Remember the socialist origins of Labor Day!

the day a Democrat President sent armed troops against American workers.

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Your so right Cynthia. That’s why every Christmas I thank Santa Claus and every Easter the Easter Bunny gets a small burnt offering.

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Cynthia,

The socialist didn’t bring me an eight-hour day, five day work week and vacations. They brought us destructive unions that ultimately bring down every company they work for.

I’m a self motivated capitalist, an owner of a company, who rarely works less than 60 hours a week. I acknowledge that I lose 50% of my income to taxes for programs mandated by socialists who think they know better how to spend it than I. Thanks but no thanks.

How about we change the name of this upcoming holiday to “Enterprise Day”.

Also, I bought the barbecue, Braves tickets, sales items and day off myself. Even a copy of the AJC, while it yet lives.

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Remember the Christian origins of Easter and Christmas.

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To labor, and be compensated for that labor,
according to what you agreed upon,
is sublime.

I owe no union, socialist, nor government for this transaction.

Eight hour days, five-day work weeks, and INSTITUTIONALIZED vacations are for losers, democrats, and government workers.

Sorry for the redundancy.

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Cynthia, you took eight hours to write today’s 8 sentence column. That’s a pace of one finely-crafted, well researched sentence per hour. You go home and enjoy that well-earned three day weekend, girl. And try to better pace yourself next week or you will work yourself to the point of exhaustion.

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Cynthia are you trying to make a point about situational ethics, morals, and the cherry picking of each. I gotcha. Kind like sitting in church for 4 hours Sunday and then lying, cheating, and stealing the rest of the week and calling it just business.

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Public Approval of Labor Unions
According to the Aug. 13-16, 2007, poll, 60% of Americans say they approve of labor unions, while 32% disapprove. The public’s approval rating of labor unions has not shown much significant change in the past four years. From a longer term perspective, a majority of Americans have consistently approved of labor unions since Gallup first asked this question more than 70 years ago in 1936 (making this one of Gallup’s longest-running trend questions). The highpoint in approval occurred in the mid-1950s, with a 75% rating in 1953 and again in 1957. The low point was 55% in 1979 and 1981.

From the jacket cover of “Confessions of a Union Buster” by Martin Jay Levitt:

Martin Jay Levitt was a union buster who planned and executed customized union- busting campaigns at more than 250 businesses across America, from coal mines and factories to airlines and nursing homes. Levitt reached the pinnacle of his profession by demolishing friendships, shattering families, and turning worker against worker; he routinely spied into the police records, personnel files, credit histories, medical records, and family lives of union activists in efforts to discredit them.

These days Levitt speaks to auditoriums filled with union workers. “I come from a very dirty business…” he begins. “The enemy was the collective spirit. I got hold of that spirit while it was still a seedling; I poisoned it, chocked it, bludgeoned it if I had to, anything to be sure it would never blossom into a united work force.” His listeners slowly realize that the war they suspected was being waged against them was a real one, not just the creation of a union’s paranoid imagination, and often upon this revelation they weep.

Levitt’s speeches confirm for his audiences, in sickening detail, how their supervisors were taught to despise and fear unions and to take a union drive as a personal attack – a criticism of their leadership skills and an attempt to humiliate them. Supervisors were compelled to feel that they were somehow to blame for the union push, and therefore obligated to defeat it.

This manipulation is just one of the dirty tricks that have transformed the war on organized labor into a billion-dollar industry, and Levitt has decided to clear his conscience and expose them all. This is his candid acknowledgement of the ruthless campaigns of treachery and terror he once waged, and also of his own desperate battles with his personal demons. At once shameless and heartfelt, Levitt shares the hard lessons he has had to learn, clear his conscience, and make his confession.

Workers represented by unions earn 28 percent more than nonunion workers, are 62 percent more likely to have medical insurance through their jobs, and are four-and-a-half times as likely to have guaranteed pensions.

According to work site surveys, 42 million non-union employees in America would like to have representation at work but don’t. A 2005 survey found “53 percent of nonunion workers – that’s more than 50 million people – want to join a union, if given the choice.” But according to Human Rights Watch, “Legal obstacles tilt the playing field so steeply against freedom of association that the United States is in violation of international human rights standards for workers.” Clearly, the system is broken.

Nearly one in four Americans receive no paid vacation or holiday time. Even worse, nearly “half of all full-time private sector workers in the U.S. get no paid sick days,” with low-income workers, parents, and people with chronic illnesses hit the hardest. Businesses also suffer in productivity and other workers face health risks when sick employees are forced to go to work. The American public overwhelmingly agrees that all workers deserve days off from work; 95 percent of workers believe it is “unacceptable” for employers to deny sick days.

“At least 145 countries have paid sick days,” notes Public Welfare Foundation president Debra Leff. “The United States is the only industrialized country lacking such a policy.” The situation is the worst for the nation’s lowest wage earners, 80 percent of whom receive no sick days. Food service workers, who are in constant contact with the public, are also among the least likely to receive paid sick days. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote recently, “Eighty-six percent get no sick days at all. They show up in the restaurants coughing and sneezing and feverish, and they start preparing and serving meals. You won’t see many of them wearing masks.” Similarly, 55 percent of retail workers and 29 percent of health care and social assistance workers receive no paid sick days. Additionally, workers “who do not have paid sick days for doctors’ visits do not have the opportunity to get important preventive care, such as flu shots and vaccinations.” A study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research finds that 40 percent of workers “report having contracted the flu from a colleague.” “The lack of paid sick days isn’t just a family issue — it’s also a public health issue,” Kennedy said. “When sick people go to work or sick children go to school, they infect their coworkers or fellow students and the public as well.”

NEGLECTING CHILDREN’S HEALTH: Children also suffer when employers do not provide paid sick leave. Just one in three workers receive paid sick days to care for a child, meaning parents are forced to choose between losing a day’s pay or sending a sick child to school. Just as viruses rapidly spread in workplaces, the same happens in schools. Even though child-care centers require sick children to remain home, “when parents cannot get off work to stay home with them, many sick children do end up in care.” An even bigger threat to children’s health occurs when parents are unable to take time off to ensure that their children receive needed preventive care, such as immunizations and well-child visits. Failure to ensure that all children receive timely preventive care has long-term implications for not only their health, but our national health care spending.

DECREASING BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY: Most people don’t want to interact with a co-worker who is sick. In a recent survey, 59 percent of businesses said that they have a problem with presenteeism — workers showing up to work when they are sick — compared to 39 percent two years ago. A study by Cornell University “found that presenteeism despite medical problems costs $180 billion annually in lost productivity, and may be more costly than absenteeism due to illness.” Yet despite these facts, many businesses still do not recognize that employees need paid sick days. Herbert recently contacted Cracker Barrel Old Country Store about its lack of paid sick leave. The company simply responded, “If employees need to miss a shift due to illness, there are generally many opportunities to make up that lost shift later in the week, or the next week.” Ness notes that this type of policy can lead to “economic disaster” for many workers.

ALL WORK, NO PLAY: “The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation,” according to a new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Approximately 28 million Americans receive no paid vacation or holiday leave. Lower-wage workers “are less likely to have any paid vacation (69 percent) than higher-wage workers are (88 percent). The same is true for part-timers, who are far less likely to have paid vacations (36 percent) than are full-timers (90 percent).” Even the national average — nine paid days of vacation and six paid days of holiday — is “less than the minimum legal standard” set in almost all the world’s rich economies.

When we have a CORPORATE PLUTOCRACY the RESULT IS THE RAMPANT GREED AND RECESSION THAT WE HAVE TODAY. WORKERS AND UNIONS DIDN’T CAUSE THIS MESS. THE GREED OF WALL STREET AND THE CORPORATE PLUTOCRACY DID!!!

HOW MANY S&L BAILOUTS DEPRESSIONS, RECESSION, BERNIE MADOFF SCANDALS, “.COM BUSTS”, HOUSING BUBBLE BUSTS, ENRONS, ETC., HAVE TO HAPPEN BEFORE YOU FEAKIN’ IDIOT CONSERVATIVES WHO SPEW YOUR “I LOVE CAPITALISM” CRAP WAKE UP AND GET HOW YOU ARE GETTING SCREWED OR YOU ARE THE ONES SCREWING THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY AND IN THE WORLD. 1% of the population has a GREATER NET WORTH THAN THE BOTTOM 90%!!! AND THEY DIDN’T “EARN IT” THEY GOT IT BY EXPLOITING THE HELL OUT OF THE REST OF US, USING TAX HAVENS, AVOIDING PAYING TAXES BY RIGGING THE SYSTEM, SHOVING THE TAX BURDEN ON TO THE MIDDLE CLASS AND BRINGING US IAG, ENRON, THE WALL STREET MELTDOWN AND ALL THE REST. And DON’T GIVE ME THIS CRAP ABOUT HOW THE RICH PAY SO MUCH OF THE TAXES. The federal income tax is progressive, but the Social Security tax is regressive. Most discussions of taxation also fail to acknowledge the impact of state and local taxes. In April, Citizens for Tax Justice reported that when state, property, and sales taxes are considered, the ENTIRE TAX CODE IS ONLY MODESTLY PROGRESSIVE. THE WEALTHIEST 1% PAY AROUND 32% OF TOTAL INCOME IN TAXES AND THE BOTTOM 80% AVERAGE SLIGHTLY UNDER 30%.

MOST CORPS SKIP TAXES. More than 60% of US corporations didn’t pay any federal taxes for 1996 through 2000, years when the economy boomed and corporate profits soared, the Wall Street Journal reported April 6, citing the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Corporate tax receipts have shrunk as a share of overall federal revenue in recent years, and were particularly depressed when the economy soured. By 2003, they had fallen to just 7.4% of overall federal receipts, the lowest rate since 1983, and the second-lowest rate since 1934, federal budget officials say. The GAO analysis of Internal Revenue Service data comes as tax avoidance by both US and foreign companies also is drawing increased scrutiny from the IRS and Congress. But the analysis suggests that dodging taxes, both legally and otherwise, has become deeply rooted in US corporate culture. Even more foreign-owned companies doing business in the US — about 70% of them — reported that they didn’t owe any US federal taxes during the late 1990s. The federal corporate income tax rose to more than $200 billion in 2000, from $171 billion in 1996. But over the next three years they fell each year, reaching $131.8 billion in 2003 — the lowest annual total since 1993. They are projected to reach $168.7 billion this year.

Economic figures show that in 2005, the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the country’s population had nearly as much income as all 150 million Americans who make up the lower economic half of the country. Of each dollar people earned in 2005, the top ten percent got 48.5 cents, the highest percentage since 1929, just before the Great Depression.
THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS AVOID APPROXIMATELY $87 BILLION IN TAXES THROUGH BERMUDA TAX HAVENS THAT YOU, STUPID REPUKES (AND EVERYONE ELSE), THEN HAVE TO MAKE UP).

CORPORATIONS GET ABOUT $135 BILLION A YEAR IN CORPORATE WELFARE THEY DON’T NEED PAID FOR BY YOU.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston has been breaking pieces of this story on the front page of The New York Times for nine years, work for which one business school professor calls him ìthe de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United Statesî. With Perfectly Legal, he puts the whole shocking narrative together in a way that will stir up media attention and make readers angry about the state of our country. And he has sound advice on what to do.

Since the mid-1970s, there has been a dramatic shift in who benefits from the American economy and bears the burden of taxes. CEOs, big investors and business owners can delay paying their taxes for years and sometimes escape them almost entirely, while wage earners have their taken from each paycheck. Discreet lobbying by the political donor class has made tax policies and enforcement a disaster. Because of obligations to these donors Washington has been unable, or unwilling, to fix these problems. The news media have largely ignored official favors to those who are supposed to pay the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the gift tax. Millions of families expecting tax cuts are losing some or all of them to a stealth tax that was originally enacted only to apply to the tax-avoiding rich, but that now stings single mothers making as little as $28,000. But the cumulative results are remarkable: the 400 richest Americans pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than someone making $100,000. The 400 richest pay less and less of their income in taxes while the middle class pays more and more. And while the incomes of the very rich skyrocketed over three decades, the average income for the bottom 90 percent fell.

Johnston exposes exactly how the middle class is being squeezed to create a widening income gap that threatens the stability of the country. By relating the compelling tales of real people across all areas of society, he reveals the truth behind: * “middle class” tax cuts and exactly whom they benefit * how workers are being cheated out of their retirement plans while disgraced CEOs walk away with hundreds of millions * how some corporations avoid paying any federal income tax * how CEOs fly on vacation in corporate jets for less than you pay for a middle seat in coach ñ and stick you with most of the cost * why the working poor are seven times more likely to be audited by the IRS than everyone else * how the IRS became so weak that even when it was handed complete banking records detailing massive cheating by 1,600 people, it prosecuted only 4 percent of them.

Here is what CORPORATIONS GIVE US:

Corporate Crime

Russel Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter, estimates that white collar crime costs the nation’s businesses and individuals at least $100 billion EACH YEAR. (A sum incidentally that is more than 10 times greater then the combined total from larcenies, robberies, burglaries, and auto thefts committed by individuals.) If you count other corporate underhandedness, such as monopolistic price fixing and the sale of faulty goods, the price tag jumps about $200 billion more. And the Justice Department estimates that “taxpayers lose $10 to $20 billion when corporations violate federal regulations.” Corporate Crime is so commonplace according to Mokhiber, that roughly two thirds of the country’s 500 largest companies were involved in some form of illegal behavior over a 10-year period. Despite such lawlessness, the white-collar detectives at the FBI do not track corporate crime regularly. “The government can tell the public whether burglary is up or down in Los Angeles for any given month, but it cannot say the same about insider trading, midnight dumping, consumer defrauding, or illegal polluting.” (Dollars & Sense – Nov. 1989)

Externalized Corporate Costs Borne by Society

Ralph Estes is a professor of business administration at American University. He holds a doctorate in business administration from Indiana University. He wrote a book not too long ago called the Tyranny of the Bottom Line in which he estimates that the amount of annual costs that corporations and other businesses externalize and that must be borne by customers, employees, and society is $2,618 billion (TWO TRILLION SIX HUNDRED and EIGHTEEN BILLION DOLLARS – in 1991dollars and then adjusted to 1994 dollars.) This figure does NOT include special tax breaks corporations get or the direct subsidies that they receive. Compared to total corporate profits in the order of Five Hundred and Fifteen Billion Dollars, the estimated societal COSTS of corporations are five and one half times the amount of their benefits.

THAT’S THE FREAKIN’ SYSTEM YOU WANT TO MAINTAIN??? ARE YOU INSANE????

“Most important, we must remember the most subversive truth of all: that corporations are our creations. They have no lives, no powers, and no capacities beyond what we, through our governments, give them. The best argument against corporate rule is to look at who we really are and to understand how poorly the corporation’s tenets reflect us,” Bakan said.
–Joel Balkan, Author of The Corporation

“[I want] to make sure that tax cheaters are found, make sure the IRS gets after those who don’t pay taxes; make sure that the system is fair for those of us who do pay taxes. We want everybody paying their fair share.”
- George W. Bush, 4/15/04
VERSUS
“The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway.”
- George W. Bush, 8/9/04

When Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” he kept slaves.

“The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states.
–Mohandas K. Ganhdi

“Corporations have been enthroned … An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people … until wealth is aggregated in a few hands … and the Republic is destroyed.” – Abraham Lincoln, 1865

“These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece
the people.”
Abraham Lincoln, January 11, 1837

“And, inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labor has produced them. But it has so happened in all the ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.
Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1847

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. …corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

– Abraham Lincoln to Colonel F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864

“The vast individual and corporate fortunes, the vast combinations of capital which have marked the development of our industrial system, create new conditions, and necessitate a change from the old attitude of the state and the nation toward property. More and more, it is evident that the state, and if necessary the nation, has got to possess the right of supervision and control as regards the great corporations which are its creatures.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective – a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.” – Teddy Roosevelt

This was part of TR’s belief – one that would now label one as a hopelessly leftist radical.

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.” – Theodore Roosevelt.

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.” – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals, we know now that is bad economics.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and author

“It is an economy in which the government serves the interests of the
oligopolies, a state in which large corporations have the powers that in a democracy devolve to the citizen.”
(taken from the writings of Sam Smith and Russell Mokhiber)

“Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations.” President Andrew Jackson, 1833

“The masters of the government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufactureres of the United States.” President Woodrow Wilson, 1912

“I believe, I have always believed, and I will always believe in private enterprise…But I know, and you know, and every independent businessman who has had to struggle against the competition of monopolies knows, that this concentration of economic power in all-embracing corporations, does not represent private enterprise as we Americans cherish it and propose to foster it. On the contrary, it represents private enterprise which has become a kind of private government, a power unto itself – a regimentation of other people’s money and other people’s lives.” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, October, 1936

“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains”
-Thomas Jefferson

“If you let the Republican administration reactionaries get complete control of this government, the position of labor will be so greatly weakened that I would fear not only for the wages and living standards of the American workingman but even for our democratic institutions and free enterprise.

“Remember that the reactionary of today is a shrewd man. He is in many ways much shrewder than the reactionaries of the ’20s. He is a man with a calculating machine where his heart ought to be…And make no mistake, you are face-to-face with a struggle to preserve the very foundation of your rights and your standard of living.”

- Harry Truman, quoted in The Words of Harry S. Truman, Robert J. Donovan, editor, 1984

“I spent 33 years…being a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1916. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City (Bank) boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street…In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested…I had…a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals, promotions…I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate a racket in three cities…The Marines operated on three continents…”

At the beginning of her book In Banks We Trust – Bankers and Their Close Associates: The CIA, the Mafia, Drug Traders, Dictators, Politicians, and the Vatican Penny Lernoux has the following quote:

“What is robbing a bank compared to owning a bank!”

Bertolt Brecht, The Three Penny Opera

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Scott September 4th, 2009 1:04 pm SAID: Remember the Christian origins of Easter and Christmas.

CHRIS SAYS: You’re kidding, right? Christmas and Easter were pagan festivals which were taken over by Christianity. It’s history which a lot of fundamentalist Christians would rather not ponder….

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Gee, I wonder if we’ll get the same kind of article from this lib on Christmas Day?

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Chris…Oh, boy. That old debate again. Yes, pagan societies had festivals during the winter solstice and spring equinox. Yes, some of the paraphernalia surrounding our current celebrations of Christmas and Easter are pagan (Easter eggs, Christmas trees, mistletoe). But I’m not talking about that. By “Christmas” I mean no more than Christ’s birth, and by “Easter” I mean no more than Christ’s resurrection. And my entire point was sarcasm, anyway.

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Larry Siegel you’re a shill planted by the management of the AJC. Perhaps a nom du plume for Cynthia Tucker or Mike King. Please reply. Yes, at one point in this country’s history, unions did great things. But now….

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I’m still waiting for Larry Siegel to reply. It is 9:14pm. Union work rules sent you home long ago. Where are you!

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Since when have had a 40-hr. work week and weekends off? That was true once, but no longer. In our greedy, 24/7 world, 50-plus hours a week, six days a week is more the norm. We are losing those gains Cynthia Tucker is writing about. This is another “revolt” that needs to happen–not just health. Let’s get back our lives and enjoy life a little! What joy is there in so much work? Why extol work to such degree?

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Stop dividing people and use the platform you have to help people get together. Blacks, whites, hispanics, Jewish, Christian, Labor Unions, open shops, small businees, Wall Street, President Obama, Dick Cheney….we are ALL AMERICANS!!! Stop polarizing us!!!!

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If we keep posting replyies to Cynthia Tucker’s columns, we are extending her existence in the AJC. The time for racial bias is over and she will have nothing to write about.

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Comrade Cynthia is moonlighting? Is the AJC on the MoveOn dot George Soros payroll too?

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Why can’t the Conservative trash come up with ANYTHING better but to constantly mention George Soros? Our lives have nothing to do with him, but I know where you get this from you fricking Ditto-Head. Get a life! Stop listening to Limbaugh and Beck and MOVE ON (literally! lol)

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Why can’t the liberals come up with anything better than ad hominems in a discussion with conservatives? I mean, “trash,” “ditto-head” — this is the kind of name calling any kindergartner can do.

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Scott
September 5th, 2009
11:22 am

“Why can’t the liberals come up with anything better than ad hominems in a discussion with conservatives? I mean, “trash,” “ditto-head”…

Oh nooooss–not the ad hominem attack card.

Your selective memory has allowed you to conveniently forget that the right-wing message machine has turned the word “liberal” into a pejorative and used it as such for the past thirty years.

As for the word “ditto-head,” that was a term coined by the listeners of Herr Limbaugh to describe themselves–so if you have a problem with that term, take it up with those in your own camp.

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[...] of the Korean War in 1953, which ended in a truce, but no formal peace treaty was …   Remember the socialist origins of Labor Day!The highpoint in approval occurred in the mid-1950s, with a 75% rating in 1953 and again in 1957. [...]

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Socialists love to claim responsibility for ideas they had nothing to do with. The SIX HOUR WORKDAY was actually started by the so called, “Evil Capitalists” at Kellogg’s in 1930. When the Union Socialists took over at Kellogg they raised it to an 8 hour workday. So thank the Unions for longer workdays.

Google “Kellogg’s 6 Hour Workday” for the real truth. Karl Marx wrote about lying to attain the bigger goals of socialism. End justifies the means.

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BayouBengal 4:07 pm — re: love the MLK day off but despise the reasons for it.

PC forced this “holiday” on us…just ask Arizona!!

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Kamchak, I know perfectly well what the term “ditto head” means — and if liberals would stop using ad hominems, no one would have to call them out on it. “Liberal,” by the way, is not an ad hominem, any more than “conservative” is. If the worst we had to deal with was people calling us conservatives, no one would be complaining about ad hominems.

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Maybe the conservatives know how much the lousy liberal crap in this country depends on Comrade George Soros to finance their socialist AstroTurf agenda.

Jealous liberals just can’t stand that old drive by talk radio because no one is willing to listen to their socialist Air-America garbage, let alone actually pay to hear such noxious verbal effluence. But Comrade Obumer will fix all of that with his diversity Czar Mark Lloyd – another Van Jones in the making – that praises what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela to silence free speech, a free press and the broadcast media.

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Any word, I guess, can be used as an ad hominem if someone’s clever enough. The word “gay,” which originally meant carefree or lighthearted, soon became used to refer to homosexuality, and now I hear it used as a slang term for stupid.

When I use the word “liberal,” I’m thinking of it strictly in the political, dictionary sense, not in a pejorative sense. I think of the word “moonbat” as pejorative, the word “liberal” as descriptive of a political philosphy. In calling out others for the use of ad hominems, however, I’m thinking of things such as “crazy,” “wingnut,” “loon,” “stupid,” etc., just thrown around as if we’re on a kindergarten playground, and as a way to avoid discussion of facts and ideas. My objection is the false syllogism which runs: Person A makes Argument B; Person A is a scoundrel; therefore A is incorrect. My objection has to do with an adherence to rules of logic, and any Logic 101 course will discuss ad hominems as a peculiar form of illogic.

Ad hominems are equally deplorable whether liberals use them or conservatives. Lest there be confusion on the point, I like to think I’m not a hypocrite, and I do not excuse in conservatives what I condemn in liberals. There are conservatives, and liberals, who do this; I hope I am not one of them.

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As you enjoy another silly column from Cynthia, remember that socialism has killed at least 50 million people in the last century.

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Let’s see now the fairness doctrine was in place for about 38 years. The fairness doctrine ended in 1987. As many see it the end of the fairness doctrine began the so-called rein of what is known as “that old talk radio”, which would give us about 21 years, not 30 years of so-called “teaching” a pejorative. So, in truth the fairness doctrine which required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters was in existence for about 9 years longer than what we have presently in radio broadcasting.

Liberals complain even when they have more time (government mandated compulsory time no less) at the public microphone?

Interestingly, radios have on/off switches factory installed. In addition radios also have factory installed dials or push-buttons that allow for selecting different broadcast channels. Hardly a condition optimum for “teaching a generation a single political philosophy”. So if this be the case, which it is, then logically speaking absent “compulsory listening” (as was under the fairness doctrine), absent the inability to change channels or to completely turn off a radio broadcast purveying objectionable speech that may or may not be considered indoctrination or propaganda any idea that someone or exaggerating to the extreme that a generation has been forcibly thought anything is, to put it mildly, incongruous.

Liberals infer that old talk radio has exercised mind control over a generation and has given them a bad name, made them and their political philosophy a social pejorative?

Strange how liberals never will point out that FDR “completely controlled” the airwaves during the time when radio was the only source of news and entertain other than what appeared in the print media. And, that all anyone could listen to during FDR’s total control of the airwaves was approved by FDR. No wonder some call him King Franklin the first when free speech didn’t, absolutely couldn’t, include the freedom of listening other than the choice of silence.

Liberals if facts reveal you, if reality cannot defend you and if the public of “We the People” reject you and your political philosophy only you have yourselves to blame for any social disapproval (pejorative) that exists in American society of you.

With 40% of the people in this country identifying themselves as conservative, 39% identifying themselves as centrist and only 21% willing to confess they are liberals, perhaps a bit of soul searching is in order and will convince you that liberalism, especially “socialist liberalism” is a fringe element that is simply out of touch with the political standards and reality of this country.

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Van Jones resigns.

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Re: Kamchak. You really have to admire these people, who don’t know you, speculating on “sheltered upbringings” merely because you’ve craked open a dictionary to find out what a word means. Sheesh. Can’t win.

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Music deserting the AM band, and not the fairness doctrine led to the birth of talk-radio–at least here in Atlanta.

Possibly, or at least it does hold some truth but don’t try to tell the liberals things like that; they’ll never accept the idea of supply and demand dictating what radio stations choose to broadcast.

Which only underscores the point that liberalism is an unacceptable product for radio stations, if you must insist AM radio stations, to market profitably. People will pay for what they want to hear and will not pay to listen to what they do not want to hear.

Again, liberals have only liberals to blame for their failures and low public opinions of liberalism.

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Hey Van Jones, how is that Beck boycott going?

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I agree with you when you’re talking about conservative ad hominems, Kamchek — I’m only trying to point out that just because conservatives use them, doesn’t make it right for liberals to. That’s all. I’ve listened to talk radio for a long time, long enough to know that “ditto-heads” means people who like Rush Limbaugh, independent of whether they agree with him or not; also long enough to know that Limbaugh often calls liberals “dope-smoking FM types,” and that’s just as bad as any ad hominem from a liberal. I don’t think I’m trying to “win”; what I am trying to do is have a debate that focuses on issues, not name-calling; and I’m to clarify what I actually said, as opposed to what I didn’t say.

And having said that–for everyone’s sake–I’ll conclude.

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RC
(R–apoi)

Good to see you here.

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Not a good idea to bring out a wide brush and paint all liberals with it.

Kamchak, I’ll take that statement and personally stand as a conservative empirically corrected as to “not all liberals” need the paint, though, it certainly does apply to these Neo-Libs (radical big government socialist liberals) that seemed to have taken over the Democrat Party. Obviously from your fine taste in music and listening enjoyment you don’t easily fit in with the Neo-Libs, IMHO. Which is understandable, I really don’t fit in easily with the Neo-Cons that took over the Republican Party with Bush at the helm.

Talk-radio is an instrument of reinforcing the audience’s pre-existing beliefs–preaching to the choir, so to speak.

Not necessarily or entirely. Some listeners simply tune in to get a good laugh and others may agree in general philosophic terms, though, most do not adhere to every word spoken by a talk-jock.
Smart people never rely on just a few sources for their information or “inflammation” as it were. The more information and variety of information you have, the better informed your are to reach the better conclusion.

To put aside the business model of satellite radio, it is the advertisers that pay for programming, not the listener.

However, on this point, in reality the listeners do actually pay for the programming the advertisers sponsor. Any program that loses listening audience soon loses advertisers too and will soon leave the airwaves. So, advertisers which are companies, simply pass on their advertising costs to the consumer listening audience in much the same way companies do not pay taxes by passing them onto we the consumers who actually pay their business taxes that are buried into the costs of the products or services we as consumers buy.

AM or Satellite different models perhaps, with the same end result no matter how the dollars are sliced and diced, the listeners ultimately do the paying.

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Hello Cynthia,
I appreciate that you’re open about your socialist views. Why does your President hide his? I guess because socialism has failed everywhere it’s been tried?
Mike

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[...] Remembering the origins of Labor Day! [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] [...]

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Jackie- Have you ever read the platform of Progressive Party of 1912? All the labor laws on the books today are not solely attributable to unions, which have become so unimaginably corrupt and function as a DNC PAC that they should be investigate independently by a special prosecutor or the socialists or communists that were present during the Progressive era of this country; which also included populists who are no less due rightful credit for many of the things American workers now enjoy.

Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Populism (which is NOT the same stamp of these so-called progressives of today) is not a strange concept at all. In fact, it was Teddy Roosevelt (Not Franklin his fifth cousin) who was the first President to advocate for the social safety net of social security and healthcare to prevent people from suffering irrecoverable loses due to illness or circumstance that would leave them completely destitute.

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Happy Labor Day Everybody!!! Wooo Hooo!!! Hope everyone’s enjoying their day off! I have a few comments to some posters below:

Larry Siegel : Perhaps next time instead of a really big post, you could just post the link; (you could also add the first two paragraphs before the link as a teaser….)

Bayou: So true. A new word should be added to Websters for the hate-filled-narrow-minded-bigots-who-forgot-that-america-was-formed-by-everyone-not-just-a-few-men! I think we also need a new word for “christian”. Because if some of these posters are true “christians” (christ-like); then christ died for nothing and saved no one.

Irene Edwards: How should Obama talk about his “white” side? Should he scream it? (Hey!! Everyone!! IM HALF WHITE!!!); should he send it out in email form? (RE: I’m A White Boy Too!); should he buy one of those planes and have it flown over the US? (Obama = Half White!!); should he maybe dress in white face? Or how about he mentions over and over that his grandmother, (who was white), his grandfather (who was white); and his mother (again, another white person); were the most loved and influential people in his life? Any suggestions from you would be most appreciated.

Mike From Cali: Some “Socialist” Nations:

Non-Marxist-Leninist

These are countries whose constitutions make references to socialism, but do not subscribe to Marxist-Leninist ideology. As such, they represent a wide variety of different interpretations of the term socialism.

* Bangladesh – People’s Republic of Bangladesh (since 16 December 1972) (Gônoprojatontri Bangladesh) (see Constitution of Bangladesh)
* Egypt – Arab Republic of Egypt (Gumhūriyyet Maṣr el-ʿArabiyyah) (since 11 September 1971) (see Constitution of Egypt)
* India – Republic of India (since 2 November 1976) (see Constitution of India)
* Libya – Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Al-Jamāhīriyyah al-ʿArabiyyah al-Lībiyyah aš-Šaʿbiyyah al-Ištirākiyyah al-ʿUẓmā) (since 1 September 1969)
* Portugal – Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa) (since 1976) (see Constitution of Portugal)
* Sri Lanka Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (since 7 September 1978) (see Constitution of Sri Lanka)
* Syria – Syrian Arab Republic (Al-Jumhūriyyah al-ʿArabiyyah as-Sūriyyah) (since 1973) (see Constitution of Syria)
* Tanzania – United Republic of Tanzania (since 26 April 1964)
* Nicaragua – Republic of Nicaragua (República de Nicaragua) (see Sandinista)
* Venezuela -

These Countries are considered “Socialist/Democratic” Societies:

France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Israel and Brazil. India, United Kingdom, Portugal,Italy, Sweden, Germany,Canada, Ireland.

Anymore questions?

Redneck: Always a fan!

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DebbieDoRight- Nice little humorous stunt but your beloved UNIONS (snarl, spit!) became very corrupt over the years and have done more damage to the American worker they pretend to serve (snarl, spit!) , than they have done them good. (snarl, spit!)

Oh and by the way, DebbieDoRight, you might want to back-up just a weeeeeeeeeeeee-little-bit there on your Jim Crow statement long enough to see just what your beloved unions (snarl, spit!) did through their creative AFFIRMATIVE ACTION policy to keep Old Jim Crow in a comfortable feathered nest, which denied black Americans among others equal job opportunities.

Still laughing?

Kind of figured the “ethnocentric identity politics” game would be played at least one more time. How do like the trump card now that it has been played? (snarl, spit!)

Now EVERYONE knows the rest of the dirty union story!!!(snarl, spit!)

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My apologies for not properly crediting the above extraction taken from “The Strange Career of Affirmative Action” to Mr. Paul Moreno is a professor of history at Hillsdale College who wrote the article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal September 1, 2007 and the author of “Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History,” (Louisiana State University Press, 2006).

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MHSmith(snarl,spit): Kind of figured the “ethnocentric identity politics” game would be played at least one more time. How do like the trump card now that it has been played? (snarl, spit!)

Funny how, after all the examples I gave, you latched on to JIM CROW isn’t it? I imagine you’re one of those so-called “christians” who pray on Sunday then go out on Mon – Fri and sin as much as you can for that good ole dollar huh?

OK MHSmith, (snarl, spit); let’s talk about Affirmative Action or “liberalism” — the buzz word for republicans (snarl,spit); who actually hate anything: a) Positive; b) Uniting and c) Educating; — you cite two examples of AA and what it did to “blacks” by two well known scholars, did you cite any “blacks” and THEIR reaction to AA? Of course you didn’t!! That would be defeating your purpose!! Why ASK THEM how much it has done for them, when you can TELL THEM, how much it has HURT them!! That’s the republican (snarl,spit) way isn’t it?

MHSmith (snarl,spit): beloved unions (snarl, spit!) did through their creative AFFIRMATIVE ACTION policy to keep Old Jim Crow in a comfortable feathered nest, which denied black Americans among others equal job opportunitie

Darling, let me give you some Am. Hist. 101: Unions, at the times were ran by, white people. White people, SOME white people, in the US, no matter what they’re political background; would rather DIE then see any type of advancement by any race besides their own. Why is that so hard to understand?

Well MHSmith, (snarl, spit); have a good Labor Day – Hope I dropped some knowledge on ya; but if I didn’t, trust me, I do understand — your remarks speaks of a decidedly narrow viewpoint and very limited tolerance of anything different — REMEMBER: Today we Feat, ’cause tomorrow we’re back to the grind!! Happy Labor Day!!

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@Debbie

Do you notice how these so-called conservatives NEVER address the question? Their only rebuttal is to select a sliver of the presented information and EXTRAPOLATE, CONFLATE and OBFUSCATE.

Then, they proceeded to post these enormous cut-and-paste dissertations to support their specious points. They have nothing to say and want to portray their rebuttal as a cogent, rational rejoinder to the specific point.

I can only sit and chortle at their vain attempt of making us believe our eyes and ears are lying. Can you stop rolling in hilarity?

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Comrades,
Believe me, socialism is not what it’s promised to be.

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Do you notice how these so-called conservatives NEVER address the question? Their only rebuttal is to select a sliver of the presented information and EXTRAPOLATE, CONFLATE and OBFUSCATE.

Want to try that one again, Jackie. What I can’t believe is yours and the other liberals absurdity at times.

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@ Jackie- If my last response to DebbieDoRight wasn’t cogent and relevant to anything that has she said, then it is your opinion that is non-sense.

The article pointed out the UNION origins of affirmative action and how the UNIONS used affirmative action was JIM CROW in action. Also note that Comrade Cynthia’s lauded hero of the moment Eugene V. Debs American Railway Union was one that engaged in the UNION JIM CROW practice of that day. Oh do reply Ms. Tucker and tell me once again how I should thank socialist BIGOT Eugene V. Debs for labor day. I’ve got a hunch more than a few black Americans would just as soon give Debs a snarl and spit! Probably the same said for ethnically mixed mutts like me as well, double snarl and spit!!

You really are either being deliberately silly or your reading comprehension is failing you, Jackie. Yeah I’m talking directly about your… UNIONS!!!

How the hell could I ever forget.

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One More Thing……

MHSmith: Ethnic based affirmative action is discrimination plain and simple.

Could you show me WHERE in the Equal Op Law OR the AA initiative where it states that it is “ethnic or race based”? Short history:

“Affirmative action, the set of public policies and initiatives designed to help eliminate past and present discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

NOWHERE in that statement, nor in the enactment of the EEO Law does it say, “give preferential treatment to blacks”. It was made to ELIMINATE discriminationary practices in hiring, living, etc. PERIOD.

# The actual phrase “affirmative action” was first used in President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Executive Order 10925 which requires federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” The same language was later used in Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order 11246.

# In 1967, Johnson expanded the Executive Order to include affirmative action requirements to benefit women.

Where or WHERE did anyone put ethnicity in that paragraph?

ALSO………Yes, we are of the Human Race; HOWEVER here in good ole’ USA they still categorize us by RACE. (Hence the US CENSUS BUREAU); when our country of origin stops categorizing us by RACE then I guess everyone else will catch on too. Until then, don’t forget to answer your census when in comes around in 2010.

Ciao Bella! (And I LIKE calling you darling!! or like Zsa Zsa says ” Dahhhhlliinnggg!”)

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Puhlease DebbieDoRight, Affirmative Action is not one and the same as Equal Opportunity. Affirmative Action is a preference based on skin color or ethnicity. You don’t and can’t eliminate past discrimination by more discriminating now or in the future and present ethnic discrimination can only be eliminated in the courts. (winning hearts and minds is another subject) The best way to serve the purpose justly would be to use poverty or income preferences to correct job and educational inequity to create equals.

Yes, we are of the Human Race; HOWEVER here in good ole’ USA they still categorize us by RACE.

Well, Zsa Zsa Dahhhhlliinnggg, until we – that does include you- stop speaking of race as a category in our conversations and using race in our writings as a category where ethnicity is what we should be using instead of conveying our thoughts ignorantly beneath our intelligence contrary to established science fact, the stupidity of RACE that only to extends the longevity of RACISM, will continue to make everything RACIAL in the Good Ole’ USA.

As a man thinks, so is he and as he speaks, so he is revealed. (applies to women too EOE)

…don’t forget to answer your census when in comes around in 2010.

I’ll give the government bigots the same answer on the census I’ve given in the past when it asks for race by writing in human. If they want a different answer then they should ask the right question correctly and I’ll give them my ethnic ancestral linage in full. Though I’ll be powerfully tempted to tell them, I’m an American and that is all they need to know.

Race has no place in America or in the law.
JFK

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electrician

“the day a Democrat President sent armed troops against American workers…”

Ummmm… Unless you count all the violence committed by the Dems against Blacks. See, there was the day the Democrats founded the KKK, there was Rosewood, Florida (albeit an act of OMISSION on the part of the Democratic leadership who simply turned away as the bloodshed escalated).

Democratic Party platforms supporting slavery: There were six from 1840 through 1860.
The number of Democratic presidents who owned slaves? There were seven from 1800 through 1861…

How about the “Jim Crow laws”? Surely these constitute violence against American Workers? These were the post-Civil War laws passed enthusiastically by Democrats in that pesky 52-year part of the DNC’s missing years. These laws segregated public schools, public transportation, restaurants, rest rooms and public places in general (everything from water coolers to beaches).

Yeah, I can’t for a MOMENT understand the commitment level of the African American community to these Democrat Tools…

Have a nice Labor Day!

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[...] Some opinion: Cynthia Tucker wants you to remember the socialist origins of Labor Day. [...]

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