Rev Martin Luther King Jr: I've Been to the Mountain Top for collective bargaining rights

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered this speech in support of the striking government employees (sanitation workers) at Mason Temple in Memphis, TN on April 3, 1968 — the day before he was assassinated.

He was there to lend his support to sanitation workers who were on strike, protesting terrible working conditions and low wages. Taylor Rogers and Elmore Nickelberry were among the 1,300 who walked off the job in 1968.

Rogers remembers picking up tubs of garbage that were full of holes. "That garbage would leak all over you," he says. By the time he got home, his clothes were dirty and full of maggots that had fallen on him.

"I had maggots run down in my shirts, and then maggots would go down in my shoes," Nickelberry says. "And we worked in the rain — snow, ice and rain. We had to. If we didn't, we'd lose our job. They said, 'A garbage man wasn't nothing.'"

Rogers says, "It was awful." One day, two workers, who had gone into a trash compactor to escape the rain, were crushed to death. "Sometimes you cry," Nickelberry says.

"Sometimes you get mad and get up in the morning and ... say, 'I ain't going to work.' ... I had to work because that's the only way I could feed my family."

'All We Wanted Was Some Dignity'

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89361277

See also: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/memphis-v-mlk/

http://www.afscme.org/about/1029.cfm

The 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fires

The meeting room walls in the Dept of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health are lined with poster-sized photographs of people who died at work.

These public servants, who have no budget yet for this year and are operating under a continuing resolution from a dysfunctional Congress, are used as punching bags by a workforce which it has made to be one of the safest in the world; that is, when OSHA is allowed to police profiteers who use immigrants as disposable labor.

OSHA wall posters now can include the workers who were kidnapped, locked in, and sexually assaulted at the DeCoster egg farms over the past 25 years.

WaPo's Howard Meyerson discusses the horrific tragedy of the Triangle fires:

The seamstresses were just getting off work that Saturday, some of them singing a new popular song, “Every Little Movement (Has a Meaning of Its Own),” when they heard shouts from the eighth floor just below. They saw smoke outside the windows, and then fire. As David Von Drehle recounts the ensuing catastrophe, in his award-winning book “Triangle,” just a couple minutes later the ninth floor was fully ablaze.

* * * *

[M]any, facing the choice of death by fire or death by impact on the city streets, chose the latter and leapt. Down they came, some already engulfed in flame — first a few, then a torrent, before the horrified crowd that had gathered by the building, which was just off Washington Square in the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village.

When it was over, 146 people had either died by fire or jumped to their deaths. Most were young women, almost entirely Jewish or Italian immigrants, many still in their teens, one just 14.

Every little movement has a meaning of its own,
Every thought and feeling by some posture can be shown,
And every lovelight that comes a stealing
All your dreams must be revealing
All its sweetness in some appealing little gesture
All of its own.

In war, the heroes always outnumber the soldiers 10 to one

John McCain's War hero/Maverick facade crumbles, thanks to Rolling Stone.

Headline quote by HL Mencken.

HL Mencken also has a quote for the "W in lipstick":

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Campaigns who smear middle school girls: follow them to the Gates of Hell

WaPo Saturday surprised no one when they admitted that "Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said."

With John Kerry in 2004, they had counted on Kerry's reputation for talking issues to death to assure success of the smears from the Swiftboaters. When the same operatives had smeared McCain in 2000, they counted on McCain having no time to correct the lies about McCain's own middle-school age daughter. With Obama, I believe they depend on the public's fear of angry black men to push Obama between a rock and a hard place, making an effective, passionate response difficult and even impossible. At the risk of self-importance, I propose a quick, effective and resonant response for these expected smears. If you like the idea, vote here on DKos.

We know that McCain has a costly and ineffective plan for health care that involves paying private insurers, one of the few industries that are already profiteering even in this distressed economy. We know that McCain was erratic and ineffective in his contribution to the financial crisis. Michigan is no longer the battleground state targeted, as Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, to toss registrations and turn away voters (but beware, Pennsylvania is). McCain's last chance to win is to distract voters from his 90% record of voting with George Bush with Smears of Obama.

Many voters will be shocked and afraid at the sight of an angry black man standing up to Grandpa John and Bible Barbie... er, McCain and Palin. McCain and his advisers are certainly counting on an unwillingness of Obama to strike back. I suggest he try this for size.

McCain talks about change. But this smear campaign is not a change. It involves Karl Rove, Rove protege Steve Schmidt, Bush campaign manager Terry Nelson, Bush communications director Brian Jones, Bush media adviser Mark McKinnon, and Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman. It includes old Freddie Mac lobbyist Mark Buse. That's not change. That's more of the same.

Let me tell you what that group of men did to win the Republican primary for George W. Bush in 2000. They slimed McCain's own daughter - his own middle-school aged daughter - by saying her mother was was a prostitute.

Let me tell you this: If those men had said that about one of my children, about one of my daughters, about anyone my family, they would not be embraced into an inner circle of men telling me how to run a campaign. In fact, when it comes time to identify the men who must be followed to the gates of hell, I would follow those men. I dare McCain to talk about ending the war and ending the economic crisis instead.

Short, simple, acceptable anger. A man protecting his family.

Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) is bad news for Maryland and for troops

BRAC concentrates traffic, funding headaches while removing our soldiers from communities around the country

• GAO: Military Base Realignments and Closures: Estimated Costs Have Increased and Estimated Savings Have Decreased, by Brian J. Lepore, director, defense capabilities and management, before the Subcommittee on Readiness, House Committee on Armed Services. GAO-08-341T, December 12. Highlights (pdf)
  
• Gazette: Navy Med expansion has issues: World-class medical center could be marred by traffic and unsafe intersections while money for potential fixes is uncertain
  
• WaPo: Naval Hospital Patients to Double: Move From Walter Reed to Bethesda Could Worsen Traffic, Add $70 Million in [unpaid] Road Work.
  

Resources for info:

• MDOT & BRAC
  
• Paying for BRAC (WaPo)
  
• Official BRAC - Home Page (MD); Montgomery County
  
• (Obsolete) State report (pdf)
  

Hard cases make bad law

A good article here.

The yawning divide between reality and what such laws say should happen is what produces the dilemmas that lead to amnesties. Immigration law has produced a situation where an estimated 12 million people in the country -- most of whom look, sound and act like law-abiding citizens -- are supposed to be apprehended, prosecuted and deported, a job that is not only well beyond the capacity of the police and courts, but would wreck substantial parts of the economy were it attempted.

"No one is so stupid as to think police are going to go out and round up 12 million illegal immigrants," said Husak, at Rutgers University. "Ninety million living Americans have used illegal drugs. It is inconceivable you can punish them. Downloading copyrighted music [without paying for it] -- half or more of all teenagers are guilty. No one is going to enforce such laws."

Alberto Gonzales lies revealed by emails

Emails show Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress on attorney firings.

E-mails show 2-year plan to oust prosecutors for investigating Republicans, campaign donors.

Disbar Alberto Gonzales!

How can you tell when Alberto Gonzales is lying?

. His lips are moving.

Alberto Gonzales must be disbarred, not just fired.

HispanicBusiness reported his behavior has "Echoes of Watergate" and is "enormously problematic" on March 12, 2007.

See the report of his lies to Congress on the Attorney General firings at WaPo here. Howard Kurtz on 3/16 is here.

See his lies to Congress on torture on NPR here, at WaPo here and here.

See his lies on the NSA warrantless spying program at Slate here, DemocracyNow here, at TalkLeft here and at TPM Muckraker here.

Ava in Alabama Agitating for Action

Are you there, W? A 16-year-old in Alabama articulates her courage and objections to the war in Iraq in her professional-looking videos on PeaceTakesCourage.com. She has been threatened with rape and murder for speaking out. This video, WWJD, that focuses on the injuries of children in the region, ironically and sadly has been flagged for mature audiences.



See her YouTube Videos here, including the emotional WWJD.

Iraq 101 at MotherJones

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