federal court
(Wisconsin, although an appeal is pending). Several other states are
considering similar legislation. A Virginia bill is back before its
legislature. Minnesota will vote on it in November.
Unlike 2008, grassroots groups in key states are working to empower
voters to obtain the needed ID to vote this fall. Three states are
setting an example for others to follow.
Wisconsin
In typical Badger State style, local groups have galvanized around the
voting rights challenge imposed by the state's photo ID law—which was
adopted by the Republican majority in 2011 but was recently found
unconstitutional by a federal court. The state's GOP leaders have
appealed. Meanwhile, activists are not taking any chances—not with a
gubernatorial recall election and presidential election this year.
"A lot of organizations are running on limited resources, using a lot
of volunteers to try to help people get IDs if that's possible," said
Tova Wang of Demos.
That's exactly what's happening. "Milwaukee provides free birth
certificates for those who don't have them, and activists are
providing free transportation to the Department of Motor Vehicles so
voters can get IDs," she said.
Another key program, Wisconsin Voices, developed a relationship with
the Department of Motor Vehicles. Advocates filed a public records
request and got more than 2 million names of residents with drivers'
licenses. That was cross-referenced with a voter contact and
management system. As a result, 1.3 million individuals were
identified who may need photo IDs to vote.
To help college students, meanwhile, organizers set up the "Be a
Voter!" program to get thousands of them registered before upcoming
elections. Milwaukee churches also were mobilized to assist inner-city
residents take the steps necessary to get proper identification. And a
group called "9to5" focuses its outreach on low-income women and young
people so they can get proper credentials. Elderly advocates are also
assessing how many eligible voters lack birth certificates in senior
centers.
Tennessee
In Tennessee, the Voter Assistance Coalition has been reaching out to
communities though a network of grassroots partners—unions, churches
and students and teachers at colleges and universities, according to
Ben Hovland, an attorney with the Fair Elections Legal Network. The
coalition has been identifying those who lack credentials, primarily
people without driver's licenses, which is about 10 percent of
prospective voters.
"Now, to get a driver's license, you need a birth certificate,"
Hovland explained. "Some people don't have one, have lost it, and some
are born outside a hospital and never got one." The Coalition walks
people through the arduous task of getting a birth certificate, and
then a driver's license. Once it helps people to secure birth
certificates, local churches provide rides to DMV offices so people
can get photo required IDs.
For older Tennessee residents there's an added problem. The state does
not require older drivers to have photographs on their licenses and
Holvand says many folks don't have them. The Coalition has been
assisting seniors to get new licenses with photos.
What Tennessee is doing can be done anywhere, he said. "Our hope is
that in places where there are these bad laws that citizens and
community groups can help their fellow residents so that fewer people
will be disenfranchised."
Colorado
Colorado does not have a photo ID law for voting. But low-income state
residents have had to deal with a similar intrusion, said Common
Cause's Flanagan. In 2006, its legislature required picture ID for
people who receive public benefits. That spawned the Collaborative ID
project, which is now working to ensure eligible voters will not face
obstacles at the polls.
Linda Olson, senior attorney for Colorado Legal Services, said during
a special session that year, lawmakers passed several immigration
bills. One of them was H.B. 1023 on public benefits. "The thinking was
there were undocumented people receiving public benefits and this was
a way to weed them out by requiring everyone to have a state ID,"
Olson said. "The reality is they didn't find hardly any undocumented
people getting public benefits."
For the past six years, the Collaborative ID project has helped people
get birth certificates and IDs. "Some are lawfully present immigrants
but most of our clients are U.S. citizens," Olson said.
The project has already helped 10,000 people obtain proper IDs,
Flanagan said, but it's a costly undertaking. The need has outstripped
what the group can do, Olson said. Foundation funding provides money
so the poor can get birth certificates or other ID. "We have $5,000 a
month for that and we're usually turning people away by the fifth of
each month," she said.
National Model
While other state legislatures across the country consider voter ID
legislation, "We're hopeful we won't continue to see these laws
passed," said Common Cause's Flanagan. "Once these laws pass, the
impact is so great." The Fair Election Legal Network's Hovland agreed.
"These laws are unnecessary and they certainly are going to have an
impact on certain segments of the population."
Whether the number of states increases, the Got ID? report suggests
more groups must step forward to help eligible voters.
"It is vitally important that community leaders, particularly those
who work with communities of color, young people, seniors, and people
with disabilities take an active role in helping voters acquire the
requisite photo ID," said Chris Melody Fields, of the Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
"Many local organizations are just beginning to get started," Wang
noted, "and hopefully there will be more funding."
The report is a wake-up call to voting rights advocates: get moving to
ensure everyone can vote. And time is running out. The presidential
election is just 28 weeks away.
More:
http://www.alternet.org/story/155142/voting_rights_uprising%3A_activists_in_three_states_help_gop%27s_targets_get_voter_id?akid=8677.130206.y7wv5S&rd=1&t=2
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Get Voter ID
Grassroots groups in Wisconsin, Tennessee and Colorado help GOP
targets obtain credentials to vote in 2012.
April 24, 2012 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
Join our mailing list:
Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.
The GOP-led effort to disenfranchise likely Democratic voting blocks
by enacting tougher state voter ID laws has run into a new obstacle:
targeted populations are fighting back as voting rights advocates are
helping people obtain the necessary ID.
Grassroots efforts in Tennessee, Wisconsin and Colorado are profiled
in a new report, "Got ID? Helping Americans Get Voter Identification,"
from Common Cause, Demos, Fair Elections Legal Network, and the
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The report is an
important counterpoint to persistent progressive messaging about the
GOP's attack on voting rights that typically has not informed people
how to overcome the barriers.
"This report gives Americans the tools they need to fight back and
make their voices heard," said Jenny Rose Flanagan, director of voting
and elections at Common Cause.
The battle over tougher ballot access is a years-long fight where
proponent's arguments are not supported by facts on the ground and
mask their partisan goals—shaping the electorate to achieve or
maintain political power. There is nothing new about enacting laws (or
running campaign ads) to discourage voting.
In 2003, states began enacting photo ID laws. Pushed by Republicans
and a few conservative Southern Democrats, the goal was to restrict
voting by slices of society the power-brokers considered undesirable:
minorities, low-income people, students, the disabled and elderly—the
very people likely to vote against them. Proponents proclaimed photo
ID laws would protect election integrity of the process by prevent
unregistered voters from casting ballots, and preclude miscreants from
voting more than once. They said people could not board a flight
without a photo ID, so why not require the same for voting, which is
far more important than merely taking a trip.
The problem is that not everyone has a state-issued photo
ID—particularly people who do not drive, such as many inner city
residents, students and older people. Moreover, voting fraud—or posing
as another person and casting a ballot—is rare. If it does happen, it
usually is singular instances that are typically caught by election
officials and prosecuted. Even right-wing provocateur James O'Keefe's
recent gambits to try to fraudulently vote (such as in the 2012 New
Hampshire Primary) saw him flee—for fear of being arrested.
Nonetheless, GOP majorities have passed tougher state ID laws,
affecting millions, knowing that elections can turn on very slim
margins.
To date, 30 states require voters to show ID to get a ballot. The
toughest version of this law, requiring residents present a specific
state-issued photo ID, are in place in five states: Indiana, Georgia,
Kansas, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Other states have passed photo ID
laws, but those changes have either been rejected by the U.S.
Department of Justice in South Carolina and Texas, which has
jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act, or face a pending DOJ
decision (Alabama), or have been suspended by a federal court
(Wisconsin, although an appeal is pending). Several other states are
considering similar legislation. A Virginia bill is back before its
legislature. Minnesota will vote on it in November.
Unlike 2008, grassroots groups in key states are working to empower
voters to obtain the needed ID to vote this fall. Three states are
setting an example for others to follow.
Wisconsin
In typical Badger State style, local groups have galvanized around the
voting rights challenge imposed by the state's photo ID law—which was
adopted by the Republican majority in 2011 but was recently found
unconstitutional by a federal court. The state's GOP leaders have
appealed. Meanwhile, activists are not taking any chances—not with a
gubernatorial recall election and presidential election this year.
"A lot of organizations are running on limited resources, using a lot
of volunteers to try to help people get IDs if that's possible," said
Tova Wang of Demos.
That's exactly what's happening. "Milwaukee provides free birth
certificates for those who don't have them, and activists are
providing free transportation to the Department of Motor Vehicles so
voters can get IDs," she said.
Another key program, Wisconsin Voices, developed a relationship with
the Department of Motor Vehicles. Advocates filed a public records
request and got more than 2 million names of residents with drivers'
licenses. That was cross-referenced with a voter contact and
management system. As a result, 1.3 million individuals were
identified who may need photo IDs to vote.
To help college students, meanwhile, organizers set up the "Be a
Voter!" program to get thousands of them registered before upcoming
elections. Milwaukee churches also were mobilized to assist inner-city
residents take the steps necessary to get proper identification. And a
group called "9to5" focuses its outreach on low-income women and young
people so they can get proper credentials. Elderly advocates are also
assessing how many eligible voters lack birth certificates in senior
centers.
Tennessee
In Tennessee, the Voter Assistance Coalition has been reaching out to
communities though a network of grassroots partners—unions, churches
and students and teachers at colleges and universities, according to
Ben Hovland, an attorney with the Fair Elections Legal Network. The
coalition has been identifying those who lack credentials, primarily
people without driver's licenses, which is about 10 percent of
prospective voters.
"Now, to get a driver's license, you need a birth certificate,"
Hovland explained. "Some people don't have one, have lost it, and some
are born outside a hospital and never got one." The Coalition walks
people through the arduous task of getting a birth certificate, and
then a driver's license. Once it helps people to secure birth
certificates, local churches provide rides to DMV offices so people
can get photo required IDs.
For older Tennessee residents there's an added problem. The state does
not require older drivers to have photographs on their licenses and
Holvand says many folks don't have them. The Coalition has been
assisting seniors to get new licenses with photos.
What Tennessee is doing can be done anywhere, he said. "Our hope is
that in places where there are these bad laws that citizens and
community groups can help their fellow residents so that fewer people
will be disenfranchised."
Colorado
Colorado does not have a photo ID law for voting. But low-income state
residents have had to deal with a similar intrusion, said Common
Cause's Flanagan. In 2006, its legislature required picture ID for
people who receive public benefits. That spawned the Collaborative ID
project, which is now working to ensure eligible voters will not face
obstacles at the polls.
Linda Olson, senior attorney for Colorado Legal Services, said during
a special session that year, lawmakers passed several immigration
bills. One of them was H.B. 1023 on public benefits. "The thinking was
there were undocumented people receiving public benefits and this was
a way to weed them out by requiring everyone to have a state ID,"
Olson said. "The reality is they didn't find hardly any undocumented
people getting public benefits."
For the past six years, the Collaborative ID project has helped people
get birth certificates and IDs. "Some are lawfully present immigrants
but most of our clients are U.S. citizens," Olson said.
The project has already helped 10,000 people obtain proper IDs,
Flanagan said, but it's a costly undertaking. The need has outstripped
what the group can do, Olson said. Foundation funding provides money
so the poor can get birth certificates or other ID. "We have $5,000 a
month for that and we're usually turning people away by the fifth of
each month," she said.
National Model
While other state legislatures across the country consider voter ID
legislation, "We're hopeful we won't continue to see these laws
passed," said Common Cause's Flanagan. "Once these laws pass, the
impact is so great." The Fair Election Legal Network's Hovland agreed.
"These laws are unnecessary and they certainly are going to have an
impact on certain segments of the population."
Whether the number of states increases, the Got ID? report suggests
more groups must step forward to help eligible voters.
"It is vitally important that community leaders, particularly those
who work with communities of color, young people, seniors, and people
with disabilities take an active role in helping voters acquire the
requisite photo ID," said Chris Melody Fields, of the Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
"Many local organizations are just beginning to get started," Wang
noted, "and hopefully there will be more funding."
The report is a wake-up call to voting rights advocates: get moving to
ensure everyone can vote. And time is running out. The presidential
election is just 28 weeks away.
More:
http://www.alternet.org/story/155142/voting_rights_uprising%3A_activists_in_three_states_help_gop%27s_targets_get_voter_id?akid=8677.130206.y7wv5S&rd=1&t=2
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Fwd: [TruthSeekersElection2004] Another Bait and Switch? Obama Opposes CISPA. Yeah, Right
---------
Another Bait and Switch? Obama Opposes CISPA. Yeah, Right
Prisonplanet.com
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Even as drones are deployed domestically to spy on American citizens, Barack Obama is posing as a champion of privacy and civil liberties by threatening to veto the CISPA web snooping bill, just as his administration pretended to be hostile to the National Defense Authorization Act before signing it anyway.
__._,_.___
.
__,_._,___
--
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I have lit a candle...For bullied gay teen Jack Reese’s suicide, Ogden, Utah
The Candle I lit is initialed TN for lit by Tommy News
I have lit a candle...For bullied gay teen
Jack Reese's suicide, Ogden, Utah
Click here to see the candle
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/view.cfm?l=eng&c=15901807
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/view.cfm?l=eng&c=15901807
-----------------------------------------
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by internet user from 24.190.77.81 (ip address). Gratefulness.org is
not responsible for the content of the message. Neither e-mail address
nor name of the sender have been verified. To report abuse, please
forward this email to contact@gratefulness.org
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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I have lit a candle...For bullied gay teen
Jack Reese's suicide, Ogden, Utah
Click here to see the candle
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/view.cfm?l=eng&c=15901807
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/view.cfm?l=eng&c=15901807
-----------------------------------------
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by internet user from 24.190.77.81 (ip address). Gratefulness.org is
not responsible for the content of the message. Neither e-mail address
nor name of the sender have been verified. To report abuse, please
forward this email to contact@gratefulness.org
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
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Senator Al Franken: I won't let student anti-LGBT discrimination bill languish in the Senate
Franken: I won't let student anti-discrimination bill languish in the Senate
By Jordy Yager - 04/28/12 02:08 PM ET
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Saturday sought to build momentum off of
a recent endorsement by President Obama and pledged to pass his bill
that would curb discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender public school students.
"This isn't going to be one of those bills that just languishes in the
Senate," said Franken of his Student Non-Discrimination Act of 2011.
"We're going to pass this thing. It may take a year, it may take a few
years, but we're going to do it, vote-by-vote, we're going to get
there."
When Minnesota's junior senator introduced the measure last year, his
fellow senators told him it was a "nice bill" but that it didn't stand
much of a chance and he would be lucky to get 5 or 10 cosponsors,
Franken said.
The bill now has 37 cosponsors, including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa),
the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Committee where the measure currently sits. It's House companion bill,
sponsored by Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), has a wide base of bipartisan
support as well, with more than 150 cosponsors. Polis is the first
openly gay parent in Congress.
Speaking at the White House Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
(LGBT) Conference on Families in Minneapolis, Franken heralded Obama's
endorsement of the bill last week, "a huge milestone in that fight."
The measure, if enacted, would prohibit public school students in any
federal educational program from being discriminated on the basis of
their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
Franken said the bill would give LGBT kids the same protections as
children received against discrimination on basis of race, national
origin, religion, gender, and disability.
"There are a lot of people who say, 'Well, what can you do about
bullying? It happens. Kids will be kids. Boys will be boys,'" said
Franken.
"I don't think that's right. I think that breaks down under some
examination because what we're seeing in our schools today isn't just
teasing. It's not just playground behavior. What we're seeing is more
than just bullying. We're seeing discrimination."
More:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/224373-franken-i-wont-let-student-anti-discrimination-bill-languish-in-the-senate
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
By Jordy Yager - 04/28/12 02:08 PM ET
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Saturday sought to build momentum off of
a recent endorsement by President Obama and pledged to pass his bill
that would curb discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender public school students.
"This isn't going to be one of those bills that just languishes in the
Senate," said Franken of his Student Non-Discrimination Act of 2011.
"We're going to pass this thing. It may take a year, it may take a few
years, but we're going to do it, vote-by-vote, we're going to get
there."
When Minnesota's junior senator introduced the measure last year, his
fellow senators told him it was a "nice bill" but that it didn't stand
much of a chance and he would be lucky to get 5 or 10 cosponsors,
Franken said.
The bill now has 37 cosponsors, including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa),
the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Committee where the measure currently sits. It's House companion bill,
sponsored by Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), has a wide base of bipartisan
support as well, with more than 150 cosponsors. Polis is the first
openly gay parent in Congress.
Speaking at the White House Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender
(LGBT) Conference on Families in Minneapolis, Franken heralded Obama's
endorsement of the bill last week, "a huge milestone in that fight."
The measure, if enacted, would prohibit public school students in any
federal educational program from being discriminated on the basis of
their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
Franken said the bill would give LGBT kids the same protections as
children received against discrimination on basis of race, national
origin, religion, gender, and disability.
"There are a lot of people who say, 'Well, what can you do about
bullying? It happens. Kids will be kids. Boys will be boys,'" said
Franken.
"I don't think that's right. I think that breaks down under some
examination because what we're seeing in our schools today isn't just
teasing. It's not just playground behavior. What we're seeing is more
than just bullying. We're seeing discrimination."
More:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/224373-franken-i-wont-let-student-anti-discrimination-bill-languish-in-the-senate
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Obama pokes fun at the war on dogs, drunk texts from Hillary Clinton
Obama pokes fun at the war on dogs, drunk texts from Hillary Clinton
By Jamie Klatell - 04/28/12 11:50 PM ET
The jokes covered familiar topics: The Republican primary, super-PACs,
Joe Biden, the GSA scandal and even the president's admission that he
ate dog as a boy.
What was different Saturday night was the joke teller.
President Obama made the annual pilgrimage to the White House
Correspondents' Association Dinner, where Washington's media and
political big thinkers are joined by some of Hollywood's bold-faced
names for a meal and a few laughs.
Without Donald Trump in attendance to be the butt of most of Obama's
jokes — as he was last year — the president laid into a wide range of
targets with his 2012 speech.
Obama did manage to work in a reference to the real estate mogul and
one-time GOP presidential hopeful.
"We gather during a historic anniversary," he said. "Last year at this
time, in fact on this very weekend, we finally delivered justice to
one of the world's most notorious individuals." But, what should have
been a reference to the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, which was in
its final stages one year ago, ended with a picture of The Donald's
trademark scowl.
Obama moved on from there, spraying shots at everyone, including
himself and those who came to see him.
Mocking his own troubles with live microphones, the president's voice
drifted in from off stage with an opening question. "I'm the president
of the United States and I'm opening for Jimmy Kimmel?" Obama asked in
a supposedly private conversation. "That's it, next year we send
Biden. Nah, you're right too risky."
His jokes' reception, like their aim, was a bit scattered. Obama drew
the biggest laughs when he was taking shots at himself or other
politicians.
He pointed out that his onetime rival in the Democratic presidential
primary was now secretary of State and one of the most popular
Democrats in the nation.
"Four years ago I was locked in a brutal primary battle with Hillary
Clinton," Obama said. "Four years later she won't stop drunk-texting
me from Cartagena."
RELATED ARTICLES
What a second Obama term looks like
Clinton 'won't stop drunk-texting'
Lawmakers' 'exhausting schedule'
Fake super-PAC ad: War on Dogs
'I was born, of course, in Hawaii'
He took also took aim at the legislative branch.
"I want to thank all those members of Congress who took a break from
their exhausting schedule of not passing any laws to be here tonight,"
he joked.
He even worked Jimmy Kimmel, the professional entertainer for the
night, into the act.
"Jimmy got his start years ago on 'The Man Show,'" Obama said. "In
Washington, that's what we call a congressional hearing on
contraception."
The president largely shied away from his likely opponent in the
general election, but he did get in a few cracks about Mitt Romney,
who did not attend the dinner.
"It's lovely to be here in the vast, magnificent Hilton ballroom,"
Obama said of the opulent setting, "or what Mitt Romney would call a
little fixer upper."
He also compared the dinner's trappings to another extravagance in the news.
"I'm just glad to learn that this wasn't a GSA conference," he said.
"Unbelievable, even the mind reader didn't know what they were
thinking."
The GSA spending scandal was just one liability which Obama tried to
turn into a punch line.
As Romney has often critiqued the president's affinity for the Harvard
faculty lounge, Obama noted that the former Massachusetts governor and
he both had Harvard degrees. "I have one and he has two," he said.
"What a snob."
Obama also brought up a theme that has hounded him recently.
In retaliation for Democrats harping on the old story of Romney tying
the family dog to the roof of the car, many conservatives have pointed
out that Obama ate dog when he was a boy in Indonesia -- an admission
he wrote in his memoirs years ago. The president tied the dog issue
into jokes about a few other popular topics.
In reference to Sarah Palin: "What's the difference between a hockey
mom and a pit bull? A pit bull is delicious."
About politics being a rough game: "My step father always told me it's
a boy eat dog world out there."
On the rise of super-PACs: The president came equipped with his own
mock super-PAC ad that promised "America's dogs cannot afford four
more years of Obama; that is 28 years for them."
Obama also took on the oldest thorn in his side: his birthplace.
Shortly before last year's correspondents dinner, the White House
released the president's long-form birth certificate in an effort to
quell questions about where he was born. His theme music for last
year's speech was "I am a real American."
This year he was a bit more subtle as he "reintroduced" himself for
the reelection campaign.
"My name is Barack Obama. My mother was born in Kansas, my father was
born in Kenya, and I was born, of course, in Hawaii," he said, pausing
and turning to the camera for a theatrical wink.
The president closed with one last barbed reference about his own
administration.
"I had a lot more material prepared," he said, "but I have to get the
Secret Service home in time for their new curfew."
Obama took his seat and was met with a series of jabs from Kimmel.
"Mr. President, remember when the country rallied around you in hopes
of a better tomorrow," asked Kimmel. "That was hilarious."
More:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/224393-obama-fights-the-war-on-dogs-drunk-texts-from-hillary-with-corespondents-dinner-jokes
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
By Jamie Klatell - 04/28/12 11:50 PM ET
The jokes covered familiar topics: The Republican primary, super-PACs,
Joe Biden, the GSA scandal and even the president's admission that he
ate dog as a boy.
What was different Saturday night was the joke teller.
President Obama made the annual pilgrimage to the White House
Correspondents' Association Dinner, where Washington's media and
political big thinkers are joined by some of Hollywood's bold-faced
names for a meal and a few laughs.
Without Donald Trump in attendance to be the butt of most of Obama's
jokes — as he was last year — the president laid into a wide range of
targets with his 2012 speech.
Obama did manage to work in a reference to the real estate mogul and
one-time GOP presidential hopeful.
"We gather during a historic anniversary," he said. "Last year at this
time, in fact on this very weekend, we finally delivered justice to
one of the world's most notorious individuals." But, what should have
been a reference to the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, which was in
its final stages one year ago, ended with a picture of The Donald's
trademark scowl.
Obama moved on from there, spraying shots at everyone, including
himself and those who came to see him.
Mocking his own troubles with live microphones, the president's voice
drifted in from off stage with an opening question. "I'm the president
of the United States and I'm opening for Jimmy Kimmel?" Obama asked in
a supposedly private conversation. "That's it, next year we send
Biden. Nah, you're right too risky."
His jokes' reception, like their aim, was a bit scattered. Obama drew
the biggest laughs when he was taking shots at himself or other
politicians.
He pointed out that his onetime rival in the Democratic presidential
primary was now secretary of State and one of the most popular
Democrats in the nation.
"Four years ago I was locked in a brutal primary battle with Hillary
Clinton," Obama said. "Four years later she won't stop drunk-texting
me from Cartagena."
RELATED ARTICLES
What a second Obama term looks like
Clinton 'won't stop drunk-texting'
Lawmakers' 'exhausting schedule'
Fake super-PAC ad: War on Dogs
'I was born, of course, in Hawaii'
He took also took aim at the legislative branch.
"I want to thank all those members of Congress who took a break from
their exhausting schedule of not passing any laws to be here tonight,"
he joked.
He even worked Jimmy Kimmel, the professional entertainer for the
night, into the act.
"Jimmy got his start years ago on 'The Man Show,'" Obama said. "In
Washington, that's what we call a congressional hearing on
contraception."
The president largely shied away from his likely opponent in the
general election, but he did get in a few cracks about Mitt Romney,
who did not attend the dinner.
"It's lovely to be here in the vast, magnificent Hilton ballroom,"
Obama said of the opulent setting, "or what Mitt Romney would call a
little fixer upper."
He also compared the dinner's trappings to another extravagance in the news.
"I'm just glad to learn that this wasn't a GSA conference," he said.
"Unbelievable, even the mind reader didn't know what they were
thinking."
The GSA spending scandal was just one liability which Obama tried to
turn into a punch line.
As Romney has often critiqued the president's affinity for the Harvard
faculty lounge, Obama noted that the former Massachusetts governor and
he both had Harvard degrees. "I have one and he has two," he said.
"What a snob."
Obama also brought up a theme that has hounded him recently.
In retaliation for Democrats harping on the old story of Romney tying
the family dog to the roof of the car, many conservatives have pointed
out that Obama ate dog when he was a boy in Indonesia -- an admission
he wrote in his memoirs years ago. The president tied the dog issue
into jokes about a few other popular topics.
In reference to Sarah Palin: "What's the difference between a hockey
mom and a pit bull? A pit bull is delicious."
About politics being a rough game: "My step father always told me it's
a boy eat dog world out there."
On the rise of super-PACs: The president came equipped with his own
mock super-PAC ad that promised "America's dogs cannot afford four
more years of Obama; that is 28 years for them."
Obama also took on the oldest thorn in his side: his birthplace.
Shortly before last year's correspondents dinner, the White House
released the president's long-form birth certificate in an effort to
quell questions about where he was born. His theme music for last
year's speech was "I am a real American."
This year he was a bit more subtle as he "reintroduced" himself for
the reelection campaign.
"My name is Barack Obama. My mother was born in Kansas, my father was
born in Kenya, and I was born, of course, in Hawaii," he said, pausing
and turning to the camera for a theatrical wink.
The president closed with one last barbed reference about his own
administration.
"I had a lot more material prepared," he said, "but I have to get the
Secret Service home in time for their new curfew."
Obama took his seat and was met with a series of jabs from Kimmel.
"Mr. President, remember when the country rallied around you in hopes
of a better tomorrow," asked Kimmel. "That was hilarious."
More:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/224393-obama-fights-the-war-on-dogs-drunk-texts-from-hillary-with-corespondents-dinner-jokes
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Re: George Zimmerman Hid Web Funds to Get Bond Release, Koch Brothers Pay Zimmerman's Legal Fees
The incompetent Sanford Police treated killer George Zimmermann
like a hero who deserved to be congratulated and rewarded.
On 4/28/12, Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
> George Zimmerman Hid Web Funds to Get Bond Release
>
> George Zimmerman had $200,000 support fund, attorney acknowledges
>
> By Richard Fausset
>
> Last week, George Zimmerman's family told a Florida judge that they
> had very little money with which to help the alleged murderer make
> bond.
>
> But as it turns out, Zimmerman had in fact raised more than $200,000
> from supporters on a website and PayPal account he established. That
> new development, divulged by Zimmerman's attorney at a hearing Friday,
> could prompt Seminole County Circuit Judge Kenneth R. Lester Jr. to
> increase the $150,000 bond he set earlier -- though the judge said
> that he wanted to know more about who controls the money before ruling
> on the matter.
>
> More:
> http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-04-27/news/la-na-nn-zimmerman-reveals-support-fund-2012-0427_1_o-mara-florida-judge-bond
>
> Koch Brothers Pay Zimmerman's Legal Fees
>
> In the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin ... The Koch brothers'
> company, which manufactures paper products, is paying for Zimmerman's
> legal fees because they feel Zimmerman had the legal right to bear
> arms and shoot Trayvon. We are asking that people everywhere ban
> together with us and pass this information on and not purchase any of
> the following items because your money will be paying for Zimmerman's
> legal fees.
>
> Please do not purchase any of the following items : Angel Soft toilet
> paper, Brawny paper towels, Dixie plates, bowls, napkins, cups, Mardi
> Gras napkins and towels, Quilted Northern toilet paper, Soft and
> Gentle toilet paper, Sparkle napkins and Vanity Fair napkins.
>
>
> Read more:
> http://www.inspiration1390.com/pages/effie.html?article=10078059#.T5rAgnit1_U.facebook#ixzz1tG1hTOV9
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
>
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
like a hero who deserved to be congratulated and rewarded.
On 4/28/12, Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
> George Zimmerman Hid Web Funds to Get Bond Release
>
> George Zimmerman had $200,000 support fund, attorney acknowledges
>
> By Richard Fausset
>
> Last week, George Zimmerman's family told a Florida judge that they
> had very little money with which to help the alleged murderer make
> bond.
>
> But as it turns out, Zimmerman had in fact raised more than $200,000
> from supporters on a website and PayPal account he established. That
> new development, divulged by Zimmerman's attorney at a hearing Friday,
> could prompt Seminole County Circuit Judge Kenneth R. Lester Jr. to
> increase the $150,000 bond he set earlier -- though the judge said
> that he wanted to know more about who controls the money before ruling
> on the matter.
>
> More:
> http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-04-27/news/la-na-nn-zimmerman-reveals-support-fund-2012-0427_1_o-mara-florida-judge-bond
>
> Koch Brothers Pay Zimmerman's Legal Fees
>
> In the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin ... The Koch brothers'
> company, which manufactures paper products, is paying for Zimmerman's
> legal fees because they feel Zimmerman had the legal right to bear
> arms and shoot Trayvon. We are asking that people everywhere ban
> together with us and pass this information on and not purchase any of
> the following items because your money will be paying for Zimmerman's
> legal fees.
>
> Please do not purchase any of the following items : Angel Soft toilet
> paper, Brawny paper towels, Dixie plates, bowls, napkins, cups, Mardi
> Gras napkins and towels, Quilted Northern toilet paper, Soft and
> Gentle toilet paper, Sparkle napkins and Vanity Fair napkins.
>
>
> Read more:
> http://www.inspiration1390.com/pages/effie.html?article=10078059#.T5rAgnit1_U.facebook#ixzz1tG1hTOV9
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
>
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy
>
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
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