Tag Archives: history

Off and on, in 1967, 68, 69 & 70, I worked the San Francisco waterfront as a marine electrician troubleshooter while going to University. Then, there were still the freighters owned by big shipping lines, the cruise lines, and a lot of the old Victory ships coming and going from SF. I worked on all of them before they were no more. This was during the Vietnam war. In the early years, I saw stevedores and longshoremen working the docks, down in...

Utopian Socialism Brings About Toilet Paper Shortages Maybe In The Near Future  Yeah, to heck with “socialism” in any of its forms, even old varieties that Marx and Engels denounced, neologizing the label “utopian socialism” for its advocates, even as they made clear their respect for the intentions at least of their intentions, even as they did not provide an analysis of the historical dynamic of capitalism and the broader issues arising from...

“Yesterday, Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia signed a 95-page law designed to suppress the vote in the state where voters chose two Democratic senators in 2020, making it possible for Democrats to enact their agenda.” I am not sure the election of two Democrats to the Senate was the objective of the voters in Georgia. It is more the result of voters flexing their muscle and stating, Repubs had better start to pay attention to the constituency,...

Ken Melvin has an excellent post, Duplicitous Bastards. In it, Ken touches upon the right to bear arms as opposed to the right to vote and how the former who advocate the bearing of arms who advocate such are more than likely inclined to make it difficult for the latter who wish to practice their right to vote. Forty three states are attempting to pass 253 laws restricting the right to vote and the state governments show no fear of those voters...

These are they who insist on their right to easily buy guns, to own as many guns as they wish. They who insist that mass shootings should be dealt with by prosecution. They who vehemently oppose any addressment of the question of who should be permitted to own guns. They who would only treat the symptoms of gun violence; who dare not look to science for the causes. They who think their Second Amendment rights are more important than the lives of mass...

Rescued from Oblivion! I was sure that the English translation of Friedrich Engels’s Preface to volume 2 of Capital had used the expression “rescued from oblivion” in referring to the 1821 pamphlet, The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties. But the only translations I could find didn’t agree: “In this pamphlet, the importance of which should have been recognized on account of the terms surplus produce or capital, and which Marx saved...

I posted a YouTube of Warnock’s speech along with snippets of it.There are other valuable portions of it worth putting into print if I could type that fast. Alas, this four fingered typist is not so fast or adroit. The memory works for a few sentences. It is a good speech! Using the Big Lie of Voter Fraud as a pretext to Voter Suppression “The People Of Georgia sent their first African American Senator and first Jewish Senator my brother John...

Barkley Rosser, Econospeak, The Woman Behind The New Deal, March 16, 2021 I was long aware that Frances Perkins (1880-1965) was the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary, namely Secretary of Labor for Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which position she was one of the two people to serve in their position all the way through his presidency, the other being Interior Secretary Harold Ickes. Somehow I never heard that much about her, but an article in...

Chairman Powell, Secretary Yellen, and President Biden have recently spoken about the long term consequences for many of economic downturns. More should, more often. The Media should recognize how important this is; ask the question whenever it needs to be asked. The Congress should put this front and center in any and all discussions about economic policy. Why? Because millions of Americans never recovered from 1979-1980. Millions more never...

“How The Humanities Building Went Wrong” Or Does Brutalist Architecture Represent Fascist “Institutionalized Tyranny”?  My freshly arrived Spring 2021 issue of “On Wisconsin,” the alumni magazine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has an article whose title is the first part of the title above in quotation marks.  The later quotation marks phrase appears in the article, but not the word “fascism.” The article is about a famous but much...