Category: Socialism

Two dogs, same bone

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
It's a gray morning in Duke City, and the wizards predict a chance of snow.
It’s a gray morning in Duke City, and the wizards predict a chance of snow.

Once again we are reminded that elections have consequences.

Scott Walker, by some accounts the foremost of the 2,375,296 Republicans running for that party’s 2016 presidential nomination, is going after working folks again with “right to work” legislation. He professed no interest in reviving this anti-union measure while campaigning to keep his present job, but that was so 15 minutes ago. A tricornered hat full of Tea Bagger gold is all he cares about now.

Elsewhere, Bill O’Reilly is flailing around like a big dumb mutt in the dogcatcher’s truck, trying to convince the suckers that he was a double Ernie Pyle with a side of Ed Murrow back in the day, doing it hand-to-hand with the bad guys in the Falklands when he was actually boffing a sheep in his suite at the Hilton Buenos Aires.

He’ll be successful, of course, for the same reason that Walker will get his latest union-busting tool. Larry’s wife can tell you why.

Comrades, come rally

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

 Happy International Workers Day!

• Shiny objects, si; child care, health care, no.

• Guns, si; butter, no.

• Flipping burgers is the new black.

• Your papers!

• No, really, your papers!

• Losing the spirit of May Day.

• Turks defy ban on May Day rallies.

• An uncomradely copyright on Marx and Engels.

• Tim Carpenter’s politics of radical inclusion.

• May Day, then and now.

More rabble-rousing as I find it.

For everything there is a season

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

http://youtu.be/TXqTf8DU6a0

Herself almost made it home last night, if you will concede that Denver International Airport qualifies as “almost home.”

The weather was moderately evil, and Herself’s flight from Chicago to Bibleburg was rerouted to Denver, a change of schedule about which I was blissfully ignorant until hanging a left off Powers onto the airport road after a very slow drive on icy, snow-covered streets.

“Where are you?” asks Herself, and I figure I’m about to get an earful for being late picking her up.

“Coming up on the airport,” sez I. “Where are you?”

“In Denver,” sez she.

And that’s the way things stayed. I hung out in the cellphone lot for an hour or so, waiting to see if the situation would resolve itself. United was waffling on whether the 15-minute flight was go or no-go, saying the Bibleburg airport was closed (the airport’s website proved useless on the iPhone, The Gazette had nothing about it, and I was feeling cantankerous and forbade myself to investigate in person).

Anyway, long story short, I motored back to Chez Dog to await instructions, United finally canceled that DIA-COS flight altogether, and I arranged a hotel room for Herself, who — having been scheduled to touch down in Bibleburg at 8:03 p.m. Monday — finally hit the hay at two-ish Tuesday in Saudi Aurora. Now she’s due in at 3:15 this afternoon. So it goes.

While awaiting dispatches from the front I learned of Pete Seeger’s passing, and this morning, in his honor, I decided not to go a-tilting at the windmills of customer service. It was late, the weather sucked, and the harried minions who seem like knee-jerk shitheels at first glance are just working stiffs, like us. They probably don’t like being United employees any more than we like being United customers.

Pete, that unreconstructed old commie, would have sung them a song.

Remembrances

• “Pete Seeger: This Man Surrounded Hate and Forced it To Surrender,” John Nichols, The Nation

• “R.I.P., Pete Seeger,” Charles P. Pierce, The Politics Blog

• “Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94,” Jon Pareles, The New York Times

• “I simply wanted him to know that I loved him dearly,” Arlo Guthrie

On the nickel, over there

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

I dressed up as an old bald white guy for Halloween, but nobody noticed. Too subtle, I guess.

We did get a record crowd of trick-or-treaters, which may or may not have something to do with the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that took effect today.

One toddler pirate was into some serious pillaging, plucking booty from our candy bowl with both teensy fists. An adult joked, “I hope you’re planning to share that. …” Goddamn socialists. When I was a child, we had to make our own Halloween candy and then defend it by force of arms.

With this satanic celebration safely behind us now, it’s time for the sanctified seasonal festivities, like scrambling to find nifty places to stash the poor folks where holiday shoppers won’t have to look at ’em.

A beater South Nevada motel that has housed some 70 folks is closing, apparently to reopen in 2014 as “a center for mothers undergoing substance abuse treatment,” a need for which the necessary $300,000 per annum to house an estimated 20 moms and their kids has yet to materialize.

In the meantime, the Springs Rescue Mission will operate the city’s only overnight shelter for the chronically homeless throughout the winter, providing 30 beds for men and women. That has funding through April 15, but the mission apparently has plans to use the space for “an undetermined purpose” come springtime.

I bet springtime seems a long way off to a lot of these folks. The Baboon Caucus would like to ensure that it never comes. Not for the homeless. Anyone who doesn’t own at least three houses, a bank account in the Caymans and a senator is invisible to that crowd.