------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: All Subject: labor Date: Sun Oct 01 12:26:43 CDT 1995 Message number: 1 Reply to message number: unavailable This is a base to discuss and post about labor and business ... mainly dealing with the middle class labor that drives American industry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LUCIUS SULLA To: Daedalus Rising Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sun Jan 14 14:00:52 CST 1996 Message number: 2 Reply to message number: -8 DR> all the merchants would have been afraid to sell them defective DR> wagon wheels, for fear of the wrath of Nader :) You have got to be kidding. St. Nader would have been lynched after he was tarred and feathered. Self-sufficient people who are relying on their own energies to survive have to make due with what is available. DR> Is there any limitation to the right to bear arms? No. DR> I don't mean to be stereotypical, but it seems to me that a lot DR> of conservatives try to avoid any question about limitaitons on DR> the 2nd amendment rights in this country. I am starting to see why liberals hate to be called liberals. I am not a political conservative except fiscally. I believe the Constitution was written to give us rights and freedoms and the price of those rights include great responsibility as well as eternal vigilance (as the NRA is proving that we do have to be vigilant against those who want to take away our constitutional rights *for our own good*). I hear stories of how some idiot wasted his best friend and I have to believe it is also partly due to the factr that there are no real punishments being handed out in out court system, I would like some truth in sentencing legislation passed so that cons who are sentenced to 20 years do more than just 7. Perhaps the outcome of renewed freedom would be as some people would view the repeal of the drug prohibition: that it would destroy an entire generation before people learned how to behave responsibly. I do know that this country survived even after the invention of the Winchester repeating rifle. The technology to fire a shot with just a cock of the lever did not mean sensless slaughter of whole populations and neither is the availability of the UZI. Smith & Wesson may not bring us all peace and love, but I have found it to be far better insurance than anything else and it IS the court of last resort. Like any other tool, it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. The right to keeps and bear arms shall not be infringed. It says is very plainly in our legal-cornerstone document. DR> It really seems common-sensical to me. There are limits on DR> free speech, limits on search and seizure rights and limits on DR> freedom of religion. There is no such thing as a search and siezure right. Search and siezure laws are not used by private citizens and they are being badly abused by the government (I am referring to RICO laws, of course, which allow the government to take the property of someone who has not even been convicted of breaking drug laws). The Right to free speech has limits only when such speech infringes on the rights of others. I could say that slander and defamation of character is an infringemnt and I suppose you could make a case that it is a form of initiation of force. The only freedom of religion that is not allowed are practices in which others are getting hurt; again, the initiation of force The right to keeping and bear arms should only be limited if one is using those arms in an initiation of force against someone else. I guess I do not see your statement as common-sensical, more a well-intentioned knee-jerk reaction to something you see as government being able to solve, when the reality of governments effectiveness to protect us is a grim joke. DR> "Witout regulation, the unethical would quickly overwhelm DR> the ethical." Wow. That is about all I can say, but I will attempt to be more articulate. I do get the strong impression you are in the Keynes school of economic theory, but that is irrelevant. Lawyers and accountants [bean counters] are paid to be practical and to make their company [client] money. A good bean counter will debase the product to the lowest common denominator so that the K-mart Hoi Polloi will purchase it (Science Diet pet food comes redily to mind as it used to be a good product) I try to keep on top of these things, as much as I try to keep on top of the goings-on in Washington and St. Paul. I do not believe I am so super-intelligent as to believe I am the only one who can educate himself on product merits. DR> I think there's a definate need for food inspectors, a legal system to DR> enforce contracts, It is axiomatic that the enforcement of contracts is a legitimate government function. Government is to protect property and the rights of the property owner, to enforce contracts and protect against the initiation of force. I am sure I have been clear on that. However, we do *NOT* need food inspectors paid for by tax [read: confiscated] dollars. I am no fan of St. Nader for several reasons, but having a private-sector watchdog such as Naders Raiders is on a far better track of consumer advocacy and making sure that products are safe and effective (it *IS* up to the consumer at some damn point to educate himself on the merits of various products) than government bureaucracies such as the FDA or the USDA, (just to name two) which are not held accountable for their oversights. This is no flame, but I am passionate on my points. Semper Vale! Lucius Sulla ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 03:26:25 CST 1996 Message number: 3 Reply to message number: -6 LS> I am not a CFR, Trilateralist, Zionist conspirator. The most I would go in LS> that direction is a passing and grudging agreement with Lydon LaRouche in h LS> belief that the U.N. has gone far beyond its charter mandate, LS> LS> 'Didn't mean for it to sound like blather :-) I guess I'm just tired of conservatives who rant about how "the one-world government is coming, the liberals and their blue-helmeted U.N. troops, invading Orange County, help, save us, Ollie, help ..." Ok, a bit of an exaggeration :) As for the U.N., no one country in the world has more control over it than the United States. It's pretty much our baby, and when it makes a major decision the President/administration doesn't support, it's a pretty cold day in Hell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Captain Teebo Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 03:31:22 CST 1996 Message number: 4 Reply to message number: -3 DR> Oh, come on now ... "the Fed certainly wants a disarmed society in DR> order to achieve their socialist Amerika" ... this is really CT> CT> Oh fine, howabout "The *government certainly wants a disarmed society in or CT> to achieve their *police *state." But who's "the government"? The secrataries at the Pentgon? The President? The Federal Reserve? The Supreme Court? All of the above, conspiring together to disarm everyone so they can throw away the Constitution and institute a police state? I guess I don't understand how conspiracies like this work. It seems more reasonable to me that individual people may believe a certain thing, and try to carry it out with nthing but the best of intentions ... and those intentions are not to destoy the Constitution or change the government. The intentions are just to make the streest a bit safer. Seems more likely to me than any kind major conspiracy or a ot of people with evil, maliscious intent taking over the government. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 04:08:15 CST 1996 Message number: 5 Reply to message number: 2 DR> Is there any limitation to the right to bear arms? LS> LS> No. Thanks for the direct answer. LS> I am starting to see why liberals hate to be called liberals. Hmm? I don't see where this is coming from ... LS> political conservative except fiscally. I believe the Constitution was writ LS> to give us rights and freedoms and the price of those rights include great LS> responsibility as well as eternal vigilance (as the NRA is proving that we LS> have to be vigilant against those who want to take away our constitutional LS> rights *for our own good*). The Constitution was written by two different, philisophically opposed groups of people: those who sided with Hamilton and those who sided with Jefferson. The H's had greatest infuence over the body of the Consitution, and the J's over the bill of rights. Thus, the document is schitzoid. It can be interpreted to mean two different, contadictry things ... that the government does have the right to regulate the interstate commerce of weapons, and that the government can't interfere at all. It certainly keeps the courts busy, though. LS> I hear stories of how some idiot wasted his best friend and I have to belie LS> it is also partly due to the factr that there are no real punishments being LS> handed out in out court system, I don't know about this, myself. I tend to think that if a person has so little respect for life that they would take another person's, what is 30 years in prison really going to do to "fix" them? This is not to say that I oppose long prison terms for murderers ... only that if we (society, individuals, government ... whoever, and whatever it takes) don't reach out to these people before they kill and rape and become self-destructive, it just might be too late to make a difference. It might be too late, with the only recourse being to throw them in prison. LS> The technology to fire a shot with just a cock of the lever did not mean LS> sensless slaughter of whole populations and neither is the availability of LS> UZI. No, it did not ... but pease recall that technology is not the only major difference. America no longer has Yeomen-based citizen militias, and most people live in (comparatively) crowded cities. In short, the country has changed ... and so have our attitudes towards each other. It's hard to do anythign anymore without affecting someone else. LS> Smith & Wesson may not bring us all peace and love, but I have found it to LS> far better insurance than anything else and it IS the court of last resort. And I have not argued that all weapons are bad. I tend to think the sound of a shotgun is a bigger deterrent than the loudest, largest pit bull. But I also don't think it's unreasonable to limit the availibility of weapons that can kill many people very quickly. There's really no need, and it has great potential to be used against others. DR> It really seems common-sensical to me. There are limits on DR> free speech, limits on search and seizure rights and limits on DR> freedom of religion. LS> There is no such thing as a search and siezure right. Search and siezure la LS> are not used by private citizens and they are being badly abused by the LS> government Sort of a form of shorthand, I was assuming you knew what I meant :) You and I have the right not to have the police burst into our home and search around at will. The police need a warrant. But, there are exceptions to the rule. If I stand outside, throw a brick at a cop car and run inside my house he can follow me in. If, when he comes inside he sees incriminating evidence he can seize it. Or, he can search around the house to make sure it's "safe" ... and if he sees incriminating evidence, he can seize it. This is what I meant ... and like all other rights, it has its limitations. My home is not an absolute haven from the power of a (warrantless) police officer. LS> The Right to free speech has limits only when such speech infringes on the LS> rights of others. I could say that slander and defamation of character is a LS> infringemnt and I suppose you could make a case that it is a form of LS> initiation of force. I think you're stretching it here ... I could just as easily say that knowledge of my neighbor's posession of an Uzi scares me, and my lack of a decent night's sleep is because I fear he may initiate force against me. Even if he doesn't threaten me with words, convenience store thieves have been convicted of armed robbery when all they do is flash their weaopon and point at the cash register. As you can tell, this will quickly get more absurd. The point is that all rights have limitations. Some rights are limited when it infirnges upon the direct rights of others. Some rights are limited because they infringe upon the right of society to remain safe. I darsay that a few Ross Perots with a few small, tactical nuclear warheads is a threat to our society. So are 10,000 people with cyanide gas launchers, or 50,000 people with Stinger missles. LS> The right to keeping and bear arms should only be limited if one is using LS> those arms in an initiation of force against someone else. I guess I do not LS> see your statement as common-sensical, more a well-intentioned knee-jerk LS> reaction to something you see as government being able to solve, when the LS> reality of governments effectiveness to protect us is a grim joke. Some weapons are useful for personal protection, hunting and sport. Some weapons are only useful for killing and destroying lots of people very quickly. If the governemnt isn't there to make a distinction between the two, then who is? . Some weapons are too dangerous to have on the streets . Of those who can take these weapons off the streets, only the freely elected government has the resources to do so. : The freely elected government should decide which ones are too dangerous and work to take them off the streets. Does this seem like a knee-jerk reaction to you? I think you're being a bit condescending. Just because I don't agree with you does not mean that I do not have well-thought out ideas, nor that I am naive to the consequences of said actions. DR> "Witout regulation, the unethical would quickly overwhelm DR> the ethical." LS> Wow. That is about all I can say, but I will attempt to be more articulate. LS> do get the strong impression you are in the Keynes school of economic theor LS> but that is irrelevant. Another area where we fundamentally disagree, apparently. No need to go too far into it ... I think that people are inherently able and willing to manipulate and scheme against their fellow man to gain a short-term advantage over him/her. Self-enforcement of the market is naive ... look at the people who do enforce their own market: politicians, lawyers, doctors ... and you'll generally find the most problems with unethical people taking advantage of the system. So what's left? Government, freely elected by the people it governs. LS> It is axiomatic that the enforcement of contracts is a legitimate governmen LS> function. Government is to protect property and the rights of the property LS> owner, to enforce contracts and protect against the initiation of force. I I guess I don't understand how this is different. Philisophically speaking, why is the government necessary to enforce contracts, and not to enforce standards (ie: health, safety, environment)? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Daedalus Rising Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 06:45:43 CST 1996 Message number: 6 Reply to message number: 5 LS> I am starting to see why liberals hate to be called liberals. DR> DR> Hmm? I don't see where this is coming from ... DR> I think because he is feeling that he is being called a conservative and does not feel that he should be classified "conservative". "except for fiscally." It is too bad that so many people do not recognize that people they label as "liberals" are also fiscally conservative. The difference is in what priorotes are set for investing of money. DR> If I stand outside, throw a brick at a cop car and run inside my house he DR> follow me in. If, when he comes inside he sees incriminating evidence he ca DR> seize it. Or, he can search around the house to make sure it's "safe" ... a DR> if he sees incriminating evidence, he can seize it. DR> Unless the law has been changed in the past 10 years, this is not true either. Police cannot just seize incriminating evidence without a court order. A few years ago, police accompanied me into my ex-husband's house to seize my children. I had the court order for that because I had the custody papers. Once in the house, his pot and pipe were clearly visible on the coffee table. But the cops could not arrest him or seize the drugs. They debated whether to go to a magistrate and get a search warrant, but decided not to since we had the kids safely and my ex was such small peanuts. DR> seize it. Or, he can search around the house to make sure it's "safe" ... a DR> if he sees incriminating evidence, he can seize it. DR> If you have thrown a brick at the cop car, you have probably created a situation which allows him to seize drugs, guns, etc. as evidence. Not if he just happens to be in your house. LS> rights of others. I could say that slander and defamation of character is a LS> infringemnt and I suppose you could make a case that it is a form of LS> initiation of force. DR> DR> I think you're stretching it here ... I could just as easily say that DR> knowledge of my neighbor's posession of an Uzi scares me, and my lack of a DR> decent night's sleep is because I fear he may initiate force against me. DR> UZIs and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. LS> It is axiomatic that the enforcement of contracts is a legitimate governmen LS> function. Government is to protect property and the rights of the property LS> owner, to enforce contracts and protect against the initiation of force. I DR> Since when? The constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, says a lot about the rights of people without making an issue of whether they are property-owners or not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: CAPTAIN TEEBO To: FROGGY Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 09:50:49 CST 1996 Message number: 7 Reply to message number: unavailable CT> Does Smith and Wesson make fully-automatic assault rifles? :) Fr> So does the level of happiness we can achieve depend on the Fr> number of bullets in the clip and the speed of delivery? I was kidding, both of you people scare me. You know that, right? *teebo ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: CAPTAIN TEEBO To: LUCIUS SULLA Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 09:50:52 CST 1996 Message number: 8 Reply to message number: unavailable DR> Is there any limitation to the right to bear arms? LS> No. One cannot legally own any military vehical if it still retains a destructive ability. (Not in the sense that you can run over the neighbors.) Could you imagine the government selling a Abrams battle tank w/ ammunition to anyone that could buy it? It is also illegal to own nuclear devices that can be used for mass destruction. One also cannot poses obscene material that one can use to run down the streets showing to people yelling "AHHH!AHHH! OBSCENE!! OBSCENE MATERIAL COMING THROUGH!!! DIE DIE DIE!!! LOOK, IT'S OBSCENE!!!! LIKE YAMS!! YES YAMS! OBSCENE!! AHHHHHHH!!!!" Thereby causing good, funloving, christian fundamentalists to melt. Oh, never mind that last one. It ties in with the Illuminati/conspiracy plot somehow... I think. *teebo ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: CAPTAIN TEEBO To: DAEDALUS RISING Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 09:50:53 CST 1996 Message number: 9 Reply to message number: unavailable LS> No. DR> Thanks for the direct answer. Hey, he dosn't like to beat around the bush. Can you blame him? /-------\ | * * | --grrr | ___ | \ U / `~~~~~ That's Blah, he's a [yber|>em0n. Look out chix! *teebo ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: CAPTAIN TEEBO To: FROGGY Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 09:50:54 CST 1996 Message number: 10 Reply to message number: unavailable Fr> UZIs and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt Are you implying that we need stone control too? Perhaps a five day waiting period? (UZIs will break more than your bones, now that I think about it.) *teebo ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Captain Teebo Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 14:38:33 CST 1996 Message number: 11 Reply to message number: 7 Fr> So does the level of happiness we can achieve depend on the Fr> number of bullets in the clip and the speed of delivery? CT> CT> I was kidding, both of you people scare me. You know that, right? CT> Yup. I was kidding too, but it is scary simply because there *are* some people who think this way and it is hard to tell who is who. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Captain Teebo Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 14:41:19 CST 1996 Message number: 12 Reply to message number: 10 Fr> UZIs and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt CT> CT> Are you implying that we need stone control too? Perhaps a five day waitin CT> period? CT> CT> (UZIs will break more than your bones, now that I think about it.) CT> Are we back to measuring weapons by their destructive capacity again? Been there, done that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LUCIUS SULLA To: Froggy Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 15:12:19 CST 1996 Message number: 13 Reply to message number: -2 Froggy> If all the workers refuse to work for offered wages, the exploiters Froggy> will also have a hard time keeping their businesses working. Why has this not been tried on an organized level then? You are obviously not alone in your philosophies, so I can see large groups [vis. the early 20th century labor riots] pulling off some kind of march or sit-in thingie and overturning the cars of scabs. As difficult as it may be to imagine it today, in the early 20th Century the U.S. Supreme Court was heavily biased towards conservatism. It is such activist courts that allowed factory owners to [sort of] call out the National Guard and have the ones who were destroying their property shot in the streets. That is what gave birth to the power labor unions have today. The courts are by no streach of the imagination on a conservative kick to legislate from the bench. The Supreme Courts interpretaion of the Constitution proves that in many cases, so perhaps what you [sort of] proposed might stand a better chance Froggy> The idea behind regulation was to prevent this from Froggy> happening, although it didn't work. Nor can it work. Regulators enhance monopolies rather than prevent them. Government has a monopoly on many things such as the public education system and delivering first class mail and I have misgivings about their job performance. I don't remember too many ads for thge U.S. Snail before the advent of Fed-ex and other competitors in the overnight delivery market. Voucher systems, while by no means perfect, are making the MEA and the teachers unions go in conniptions of hysteria, their flyer campaigns and "PapiersKriegs" of how "Arne Carlson wants to destroy education" are ludicrous, but very telling of how they want to maintain their monopoly on gross inefficiency and [at most] token accountability. LS> see what is so underlying--in the conniving and predatory sense of the LS> word--in the Socratic method) what were the underlying motives? LS> Froggy> I wonder about YOUR motives. So far I have ignored this line Froggy> of duscussion twice. I will not respond to it again. If you have ignored it, how can you not respond to it "again?" You were the one who said there were underlying motives, and then refused to explain what you meant by that. Believe it or not, I really want to know what you meant. Froggy> Then you either have a very short memory or a different Froggy> concept of what constitutes a lie than I do. I suggest we have exauhsted this topic and it has become sterile. Semper Vale! Lucius Sulla ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 15 20:17:50 CST 1996 Message number: 14 Reply to message number: 13 LS> Froggy> If all the workers refuse to work for offered wages, the exploiters LS> Froggy> will also have a hard time keeping their businesses working. LS> LS> Why has this not been tried on an organized level then? You are obviously n Repeat after me: STRIKE -- STRIKE -- STRIKE -- STRIKE -- STRIKE LS> streets. That is what gave birth to the power labor unions have today. No it isn't. I was born and raised in coal mining country and I saw what gave rise to a lot of that power first-hand. It was because of the pig-headed abusiveness of the mining companies toward the miners and their families. If they (and other employers) would treat their employees fairly and provide a reasonably safe place to work, there would never have been motivation to organize and put pressure un the company. LS> Nor can it work. Regulators enhance monopolies rather than prevent them. LS> Government has a monopoly on many things such as the public education syste LS> and delivering first class mail and I have misgivings about their job LS> performance. I don't remember too many ads for thge U.S. Snail before the LS> advent of Fed-ex and other competitors in the overnight delivery market. LS> Voucher systems, while by no means perfect, are making the MEA and the LS> teachers unions go in conniptions of hysteria, their flyer campaigns and LS> "PapiersKriegs" of how "Arne Carlson wants to destroy education" are LS> ludicrous, but very telling of how they want to maintain their monopoly on LS> gross inefficiency and [at most] token accountability. LS> Please keep yur rants on topic. I have no idea what this has to do with the subject at hand. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Froggy Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Tue Jan 16 08:18:33 CST 1996 Message number: 15 Reply to message number: 6 DR> If I stand outside, throw a brick at a cop car and run inside my house he DR> follow me in. If, when he comes inside he sees incriminating evidence he ca DR> seize it. Or, he can search around the house to make sure it's "safe" ... a DR> if he sees incriminating evidence, he can seize it. F> Unless the law has been changed in the past 10 years, this is not F> true either. Police cannot just seize incriminating evidence without a cour F> order. Not technically, no. But since the length of the post you pulled the quote from as getting really long, I tried to simplify things. Technically, a cop cannot seize things without a warrant ... unless there are extingent (sp?, sort of off today) circumstances. For example, if a cop saw someone flushing drugs down the toilet he could seize the drugs without a warrant (otherwise, by the time he got the warrant, there would be no drugs to seize). The point is, the rights for you or I to be safe against search and seizure (without a warrant) are not absolute. Cops have the power arrest without an arrest warrant, and can also search and seize without a search warrant (if the circumstances permit). These exceptions/limitations, unlike that of freedom of speech, have nothing to do with whether or not you're infringing on someone else's rights ... it has to do with common sense. In the eyes of the law, warrants are eminently prefferable ... and yet exceptions can be made, even though the Constitution makes no mention of the exceptions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Captain Teebo Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Tue Jan 16 08:19:26 CST 1996 Message number: 16 Reply to message number: 9 CT> Hey, he dosn't like to beat around the bush. Can you blame him? CT> CT> /-------\ CT> | * * | --grrr CT> | ___ | CT> \ U / CT> `~~~~~ CT> That's Blah, he's a [yber|>em0n. Look out chix! Is that the new CDR mascot? Sort of anemic ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LUCIUS SULLA To: Daedalus Rising Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Wed Jan 17 00:32:07 CST 1996 Message number: 17 Reply to message number: 4 DR> One of them was "Viper" ... and every conservative who logs on now DR> is under suspicion. One person really can ruin it for everyone else ... Thank you, now I know. I have seen Viper here and there on various boards, but we've never corresponded. As only DR and Froggy have been publicly corresponding with me, I'm not sure how I'm keeping anyone on his toes. DR> As for the U.N., no one country in the world has more control over it DR> than the United States. It's pretty much our baby, and when it makes a DR> major decision the President/administration doesn't support, it's a DR> pretty cold day in Hell. I am aware of these facts. I question the legitimacy of its existence. We spend far too much on foreign entanglements outside the U.N. and we spend twice as much as anyone on U.N. "dues" not to mention we are the ones who fund most of all U.N. decisions and, like everything else, WE DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY! It will take us a scrillion years to pay off the debt we already have (please don't tell me how debt is good--it's only good to keep the smoke-and-mirrors style of this economy going rather than the gold-standard based economy (as referred to in Article 1, section 10..."No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant letters of Marque or Reprisal; coin money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts...) and also there is Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution [the reference to coined money as opposes to printed money] which congress got us so deeply into during the '80s. Also that not-so-long-ago our commander-in-chief was soo willing to put American troops under U.N. command was enough to give the John Birchers more ammunition than I like to see them have. DR> All of the above, conspiring together to disarm everyone so they can DR> throw away the Constitution and institute a police state? DR> Seems more likely to me than any kind major conspiracy or a ot of DR> people with evil, maliscious intent taking over the government. DR>but pease recall that technology is not the only major difference. DR> America no longer has Yeomen-based citizen militias, I wish you could have followed what Gloria Feinstein and those other socialists in the Senate were saying when they were deciding what weapons were to be banned. The whole thing was based on what used in the movies as "assault weapons." They went by pictures of the damn things. Automatic weapons have been banned from private use since the Al Capone days. What are commonly called "automatic" weapons are really semi-automatic weapons, meaning one trigger-squeeze/one shot. Automatic weapons are the kind that have a continuous burst of fire for as long as you keep the trigger pulled...Making all this sensationalism of "automatic assault weapons" absurd in the first place. She was on of the main sponsors of the Brady Bill and she wanted it to go a lot farther. She has been quoted as saying that. Now to keep this from seeming too much like a rambling cyber-rant, I have to say it's very difficult to nutshell an issue which has sparked so much controversy. I re-read my copy of the constitution and I don't see anywhere where the power to keep a standing army is granted to the Fed or even the states outside of times of invasion (again Article 1, section 8..."...To provide and maintain a Navy... "...To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;) so while we obviously do have a standing army, I don't see where the Fed is allowed to have one outside of the Navy. If I were (notice I use "were" the contrary to fact conditional use of the subjunctive) more of a big-government type I could say "what's the point of a Navy without Marines " : ) it still doesn't say it, though. Remember James Madison maintained the Constitution was to let the Fed know what it was allowed to do--meaning that if it was specified as allowable in the Constitution, then it isn't. That goes for circumventing the 2nd amendment with moral reasoning such as how times have changed. If times have indeed changed, then change the language of the 2nd amendment because it DOES say "...the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." DR> Some weapons are useful for personal protection, hunting and sport. DR> Some weapons are only useful for killing and destroying lots of people DR> very quickly. As I have stated before, if someone [my enemy] has a weapon good only for killing, then I want to be in a position to return fire. That goes for out-of-line ATF agents as well as gang-bangers. If you are afraid of my owning weapons because I live in the same neighborhood or city as you, I think you should learn to deal with your fears and I will show that I am a responsible gun owner by , well, doing all the things responsible gun-owners have to do. Deal? DR> ... is this the double taxation you're referring to? Sorry, doesn't make DR> me too sorry for all those investors out there. Let me quote to you to the Article IX in the Bill of Rights. "The enumeration of the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Personally, I believe the 9th Amendment invalidates the 16th Amendment (the income tax one, of course) but let me get back to the point. I am not saying you should feel sorry for those people who get their money legally stolen from them twice, but it is still wrong. Taxing, regulating or otherwise violating the Citizen's Right to Keep and Trade their Property and Labor is a violation of the spirit of the Constitution. What you are saying, in effect, is that it is okay to punish the rich, they can afford it and they're greedy assholes anyway, so we have a "right" to take their money away and spend it as we see fit. LS> I am starting to see why liberals hate to be called liberals. DR> Hmm? I don't see where this is coming from ... I am shocked and dumbfounded, but Froggy came brilliantly to my defense. There is a quantum difference between a conservative and a Libertarian. However I can see little evidence to show that liberals are fiscally conservative. I see them spending other peoples money like drunken sailors. While I'm here, let me address Froggy in this same missive: Froggy> So does the level of happiness we can achieve depend on Froggy> the number of bullets in the clip and the speed of delivery? Happiness is a warm gun. :-) LS>LS>Government is to protect property and the rights of LS>LS> the property owner, to enforce contracts and protect LS>LS>against the initiation of force. I Froggy> Since when? The constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, Froggy> says a lot about the rights of people without making an issue of Froggy> whether they are property-owners or not. I infer property rights because I know that one cannot have civil rights without the right to own property. It is a no-brainer that had much to do with bringing down the Soviet Union and even China will have to capitulate (at least to some degree) eventually. All things distilled, the right to own property (as it is a fundamental cornerstone of freedom) is what the Document is all about. I don't see how you can separate property rights from Original Intent. Froggy> We (society) want to reward people who work, right? I do, sure, but society (including a few people on this board) seems to want to punish those who succeed with their hard work. Robert Reich and David Bonior being the most vocal of current spokesmen for class warfare with a resentment for the rich. (After all, no one can succeed without stealing and all sorts of corruption, "nes pas?") Take Care! Lucius Cornelius Sulla ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Wed Jan 17 04:30:49 CST 1996 Message number: 18 Reply to message number: 17 LS> Thank you, now I know. I have seen Viper here and there on various boards, LS> we've never corresponded. As only DR and Froggy have been publicly LS> corresponding with me, I'm not sure how I'm keeping anyone on his toes. LS> Others have responded to you. I have seen comments from Europa and Cosima. Others have not responded directly to you. but to one of us about our conversations. Others don't comment at all, but lurk and read every word that is said and learn. one way or the other, from it. LS> Personally, I believe the 9th Amendment invalidates the 16th Amendment (the The Supreme Court does not, and their opinion caounts more than yours. For that matter, Congress has not seen fit to rouse the 2'3 majority needed to cancel it either. Liooks like you are in a majority of one. LS> weapons because I live in the same neighborhood or city as you, I think you LS> should learn to deal with your fears and I will show that I am a responsibl You may *not* be a fried brain who will take in an assault rifle and shoot up a MacDonald's, but we don't think that much fire power is needed for simple self defense. Waco proved once and for all that no matter how much you stock weapons. citizens still cannot take on the government and outshoot it. This is the area we need to deal with, not simply stockpiling more weapons. This is also discriminatory toward the poor, who have to spend their money on bread, instead of guns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: STARFOX To: Froggy Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Thu Jan 18 03:26:15 CST 1996 Message number: 19 Reply to message number: -10 ^1-=> Quoting Froggy to Daedalus Rising <=- F> DR> As for common sense, it does nothing in this case for me. I see it this wa DR> if more people have guns and carry them around everywhere, more people are DR> going to be hurt ... spur-of-the-moment emotional outbursts turning deadly DR> guns going off by accident, and the inevitable "hero" who decides to take DR> action into his own hands and only ends up hurting himself and/or others. DR> F> F> It just happened . A group of teenagers was playing cards i F> a shed in Minneapolis and one of them brought a gun. During the game, he go F> angry, pulled it out, and killed his best friend. ... and he didnt understand that the kid had died! He had seen so many TV shows that the people just say ouch or whatever and he never considered that he would DIE, DUH. maybe it's TV, maybe it's the way our culture started, maybe it's just me (Probally the last one) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: STARFOX To: Daedalus Rising Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Thu Jan 18 03:29:19 CST 1996 Message number: 20 Reply to message number: -9 DR> I make $1000 at work. DR> I make $1000 at work. DR> I pay $200 in taxes and have $800. DR> I buy an $800 widget. DR> I sell the widget for $1000. DR> I make $200 ($1000-800). DR> I get taxed on this $200. DR> DR> ... is this the double taxation you're referring to? Sorry, doesn't make m DR> too sorry for all those investors out there. Those who make money off their DR> money should be taxed *more than those who make money off their sweat, bloo DR> and labor. DR> DR> We (society) want to reward people who work, right? Yeah, unlike the rich people who want to have tax cuts, and raise the taxes on people earning minnium wage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: STARFOX To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Thu Jan 18 03:32:14 CST 1996 Message number: 21 Reply to message number: -1 ^1-=> Quoting Lucius Sulla to Captain Teebo <=- CT> Does Smith and Wesson Make fully automatic assault rifles? :) LS> LS> To the best of my knowledge, no they don't. However, it is not impossible t LS> modify a semi-automatic weapon into a full-auto weapon if you have the righ LS> tools. LS> LS> Vale! LS> LS> LCS Just file the clip hold ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Starfox Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Thu Jan 18 04:55:54 CST 1996 Message number: 22 Reply to message number: 18 F> It just happened . A group of teenagers was playing cards i F> a shed in Minneapolis and one of them brought a gun. During the game, he go F> angry, pulled it out, and killed his best friend. S> ... and he didnt understand that the kid had died! He had seen so many TV S> shows that the people just say ouch or whatever and he never considered that S> he would DIE, DUH. maybe it's TV, maybe it's the way our culture started, S> maybe it's just me (Probally the last one) I didn't hear this but I am not surprised. No, I don't think it is you. You obviously understand that death is really death. Kaput. Nada. Hasta la Vista. Apparently there are a lot of kids who really don't understand this. It is also possible that the kid took the gun that night, intending to use it to defend them against "others", and in an emotional fit, it was turned on his friend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: THROCKMORTON To: LUCIUS SULLA Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Thu Jan 18 12:30:46 CST 1996 Message number: 23 Reply to message number: unavailable LS>Now to keep this from seeming too much like a rambling cyber-rant, I have t >say it's very difficult to nutshell an issue which has sparked so much >controversy. I re-read my copy of the constitution and I don't see anywhere >where the power to keep a standing army is granted to the Fed or even the >states outside of times of invasion (again Article 1, section 8..."...To >provide and maintain a Navy... LS>"...To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the >Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;) so while we obviously d >have a standing army, I don't see where the Fed is allowed to have one outs >of the Navy. If I were (notice I use "were" the contrary to fact conditiona >use of the subjunctive) more of a big-government type I could say "what's t >point of a Navy without Marines " : ) it still doesn't say it, though. >Remember James Madison maintained the Constitution was to let the Fed know >what it was allowed to do--meaning that if it was specified as allowable in >the Constitution, then it isn't. The phrase in the first sentence of the section ...provide for the common defense... could possibly be used as a justification to keep a standing military. --- þ OLX 1.53 þ Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: THROCKMORTON To: LUCIUS SULLA Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Thu Jan 18 12:30:47 CST 1996 Message number: 24 Reply to message number: unavailable LS>Let me quote to you to the Article IX in the Bill of Rights. "The enumerati >of the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or >disparage others retained by the people." LS>Personally, I believe the 9th Amendment invalidates the 16th Amendment (the >income tax one, of course) but let me get back to the point. I am not sayin The original text of the constitution prohibited income taxes (Article 1, section 9). The 16th amendment specifically authorized the congress to use an income tax to raise money. By adopting this amendment the authority to levy an income tax was incorporated into the constitution, making that one of the privileges granted congress. If it is an authority specifically granted congress by the constitution the 9th amendment would not apply. --- þ OLX 1.53 þ Thesaurus: ancient reptile with an excellent vocabulary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Thu Jan 18 12:47:10 CST 1996 Message number: 25 Reply to message number: 16 DR> As for the U.N., no one country in the world has more control over it DR> than the United States. LS> I am aware of these facts. I question the legitimacy of its existence. Constitutional legitimacy, or whether it's a good idea to be involved or not? LS> spend far too much on foreign entanglements outside the U.N. and we spend LS> twice as much as anyone on U.N. "dues" not to mention we are the ones who f LS> most of all U.N. decisions and, like everything else, WE DO NOT HAVE THE LS> MONEY! We get what we pay for, I guess. If we want to continue to dominate it, it's only fitting we also pay for the privilege. LS> It will take us a scrillion years to pay off the debt we already hav LS> (please don't tell me how debt is good--it's only good to keep the LS> smoke-and-mirrors style of this economy going rather than the gold-standard LS> based economy ... and the Gold-standard worked so well during the 1900s, when we had "recessions" every decade or so. A Gold-based money supply works great it you have a vested interest in keeping the value of your money constant. LS> I wish you could have followed what Gloria Feinstein and those other LS> socialists in the Senate were saying when they were deciding what weapons w LS> to be banned. The whole thing was based on what used in the movies as "assa LS> weapons." They went by pictures of the damn things. I'd have to take this info with a grain of salt ... prefacing this by calling Feinstein a "socialist" would be reason enough. She's too much of a tool of a multitude of special intrest groups to be a socialist. LS> Automatic weapons have been banned from private use since the Al Capone day LS> What are commonly called "automatic" weapons are really semi-automatic LS> weapons, meaning one trigger-squeeze/one shot. I'm not completely ignorant about weapons, even though I have never used one. I also know that some semi-automatic weapons can be easily converted to automatic by filing down the firing pin. If memory serves, some of these easily convertable weapons were called into question a few years ago. In the end, i'd say each weapons has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. I don't think banning them all is the answer, but neither do i think that if everyone had a private arsenal we'd all be safe and happy. LS> She was on of the main sponsors of the Brady Bill and she wanted it to go a LS> lot farther. She has been quoted as saying that. Feinstein might support national ID cards and cameras in the bedroom if she thought it was for a good cause. She might mean well, but she doesn't seem to mind the spctre of Big brother on the horizon. LS> Remember James Madison maintained the Constitution was to let the Fed know LS> what it was allowed to do--meaning that if it was specified as allowable in LS> the Constitution, then it isn't. No one person, then or now, can define the Constitution. It's open to interpretation in too many ways (if you want to dispute this, I'd remind you that it *has happened, and will continue to happen ... whenther or not you approve or think it's even valid). I can say that providing for the general welfare means that all guns should be banned, or that everyone should have a gun. I can put that against the 2nd amendment and say it means one thing, but it might mean the opposite to someone else. For example, I have read the Constitution several times. I still cannot make sense out of the 2nd amendment to my satisfaction. Does it mean only militias can have weapons (which the Feds can't do anythign about)? That only states can have militias? That anyone and everyone is a member of the militia, and that anyone and everyone can have a weapon? The point is, everyone looks at it differently. Which was very deliberate ... they had to sell the Document in 13 different states, which all wanted different things. A completely straightforward document would have been a hard sell. LS> Let me quote to you to the Article IX in the Bill of Rights. "The enumerati LS> of the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or LS> disparage others retained by the people." Thanks, as I said ... I am familiar with the document. I don't think it's very productive to get into a discussion over the various points of the Constitution. I don't think the Founding Fathers, if they were all here today, could get together and agree on what they intended each point to mean. They had Monarchists, Federalists, Democratic-Republicans and all sorts of people inbetween. Some were farmers, others merchants. If they all agreed on any single parapgraph in the Constitution I'd be pretty damned surprised ... LS> Personally, I believe the 9th Amendment invalidates the 16th Amendment (th LS> income tax one, of course) but let me get back to the point. Never heard that one before. Seems pretty far out there to me ... isn't amending the Constitution the legal way to change it? LS> What you are saying, in effect, is that is okay to punish the rich, they LS> can afford it and they're greedy assholes anyway, so we have a "right" to LS> take their money away and spend it as we se fit. Nope, taxing is another way of saying: No one lives in a vacuum. The money you make doesn't come from a money tree in your back yard. The money you make doesn't come from the sweat and labor of you alone. The money you make comes from the society you live in, as a reward for doing something the people in that society value. In order to ensure that others who follow you have the same opportunity to make money, you must return some of it to help provide the structure that society needs to grow and thrive. To any wealthy person who sees taxation as theft, I honestly wonder what country on Earth they think they could "start over" in and make a shitload of money it. The opportunity just isn't there in countries that don't tax their (prosperous) citizens. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Throckmorton Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Thu Jan 18 15:13:01 CST 1996 Message number: 26 Reply to message number: 24 T> The original text of the constitution prohibited income taxes (Article T> 1, section 9). The 16th amendment specifically authorized the congress T> to use an income tax to raise money. By adopting this amendment the Really? So then to get rid of income taxes, we need to repeal the 16th amendment. Not easy, I know. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: THROCKMORTON To: DAEDALUS RISING Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sat Jan 20 15:04:30 CST 1996 Message number: 27 Reply to message number: unavailable DR> For example, I have read the Constitution several times. I still cannot ma >sense out of the 2nd amendment to my satisfaction. Does it mean only militi >can have weapons (which the Feds can't do anythign about)? That only states >can have militias? That anyone and everyone is a member of the militia, and >that anyone and everyone can have a weapon? From Webster's 9th Collegiate Dictionary Militia: 1. A part of the organized arm forces of a country liable to call only in emergency. 2. The whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to military service. The general meaning taking by people opposed to further gun controls is the second meaning. They seem to maintain that all adults are by definition part of the militia and therefor are allowed to have weapons. --- þ OLX 1.53 þ PCDOS&MSDOS&CP/M&WINDOWSI'LLFIDDLEWITHOS/2WOULDN'TYOU ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: THROCKMORTON To: FROGGY Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sat Jan 20 15:04:31 CST 1996 Message number: 28 Reply to message number: unavailable F>T> The original text of the constitution prohibited income taxes (Article >T> 1, section 9). The 16th amendment specifically authorized the congress >T> to use an income tax to raise money. By adopting this amendment the F> Really? So then to get rid of income taxes, we need to repeal the >16th amendment. Not easy, I know. Not really. The amendment gave congress the authority to levy an income tax. It did not say that they have to. If congress chose to they could make the tax rate on income 0% by just passing a law. --- þ OLX 1.53 þ People say I'm indecisive. Am I? I don't know. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Throckmorton Subject: Re: Heavy Weapons Date: Sat Jan 20 15:56:03 CST 1996 Message number: 29 Reply to message number: 27 T> From Webster's 9th Collegiate Dictionary T> Militia: T> 1. A part of the organized arm forces of a country liable to call only T> in emergency. T> 2. The whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being T> subject to military service. T> T> The general meaning taking by people opposed to further gun controls is T> the second meaning. They seem to maintain that all adults are by T> definition part of the militia and therefor are allowed to have weapons. Thanks for the info. I guess this is what's so frustrating; it can be taken either way, and a lot of times people insist it has to be one or the other. They'll quote Jefferson and Hamilton, quote a former Supreme Court Justice or stand upside down on their head trying to insist in the absolute rightness of their belief. But could it be that no one's right ...? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Throckmorton Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sun Jan 21 02:21:25 CST 1996 Message number: 30 Reply to message number: 28 F> Really? So then to get rid of income taxes, we need to repeal the T> >16th amendment. Not easy, I know. T> T> Not really. The amendment gave congress the authority to levy an income T> tax. It did not say that they have to. If congress chose to they could T> make the tax rate on income 0% by just passing a law. Then we would have to continue to pau for all the people, buildings, computers, etc. in the IRS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Daedalus Rising Subject: Re: Heavy Weapons Date: Sun Jan 21 02:31:51 CST 1996 Message number: 31 Reply to message number: 29 DR> I guess this is what's so frustrating; it can be taken either way, and a l DR> of times people insist it has to be one or the other. They'll quote Jeffers DR> and Hamilton, quote a former Supreme Court Justice or stand upside down on DR> their head trying to insist in the absolute rightness of their belief. DR> DR> But could it be that no one's right ...? I think that most people generally agree that one of the things that the founding fathers were concerned about was the idea that a government could militarily control its citizens and oppress them. At that time, the head of every household owning a gun was considered to be a protection against this. In addition, many people needed guns to provide for themselves and to survive, and to take them away was like a death sentence. Times have changed. Simply owning a gun will not provide either of these needs. The police and military have far more firepower than t single homeowner's gun can hold off. All the guns in the world cannot feed us now, because the natural habitats have all been cut back and there isn't enough wildlife. In today's world, a gun had one purpose and one purpose only -- to kill other citizens. I don't think that this is what the founding fathers intended to protect. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: CAPTAIN TEEBO To: DAEDALUS RISING Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sun Jan 21 04:31:35 CST 1996 Message number: 32 Reply to message number: unavailable CT> /-------\ CT> | * * | --grrr CT> | ___ | CT> \ U / CT> `~~~~~ CT> That's Blah, he's a [yber|>em0n. Look out chix! DR> Is that the new CDR mascot? No, he's a writer. But if you poke him he giggles! DR> Sort of anemic ... Great, make me get out my dictionary, just great.. anemic, adj, without + haima, blood. Without blood. Well duh, he's a [yber|>em0n silly! *teebo ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Captain Teebo Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sun Jan 21 06:33:33 CST 1996 Message number: 33 Reply to message number: 32 CT> /-------\ CT> | * * | --grrr CT> | ___ | CT> \ U / CT> `~~~~~ CT> That's Blah, he's a [yber|>em0n. Look out chix! DR> Is that the new CDR mascot? CT> CT> No, he's a writer. But if you poke him he giggles! CT> Don't most writers do that? :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ZWEITER HOYF To: Daedalus Rising Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 22 11:20:25 CST 1996 Message number: 34 Reply to message number: unavailable DR> DR> The point is, the rights for you or I to be safe against search and seizu DR> (without a warrant) are not absolute. Cops have the power arrest without a DR> arrest warrant, and can also search and seize without a search warrant (if DR> circumstances permit). DR> DR> These exceptions/limitations, unlike that of freedom of speech, have noth DR> to do with whether or not you're infringing on someone else's rights ... DR> has to do with common sense. In the eyes of the law, warrants are eminentl DR> prefferable ... and yet exceptions can be made, even though the Constituti DR> makes no mention of the exceptions. Also, the Customs have the power to search and seize without warrant in order to protect the border. --- þ NFX V1.2 [Freeware] Graphic Offline Mail Reader. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: THROCKMORTON To: FROGGY Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Mon Jan 22 11:42:02 CST 1996 Message number: 35 Reply to message number: unavailable F>F> Really? So then to get rid of income taxes, we need to repeal th >T> >16th amendment. Not easy, I know. >T> >T> Not really. The amendment gave congress the authority to levy an income >T> tax. It did not say that they have to. If congress chose to they could >T> make the tax rate on income 0% by just passing a law. F> Then we would have to continue to pau for all the people, buildings >computers, etc. in the IRS. They'd still have jobs. Collecting and tracking whatever tax or tariff replaced the income tax. --- þ OLX 1.53 þ Mental Floss prevents Moral Decay. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MAILER DAEMON To: All Subject: The Corporate Equation Date: Tue Jan 23 13:52:48 CST 1996 Message number: 36 Reply to message number: unavailable ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Jan.18, 1996 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- IT'S CAPITALISM, STUPID: SECRETARY OF LABOR MAKES GREAT DISCOVERY By Hillel Cohen Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has made a truly great discovery. It is very important, even though buried in a misty-eyed opinion piece printed Jan. 4 in the New York Times where few workers will see it. But workers should pay close attention. AT&T's permanent layoff of 40,000 employees, including workers and supervisors, stunned Reich into discovering that today's corporate bosses believe that "if employees' wages and benefits don't generate a sufficient return, the jobs have to go. And if an entire community loses its economic base because the company can do its work more efficiently elsewhere, so be it." Reich uses the more polite word "return" in place of "profits," which might have an unpleasant odor to many of his labor contacts. Just a few months ago, Reich was still promoting the idea that workers should join with bosses and form cooperative management teams to maximize productivity and profits. These teams were supposed to take the place of unions in the modern world. FEASTING ON A BIGGER PIE For years, Reich's sermons to labor have been intended to help the corporations make more profits, under the assumption that when the bosses have a bigger "pie," they will share it with the workers. But it seems his faith has been shaken. "The ostensible purpose of eliminating the federal budget deficit," says Reich, "is to give the private sector more capital to invest, thus widening opportunities and raising earnings for all Americans. But as we all see, there is no guarantee that corporations will use the extra resources in this way. "Maximizing shareholders' returns may require investing the extra dollars in production abroad, or in labor-saving equipment intended to reduce wages and cut jobs, or in mergers, acquisitions and divestitures that result in mass layoffs. ... "As corporations have focused more and more intensely on increasing shareholders' returns and less and less on improving the standard of living of their workers, it should be no surprise that the stock market has soared while pink slips have proliferated and the paychecks of most employees have gone nowhere. "Do not blame corporations and their top executives. They are behaving exactly as they are organized to behave." Does Reich really believe that in the good old days the bosses cared about the workers' standard of living? Nevertheless, his new discovery is exactly right, if a little late. Bosses will always seek the most profits. They will lay off workers and drive down wages to do so, if they can get away with it. Helping the corporations become more profitable will not help workers achieve anything. It will only help the bosses get stronger at the expense of the workers. IS HE SERIOUS? Reich's discovery is right up there with Columbus' discovery of America. Columbus found something that was never lost. Millions of Native people were living in peace long before Columbus and the colonialists who followed "discovered," enslaved and slaughtered them. Reich hopes his discovery, like Columbus', will help open up a whole new era of capitalist expansion--but this time a kinder, gentler capitalism. "If we want [the corporations] to put greater emphasis on the interests of their workers and communities, society must reorganize them to do so." How is this to be done? Here's where the labor secretary winds up true to form. His answer: Corporations that demonstrate "responsibility" to their workers and communities should be rewarded by the government. "Perhaps corporate income taxes should be reduced or eliminated entirely for companies that do so." So that's the lesson he squeezes out of his great discovery: Selectively eliminate corporate income taxes. Maybe Secretary Reich hasn't changed that much from the person who pushed NAFTA, productivity campaigns, voluntary restraints on sweatshops, and the virtues of "Buy American." Karl Marx, by the way, already made the discovery almost 150 years ago that capitalist bosses must always try to maximize profits and can do so only by cutting the wages and living conditions of the world's workers. But Marx also discovered that the only way workers can improve their condition is to reorganize--not private corporations, as Reich suggests, but society itself. That reorganization, called socialism, will be won through revolutionary class struggle against the corporations, their state and their apologists. Maybe that's why Marx never became a secretary of labor. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com.) -!- ! Origin: helix.uucp =FidoNet/Internet= Seattle 206.783.6368 (1:343/70) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LUCIUS SULLA To: Throckmorton Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sat Jan 27 01:56:31 CST 1996 Message number: 37 Reply to message number: 23 T> The phrase in the first sentence of the section ...provide for the T> common defense... could possibly be used as a justification to keep a T> standing military. It could be, and I suppose it has, but we did not have such a standing army for a very long time and before we started our exercises into imperialism, we got by just fine. There are sections in the document about "calling forth the militia during times of foreign invasion and civil insurrection." but not about keeping troops during times of peace. Again, there is a provision for the Navy, but not for a standing army. Vale! LCS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Froggy Subject: Re: Heavy Weapons Date: Sun Jan 28 09:39:13 CST 1996 Message number: 38 Reply to message number: 31 F> Times have changed. Simply owning a gun will not provide either of F> these needs. The police and military have far more firepower than t single F> homeowner's gun can hold off. I tend to agree. Weapons can keep the police/military at bay for a while (David Koresh, and that DuPont guy who killed an Olympic wrestler) ... and if we were invaded by blue-helmeted U.N. tropps, we could harass them for a while. But it seems hollow to believe that a personal stockpileof weapons is going to protect anyone against the tyranny of the state. If I have a machette, the army has an M-16. If I have a shotgun, the army has a tank. If I have a small militia of armed citizens, the army has nuclear weapons. The only thing protecting me from the state is my vote/involvement, who we elect to office, and the hope that our own people (those who signed up for service) would not turn against us. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LUCIUS SULLA To: Daedalus Rising Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sat Feb 03 05:51:49 CST 1996 Message number: 39 Reply to message number: 25 DR> [from 1¥15¥96] The Constitution was written by two different, > philisophically opposed groupsof people: those who sided with > Hamilton and those who sided with Jefferson. DR> [from 1¥18¥96] I don't think the Founding Fathers, if they were > all here today, could get together and agree on what they intended > each point to mean. They had Monarchists, Federalists, > Democratic-Republicans and all sorts of people inbetween. Some > were farmers, others merchants. If they all agreed on any single > parapgraph in the Constitution I'd be pretty damned surprised ... A minor point, but how can The Document be written by two different schools of philosophy and then also have "Monarchists, Federalists, Democrat-Republicans and all sorts of people in between?" I know the egos and opinions abounded at those Continental Congresses, it was about as of one mind as a Mensa meeting. DR> We get what we pay for, I guess. If we want to continue to dominate it, > it's only fitting we also pay for the privilege. What privilege!? The whole "Imperium Americanum" is costing us more every year than we spent on WWII in its entirety! At least the "Imperium Romanum" had a tradition of a defense strategy that required that Rome herself be so deep within Roman territory that it would be prohibitively expensive to get to her. The absuridity we have today is based strictly upon broadening a power base and I think it is wrong. DR> ... and the Gold-standard worked so well during the 1900s, when we DR> had "recessions" every decade or so. A Gold-based money supply DR> works great it you have a vested interest in keeping the value of your DR> money constant. We donÕt have recessions every ten years or so now? Come on! Everyone has a vested interest in keeping the value based on something hard. Debasing the currency is something that contributed heavily to the fall of the "Pax Romanum" when it became clear that adding a little bit of copper to the silver "denarius" gave the economy more money, it took less than 200 years for there to be more copper than silver to the coins. All the crap that goes into managed economies are nothing new. Even Emporer Diocletian burned the provincial grapefields to support the wine prices. Debasing money also contributed to the chaos in France before the revolution. When the "borrow your way to prosperity" such as Nekkar were the royal economic advisors, it was not too long before the French economy and the royal heads were both "basket cases." {I know, I know, there were a series of bad harvests and there was a lot of court intrigue and absolutely nothing was getting done and the the "assembly general" was supposed to help, but it failed and on and on and on, but economies always go in cycles and the market is always dynamic. It is Keynsians and other such managed economy types who labor under the premise that economies are static.) It was those who saw the writing on the wall and placed their trust in Louis d'Or rathern than Louis d'Roi who got their gold out of the country who came out ahead. This is not to mention the wonders of the early American fiat known as the "Continental." This smoke and mirrors nonsense of figuring the U.S. dollars value through the guesswork of GNP, against Yen and DeutchMarks, and all the other kiss-and-a-smile crap brought to us through the Fed and the Federal Reserve (although I do realize it is a good thing the Federal Reserve is not Nationalized, if it must exist) which would mean nothing if consumer confidence in paper federal "Bunk Notes" were sufficiently erroded. LS> What you are saying, in effect, is that is okay to punish the rich, they LS> can afford it and they're greedy assholes anyway, so we have a "right" to LS> take their money away and spend it as we se fit. DR> Nope, taxing is another way of saying: DR> No one lives in a vacuum. The money you make doesn't DR> come from a money tree in your back yard. The money you DR> make doesn't come from the sweat and labor of you alone. DR> Themoney you make comes from the society you live in, as a DR> reward for doing something the people in that society value. The money I make comes from a deal--a contract, if you will--I make to provide a good or service to someone who is willing to give me something in return. It does NOT come from the benevolence of legislators, they only serve to thwart Natural Law whenever they start making laws. It has been proven throughout all history that when there are too many laws, it is symptomatic of how corrupt the commonwealth is. I do not need them and I most certainly don't want them. I'd rather be free to take resposibility for my actions and to keep the rewards I sow. DR> To any wealthy person who sees taxation as theft, I honestly DR> wonder what country on Earth they think they could "start over" DR> in and make a shitload of money it. The opportunity just isn't there DR> in countries that don't tax their (prosperous) citizens. You attend a community college, don't you? Why not just push for a tax on the wealthy (and I would want a better definition of wealthy than what Al Gore puked out before the last tax hike) and let me keep my money. It would still be an anathema to freedom, but at least you would be philisophically consistent. Don't forget it is the mega-corporations (such as Microsoft) who want to keep regulations and taxations in place so as to drive out the smaller and more nimble businesses. When you say it is the government stealing money from the wealthy which allows for continued opportunity, and I see you BELIEVE it, I see why you are a fan of Molly Ivans. This is the type of logic I've heard from people who believe that government grants us rights rather than the truth that people are born free and government takes rights away from us. What the heck is so wrong with being rich? it provides jobs! It means someone is providing goods and services the people want! What is so bleeding wrong with their being allowed to keep what they've earned? Flame off. Sulla ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sat Feb 03 06:09:47 CST 1996 Message number: 40 Reply to message number: 39 LS> The money I make comes from a deal--a contract, if you will--I make to prov LS> a good or service to someone who is willing to give me something in return. LS> does NOT come from the benevolence of legislators, they only serve to thwar LS> history that when there are too many laws, it is symptomatic of how corrupt OK. You and I will write a contract. You do your work. I won't bother to pay you. You can't challenge me for it, because you don't believe in laws, or therefore the violation of laws. It is OK with you if I am richer than you and am not taxed for my wealth. So I have used that extra money to buy big guns and hire guards, whom I DO pay. Catch me if you can. LS> You attend a community college, don't you? LS> LS> Flame off. LS> DR will probably be too much of a gentleman to comment on this, but I will. I am getting sick and tired of your attitude. When people back you into a corner and ask you a question you can't answer, you ignore it. Then you come out with a condescending attitude and personal attacks. So far YOU are the only one in these conversations who is flaming, and I would appreciate it if you would find a higher standard of communication. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Taxation Date: Sat Feb 03 11:12:15 CST 1996 Message number: 41 Reply to message number: 39 LS> A minor point, but how can The Document be written by two different school LS> philosophy and then also have "Monarchists, Federalists, Democrat-Republica LS> and all sorts of people in between?" Because the Federalits and Democrat-Republicans were the two dominant groups, for whatever reason. Maybe because they had two of the most compelling ideologies, or the two most charismatic leaders (Jefferson and Hamilton). DR> We get what we pay for, I guess. If we want to continue to dominate it, > it's only fitting we also pay for the privilege. LS> What privilege!? The whole "Imperium Americanum" is costing us more every LS> than we spent on WWII in its entirety! At least the "Imperium Romanum" had LS> tradition of a defense strategy that required that Rome herself be so deep LS> within Roman territory that it would be prohibitively expensive to get to h Perhaps you're misunderstanding me. I'm not saying that the U.S. role in the United Nations is a good one for either our country, or the world. I'm simply saying that if we want to continue to dominate the U.N. agenda, we should not be surprised when we're expected to pay for it. LS> The absuridity we have today is based strictly upon broadening a power bas LS> and I think it is wrong. I tend to agree. The monied interests and the politicians who are most friendly to them use the power of the U.N. to get their way around the world. In that sense, the U.N. and similar worldwide organizations (the world bank, etc) are rather noxious. DR> ... and the Gold-standard worked so well during the 1900s, when we DR> had "recessions" every decade or so. A Gold-based money supply LS> We donÕt have recessions every ten years or so now? Come on! Everyone has a LS> vested interest in keeping the value based on something hard. Debasing the Sorry to disappoint, but the gold-based vs. paper money isn't an area I'm well informed in right now. Maybe in a few months :) DR> Nope, taxing is another way of saying: DR> No one lives in a vacuum. The money you make doesn't DR> come from a money tree in your back yard. The money you LS> The money I make comes from a deal--a contract, if you will--I make to prov LS> a good or service to someone who is willing to give me something in return. You and the person who deal/contract your way to an agreement do not exist in a vacuum, either. Obviously, someone is there to enforce the contract. Less obviously, the actions the two of you take will affect others ... and the two of you would not be able to conduct your business if you were not part of this regulated free-market economic/social system. I could ramble on, but I think this is the second area where liberals and libertarians strongly disagre. I, as a liberal, don't see myself or my actions in some sort of a void. Libertarians seem to think so, or at least that's the impression I get from them. LS> It has been proven throughout history that when there are too many laws, LS> it is symptomatic of how corrupt the commonwealth is. Laws are not bad in themselves. A law is only as good as the people who write it, and a government is only as corrupt as the people it governs allow it to be. LS> You attend a community college, don't you? Yes. Why do yuo ask? LS> Why not just push for a tax on the wealthy (and I would want a better LS> definition of wealthy than what Al Gore puked out before the last tax hike) I seem to recall some Republican Congressman saying a few weeks ago that he considered middle-class to be $150,000 or so. Does this imply that all Republicans have silly ideas about middle-class income and wealth? Because you seem to be implying that Democrats/liberals have silly ideas about taxation like Al Gore does. LS> and let me keep my money. It would still be an anathema to freedom, but at LS> least you would be philisophically consistent. Because the wealthy arenot the only ones who benefit from our system. they just benefit more than poor people do. LS> When you say it is the government stealing money from the wealthy which LS> allows for continued opportunity, and I see you BELIEVE it, I see why you Why do you have to try and paraphrase my words in such inflamatory language? (maybe it's not intentional?). The government "stealing" from the wealthy ... well, I wonder how you get that logic and how far you would apply it in other situations. I don't think yuo would apply it very far ... you would probably bring in "implied contracts" and "supply and demand". That's the way you seem to look at things. While I don't agree with it, there's no need to. But I don't think you're being consistent here. Just as a "rich person" can't easily avoid taxes in a legal manner, an employee looking for work cannot easily find employment where he is rewarded for a large percent of his productivity. There is a tendencty for employees to give much more than they get from a company, and this "implied contract" seems to be done under duress ... like needing a job to buy food. Is this stealing? If not, how is it different than a "rich person" having his income taxed? LS> are a fan of Molly Ivans. This is the type of logic I've heard from LS> people who believe that government grants us rights rather than the tr LS> that people are born free and government takes rights away from us. This really seems silly to me, I have to be honest. You seem to think of the government as some monolithic monster bent on domination. The government is not some beauracratic hydra. The government is only as good as the people who elect, represent and control it. And in America, that is the responsibility of every man, woman and child who is of voting age. When these people do not live up to their responsibility, the government becomes more corrupt and less responsive. The government does not grant rights. The people who control the government do not grant rights. The people who control the government do with our rights what they damned well please, and the people who could control the government but don't sit back and complain about it. That's how I see the government, and its role in our lives. it has no role we do not give it. If we (collectively) give up our right to control it, we may also be giving up our other rights. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: STARFOX To: Lucius Sulla Subject: Re: The marketplace Date: Sat Feb 03 13:58:58 CST 1996 Message number: 42 Reply to message number: 39 LS> Flame off. LS> LS> Sulla Aint you a little OLD for that??? First of all you talked yourself in a circle, second well aint we being a little immature?? Hmm SOUDNS LIKE IT TO ME!!! Maybe YOU should FLAME OFF! Yours VERRY truley, StarFox ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MAILER DAEMON To: All Subject: America Needs A Raise Date: Mon Mar 04 13:41:53 CST 1996 Message number: 43 Reply to message number: unavailable From: AFL-CIO Executive Council, February 19, 1996 America Needs A Raise America needs a raise, in the worst kind of way. While productivity, profits, executive pay and the stock market keep going up, working family incomes keep going down, widening the gap between the rich and the rest of us and creating a dangerous atmosphere of social and economic conflict. Since 1979, real earnings for workers have declined 12 percent. During that same period, 97 percent of the increase in household incomes has gone to the richest 20 percent of all households, with middle income families and the poor left to scramble over the remaining three percent. During the same period, productivity went up 24 percent and American workers should have been able to enjoy a substantial increase in buying power. Instead, the productivity was converted into increases in corporate profits (64 percent between 1989 and 1995) and in executive compensation (up 360 percent since 1980). The result is an alarming maldistribution of wealth. The top 20 percent of households in our country now get half of the nation's total income and control 85 percent of all wealth. The rest -- 80 percent of all households -- split the other half of total income and share 15 percent of the nation's wealth, mainly our mortgaged homes. Workers are having to labor harder and longer just to keep even, and more and more family members are having to work in order to maintain living standards. Working families have little money to spend, they are loaded with debt and they have no time to spend with their children. Threatened by restructuring, downsizing, pension raids, privatization schemes and runaway plants, their anger is exceeded only by anxiety over keeping their jobs. They are disgusted with business and government and their disillusionment is straining the fabric of our society. More than 12 million workers at the bottom of the wage structure have lost hope altogether, victims of a federal minimum wage that in real terms is now 25 percent below its 1981 level. With workers and their families hurting as never before, the labor movement must respond as never before. We must create a new and powerful voice for America's working families. Then we must use that voice powerfully and persuasively to restore respect for workers and the work we do through increased wages, more secure jobs, affordable healthcare and improved retirement income. The AFL-CIO will respond first by sponsoring a series of town hall meetings across the country where workers can speak out publicly about their lives and their jobs and offer guidance toward solutions. We will use these forums to transform individual concerns into a compelling national cause, sensitizing politicians and policy-makers as we mount a massive educational campaign to motivate unrepresented as well as represented workers. Working with our allies and supporters, we'll take what we've learned and raise the issue of income inequality to a new level, using "America Needs a Raise" to: t Build a powerful grassroots movement against cuts in federal, state and local programs working families depend upon and to push for a quick, big increase in the federal minimum wage; t Create a strategic campaign center to give maximum support to 16 million workers and their unions as they attempt to pry long-overdue compensation increases from the tightened fists of multi-billion-dollar corporate giants; t Persuade employers to practice corporate responsibility for their employees and the communities they serve as well as for their stockholders and executives; t Energize a nationwide organizing campaign to bring union wages and benefits to millions of workers who need and deserve them. Finally, we will use "America Needs a Raise" to evaluate the political candidates who want our support this fall and to help them campaign aggressively on this most basic concern of working families. We will seek out and support candidates who pledge themselves to: t Restore respect for workers and just rewards for work; t Defend programs working families depend on, from Medicare and Medicaid, to education, college loans and environmental protections; t Stop tax giveaways to big business and reverse job- destroying trade policies that benefit only multinational corporations; t Preserve worker health and safety protections, as well as wage standards guaranteed by Davis-Bacon and the Service Contract Act; t Fight to raise the minimum wage and to guarantee affordable, high-quality health care for everyone; t Stand up for policies that protect the rights of workers to freely organize and join unions; t Insist on job-creating low-interest rate policies instead of job-destroying high-interest rate policies from the Federal Reserve. "America Needs a Raise." And through a reinvigorated labor movement, the AFL-CIO accepts the responsibility for delivering it. -- ************************************************************************** ****Jobs Not Jails****People and Nature Before Profits****Tax the Rich**** ************************************************************************** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: All Subject: Detroit - Month 8 Date: Mon Apr 08 07:53:15 CDT 1996 Message number: 44 Reply to message number: unavailable ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Apr. 11, 1996 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- DETROIT: SUPPORT FOR NEWSPAPER STRIKERS DEEPENS By Jerry Goldberg Detroit Community support for the Detroit newspaper strike--now in its eighth month--continues to grow. On March 28, police arrested 65 local union officials, mostly from the UAW and AFSCME, for blocking the entrance to the Detroit Free Press building. In the past month, a total of 150 people have been arrested for acts of civil disobedience in support of the strike. Among those arrested was Kris Hamel of Workers World Party. The group Readers United has announced plans to continue these actions. On March 30, Martin Luther King III was the featured speaker at a strike support rally held at New Bethel Baptist Church. Hosted by the Rev. Robert Smith of New Bethel, the rally was part of an effort to deepen support for the strike in the African American community. U.S. Rep. John Conyers also spoke. The next day, Conyers led a neighborhood demonstration to support the strike. In another sign of the depth of support for the strikers, Gordie Howe--former Detroit Red Wing hockey player and considered by many the greatest hockey player of all time-- announced he will donate 55 percent of the profits of a book he recently authored to the strikers. The Detroit Sunday Journal, put out by the newspaper strikers, continues to come out every Sunday. Circulation is expanding and prestige is growing. Donations from the AFL-CIO and various unions have bolstered the strike fund--so that for the past few weeks striking Teamsters have received $150 a week in benefits, compared to $55 in the first few months of the strike. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MAILER DAEMON To: All Subject: Freedom to Work Date: Mon May 06 13:26:22 CDT 1996 Message number: 45 Reply to message number: unavailable From: mirkwood@tiac.net (Tim Leonhardt) Subject: $4.25 An Hour For Flippin' Burgers? Perhaps it's time for us as a society to lower the minimum wage. This way we would help the hordes of working poor into more secure jobs that their new employers would be able to offer. If this were to be implimented we could in effect lower the umemployment rate to 0%. My fear is that if we don't we might become what Europe is now; 11% umemployment. Now there is much talk of what this new lower rate should be. I propose $3.10, for the first year and then $2.10 for the second year. The long term hope of this plan would be to faze it out all together. Ask yourself this question: "If I were right now to find a job that pays below minimum wage who the hell is the government to tell me that I can't except that job." The government refuses to let me work for anything below $4.25. Well that's wrong. This is America, we should be free to work where ever we can land a job. http://www.tiac.net/users/mirkwood "Lower the minimum wage" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Mailer Daemon Subject: Re: Freedom to Work Date: Mon May 06 17:49:04 CDT 1996 Message number: 46 Reply to message number: 45 MD> Perhaps it's time for us as a society to lower the minimum wage. This way We already have. It is called "workfare." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MAILER DAEMON To: All Subject: Nader on Labor Date: Fri May 24 18:19:52 CDT 1996 Message number: 47 Reply to message number: unavailable SHAKING UP THE HOUSE OF LABOR BY RALPH NADER Will the new labor leadership at the AFL-CIO of John Sweeney and Richard Trumka shake up this giant passive organization of trade unions into a new dynamic? They certainly talk that way in the few weeks since they moved into the AFL-CIO headquarters near the White House in Washington, D.C. There is no way to go but up. Organized labor has seen its membership decline and its percentage of the workforce that is unionized fall from the low thirties in the 1950’s to half that today. Its anemic past leadership has been long on shadowboxing with business opponents and funnelling campaign money to politicians who care little about labor and curtsey to corporations. Defeat after defeat in Congress and vis-a-vis industry have turned into humiliations. When computer programmers are laid off but not before they train their lower-paid replacements from overseas who come into the U.S. labor market under a special federal statute, that’s humiliation. When workers at the Caterpillar plant in Illinois are beaten by replacement workers and have to go back to work without a contract under company rules that restrict their free speech and the kind of slogans they can wear on their T-shirts, that is humiliation. Some 30,000 building maintenance workers recently settled a strike in New York City, after building owners, who charge the highest rents in the nation, demanded that new hires start at about 50% lower wages than present workers. Few had bet on the janitors to win this battle. What is amazing about organized labor’s weakness is the strength of their existing but little-used assets. Let’s take an inventory! First, they have a large audience of workers whom they have abandoned to the likes of Rush Limbaugh because the AFL-CIO has no national media programs on radio and television. In the 1940’s unions owned about 20 radio stations, which they short-sightedly sold in the 1950’s. Since then, despite the expansion of cable channels in the dozens, there is no labor TV channel, no regular program or even an occasional one hour show. Whether it is radio, broadcast television or cable television, organized labor is not there. A few local labor radio programs have begun to appear, but is there any constituency remotely as large as labor that its leaders electronically ignore so comprehensively? It is not a matter of money; trade unions have well-stocked treasuries these days because there are so few strikes to deplete strike funds. The new AFL-CIO leadership plans to change this indifference to media communications, realizing that union newspapers sent to their members are not sufficient. Second, the unused power of their hundereds of billions of dollars in union-controlled pension funds. These funds have major stock holdings in large corporations. They have large deposits in large banks. Labor unions have rarely used this financial muscle with any sustained imagination and strategic sense. There is some indication that the new leadership may revise this reluctance. Third, Sweeney and Trumka are very clear about one vigorous direction -- pouring much more money into organizing workers, including lower income laborers, and training a young generation of organizers. They want trade unions to spend a third of their budgets on organizing; some unions now spend around one-20th of their budgets on this key mission. Without organizers and a backup infrastructure -- such as astute communication over the media -- workers don’t have a chance against large employers and their union-dissolving consulting firms. Fourth, with their many thousands of rejuvenated locals, organized labor can start to elect candidates who stay true to their promises and understand the needs of workers and their families in a nation whose corporations are often busy downsizing the middle class. Department of Labor data show that about 80% of American workers are earning less, adjusted for inflation, than they did 20 years ago. Global corporations are getting away with more and more; and workers are working longer hours and not keeping up. The AFL-CIO has announced an election year budget of $35 million for the Congressional races. How that money is spent or wasted remains a key question. Will it disappear in ineffective 30 second television ads, or will it leave something of value behind after election day that can carry on the struggle? Finally, organized labor always needs a burr under its saddle from the workers themselves to advance union democracy for clean responsive unions and a “shop floor” agenda for a full employment economy. Labor Party Advocates, an issues-oriented association of workers with some trade union support, fills this prescription. This summer they will have their first political convention, with its agenda up front, to respond to the two major parties who tell labor that, politically, it has no where to go. (For more about Labor Party Advocaters, write to LPA, P.O. Box 53177, Washington, D.C., 20009-3177). -Ralph Nader, the founder of Public Citizen and several other citizen-based watchdog groups, has allowed his name to be placed on Green Party ballots for President.... --This column is taken from the April 1996 issue (Vol. 2, No.4) of THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST - A Monthly Journal of the American Way. For a 1-year subscription, send $18 to The Progressive Populist, P.O. Box 487, Storm Lake, Iowa 50588. For back issues visit http://www.eden.com/~reporter or email: reporter@eden.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SHADOW WRAITH To: ALL Subject: wages suck!!! Date: Mon Sep 02 07:34:11 CDT 1996 Message number: 48 Reply to message number: unavailable Is it just me, or does it seem like he people who make the company run don't get paid enough? * JABBER v1.1 * If left isn't right, right is the only thing left, right? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Shadow Wraith Subject: Re: wages suck!!! Date: Mon Sep 02 12:04:55 CDT 1996 Message number: 49 Reply to message number: 48 SW> Is it just me, or does it seem like he people who make the company run SW> don't get paid enough? SW> Read *Das Kapital,* by Karl Marx. :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: BIG TEEBO To: All Subject: McDonnell Douglas strikes Date: Sun Sep 08 06:10:55 CDT 1996 Message number: 50 Reply to message number: unavailable from the Militant, vol.60/no.29 August 19, 1996 BY JIM GARRISON AND MARY MARTIN ST. LOUIS, Missouri - The strike of 6,700 members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) against McDonnell Douglas Corporation, now in its ninth week, has been marked by intensified company attacks against the union. These attacks include the introduction of some 1,200 scabs in the plant, escalated harassment of pickets both by company officials and security cops, and a hardening stance in contract negotiations. At the same time, most of the 6,700 strikers remain determined to continue their battle against job cuts, reductions in pensions and health benefits, and other concessions. "This company has been looking down their noses at us for so long they don't even know what we're capable of," Harold Sullivan, a precision tool grinder for over 33 years, said in an interview on the picket line. District 837 of the IAM has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accusing McDonnell Douglas of illegal surveillance and harassment of its members on the picket line. "McDonnell Douglas is ordering our members to picket dangerously close to traffic or face arrest for trespassing. At one gate picketers are being ordered to stand only 10 inches away from moving traffic," said IAM District 837 president Jerry Oulson in a news release. "Three members already have been hit by cars and its a miracle no one has been critically injured or killed." The union also charged that guards with the hired security force, Assets Protection Team (APT), have screamed obscenities, made obscene gestures at several picketers, and tailed and videotaped strikers in their cars. APT is a division of the notorious strike-breaking outfit Vance Security Systems. With federal mediation, the company resumed negotiations with the union on June 27. At that session, McDonnell spokesman Tom Williams said, "Everything from the previous offer is off the table," Subsequently, negotiations broke off on July 18 with no further meetings scheduled. The July 21 St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that to date the company has brought in 1,200 strikebreakers to work with the 3,300 non-union employees already producing in the plant. McDonnell president Herb Lanese boasted in a July 26 interview with the Post-Dispatch, "In many places, we have reached the highest efficiency we have ever had in the history of the company." The machinists struck June 5 primarily over job security. The company plans to eliminate up to 1,700 jobs through outsourcing and job combination and also wants take-backs in pension and health insurance provisions. The workers here have not had a wage increase for the last two contracts. Since 1990 the union workforce has shrunk from 11,000 to 6,700 due to layoffs. The last strike by machinists at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis occurred in 1975. It ended after 13 weeks with the union membership returning to work for one cent less than they were making before. A non-union employee component of 15,000 remains on the job at McDonnell Douglas facilities here. This includes engineers, supervisors, secretaries, medical personnel, and cafeteria workers. A 1994 organizing drive to bring 5,000 of these workers, called Free Enterprise Personnel (or FEP's) into the union was unsuccessful. On a recent four-hour picket duty turn strikers shared with Militant correspondents their views on the strike. "This strike really changed my view of the union," said Thomas Dell, a sheet metal inspector, and one of the younger workers, who has been in the plant for 10 years. "I was never really a hard-core union man, but I have a new respect for the union and the struggle of the workers. I never used to pay much mind to, say, a picket line set up at a grocery store. But when you're on this side of the line you see what's going on. I'll never ignore another picket line at a grocery store or anywhere else." Another striker, Kim, who works as a janitor at McDonnell, angrily recounted her recent experience in trying to apply for food stamps and a Medicaid card for her daughter. She said she was turned away by a welfare office caseworker who told her she was a "greedy Mac worker" who didn't deserve these benefits. "People don't seem to realize that some of us, like single parents, are hurting already," she stated. Other St. Louis-area unionists have begun to organize support efforts for the striking Machinists. In the past two weeks, members of the United Auto Workers union at General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler assembly plants have conducted plant gate collections at shift changes. A total of $18,000 was collected. A speakers bureau of strikers and district officials has been established to reach out to other unionists to win support for the strike. They have visited union locals in Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Texas. Machinist union members who work for Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis recently donated $2,000 to the strike fund, according to Jim Price, co-chair of the strike security team of District 837. A strike solidarity march and rally is tentatively planned for Sunday, August 11, at 1:00 p.m. at the IAM District 837 union headquarters in Hazelwood, Missouri. For more information call strike headquarters at (314) 731-0603. Jim Garrison is a member of United Auto Workers Local 110 at Chrysler in Fenton, Missouri. Mary Martin is a member of IAM Local 1759 at Northwest Airlines in Washington, D.C.. Danny Booher, a laid off member of IAM Local 1018 at U.S. Air in New York, contributed to this article. To get an introductory 12-week subscription to the Militant in the U.S., send $10 US to: The Militant, 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014. For subscription rates to other countries, send e-mail to themilitant@igc.apc.org or write to the above address. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: KRUSTY To: Big Teebo Subject: Re: McDonnell Douglas strikes Date: Tue Sep 17 12:48:12 CDT 1996 Message number: 51 Reply to message number: 50 That strike ended probably close to the date you made that post.. By a vote of about 2:1 the strikers voted in favor of accepting the contract and going back to work. The news coverage was interesting, the reporter kept asking "It's tough to stay on strike when there are bills to pay, isn't it?" sort of leading people along, because of course the answer to that question is "yes." Oh well, can't expect much from TV news... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: All Subject: More equal than others Date: Fri Apr 11 00:18:24 CDT 1997 Message number: 52 Reply to message number: unavailable The net news announced that a survey has determined that the average increase of CEO's salaries was 54% last year. In the same period of time, all other workers' salaries increased by 3%. Why am I not surprised? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: SPECTER To: Froggy Subject: Re: More equal than others Date: Sat Apr 12 08:06:00 CDT 1997 Message number: 53 Reply to message number: 52 F> The net news announced that a survey has determined that the average F> increase of CEO's salaries was 54% last year. In the same period of time, a F> other workers' salaries increased by 3%. Why am I not surprised? Um, because that seems to be pretty standard? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Specter Subject: Re: More equal than others Date: Sat Apr 12 09:23:41 CDT 1997 Message number: 54 Reply to message number: 53 F> increase of CEO's salaries was 54% last year. In the same period of time, a F> other workers' salaries increased by 3%. Why am I not surprised? S> S> Um, because that seems to be pretty standard? A commentator on NPR made a joke out of it today. He was grousing about the way the stock market has been panicking as though there was ai inflation. he said, "Where is all the inflation, except, of course, in CEOs' salaries?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DAEDALUS RISING To: Froggy Subject: Re: More equal than others Date: Sun Apr 13 06:36:37 CDT 1997 Message number: 55 Reply to message number: 52 F> The net news announced that a survey has determined that the average F> increase of CEO's salaries was 54% last year. In the same period of time, a F> other workers' salaries increased by 3%. Why am I not surprised? Because they deserved their raises, darn it. Look at Wall Street - I'm sure they agree! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: FROGGY To: Daedalus Rising Subject: Re: More equal than others Date: Sun Apr 13 13:49:45 CDT 1997 Message number: 56 Reply to message number: 55 F> The net news announced that a survey has determined that the average F> increase of CEO's salaries was 54% last year. In the same period of time, a F> other workers' salaries increased by 3%. Why am I not surprised? DR> DR> Because they deserved their raises, darn it. Look at Wall Street - I'm sur DR> they agree! Of course. This week they're all out gunning for the Federal Reserve.