It wasn’t unusual that he mixed a few facts with opinion and outright lies in his three-hour daily show. Fact checking for the man who calls himself “America’s Truth Detector” is as rare as union organizers working for Walmart.

What is unusual is that Rush Limbaugh, whose web site shows a picture of him carrying a large gold-fringed American flag on a six-foot staff, spoke out against the Constitution of the United States.

Because logic and reason avoids his black-clad bouncy body, he may not have even known he was attacking the history of the United States and its Constitution. But on this Friday the 13th, the forces of evil spewed forth from his unfettered microphone mouth.

The United States had announced it was removing five persons accused of plotting the 9/11 terror from Guantanamo Bay and putting them into the federal judiciary system. Attorney General Eric Holder, at a press conference in Washington, D.C., had announced, “After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice. … I am confident in the ability of our courts to provide these defendants a fair trial just as they have for over 200 years [before] an impartial jury under long established rules and procedures.” He announced that the Department of Justice would “prosecute these cases vigorously,” and would seek the death penalty in each case. President Obama had said earlier that day he was “absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheik Mohammad [the alleged mastermind behind 9/11, and the other defendants] will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it, my administration will insist on it.”

Limbaugh called the decision a “disgusting travesty perpetuated here by Barack Obama.” That was just the beginning of his rant. Over the next few minutes, Limbaugh said the decision to bring terrorists to trial was solely “to satisfy the rabid, radical, far left that hates this country; that hates George W. Bush; that hates the U.S. military.”

Limbaugh opposed the use of lawyers; several times he branded them as leftist and Marxist, disregarding the reality that membership in the American Bar Association skews to the right. Although he came from a family of lawyers, he disregarded Constitutional guarantees that require even the most heinous of criminals to be assured their rights, including the right to be represented by an attorney. While erroneously claiming that terrorists have no rights, Limbaugh also objected to providing the defendants “fairness,” because in what he called the “new America,” fairness is something created by “a bunch of radical leftists.” He claimed that the defendants didn’t even deserve lawyers because, in the world of Rush Fairytale Logic, the lawyers would use the courts to attack the United States.

He attacked the federal judiciary, claiming, “There are a bunch of radical leftists on our federal bench,” all of whom apparently, if you believed the Mouth That Roared, are governed by such mundane and useless rules like—well—the Constitution of the United States. What Limbaugh didn’t say, possibly because the facts didn’t agree with his own distorted version of reality, is that there are more conservative judges than liberal judges in the federal judiciary. About one-third of all federal judges were appointed by George W. Bush, with a majority of all judges appointed by Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes. Limbaugh, in his deliberate distortion of facts also didn’t point out that 62 percent of all appeals court judges were appointed by Republican presidents, and that conservatives are the majority on 10 of the 13 appeals courts. He also failed to point out that six of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents. The Republican-dominated federal courts have cut down several unconstitutional provisions of the PATRIOT Act; the Republican-dominated Supreme Court has twice rebuked the Bush–Cheney Administration for procedures that are blatantly unconstitutional. In one major decision, conservative Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, speaking for the majority, ruled, “Any process in which the Executive’s factual assertions go wholly unchallenged or are simply presumed correct without any opportunity for the alleged combatant to demonstrate otherwise falls constitutionally short … [T]he constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties … remain vibrant even in times of security concerns.”

Like most conservative radio hosts and their teabag party followers, Limbaugh several times had blasted the Department of Justice for even thinking about bringing the terrorists onto the mainland, claiming the men were so evil that they would endanger all Americans. Unsaid by the talking mouths and empty heads was that the Department of Justice successfully prosecuted numerous gangsters, serial killers, and terrorists, and then successfully imprisoned them without danger to civilians.

For emphasis about how he thought a trial for the 9/11 terrorists would be unfair, Limbaugh threw veiled anti-Semitic attacks upon a possible jury pool. “Before it’s all said and done you’re going to find some whack nut jobs on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that are going to be on this jury,” said Limbaugh. The Upper West Side is largely identified as a community that was settled by refugee Jews, and which still has a significant percent of Jews.

Several times, Limbaugh stated that since the defendants had already “confessed,” the need for a trial was not necessary, and would only embarrass the U.S., placating those “leftists,” and exposing the entirety of the American intelligence community. This, said Limbaugh, is the “hidden agenda” of the Obama Administration. “They want the United States on trial,” Limbaugh cried out. Disregarding the absurdity of his own remarks, Limbaugh never acknowledged that the “confessions” were made only after severe torture. Bringing criminals, who have been subject to torture, to trial, who have confessed, said Limbaugh “is yet another internal assault on the fabric, the traditions, the institutions that have made this country great,” he told his equally rabid listeners.

Having attacked the President, the Attorney General, lawyers, judges, the Department of Justice, and Jews, Limbaugh put Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) into his cross-hairs. Sestak, said Limbaugh, is “a dangerous left-wing radical ideologue.” What drew Limbaugh’s rage was that Sestak not only supported the prosecution of the 9/11 terrorists in federal court, but that on Fox News, he argued that “Most studies have shown that [torture] does not give you evidence as readily or as credible as other means.” Persons who are tortured, said Sestak, raising concerns about the legitimacy of the terrorists’ “confessions,” will often confess to anything in order to stop the torture.

What Limbaugh didn’t tell his audience was that Sestak was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, a retired vice-admiral who had led a carrier battle group, and was the first director of the Navy’s anti-terrorism unit after 9/11. Sestak’s views are the same as John McCain’s, also a Naval Academy graduate who had led an air squadron. Listeners could now choose between two war heroes, one of whom had suffered torture as a prisoner of war, and a college drop-out who, said his mother, flunked almost all of his classes in his only year in college, was declared 4-F in the draft, and now hails on 600 radio stations as the mouthpiece for the right-wing fringe.

“We are in the process of destroying American ideals; we are in the process of subordinating America’s greatness, America’s exceptionalism,” Rush Limbaugh wailed.

The reality is that flag-waving fact-impaired Rush Limbaugh has no idea what American ideals are, nor does he have respect for the legal history of the United States or the power of the Constitution.

It makes no difference what the questions or answers were. Journalism hasn’t been a priority of television for a long time. What matters is that a network hired someone with no background into a job with an income substantially above what most journalists earn. Jenna Bush isn’t the only one to parlay dubious credentials onto network television. Beauty pageants—it makes no difference if it’s the Miss Rutabaga or Miss America contests—are full of contestants who say their ambition is to be a TV anchor—or an actress, whichever comes first.

Now, Jenna Bush, in her mid-20s, had also become a best-selling author, something that rarely happens even to the best writers. HarperCollins, owned by Rupert Murdoch of Fox News fame, printed an initial 500,000 copies of Ana’s Story in 2007. The press run was about 100 times greater than the average run of a first book by even a good writer. A year later, HarperCollins published a children’s book co-written by Jenna Bush and Laura Bush, who promoted their books on the major talk shows, including The Tonight Show, with Jay Leno. Thousands of publicists and authors literally beg to get network exposure. Most books that do get published can be found in the remainder bins—or recycling bins – within a year of publication—if the author is fortunate enough to even secure a contract.

The Bushes aren’t the only celebrities who have written children’s books. Among dozens of celebrities who easily found publishers for their children’s books were Julie Andrews, Bill Cosby, Katie Couric, Jamie Lee Curtis, LL Cool J, Jay Leno, Will Smith, Jerry Seinfeld, and even Shaquille O’Neal.

Superstar pro athletes can often get book deals in the six- and seven-figure range. Among them are 7-foot-5 NBA star Yao-Minh, whose command of English is minimal, but who scored a $1.5 million advance for his autobiography; and Dennis Rodman, aided by a fluorescent-hued hair, multi-body tattoos, and a seven-figure advance, who wore a dress and feather boa in Detroit and a wedding dress in Manhattan to promote his own in-your-face autobiography. O.J. Simpson was a cross-over—a superstar pro athlete and a criminal. Criminals whose stories make the front pages, and who while in prison “find” religion and do a great job of feigning repentance, can often secure book deals.

Thousands of 20-something students and recent graduates have worked extremely hard, usually in anonymity, to earn internships, many of them unpaid, in the media or in government. However, unlike most interns, Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton’s presidential playmate, became a best-selling author. And, like other celebrity-authors, she was able to parlay her notoriety into numerous talk show appearances, all of which helped promote Monica’s Story and more than $2 million in income.

Add Paris Hilton to the list. In 2004, she secured a book contract for an autobiography, reflecting her entire 23 year life of entitlement and near uselessness. Of course, the book became a New York Times best-seller.

At one time, “legacy children,” the ones whose parents or grandparents earned fame or fortune, would have settled for being admitted to the parents’ Ivy League colleges, even if minimally qualified, and then getting some job in the family business. But, the omnipotence of the mass media has given the entitled darlings other opportunities. Chances are there’s a TV gig or a book contract somewhere in their futures. And all that this says is that those who work hard to learn and perfect their craft, perhaps to contribute ideas to society, and hoped-for mass distribution, will probably continue a life of anonymity while buried by the train wrecks that have become the mass media.

It began when an openly gay judge asked Miss California, Carrie Prejean, what she thought about same sex marriage. Prejean, a student at San Diego Christian College, said that although she recognizes and accepts that others may believe in same-sex marriage, “I think I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.” That created a firestorm of publicity for the Trump-owned organization. A large minority of Americans said they supported Prejean’s opinion. A large minority said she was reciting biased lessons of intolerance; Perez Hilton, the judge who had asked the question, on his blog called Prejean “a dumb bitch.” However, several prominent gay rights activists defended Prejean’s right to her opinion.

Pageant officials had ordered all of its contestants not to mention God on their applications or at any public event. Apparently, openly believing in God could be seen as detrimental to an organization which holds its beauty contest in Las Vegas, also known as Sin City, USA. Prejean’s view about gay marriage, she later said, was based upon her religious beliefs.

Prejean was second in the Miss USA contest itself; her views may have cost her the national crown.

The Miss California organization claimed that since the pageant in April, Prejean missed scheduled events and lied about pre-pageant semi-nude pictures of her. A month after Donald Trump had strongly defended Prejean and her right of free speech, he approved the pageant stripping her crown. Prejean, who said the Pageant’s action was retaliation against her views, sued for libel.

In October, the Miss California organization countersued, claiming Prejean owes it $5,200 for what it claims is a loan it made so she could get breast augmentation. In its countersuit, the organizers and officials claimed Prejean “attempts to cast herself as a virtuous young woman and the victim in a supposed conspiracy against her.” The suit also accused her of having a “new-found notoriety [and] an inflated sense of self.” This, of course, is the organization headed by a man who beneath a blonde pompadour enjoys firing reality shows contestants. This is also an organization whose backstage manipulations could make Chicago politics or New York’s Tammany Hall organization appear to be little more than grade school cliques.

The Miss USA pageant claims its contestants are “savvy, goal-oriented and aware.” In a pompous arrogance of self-deceit it even claims that contestants “display those characteristics in their everyday lives, both as individuals, who compete with hope of advancing their careers, personal and humanitarian goals, and as women who seek to improve the lives of others.” The organization, like the Miss America contest, also requires its contestants to be single, never married, never pregnant and, apparently, never nude.

What it doesn’t require is that its contestants have natural beauty or wisdom. There are coaches to train them in voice and poise. There are coaches who train them in what questions will be asked of them, and how to respond in the most circumscribed way possible to avoid showing they have any opinions. There are coaches to tell them what bikini, ball gown, or casual wear looks best on them. There are hair dressers and makeup artists. There are weight coaches and trainers—since pageant officials and their public audience undoubtedly believe that anyone over size 4 is morbidly obese. The contestants go to suntan parlors, and slather lotions and sprays to get an even tan to pretend that they’re sun-drenched gorgeous. They use double-edge sticky tape to keep skimpy clothes from falling from almost-emaciated bodies, as well as to enhance whatever it is that needs enhancing or reducing. They get cosmetic surgery on cheeks, belly buttons, and their breasts, apparently to enhance or modify whatever genetics—or, in the case of the highly religious, whatever God—has given them.

Like any good media celebrity, Carrie Prejean has written … or co-written … or had someone else write an autobiography. This one will be published in November. The Miss California organization has just assured increased sales by publicly demanding all royalties from the book, because its stable of cookie-cutter perfect beauties can’t say, write, or do anything without its permission, even after they are dumped as employees.

Unfortunately, cosmetic surgery and breast augmentation are something it does approve.

“As long as I’m talking, I’m always learning about others,” she says. But, her rambling conversations are really a cover to keep others from probing too much into her life–”we’re very private people,” she says about her family. But, have a problem, especially about pets, and she’ll talk all night if she has to, and she’s not shy about talking about her English Springer Spaniels, three of whom were American Kennel Club champions.

Although she has raised AKC champions, her first English Springer Spaniel was from an SPCA shelter in New Jersey. “We had just lost Butch [a beagle],” she says, “and although we were still mourning him, we knew that you can’t have a home without a dog.” She doesn’t remember why she chose Joy, but it was the first of many English Springer Spaniels who would be her companion.

Carpenter, an award-winning freelance journalist, is executive director of Animal-Vues, a national organization which promotes “compassion for animals, and to help strengthen the bond between animal professionals and the public.” She takes no salary from Animal-Vues, and accepts only a fraction of the expenses to which she’s entitled. “The work is more important,” she says. In 1984, she and Dr. George Leighow, a Danville, Pa., veterinarian, founded Animal-Vues. The organization is an outgrowth of Animal Crackers, a popular weekly radio show they hosted for more than a decade on WCNR-AM (Bloomsburg). Animal-Vues, says Carpenter, “has given my life focus, purpose, vitality, and joy.” Animal-Vues has developed dog bite prevention programs and is now working with local agencies to help autistic children to be able to be safe with dogs.

Among Animal-Vues’ other mission is to assist in training individuals and local governments about emergency disaster evacuation. Until four years ago, most disaster organizations refused to take pets, forcing their human companions either to abandon them or not seek shelter. Hurricane Katrina changed a lot of attitudes. Television cameras showed the tragedy of abandoned animals, but it also showed another reality. “Far too many people refused to be evacuated in New Orleans unless their pets could go with them,” says Carpenter. Animal-Vues, which had pushed for pet evacuation for years, finally was able to help local and state governments figure out ways to provide shelter not just for people but their pets as well.

In addition to one-to-one counseling, Carpenter also taught non-credit classes about dogs and dog training at Bloomsburg University. Her six-session classes, with veterinarians as guest speakers, one of whom later became the president of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), covered first aid, animals rights, and grief counseling. “It put me in touch with pet owners, and gave me more purpose in what I do,” she says.

This caring 77-year-old was always surrounded by animals, almost in opposition to her parents who, she says, “were not animal friendly.” As a child, Carpenter brought frogs’ eggs home and watched tadpoles hatch and go through metamorphosis to become an adult frog. She also had dogs and cats, turtles, rabbits, and birds–”any animal that can love you back,” says Christian, her younger daughter and co-owner of Murphy Communications, an advertising/public relations firm in State College, Pa. But she especially loves horses. As a teenager, she and Red, a horse “with a lot of personality and playfulness,” would go into the woods. “I’d ride him sometimes, but we often just walked together,” she says. They’d stop, chat, rest, and think. Like many animals, Red died violently. A man who was boarding Red became annoyed at some of the horse’s antics “and just shot him,” says Carpenter. “You never get over that.” She never owned another horse.

In one of the few contradictions in her life, although Carpenter is uncompromising in opposing cruelty to animals, she also believes that hunting is necessary, but “I couldn’t be a hunter myself.” Her father, a businessman, was a hunter and trapper. As her father became older, says Carpenter, “he became more compassionate,” although he still enjoyed duck hunting. She doesn’t talk much about her mother, except to say she was a Realtor and art gallery owner who liked to shoot birds.

Carpenter entered St. Lawrence University on a New York State Regent’s Scholarship, planning to become a physician. In her senior year, she married, and decided to go to graduate school in education not medicine “so I could devote more time to raising a family.” She earned an M.A. in one year at Alfred University, and then went to the University of Buffalo for doctoral work in psychology with additional courses at the medical school. She thought she could handle the demands of motherhood, psychology, and medicine. Six months into her first year of doctoral study, Carpenter dropped out.

“They were operating on brain centers in cats to test responses,” says Carpenter, who says she will never forget having to decapitate the animals in order to take histological samples while the animals were still alive, then hearing their death gurgles. “I didn’t like it,” she says, not defiantly, but with reluctant acceptance. She pauses, thinks a bit, as if searching for the right words, and then quietly adds that the other reason she couldn’t continue was “because I decided I’d rather be a mother full-time,” something she could do to help develop life, not take it.

“She always wanted to be at home when we came home,” recalls her older daughter, Sherilee, now an editor at Penn State. At home, Carpenter made sure her daughters developed a love of reading and writing. “She loved books about horses and dogs, but we read everything we could,” says Sherilee, recalling that the family “seldom watched TV.” Their mother “was pretty strict about that.”

She was also strict about establishing rules and “making us be good to people,” says Christian. “She taught us the spiritual side of life and what school can’t teach you.”

Carpenter says she was neither helped nor hindered by the feminist movement for equality, even when confronted by the flaming rhetoric that questioned why women would want to give up careers for motherhood. “Equality really means that each woman should be allowed to be whatever she can be,” says Carpenter, proudly stating she is “so much because I am a mother.”

Both daughters, when younger, constantly said they wanted to be mothers–”just like Mom.” They married, but neither gave birth. “For many years, their nurturing instincts,” says their mother, “have been sharpened by cats and dogs.”

In 1969, Carpenter’s husband, William, by then a corporate executive, had a stroke at the age of 39, leaving his left side paralyzed. “He had given up hope for recovery,” says Carpenter, noting, “I don’t remember how many times I saw him fall.” But he had the support of his wife and a special assistant. “Willie just looked at him and wondered what he was doing,” says Carpenter. ” Willie was an English Springer Spaniel, Ch. Holly Hills Winged Elm—”We called him Willie Lump Lump,” says Carpenter. Willie was one of the first therapy dogs, an affectionate 50 pound bundle of encouragement. Willie helped William regain his will to do the necessary exercises to regain mobility; there was never any question as to which breed Sherry Carpenter would prefer over the next four decades. Because of Willie, Carpenter’s husband improved and “never had to go on permanent disability.”

The Carpenters had received Willie from the wife of a Penn State professor. “She told us that when Willie received his championship, we could have him.” It’s not uncommon for show dog owners to give away males, says Carpenter, noting ” the female is more important in breeding.”

Willie, “who gave us a great deal of joy,” died in 1978. “He just laid down under an apple tree and died,” says Carpenter. Willie, the fourth English Springer Spaniel the Carpenters owned was 10 years old. “He was such an influence on my life that I decided to pursue writing in order to give back to him all he had given to me.” Carpenter thinks a moment, makes a couple of random thoughts, and then quietly adds, “I hope there will be service dogs like Willie for all our returning veterans suffering from physical or emotional disabilities.”

Carpenter’s husband, having regained most of his muscle use except for his left arm, eventually returned to a career in corporate personnel, including work at Johnson & Johnson in Somerville and Princeton, N.J., the Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa.; and as personnel director of Centre County, Pa., home of Penn State, where both daughters graduated with journalism degrees. “I still go to the home football games,” says Carpenter, almost as agile in climbing the steps to Beaver Stadium in 2009 as she did in the early 1970s when her daughters were journalism students at Penn State. Sherry and William Carpenter separated in the early 1990s; William died in 1998. By then, Sherry Carpenter had established herself as a journalist. Writing “was my own therapy,” she says.

She had written her first magazine article while a high school student, using the income to “buy presents for my family and friends.” During her four decade career, she was a newspaper reporter and columnist in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania, a radio news director, a public relations account executive, and a substitute teacher, all part-time jobs, always a full-time mother. For almost 20 years, she wrote a monthly column for Dog World magazine. It was the first column to focus upon the Canine Good Citizen program, which is open to all breeds, whether pure-bred or mixed. Dogs must pass the program to become therapy or rescue dogs. Carpenter proudly recalls, “In some way, I hope my column had been the reason why that program expanded.” Equally proud, she has kept many of the letters she received from readers “who said they learned something from my column.”

Carpenter also wrote a weekly column for the Danville Daily News and the Sunbury Daily Item, both of them Pennsylvania dailies, and several articles for the AKC Gazette. She is the winner of five Maxwell medals from the Dog Writers Association of America (DWAA). In addition to her column, she was honored by the DWAA for a video about the Canine Good Citizen program and a widely-used handbook for police officers to learn how to deal with dangerous dogs. She and Leighow also won a special DWAA award for their Animal Crackers radio show. Among other awards she received for her writing are two from the New Jersey Press Association and the Thomas Paine Award for Citizen Journalism. The Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association honored her in 2005 for her columns, one of the few times the PVMA gave any award to someone not a veterinarian.

Her insight into both psychology and medicine gives her a special perspective few writers have. She occasionally reviews scientific articles for the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, and often contributes book reviews. “As a non-veterinarian, especially, it’s a real mark of distinction,” she says, her pride evident that she has been making a difference for pets, their companions, and those who work with them.

Like many who work for others, Sherry Carpenter doesn’t have a large income, now living off of social security, a few investments, and small monthly checks from her writing. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you make as long as you enjoy what you’re doing,” she says. She pauses again, another of her rare pauses. She doesn’t say much more about what she intentionally hides about her life, but she reveals all anyone needs to know. “Everything I do is an extension of my motherhood,” she says. “That’s just who I am.”

The Eagles fans–desperate for a Super Bowl trophy and proclaiming that since Vick paid his time he should be forgiven–gave him a hearty ovation when he first appeared in the game early in the first quarter.

Vick, the All-Pro felon who was convicted in federal court of conspiracy, financing, and operating a dog fighting operation, appeared in only 11 plays, rushed for seven yards, threw two incompletes, and was largely a decoy on the other plays. But he drew the attention of sportscasters and reporters in his first NFL game since his suspension.

Based upon the number of column inches the print media threw to Vick, combined with the air time TV devoted, he was the star and the rest of the team were supporting players.

Quarterback Kevin Kolb, who ran the offense while starter Donovan McNabb sat out his second game while recovering from a broken rib, did everything Vick couldn’t do. He threw for 327 yards and two touchdowns, becoming the first quarterback to throw for more than 300 yards in his first two career starts. Almost as an afterthought, the media later reported that Kolb was the NFC offensive player of the week. Not reported is that Vick, with a $1.5 million salary, is making about $400,000 more this season than Kolb.

Also overlooked by much of the media were DeSean Jackson and Brent Celek, each of whom had 100-plus yards as receivers and and LeSean McCoy who had 84 yards rushing. The media also ignored the offensive line, which gave Kolb the time to throw, and the defense, which yielded only two touchdowns.

The Eagles don’t have a game this Sunday, so the media will focus not upon Kolb, not upon the receivers or running backs, not upon the Eagles defense, and certainly not upon the offensive line. “Rehabilitation” will be the key topic this week. It’ll be stories about Donovan McNabb’s recovery from his rib injury–and Vick’s “rehabilitation” from a life of animal cruelty, and his hoped-for march to another All-Pro appearance. It’s just a good thing there aren’t any live eagles as team mascots.

We don’t know that the Knights of Labor created the first Labor Day in 1882 and that Congress made it a national holiday in 1894.

Almost none of us, including life-long union workers, know the personalities of the labor movement. About Mother Jones (1830-1930), the militant “angel of the coal fields” for more than six decades. About “Big Bill” Haywood (1869-1928) who organized the Industrial Workers of the World, a universal coalition to fight for the rights of all labor. About cigar-chomping Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), the first president of the American Federation of Labor, a job he held for 38 years.

We don’t know about Sidney Hillman (1887-1946) who led strikes in 1916 to reduce the work week to 48 hours, from the standard 54–60 hours, and then helped create the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) before becoming a major political force for workers during the labor-friendly Roosevelt administration. Missing from our collective knowledge is the life of Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), known as the “father of grassroots political campaigns” who worked alongside Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) who used Alinsky’s tactics to organize the United Farm Workers.

Most of us probably never heard about Eugene Debs (1855-1926), Joe Hill (1879-1915), and thousands of others who went to prison or were murdered defending the rights of the workers not only to organize, but to demand better working conditions. The names of Tompkins Square, Cripple Creek, Homestead, Lattimer, Lawrence, and dozens of other places where police forces massacred workers are unknown. We don’t know about the Avondale mine fire that killed 110, because of faulty construction of the colliery and a disregard for worker safety, or of the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, where 148 women, some as young as 12, working under brutal sweat-shop conditions, died because a fire door was chained. We won’t become involved in the struggle, risk our jobs and futures. That’s someone else’s responsibility. We’ll just follow inane rules and complain privately.

Most Americans, and certainly most journalists, don’t know the story of Horace Greeley, a social activist and the nation’s most prominent ante-bellum publisher, who created The New York Typographical Union for his typesetters and printers because he believed they needed representation. Most journalists also don’t know about Heywood Broun (1888-1939), one of the nation’s best-paid columnists who risked his own financial stability to create The Newspaper Guild in 1935 to help those reporters making one-hundredth of his salary. Most media don’t even have local stories about Labor Day, preferring to run nationally-distributed stories and not “waste” any of the few reporters they have left.

The national syndicates and wire services, plus a few socially-conscious newspapers, may make the effort to find a current labor leader who will say organized labor is having a tough time but is still strong and vital, the only recourse against poor working conditions and unfair labor practices. The stories will tell us that about 12.4 percent of all workers are in unions, down from a peak of 35 percent in 1954, but the reporters don’t dig into myriad ways of intimidation by Management, or of the professionals who mistakenly believe because they are professionals and not workers they don’t need unions.

The reporters may interview the workers. An elderly man’s remembrance of his life in the coal mines or breakers, and what Black Lung did not only to his own health but to his family and friends. They might chat with an elderly woman who worked 12-hour days six days a week for $3–$4 a day in the heat and humidity of a garment factory. They may talk with a few current workers who tell us the Recession has cut deep into their lives, but they work hard and are pleased that they still have a job.

Some stories may even dryly point out statistics—that the unemployment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is 9.7 percent, up from 4.8 percent when the Recession began in December 2007, that 14.9 million Americans are unemployed, up from 7.4 million. The stories might even note that 9.1 million Americans work part-time either because their hours and wages were “downsized” or because they couldn’t find full-time work. Another 2.3 million Americans are “marginally attached,” according to the BLS; these are unemployed Americans who aren’t listed as “unemployed” because they haven’t looked for work in four weeks; of these 2.3 million, about 760,000 are “discouraged”—their unemployment benefits have run out, they have tried to find work, but have given up.

Meanwhile, corporate executives are taking multi-million dollar bonuses for improving the “cash flow.” Even if executive management makes significant mistakes, and the “return on investment” isn’t what the Board of Directors expects, or the companies fail because of management incompetence and greed, almost all CEOs and their immediate underlings have the “golden parachute” that allows a soft drop from employment, yielding termination packages that amount to millions of dollars and considerable benefits and bonuses that no working class person will ever receive.

Business euphemistically claims because of “downsizing,” “rightsizing,” and “outsourcing,” mostly to foreign countries, the “bottom line” is improved; corporate investors are being “optimally compensated.” Since the recession began, more than a year before President George W. Bush left office, about 4.3 million Americans have been “downsized,” according to data compiled by Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc. Data collected by NowPublic reveals that 2008 was “the worst year for layoffs and job losses in the United States since World War II.” Although terabytes of data reveal the Recession is slowing under the massive Obama stimulus package, another one million Americans will be laid off this year. Recent Department of Labor studies report that American workers are “the most productive” ever. That’s because not only are they are doing so much more to compensate for their fellow workers having been laid off, but because they live with the fear if they don’t work even harder they, too, may be laid off or lose promotions in an economy that went as far south as our manufacturing plants.

Of course, there are some industries that have gained in the past year’s plunging economy. Retail sales, which the Department of Labor reports as having the lowest average wages, is gaining workers. But, that’s because it’s just “good business sense” to hire 75 low-paid part-timers and save the cost of benefits than to hire 50 full-time clerks. Only about 16 percent of all retail workers even receive health care benefits, according to the BLS.

To the 50-year-old who worked hard for one company more than half of his life, showed up for work on time, left on time, and tolerated the company’s banal preaching about everyone is “part of our happy family,” and then is laid off as an “economy measure,” the numbers don’t matter. To the worker who put in 20 years in one job, and then is fired for reasons that would be questionable under any circumstance, the numbers don’t matter. To the $20,000-a-year worker who is told she won’t receive a raise because “we’re having a bad year,” but sees upper management not only get raises and more stock options, but also hire other managers, all of them making five times or more than her salary, the other numbers don’t matter.

But, millions of Americans will have their bar-b-ques and family reunions, they’ll splash in the ocean or hike mountain trails, and they will have no idea why the struggle for worker rights must be fought every day by every worker.

CDC scientists isolated and developed the seed strain of swine flu. Working furiously to manufacture the vaccine are five major drug companies, which received about $1.8 billion in federal funding to produce the anti-virus. Leading the testing, analyses, and education campaigns about the swine flu, in addition to the CDC, are the U.S. Public Health Service, the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Federal Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in addition to the Department of Health and Human Services, which developed the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza protection.

Testing of the vaccines on human subjects is being done at eight major U.S. universities and hospitals, which received federal funding. The federal government is also providing about $260 million in grants to state health departments to give the vaccine at no charge to people who do not have insurance or whose insurance does not cover vaccinations.

In several European countries, which are producing about 70 percent of all vaccines for a worldwide population, most research and production is being funded and carried out by government agencies.

But if you listen to the multi-millionaire conservative bloviators of talk radio and Fox News, or the shrill screeching of a minority of tea-baggers and conservatives at dozens of town hall meetings, you hear one theme. These right-wing loonies say they don’t want the government involved in health care. No government. Get government out of their lives. Government is evil! The well-orchestrated campaign against health care reform focuses upon shouting over any attempt by members of Congress to present the truth about health care bills. Apparently, they believe the health care crisis is a sports game; whoever shouts the loudest to drown out everyone else gets the most points.

If these harpies of the right are all-so-determined to stop universal health care, if they don’t want the government in health care, then I have a couple of suggestions.

First, because the baggers scream “socialist” at anything they don’t approve, they should refuse to accept Social Security or Medicare when eligible. If they’re veterans, they should refuse any VA medical programs, and reject any disability income.

Next, when the swine flu vaccines are ready for distribution in Fall, the opponents of health care reform should refuse to be vaccinated. That’s right. They need to stand by their principles, and not get the vaccines. After all, by their bastardized strain of logic, anything with a government stamp on health care must be suspect. They may even believe the massive public education campaign by the federal government is just a scare tactic, that the vaccines—primarily researched, tested, and funded by the federal government—may even be part of a secret conspiracy by the federal government to control Americans’ minds and make everyone Communists.

Nevertheless, whatever their beliefs, when the Swine Flu vaccine is ready, the opponents of the “intrusion” of the federal government into health care just need to say “NO”! but don’t say “no” for the rest of us.

At a public meeting, one of Grassley’s constituents asked him, “Why is your insurance so much cheaper than my insurance and so much better than my insurance?” He then asked, “How come I can’t have the same thing you have?” Grassley’s response was a flip, “You can. Just go work for the federal government.” Grassley, who opposes universal health care, is happy with health care programs paid for with tax dollars and available for every member of Congress, all Congressional staffers, everyone in the executive and judicial branches, and the military and their families. He doesn’t even oppose Social Security and Medicare. He just doesn’t want the masses to have the same quality of medical care that Senators have.

In response, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has led the fight for universal health care for more than four decades, writing for the July 27 issue of Newsweek, argues that “quality care shouldn’t depend on your financial resources, or the type of job you have, or the medical condition you face. Every American should be able to get the same treatment that U.S. senators are entitled to.”

The liberals, and most Democrats, are outraged that 46–48 million American citizens still don’t have health care coverage, and millions more have such minimal coverage that they often decline to get medical help when necessary. About 62 percent of all bankruptcies are the result of extraordinary medical costs, according to a report to be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine. Of those who declared bankruptcy because of medical bills, “78 percent of them had health insurance, but many of them were bankrupted anyway because there were gaps in their coverage like co-payments and deductibles and uncovered services,” Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, the study’s senior author, told CNN. “Other people had private insurance but got so sick that they lost their job and lost their insurance,” she said.

Liberals complain that the problem has become even more acute during the Recession when every day about 12,000 workers are losing health insurance, either because of forced layoffs or because a company cuts back on its insurance coverage for its workers. They question why the same drugs sold in Canada are significantly less expensive than ones sold in the U.S., and why the conservatives have blocked all attempts for Americans to go to Canada to buy the less expensive drugs. The liberals also point to a scientific study by the Commonwealth Fund that concluded, “Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries.” That study also concluded that the U.S. “fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries [Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom], and as shown in the earlier [studies], the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency, and equity.” Of the top 50 economies in the world, only the U.S. doesn’t have universal health coverage.

Two major competing plans—Single Payer and Public Option— are proposed to alleviate the problems of health care coverage. Under the Single Payer health care system, there would be one program, similar to Medicare but with all citizens covered. Although President Obama, as a senator, advocated the Single Payer system, he now believes the best proposal is the Public Option. The Public Option plan allows more than 80 million workers to keep or change their insurance coverage, buy into the government-run public plan, or go uninsured. The Public Option plan would protect the insurance industry, while reducing costs; the Single Payer system would threaten the industry, and relegate it to providing only supplemental or special needs insurance. The Public Option plan allows workers and employers to keep their own insurance or to enroll in the government insurance; there would be no choice in Single Payer system. Advocates of the Single Payer system argue that by enrolling all citizens into one system, costs would be significantly less because of the ability to negotiate with the health care industry and the probable reduction in administrative costs. The Public Option would also influence drug companies and health care providers, but the result could be less reduction than under the Single Payer system. Both Single Payer and Public Option plans eliminate or significantly reduce deductibles and co-pays.

The conservatives, and most Republicans, don’t buy into either plan. Sen. Jim DeMint (R–S.C.) explained one of the major reasons why conservatives will do everything they can to block health care reform. DeMint told about 100 leaders of Conservatives for Patients Rights, July 17, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Of course, DeMint may be an unofficial paid puppet for the parts of the health care industry that doesn’t want reform. During the past five years, DeMint received $2,917,870 in campaign contributions from the health care industry, according official campaign reports published by OpenSecrets.com. Michael Steele, chair of the Republican National Committee, agrees with DeMint’s “analysis” of what defeating health care reform can do to the Obama presidency. “I think that’s a good way to put it,” he told reporters at the National Press Club, July 20. For his part, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and possible Republican candidate for president, gleefully claimed on talk radio that health care reform “could be the bill that drags his whole presidency down and they look back on it and suddenly the whole thing is unraveled.”

Disregarding the absurdity of Republican statements that place partisan politics above health care reform, the conservatives have other issues. They complain they don’t want government running any part of anything, especially health care. They ignore provisions of proposed Single Payer legislation that remove the middle-men insurance companies. They claim that no bureaucrat should step between a physician and a patient. Of course, they don’t mind that private enterprise, in the guise of the megagoliath insurance and drug industries, do that all the time.

The conservatives argue that competition between insurance companies keeps costs low, but they ignore a study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine that concluded that about 30 percent of all health care costs are for overhead expenses, including executive bonuses and aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns by drug and insurance companies. They disregard the reality that patients and their physicians, dentists, optometrists, and other health care providers will determine the best treatments, and not an insurance clerk reading myriad pages of rules and regulations established by—who else?—insurance companies. They ignore the fact that universal health care coverage would reduce “cherry picking,” the enrollment of only healthy persons in order to “maximize profits.” The Public Option plan allows insurance companies to continue to “cherry pick,” but has provisions for those who are denied coverage to enroll in the Public Option plan. Under the Single Payer system, there would be no denial because of pre-existing conditions.

Conservatives falsely claim there won’t be any choice when government takes over health care, but disregard the reality that under both plans Americans can still choose whoever they wish to be their health care providers. But if the conservatives want to push what they call the terror of “no choice,” let them realize that even with excellent private insurance, patients currently have no choice in some situations. Those who go to an emergency room already have no choice of personnel. Except in the smaller hospitals, hospitalized patients, no matter how admitted, usually receive care from anonymous residents and hospitalists who are neither the patient’s primary care physician nor the patient’s own specialists.

In yet another attempt to scare the working class, the conservatives tell the masses that government-run health care will be as much a boondoggle as the Post Office. But, while every organization has myriad problems, six days a week a member of the working class, a letter carrier, comes to almost every house or business in America and cheerfully delivers the mail on time, stopping occasionally from 10-mile routes to chat.

Conservatives claim that a universal health care system will cost $1 trillion, overlooking a reality that health care costs are currently about $2.2 trillion a year. They conveniently forget that George W. Bush, with the approval of a lame Congress, ran up far more than $1 trillion in debt during his two terms and that the cost of the unnecessary war in Iraq, begun by a jingoistic president and vice-president who lied to the people, will easily cost more than $1 trillion.

Nevertheless, the conservatives are right about two issues. They are right that the proposed Public Option plan doesn’t specify which taxes are to be raised or what would be required for both individuals or businesses to become part of a national insurance plan. However, proposals for the Single Payer system, such as one proposed in Pennsylvania, will impose a 3 percent personal income tax; each business would pay 10%, significantly lower than what most businesses that insure their workers currently pay. Additional revenue would be from existing programs, including Medicaid.

Conservatives also are right that there will be some fraud and the cost will probably be far greater than the projections, something that is part of almost every large private business and government-run programs. However, the conservatives conveniently ignore the reality that the Bush–Cheney Administration, again with little Congressional concern, handed out innumerable multi-million dollar no-bid contracts, often to their friends and business associates, and did little to investigate cost over-runs, wasteful spending, and fraud.

Although President Obama is firm that there would be no additional tax for persons making less than $250,000 a year, conservatives are worried that the government will increase taxes for anyone making a net of $1 million a year or more. Apparently, impoverished conservatives and their conservative representatives must protect millionaires from harm.

About six of every ten Americans, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll in February 2009 say they want the government to provide universal health care coverage. Groups as diverse as the AFL–CIO, the AARP, and the American College of Physicians want universal health care coverage. According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, only one-third of physicians oppose universal health care coverage.

“America’s health care system,” said Walter Cronkite in 1993, “is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.” Nothing has changed since then.

Sen. Grassley has no worries about health care coverage. Under a quasi-socialist system for all three branches of government, including the military, he gets the best medical, dental, and optometric care in the country. As for the rest, like his conservative colleagues, Sen. Grassley believes that cake is the best medicine for those without adequate coverage.

This is one of them.

Providing all of my research were the “family values” Republicans.

This week, second term Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina disappeared for six days, leaving the state without a chief executive who could make decisions in an emergency. His Republican lieutenant governor didn’t know where he was, and had not been given any authority to make decisions in his absence. The state police said they had not been informed. His wife told the Associated Press she didn’t know where he was, wasn’t worried about him, and thought he was “writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids” over the Father’s Day weekend. His senior aides said he was walking along the Appalachian Trail to “clear his head.”

But it wasn’t his head that he was clearing. When he returned, after first lying to a reporter for the Columbia State who caught up with him on his return to the Atlanta airport, he finally admitted he went to Argentina to meet with a long-time lover. His wife, who was not by his side when he held an early afternoon press conference, later said she and the governor had separated two weeks earlier. The State later produced e-mail love letters it had been keeping since December.

The rising young star of the Republican party who was seen as a presidential contender in 2012, the man who was head of the Republican Governors Association until the day after he acknowledged his extramarital affair, the man who had wanted to deprive his state of $700 million in federal stimulus funds as a political message to President Obama, the man who had established himself as a beacon for the sanctity of marriage and the values of the oh-so-pure Religious right, was not only an adulterer, but for at least the second time had left his state at risk since there were no contingency plans of how to reach him in an emergency.

Alas, Gov. Sanford isn’t the only “family values” philanderer. Slightly more than a week earlier, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted he had a nine-month extramarital affair with one of his campaign staff. Ensign, who was contemplating a run for president in 2012, had been chair of the Republican Policy Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Like Gov. Sanford, Sen. Ensign only admitted to the affair after information had been leaked to the media.

This is the same John Ensign who, as a congressman, had curled his lips in revulsion at Bill Clinton’s affair, and demanded he either resign or be impeached. “He has no credibility,” Ensign told the Las Vegas Review–Journal in 1998. Six years later, now a senator, Ensign supported a federal ban on same sex marriages by declaring, “Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded . . . . [M]arriage, and the sanctity of that institution, predates the American Constitution and the founding of our nation.” Ironically, Ensign is active in Promise Keepers, an evangelical group.

Also vigorously calling for President Clinton’s impeachment, while having had their own extramarital affairs and covering them up or lying about them, were:

* Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chair of the House judiciary committee and the “house manager” for the impeachment, who lied about his own four-year affair with a married woman and then when a newspaper published details in 1998 called the affair in the 40s nothing more than a “youthful indiscretion.” He retired in 2007 after 17 terms in the House.

* Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), who was the first legislator in Congress to call for Clinton’s resignation and then became one of the leaders of the impeachment movement. Barr’s background, however, wasn’t family values pure. He never denied committing adultery with his second wife, and later, while married to his third wife, was photographed at what passed as a charity event licking whipped cream off the breasts of two women. Barr left office in 2003, after four terms.

* Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho), who was one of the first to call for Clinton’s resignation, told the Spokane Spokesman-Review that God had pardoned her sins for her six-year extra-marital affair. Chenoweth left office in January 2001 after keeping her promise not to serve more than three terms.

* Fourteen term Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind), chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, who not only had a long-time affair with a state employee but had fathered a son from that affair. His website once screamed, “Above all, Dan Burton believes the people have a right to principled leadership and that character does matter.”

* Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), who told Tim Russert on NBC-TV’s Meet the Press in 1999 that “The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy — a naughty boy. I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.” However, Craig himself was a “bad boy.” In September 2007 he pleaded guilty, and then tried to withdraw his conviction on charges that he solicited a man in the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport. Several gay men later told the Idaho Statesman that Craig, who was married since 1983, had previously tried to solicit them or had sexual relations with them. Craig resigned in September 2007, and then reversed himself, staying in office through 2008. He did not run for re-election.

* Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), House speaker from 1995 to 1999, who may have had an affair while his first wife was in the hospital recovering from cancer. Gingrich later cheated on his second wife with the woman who became his third wife during the time he was pushing for Clinton’s resignation.

* Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), who was Gingrich’s designated successor until he admitted his own infidelities and eventually resigned from the House.

* Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who was elected to Livingston’s House seat and served three terms before being identified in a prostitution scandal in Louisiana. In 2004, he was elected to the Senate, three years before Hustler magazine linked him as a client of a prostitution service in Washington, D.C.

* Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa), who had a five year affair with a woman 35 years his junior. She later charged that Sherwood had assaulted her several times. He eventually settled for what AP reported was about $500,000. Among those who supported Sherwood during his primary re-election were Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), one of the leaders of the conservative coalition who in November 2005 said that “Compassionate Conservatism relies on healthy families,” and President George W. Bush who went to northeastern Pennsylvania to help raise funds for Sherwood. However, in the general election of November 2006, Sherwood was defeated for a fifth term.

Add to the list of morally bankrupt Republicans:

* Five term Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) who resigned in September 1995, three years before the Clinton impeachment, after the bipartisan Ethics Committee unanimously recommended his expulsion following charges of sexual abuse and assault by 10 women, most of them either former staffers or lobbyists.

* Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), a six-term congressman, and co-chair of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, who had sent sexually explicit e-mails and text messages to a 16 year-old male Congressional page. Foley resigned in September 2006, two months before the general election, long after the Republican leadership had failed to discipline him, and only after a blog (stopsexpredators.blogspot.com) and ABC-TV news exposed his hoped-for affairs may have included other staff dating back at least a decade.

* Rep. Robert E. Bauman (R-Md.), publicly homophobic founder of Young Americans for Freedom and the American Conservative Union, who admitted he had solicited sex with a 16 year old male. Bauman lost the general election in 1980 and later declared himself to be gay.

* Rep. Donald Lukens (R-Ohio), who was convicted in 1989 of a misdemeanor for having sex with a 16-year-old girl. The “affair” may have begun three years earlier. Lukens finally resigned in October 1990, after having lost the Republican primary several months earlier.

Republican leaders aren’t the only ones who commit adultery, nor are conservatives or members of the Religious Right, including preachers, solely the ones to have violated the seventh and tenth Commandments. But, it is the “family values” Republican leaders, who have led the party of right wing moral indignation; it is the Religious Right that has overtaken the party and wears the now-tarnished shield of righteousness to protect itself against anyone who doesn’t share their own views of the world, including moderate and liberal Republicans, and anyone belonging to another political party.

The hypocrisy and moral turpitude of the leaders is just one reason why only 21 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans.

* Norman E. Nickle, 54, who lived in Pottsville, the county seat, was sentenced in April to two life terms, without possibility of parole after he pled no contest to killing two teens the previous year. Nickle’s only defense was that he was high on drugs and alcohol at the time of the murders.

* Jarrid Finneran, of Shenandoah, was sentenced to 2-1/2 to five years in prison after a jury convicted him in December 2007 of pushing his girlfriend in front of a car. Finneran said that the incident was the result of an accident, was not deliberate, and that he and the victim continued their relationship after the incident. The jury, however, convicted him of aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and disorderly conduct.

* Kyle J. Bluge, 23, of Frackville, admitted he shook a baby in April 2008 to try to stop the boy from crying. A pediatrician testified that the physical abuse resulted in significant brain injuries. Bluge, who will be sentenced Aug. 5, could face 10 to 20 years in prison and a $25,000 fine for aggravated assault.

* Mark P. Wilner, 40, of Mahanoy City, in June was found guilty of simple assault after a street fight that led to injuries to the victim who, according to court testimony, had begun the fight by punching a woman, causing her to fall to the ground. Wilner, who apparently initially tried to avoid confrontation, could be sentenced, June 29, to one to two years in state prison.

* However, the life of Luis Eduardo Ramirez-Zavalo, 25, an illegal Mexican immigrant who lived and worked in Shenandoah before dying in June 2008 after a beating by a gang of about a half-dozen drunken Shenandoah Valley High School football players is worth no more than 23 months in a county jail for his assailants.

Judge William E. Baldwin sentenced Brandon J. Piekarsky, 17, Shenandoah Heights, to six to 23 months, and Derrick M. Donchak, 19, Shenandoah, to six to 20 months, June 17, after an all-White jury convicted them only of simple assault, a second degree misdemeanor. Baldwin also sentenced Donchak to one year probation for three counts of corruption of minors, a first degree misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of two to five years in state prison; Baldwin also sentenced Donchak to three months in prison on each of three counts of furnishing alcohol to minors; the sentences would be served concurrently. His total sentence is seven to 23 months in county jail.

The jury about six weeks earlier refused to convict Piekarsky of criminal homicide, although witnesses said that it was Piekarsky who kicked Ramirez in the head after he had already been on the ground; Ramirez died two days later from the beatings. The jury also found both Piekarsky and Donchak not guilty of aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, criminal solicitation/hindering apprehension or prosecution, and ethnic intimidation, although witnesses said they distinctly heard racial slurs and obscene language during the beating. Court testimony revealed that the teens had apparently baited Ramirez into the fight.

In sentencing the two teenagers, Judge Baldwin, confined by the jury’s verdict, said neither defendant showed remorse — Donchak had even worn a “Border Patrol” T-shirt to a party four months after the beating. Contrary to defense claims, the judge ruled that the beating was not “a street fight gone bad [but] a group of young athletes ganging up on one person.” Because of the jury’s verdicts, the death of Ramirez could not be considered in sentencing. Baldwin said that if the attack “wasn’t motivated by ethnic intimidation, it was plain meanness. You don’t kick a man when he’s down.” Even with the relatively light sentences, both defense attorneys said they were contemplating appeals.

Two of the gang were not charged, and two others are likely to spend more time in confinement than Piekarsky and Donchak. Brian Scully, 18, Shenandoah, charged as a juvenile, was previously ordered to spend 90 days in a treatment facility before sentencing, expected at the end of Summer. He could spend as much as three years in juvenile detention. Judge Baldwin had said that Scully “was not only involved [in the assault] he was the instigator.” Scully admitted he tried to kick Ramirez in the head, missed, and kicked him in the shoulder.

Colin J. Walsh, 18, Shenandoah Heights, whose state charges were withdrawn after he pleaded guilty to a civil rights violation in federal court, cooperated with state and federal authorities and testified against Piekarsky and Donchak. Walsh, who like Scully had expressed remorse for his actions, testified that after he had punched Ramirez who fell and hit his head on the street, Piekarsky kicked him in the head. Medical testimony concluded that “the combined effects from these injuries” caused the death of Ramirez. Walsh was sentenced in federal court to up to nine years, but could be released in four years because of his cooperation.

The beating and subsequent trial divided the region, and brought national news media to the coalmine region of northeast Pennsylvania. Thousands rallied against what they believed were lax immigration enforcement, and argued that Ramirez would still be alive if he had not been an illegal immigrant. Others argued that the area’s bigotry and racism was the cause for the tension before the beating and continues to divide the people. The Pottsville Republican-Herald, the county’s only daily newspaper, reports that more than 4,400 comments were submitted to its website the first three days of the five-day trial, but that many were not posted because of vulgarity. The newspaper, which published more than 160 articles about the beating, subsequent events, and the trial, also reports that during the trial the website recorded 72,000 unique users just for the trial coverage.

The case left a lot of questions, in addition to what many saw as “jury nullification” of a murder. The Shenandoah police upon arriving at the scene, July 12, 2008, checked Latino witnesses for weapons rather than pursue the White attackers. Schuylkill County detectives filed arrest papers about two weeks after the fight; the district attorney filed court charges on Sept. 30, 2008. Based upon court testimony, Judge Baldwin noted, “the boys were ushered around and given counsel about getting their stories straight because it didn’t look good for Mr. Ramirez.” Testimony had also revealed that one of the officers was not only in a personal relationship with Piekarsky’s mother, but that he was living with both of them. The Shenandoah police, originally the primary investigative agency, did not make any arrests; on July 25, about two weeks after the assault, criminal complaints were filed by the Schuylkill County detectives in the office of the District Attorney. The Department of Justice told the Republican-Herald that there was “an open investigation” into the assault, and was “working cooperatively with state authorities on the matter and monitoring the state’s prosecution.” Further, the prosecution, which said it was pleased with the sentence, refused to say why it didn’t put on the stand a retired Philadelphia police officer who witnessed the beating and had called 911.

Most residents, those who believe that even a simple assault charge was too much for what they still maintain was a “street brawl,” and those who believe the gang got away with murder, seem to just want the spotlight to shine on other towns and other issues. But, that isn’t likely for at least a few more months.

Piekarsky and Donchak could still face significant prison time. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, the Anti-Defamation League, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and other organizations have asked the Department of Justice to pursue hate crime charges against Piekarsky and Donchak. Under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations during the 1960s, the Department of Justice was vigorous in bringing to trial and conviction, especially in Southern jurisdictions, persons who either were not charged or had received light sentences for attacks upon civil rights workers, Blacks, and their businesses and churches. Although civil rights prosecutions diminished in some subsequent administrations, the Department of Justice has again resumed the priorities established during the 1960s.

Shenandoah is a community of about 5,600, located in the anthracite coal region, about 100 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The 2000 census revealed that 97.4 percent of the population is White, with about 20 percent of the population living below the poverty line. During the early and mid-19th century, the population was primarily English, Welsh, Irish and German immigrants, all of whom faced discrimination from large numbers of second- and third-generation Americans who objected to the influx of immigrants. Conflicts between the lower-class miners and the supervisors and management of coal companies led to the rise of the Molly Maguires, whose original purpose was to promote unionized labor and serve as a protection for the immigrants. Cultural and ethnic conflict led to violence against the Mollies and the Mollies, in turn, became violent, especially as other immigrants from southern and Eastern Europe moved into the area, sometimes taking jobs the northern Europeans thought belonged to them. By 1920, the population peaked about 25,000, falling after World War II when it no longer became profitable for the robber barons to continue to strip the land of anthracite coal.

It is many of the descendants of immigrants who now support stronger immigration enforcement, and whose children and grandchildren carry the prejudices that have formed the patina of the place once known as the “city of churches”; it is the descendants of immigrants who have shown the prejudice against a rising Hispanic population and whose attitudes may have fueled the violence that led to the death of a Mexican immigrant who just wanted to work and help raise his three children.

* Assisting on this story were Rosemary R. Brasch, Brandi Mankiewicz, the office of the clerk of courts of Schuylkill County, several Schuylkill County residents, and the news staff of the Pottsville Republican-Herald.

Since 1989, People’s editors believed they were given the divine right to anoint who they believe are the most beautiful people on the planet. The ethnocentric celebrity-fawning People editors are so secure in their self-imposed knowledge that they don’t even reveal the criteria they used to make their determinations. Not even an “editor’s note,” common in most magazines.

People etches its version of reality into our minds by attaching cutesy capsulated biographies to full page color pictures of the most beautiful, and drop the 60–80 page section among myriad $254,000 a page full-color ads every May. Advance stories about some of the selections appear in just about every American newspaper and major website, all of which think stories about celebrities are more important than stories about the recession, thus assuring that the Beautiful People Special will be one of the best-read issues of the year. The reality is the lists are really the “100 most noticed celebrities,” but that probably wouldn’t get as many sales.

For several years, People had the “50 Most Beautiful” list, but apparently had trouble deciding how to reduce those seven billion people to only 50, so the editors doubled the number. But, they still had to squeeze 100 into the space of 50. So, the editors killed quality writing, and made most of the pictures the size of matchbook covers.

People editors, showing how attuned they are to the young demographic, have given us teenagers and barely-20s TV ensembles. In 2008, the seven member cast of TV’s Gossip Girl made the list. “Onscreen,” People told us, “they are gorgeous, scheming, backstabbing high schoolers.” Just what America needs. More future business executives and politicians. In 2009, the group was “The Girls of 90210,” each of whom was identified by a short quote. One said she collects wigs; one said hair is her “security blanket”; one said she discovered and misused bronzers in the 10th grade; and one said she needs to constantly “pinch my cheeks” because she never flushes.

The first few years, when the editors could find only 50 beautiful people, there was a fairly even split between men and women. The 2009 edition revealed that about three-fourths of all beautiful people are women. One of those beautiful women, given a full page and a minimal quote, was Michelle Obama. Although the editors have become more socially conscious, minority representation in the list is minimal, and certainly not in even close proportion to the reality that one-third of the world’s population are Black and another third are Asian. In the United States alone are 45 million Hispanics.

Five years after the first list came out, People recognized the elderly. Of course, the elderly were celebrities Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, and Barbara Babcock. The following year, the “elderly” included 51-year-old Queen Silvia of Sweden and 61-year-old journalist Gloria Steinem who should have been honored for being beautiful, but embarrassed by her inclusion on a list that is distinguished by hyperbole and ethnocentrism. The 2008 and 2009 editions included two-page color spreads deep in the magazine for 40 celebrities, 10 in each of the age categories of 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Obviously the editors couldn’t find any beautiful 60-year-old celebrities like Dolly Parton, Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, Neil Diamond, or Robert DeNiro; or 70-year-olds, like Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, Marlo Thomas, Robert Redford, or Quincy Jones; or 80-year-olds, like Tony Curtis, Neil Simon, Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett, and Sidney Poitier. The editors did find some real oldies. They put pictures of historical figures online, and asked readers to evaluate them as “hot” or “not hot.” The two “historical hotties,” first disclosed in 2009, were Nefertiti and Martha Washington.

In 1994, the editors expanded their section to include expanded bodies. Trying to make us believe that People thought beauty came in different sizes and shapes, the editors claimed that 5-foot-11 180-pound size 14 model Emme was a beautiful person, representative of the “burgeoning large-size modeling industry.” It’s hard to explain to these anorexic editors that size 14 isn’t fat, and that half of America’s women are at least a size 14. Not wanting to set a trend, People made sure all of the next year’s beauties were modishly thin. As in previous years, the current edition includes no large-size beauties, but it does include ads for Jenny Craig and Atkins diets, Medifast appetite suppressants, low-calorie Twinkies and cupcakes, and fat-free Florida grapefruit.

In 1994, after an incestuous five years of casting entertainers at more than three million subscribers, People widened its scope of inclusion. For the first time, it “elevated” four of their professional colleagues to anointed status — former journalist and Vice-President Al Gore, a husband-wife documentary film team, an ABC Wide World of Sports interviewer, and an NBC Today Show host.

Teachers, social workers, and medical researchers, no matter how beautiful, don’t make the final cut. But, they shouldn’t worry about it. Neither do Miss America, Miss World, Mr. Universe or, for that matter, Miss Crustacean, Ocean City, New Jersey’s, salty tribute to hermit crabs, and a spoof of the beauty contest that once inhabited next-door Atlantic City. Miss USA, however, for the first time in 20 years did make the list, but wasn’t a big enough celebrity to rate more than a thumbnail mug shot.

To its credit, People editors, probably as an afterthought, might have been concerned about why none of us “commoners” made the list. So, in 1993, the editors did what was expected of People editors — they went “cutesy,” and found two cities in Kentucky — Lovely and Beauty — and awarded “booby prizes.” Of the seven people whose lives were each compressed into one paragraph were three women and four men, all of them White. The following year, People found no beautiful “commoners,” but in 1995, the editors searched their loading docks and found nine UPS drivers, all male, to feature in the “booby prize” section. Commoners haven’t made the list for several years.

Like all people, we in journalism tend to report about, are attracted to, and understand people and ethnic groups that are like our own, or of which we are a part. For the most part, we are White, middle-class, sometimes even upper-class, college graduates who talk a lot about equality, but look, act, and dress as if we are part of the establishment we report about. We determine the “newsworthiness” of a story and, equally important, we decide the standards for media coverage — whether source credibility or beauty. If we see only certain groups of people, we will report only about those people, leaving everyone else as invisible as the billions of people who weren’t even considered. Indeed, it takes some ugly and very shallow people to think they can make up a list of the 100 most beautiful people in the world.

Almost three months later, the Washington Post, one of the most hawkish papers for invading Iraq, finally acknowledged its own pre-war hysteria and lack of journalistic competence and courage. “We were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn’t be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration’s rationale,” wrote Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr.

During President Bush’s second term, especially after his popularity had begun to sink, several major newspapers, including the New York Times and Washington Post, became more aggressive, publishing several major investigations into the War in Iraq, the government’s use of torture and apparent violation of the Geneva Accords, violations of due process, extensive spying upon Americans, the failure to provide combat troops with adequate body armor, the silencing of government scientists who disagreed with Bush-Cheney beliefs and values, the classification of 55,000 documents in the National Archives that had previously been declassified, the use of propaganda to support doctrine, and problems at Guantanamo Bay.

A New York Times investigation by Tim Golden and Don Van Natta Jr. revealed “government and military officials have repeatedly exaggerated both the danger the detainees posed and the intelligence they have provided.” That same investigation also revealed a CIA report in September 2002 that questioned the arrests. Most of those picked up in Afghanistan and transferred to Guantánamo Bay, according to the CIA investigation, were low level recruits or innocent men.

Among other reporters from the Times who broke major stories were Elisabeth Bumiller, Douglas Jehl, James Risen, and Eric Schmitt, who wrote about secret prisons and rendition; and James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, who wrote several articles about the government’s illegal spying upon American citizens. Times editors, however, had kept the stories about the government’s spying out of the newspaper for about a year, in deference to the Administration’s hysterical claims before the November 2004 election that breaking news about unconstitutional activities might somehow be aiding and abetting the enemy; the reality was that the Times was duped into protecting the Administration against a vote drain.

For the Washington Post, Stave Fainam wrote about abuses by extramilitary private contractors in Iraq; Dana Priest wrote about secret prisons and controversial parts of the Bush-Cheney counter-terrorism tactics; Jo Becker and Barton Gellman investigated the growing influence of Dick Cheney into national policies; and Dana Priest, Anne Hull, and Michael duCille in several articles exposed the medical and psychiatric neglect of returning combat soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Although the Post’s Bob Woodward fully believed Bush-Cheney Administration claims about the need to invade Iraq, he still produced the most in-depth reporting about Bush and his decision-making process. His four books in six years were all best-sellers.

The Los Angeles Times published a series in 2006 about Iraq’s descent into civil war following the U.S. invasion. Outstanding reporting about the impact of the war upon soldiers and civilians was done by several reporters, including Borzou Daragahia and David Zucchino of the L.A. Times; and Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman of the Hartford Courant. However, for the most part, reporters accepted what they were given. Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the London Independent, condemned much of the American press corps in Iraq for “hotel journalism,” writing stories based upon what they were told in press conferences without going into the field.

At the Boston Globe, Charlie Savage did solid reporting about President Bush’s use of signing statements to bypass federal and constitutional law.

Much of the best in-depth reporting about the Bush-Cheney Administration, especially its fixation upon invading Iraq, was done by reporters for national magazines.

Seymour Hersh’s powerful series about the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and several articles about the war in Iraq first appeared in the New Yorker. Hersh had broken the story about the massacre at My Lai and its cover-up during the Vietnam War; it was this willful murder of civilians by the U.S. military that other reporters knew about but didn’t report that earned Hersh the Pulitzer Prize. However, after Hersh’s series was published, the establishment media could no longer ignore the story. Not much changed in the four decades since then. Perhaps Hersh’s greatest honor is that a senior Bush advisor called him “the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist.”

Among several outstanding hard-news reports about the Bush-Cheney Administration, especially its fixation upon invading Iraq and of subsequent constitutional violations, were those of Michael Isikoff in Newsweek, David Corn in Mother Jones, Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, and James Bamford in Rolling Stone.

With a few blips for courageous reporting, the American press, according to media critic Norman Solomon, continued to blindly accept the Bush-Cheney doctrine as truth. “The American media establishment,” wrote Solomon in August 2007, “continues to behave like a leviathan with a monkey on its back- hooked on militarism and largely hostile to the creative intervention that democracy requires.”

However, reporters for one establishment news agency consistently represented the highest ideals of an uncompromised press.

John Walcott, the Knight Ridder bureau chief in Washington, and bureau reporters Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, were aggressive in publishing well-documented stories that challenged Bush-Cheney claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the need for the invasion. When McClatchy bought out Knight Ridder in 2006, Walcott continued as bureau chief, and Landay and Strobel become senior correspondents. They continued to challenge the propaganda, and proved that their organization was doing everything the Founding Fathers demanded when they said the primary function of the media is to act as a watchdog on government. When other media disregarded the anti-war dissidents, Walcott’s reporters interviewed them; when other media gave Guantanamo Bay coverage little more than “he said/she said” coverage, the McClatchy bureau dug into the story to present the truth and not the spoon-fed lies. When other media took down what they were told at press conferences and private meetings with senior Bush-Cheney officials, Walcott’s reporters listened, but went to innumerable professionals and lower-level staff in the Defense and State departments to get the truth.

“Journalism is not stenography,” says Walcott, winner of the first I.F. Stone medal for journalistic independence. The role of the journalist, he says, isn’t to record what people say, but to question it in the search for the truth. “One of the reasons we pressed so hard for the case for the war in Iraq,” says Walcott, “is that what they [the Administration] said simply made no sense.” The primary focus for Walcott’s reporters was “how were the decisions being made in Washington, [by] many who had never been to war, would affect the men and women” in the military.

“On the whole, the Bush Administration did not put out the welcome sign for us,” says Roy Gutman, McClatchy foreign editor. On even routine stories, the White House planted its leaks with friendlier organizations, and tried to isolate the Knight Ridder/McClatchy bureau from the other media. Publicly, the Bush-Cheney Administration issued no retort; by maintaining silence, the Administration knew the establishment media would also ignore a competitor’s reports.

“We were alone at the beginning,” says Walcott, “and are still fairly lonely at the end.”

At various times, she was asked to show an ID. When in her 20s she saw it as an annoyance. By her 30s and 40s, it was a compliment. Now it’s just downright annoying.

The law restricts persons under 18 years of age from buying or smoking cigarettes. My wife understands why she must be “carded.”

Yesterday she was carded when she wanted to buy two lighters. The sweet lady at the grocery checkout counter said that the chain store is carding everyone who buys lighters. Something about a juvenile who used a lighter and accidentally set his house on fire.

The law doesn’t say a person must be at least 18 to buy a cigarette lighter. But, the reasoning is that people buy cigarette lighters to — well — light cigarettes. Therefore, cigarette lighters — which can be used for many things other than to light up—also must be controlled. So, every adult, from the 20s to the gray-haired elderly, will also be “carded” when they buy lighters.

If this restrictive and selective enforcement continues, we might soon see stores carding people who buy cups, because they could be used to hold beer. Anyone who buys watermelons would be carded since plugged, spiked, and corked watermelons are a delightful summer treat. Jello, once promoted by all-American “dad” Bill Cosby, would be suspect, since there aren’t many college parties without Jello shots.

Unlike the sale of cigarettes and liquor, there is no age restriction on most foods. So, various health-nut organizations and not-so-bright legislators have decided to tax foods they don’t think are acceptable. Several legislators have tried, but so far have failed, to enact legislation that would tax high-calorie foods. New York Gov. David Patterson wants to levy a 15 percent tax on any juice or drink except diet sodas, bottled water, coffee, tea, and milk.

Eventually, we’ll see a special “obesity tax” placed against anything sold at a fast food restaurant.

When you break through the smoke and mirrors, governments really don’t care about anyone’s health. They do care about ways to generate revenue. Gov. Patterson readily acknowledges that the “obesity tax” in New York would generate about $400 million additional revenue. New York also leads the nation in cigarette taxes. A smoker in New York City pays about $9 per pack, which includes a 39 cents federal tax, a $2.75 state tax, a $1.50 city tax, plus an 8 percent sales tax on top of everything else. Chicago is second, with taxes totaling $3.66 a pack. States and the federal government collect about $26 billion a year in cigarette taxes, according to a New York Times report in August 2008.

Liquor taxes aren’t meant to make anyone healthy, except the state economy. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a five cent a drink tax that, had the legislature not tabled the suggestion, would have raised $600 million a year. Overall, the federal government collected more than $9 billion in taxes, while states collected an additional $6 billion, according to a comprehensive analysis published in June 2007 by the National Center for Policy Analysis.

With budgets being pumped up by numerous “sin taxes,” it won’t be long until someone figures out they need not only to card buyers of cigarette lighters, cups, watermelons, and Jello, but that there also needs to be special excise taxes upon these products as well.

*The assistance of Rosemary R. Brasch is appreciated

The three new pinstriped multimillionaires join third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who has a 10-year $275 million contract, and shortstop Derek Jeter, whose 10-year $189 million contract ends in 2010. First baseman Jason Giambi, who won’t be with the Yankees next year, picked up about $23.4 million during the 2008 season. Although the Bronx Bombers bombed this past year, and didn’t even make the playoffs, they are on the fast track to the World Series of Obscene Salaries. They aren’t the only ones in contention.

America pays major league professional athletes far more than even the most efficient long-term factory worker. For the National Football League the minimum wage is $225,000 a year; for Major League Baseball, it’s $390,000; for the National Basketball Association, it’s $442,000. Almost every athlete earns far more than the minimum, with most earning seven-figure incomes, plus endorsements worth another 6- or 7-figure income. Leading all athletes is Tiger Woods, whose team of accountants and business managers had to figure out where to put his $128 million earned in 2008. “Only” $23 million was from playing golf; the rest was from endorsements and business deals.

Although about 70 percent of the 120,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild make less than $5,000 a year, A-list movie stars command at least $10 million a picture. Their worth is based not upon acting ability but upon their B.O. — box office, that is. Prime-time network TV stars grab at least $2 million a year. Charlie Sheen leads the list, with a salary of about $825,000 for each 30-minute episode, about $19 million for the 2008–2009 season, according to TV Guide.

Super models, whose main talent is to be anorexic and have high cheekbones, are pulling in million dollar salaries, with Giselle Bundchen netting a very gross $33 million this year. Kate Moss, Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima, and Alessandra Ambrosio each earned $6–9 million this year, just for modeling. Supermodels average about $70,000 a day. That’s well above the average annual salary of teachers, firefighters, and police officers.

Miley Cyrus, who’s just 16, raked in $25 million this past year, about double what the High School Musical stars each earned in 2008.

If you’re a rapper, it’s hard to be a part of the ’hood if like 50-Cent you earned $150 million this year. Jay-Z, who led the list in 2007, trailed with $82 million. The top 20 rappers each earned at least $10 million, and that’s a lot of scrillah fo’shizzle.

Rush Limbaugh, perhaps radio’s greatest comedian, has a $400 million eight-year contract that will carry his voice on 600 stations through 2016. Far behind are factually-challenged Sean Hannity with a five-year $100 million contract, and Bill O’Reilly, the bloviator-in-chief, who is cashing a measly $10 million a year.

Oprah leads the list of celebrity income — she got about $385 million last year. Every TV celebrity judge makes more than the $208,000 that a Supreme Court justice makes. Leading the pack is Judge Judy, whose screechy shouting on TV earned her about $25 million last year.

The president of the United States, even the most incompetent one, earns $400,000. Compare that to the average salary for each of the Fortune 500 CEOs who earns about $13 million a year, about 400 times more than that of the average worker.

But, it’s the average worker who is the one who actually produces America’s goods, who actually helps other Americans. If life was fair, and people were paid what they were worth, there would be only a very small pay gap between bosses and workers. Here’s some news I think should be published in the new year — but probably won’t be.

* In an exclusive to KBAD-TV, Avarice K. Toadstool, president of Amalgamated Conglomerate Industries, said he will increase the pay of all line workers to at least $175,000 a year. Toadstool also said his company not only will provide full health coverage and college expenses, but will assist the workers to unionize. To pay for the increase, Amalgamated will cut executive salaries, quarterly “retreats,” and stock dividends.

* The federal government today approved the salary cap for all social workers. Although no social worker may now make more than $6 million a year, the base for entry-level social workers was raised to $750,000. Not included in the cap are signing bonuses and work-performance incentives. “We believe in the American philosophy of paying employees by what they’re worth to the advancement of society,” said Hull House director Jane Addams IV, who received a $2.5 million bonus last year for performance in suicide prevention assists, catastrophic disaster relief, and employment reclamation.

* The Humane Society today signed Polly Pureheart to a 10-year $104 million contract, largest in history. “Polly’s a triple-threat terror, and worth every penny we pay her,” said general manager Wolf Greycoat. During a 22-year all-star career, Pureheart is the all-time leader in animal rescue/rehabilitation, arrests for felonious animal cruelty, and lobby influence. Pureheart is personally credited with 1,087 unassisted tackles of recalcitrant legislators.

* The West Wattabago Daily Blab today signed investigative reporter David Bergman to a three-year $17.4 million contract. Bergman, who had been the clean-up hitter with the East Pacoima Tribune the past four years, was granted free agency status in November. During 2007, Bergman led the league in school board meetings coverage and uncovering local political scandals. For each of the past five years, he was a consistent .300 hitter, averaging at least three successes for every 10 news stories he reported.

In a related story, Phillies pitcher Harry Horsehide became the highest paid player in sports when he signed a three-year contract for $108,000 a year. The new contract will mean general admission ticket prices will rise to about $10, with premium seating at $30, according to Phillies management.

A couple of weeks ago, CEOs from GM, Ford, and Chrysler, known collectively as the Big 3, revved up their corporate jets’ engines, dropped in on the Senate, and testified that without a $25 billion bailout western civilization would collapse.

With the nation in a Recession, auto sales have declined to the lowest point since January 1982. Sales are off 47 percent for Ford, 41 percent for GM, and 31 percent for Chrysler from last year. Even sales of major overseas auto manufacturers selling to the American market are down, but not as much as for the Big 3. But, Big 3 market share has plummeted from 70 percent in 1998 to only 53 percent this year, according to Autodata Corp. Equally as important, Consumer Reports has consistently given cars produced by foreign-owned manufacturers higher ratings than American-made cars, although the problem is more attributable to management decisions than problems on the manufacturing line. But, even if Big 3 Management was flawless in their business plans, sales would still be significantly down because of the Recession, partially caused by the sub-prime loan fiasco and the reality that credit is now tight for most Americans.

Congress, which freely handed out more than $700 billion in taxpayer money to financial institutions with fewer morals than the average street walker, now demanded the Big 3 to return with an actual plan. As an afterthought, Congress suggested that the next time executives from GM, Ford, and Chrysler come to the nation’s capital, conspicuous consumption would be frowned up.

As compliant as any corporate “yes man,” the three executives returned, each of them driving a gas-efficient American-built car. Executives from GM and Ford said they planned to sell their jets; Chrysler, owned by Cerberus, a private equity firm, was moot on the issue. Of course, the Big 3 executives should have driven to D.C. the first time, but that’s an issue that six-figure PR executives should have foreseen.

This time, having been properly chastised, the auto execs brought a new proposal to Congress. Instead of a $25 billion bailout, the cost would be $34 billion for loans and credit lines. Apparently, driving a hybrid and eating at roadside diners costs more. And, each of the executives would work for $1 a year. That’s right. The executives who stripped eight-figure income each year from the Big 3 would take a $1 a year token payment if the bailout was dropped into their piggybanks. Naturally, it would be unfair to force myriad 6- and 7-figure income executives below them to sacrifice the family mansion, vacation homes, spa and country club memberships, luxury cars, and private school tuition for their darling upcoming junior executives.

And then the CEOs actually talked. Would they take less money? Perhaps a $14–15 billion “bridge loan” proposed by Democratic leaders and President Bush would get them through the first quarter of 2009, they said, trying to salvage anything. Would they be willing to increase their contracts with American-owned suppliers while decreasing dependence upon foreign-owned suppliers? Their response was as clear as any Bush statement; translated, they said they might possibly consider that request, as long as the stars aligned correctly during the vernal equinox—or some such logic.

Congress has allowed itself to be blackmailed so many times already by banks, investment firms, and an insurance agency that it is hypocritical to bully the auto industry CEOs, and to deny funds to an industry that actually produces a tangible product that is important to all Americans. More important, their product still accounts for a significant part of the workforce.

The national unemployment rate is 6.7 percent, highest in 15 years; the rate is expected to hit about 8 percent in 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal. More significant, if the number of Americans who have been so discouraged by the employment possibilities and are no longer actively looking for full-time work is figured, the percentage rises to about 12.5, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of about 1.9 million layoffs this year alone, the Big 3 laid off about 140,000, with significantly more anticipated.

Higher unemployment leads to higher housing foreclosures and bankruptcies. It leads not only to depression but also to more health problems, including malnourishment, as Americans cut back on food and medical care. About 46 million Americans don’t have health insurance; millions more who do have insurance provided through their employment can’t afford to get adequate medical care because they can’t afford the deductibles and co-pays.

Corporate America, instead of looking at their own excesses and incompetence, blames workers for the problem. But, the line worker is the one who builds something to the specifications of others but has no input into the decisions that cost the Big 3 their share of the market. For its part, the unions, blamed by almost every executive in America, has gone beyond what should be expected of a union.

The United Auto Workers, which extended major concessions to Chrysler in 1979, agreed to significant concessions in the 2007 contract, including allowing the Big 3 to hire manufacturing line workers at $14–16 an hour, about half of the current employee wages. By any standard, the workers have made far more concessions to keep the auto industry putting along than have the companies themselves.

Nevertheless, a failure by any of the Big 3 would have a severe effect upon several thousand other businesses, including car haulers, suppliers, garages, and dealers. Even the media have been adversely affected. Auto manufacturers are among the leading advertisers in magazines; auto dealers are among the leading advertisers in local daily newspapers. Newspaper advertising is down about 19 percent from last year, according to the Newspaper Association of America; magazine advertising pages are down about 9.5 percent, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Significant drops in advertising by the Big 3 have contributed to even more media layoffs, including reduced income for all major suppliers, including printers.

Last year, according to data collected by Advertising Age, General Motors, with an advertising budget of $3 billion, was the fourth largest advertiser; Ford, with $2.5 billion, was sixth; Chrysler, with $1.8 billion was thirteenth. However, all three have cut their budgets, with GM eliminating all TV advertising from the Emmys, Academy Awards, and the SuperBowl, and reducing ad spending for all NFL games. GM won’t disclose how much it spent on the Emmys and Academy Awards, but TNS Media Intelligence estimates GM spent $13.5 million just for Oscar night telecast advertising; SuperBowl ads went for about $2.7 million per 30 second spot in 2008; GM had one ad, promoting an SUV hybrid. Although overall TV ad revenue is up from last year, part of that is because of significant spending during the presidential campaign. Lower ad revenue from the automakers and numerous other industries in 2009 will affect programming and the workforce.

With increased unemployment, housing foreclosures, bankruptcies, and lack of adequate health care rising to record levels, a bailout for the Big 3, as distasteful as it seems, is probably the best way to help keep this year-long Recession from going into a Depression. After throwing money at Wall Street, it is far too late for Congress to claim it is looking out for the fiscal interests of the taxpayers, and time to acknowledge that it needs to look after the interests of the workers.

For this most recent attack, two days after Thanksgiving, he combined the economy with what he believes are greedy unions. “[L]abor unions and their leaders are … distorting the truth about the American workplace,” wrote the editor. First he set up Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, who said that “Tens of millions of Americans are working harder than ever just to stay afloat. The latest Census Bureau report shows that wages are dropping and more people lack health insurance … a greater percentage of the economy is going to profits than to wages.”

Then, he cut apart Stern’s statement by gleefully citing data from the pro-business pro-management U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber said that wages, adjusted for inflation, for workers rose 30 percent from 1967 to 2007. Now, 30 percent seems good—unless you do the math. That’s about three-quarters of one percent per year, far less than any executive compensation. The editor then added in about 30 percent for benefits. Of course, these benefits also include federally-mandated deductions, like social security, Medicare, and unemployment taxes.

As an afterthought, the editor claimed the “poverty rate dropped from 22.4 percent in 1959 to 12.5 percent in 2007,” mysteriously trying to connect a reduced poverty level with reduced union influence. What he didn’t point out was that 1959 was a recession year, and that between 2000 and 2007, according to the Census Bureau, the poverty rate actually increased from 11.3 percent to 12.5 percent. About 37.3 million Americans are living below the federal poverty level; about 40 percent of all Americans fell beneath the poverty line at least once in the past decade.

Sounding the alarm, the editor tied together Democrats and unions. “[T]he plight of the American worker will grow more dire in the new year, as Democrats push to pass their legislation. … The danger is that their union-friendly legislation will hurt rather than help the American economy.” To wrap everything up, the editor of a newspaper with the median circulation of all dailies in America concluded by asking his readers to “consider the current state of the once mighty American auto industry, and ask yourself: What role did the powerful United Auto Workers play in its downfall?”
It’s the workers—and those pesky liberal Democrats—who the editor blames for America’s economic crises. Unfortunately, this editor isn’t alone in his contempt for the workers.

Dozens of columnists and TV pundits spread the myth that the average auto worker at General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler earns $70 an hour—about $146,000 a year. That figure, supplied by executives at the Big Three, reflects every cost associated with labor, including “legacy costs,” which are are costs of pensions and health benefits for retired workers. Thus, the automakers added up every conceivable cost and divided it by hours worked (pensioners, of course, don’t work) to get the inflated numbers. The reality is that the average UAW member earns about $28 an hour, about $58,000 a year, according to the impartial Center for Automotive Research. What the news media fail to report is that the UAW made significant concessions over the years, including wage cut-backs at Chrysler and a 2007 contract for all three auto makers that created a “second tier” wage level of $14.50–$16.23 per hour ($30,160–$33,758 per year, still below U.S. average wage of $40.405, according to the Census Bureau), reduced benefits, and a retirement plan now administered by the UAW not the Big Three.

Others who attack organized labor claim that UAW worker earn far more an hour than their counterparts at non-American non-unionized auto manufacturers in the U.S., and that’s a reason why the Big Three are failing. However, the reality is that the average wage at the international automakers is estimated at $24–$25 an hour, less than a $3 differential an hour for UAW first tier workers, according to Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic. Even the most casual observer understands that it costs more to live in the Detroit area than the rural areas where foreign auto makers established their plants.

In contrast to the concessions given up by the workers, Big Three executives still earn multi-million dollar incomes. Alan Mulally at Ford earned $2 million last year, plus additional compensation totaling about $21.7 million, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ford lost $2.72 billion last year. At GM, Rick Wagoner earned $15.7 million last year, according to the Wall Street Journal, while his company lost $38.7 billion. Chrysler’s Robert Nardelli earned $1 in salary last year, but has significant compensation package that is not publicly disclosed. Chrysler lost about $2.9 billion last year.

But, much of the media and the American public still blame workers and liberal Democrats who are favorable to the union movement for the economic crisis that led the Big Three to rev up their corporate jets and descend upon Congress to beg for a $25 billion taxpayer-funded bailout.
Are the workers and those liberal Democrats to blame for car sales being down 45 percent in October for GM, 35 percent for Chrysler, and 30 percent for Ford from a year ago?

Are they to blame for the auto industry going for the quick profit by pushing gas-guzzling minivans, SUVs, and trucks, while foreign automakers began looking at more energy-efficient cars?

Are they to blame that demand for autos has fallen off because Americans were unable to get financing in an economic crisis caused by greed of investment companies, banks, and almost every corporation that issues public stock?

Are they to blame for the auto industry executives opposing public transportation and alternative energy cars?

Are they to blame for auto executives being wrong about just about everything and for spending too much on everything from golf club memberships to private jets?

Are they to blame for the 100,000 factory layoffs in the past three years that also meant more work and no pay increases for every remaining factory worker?

Are they to blame for the auto industry outsourcing its work to countries where labor is paid pennies an hour—and then reaping huge profits by downsizing America’s workforce?

Are the workers and liberals to blame for the auto industry cutting health care and retirement benefits in order to maximize profits?

Finally, are the workers and those liberal Democrats to blame because Big Three executives failed to understand that they needed to cut corporate costs when maximizing profits so they could reduce their losses during a Recession—or for when their own bad business judgments would cause a catastrophic melt-down?

It may be in the best self-interest of non-unionized media to perpetuate the myth that the economic problems of America are because of the worker.

However, such sloppy and inaccurate reporting isn’t in the best interest of the people.

Amid hundreds of spectators, most of them members of the media, the president makes a few cute comments, issues a pardon for the turkey and a “runner-up” (in case the Main Bird can’t fulfill all the duties), and then sends the turkeys off to a petting zoo or ranch, where they live about a year. Why they live only a year is because domestic turkeys are bred to become so pleasingly plump so quickly that disease takes over their bodies if not slaughtered. A domestic turkey has a 26 week life span; wild turkeys, if not killed by natural predators, have a 12 year life span.

Why domestic turkeys have to be “pardoned” is another matter. The birds did nothing wrong, nothing illegal. All they did was to be born and be turkeys. But, the entire ceremony is a good PhotoOp for the president, while encouraging the sale of turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. Americans will eat about 46 million turkeys this Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation.

The Federation first gave Harry Truman a bird in 1947. While most media declare that was the beginning of the pardons, there’s no evidence that Truman did anything other than eat turkey for Thanksgiving. In 1963, days before he was murdered, John F. Kennedy chose to spare the life of the turkey he was presented, but did not grab the salivating media to watch him “pardon” a turkey. The Federation gives each president a live turkey and two dressed ones.

And now comes a turkey disguised as a human. While most turkeys might be offended at the comparison, “turkey” might be the best way to describe Gov. Sarah Palin.

The former Republican VP nominee, at home in Wasilla, Alaska, went to the Triple-D farm, Thursday, accompanied by a willing press corps. There, she declared, apparently in all sincerity and unaware of the great irony, “I, Governor Sarah Palin, friend to all creatures great and small.” Yes, the same Sarah Palin who recently cooked moose chili while being interviewed on TV, who regularly kills animals, who approves the killing of wolf pups in their dens, who sees nothing wrong with violating every “fair chase” rule of hunting by encouraging aerial hunting. That Sarah Palin.

But, her “pardon” actually gets even more outrageous. She said she was pardoning the turkey because it was almost the national bird, that “it is not at all clear that this turkey even had a trial, let alone a fair trial by a jury of his or her peers,” and that Alaska doesn’t have a death penalty. So far, except for her squeaky unmodulated voice and lack of complete sentences, combined with the chortle her line about “friend of all creatures” must have provoked, no harm no foul.

And then she walked outside the pen into the fresh air and sunlight. While a KTUU-TV reporter interviewed her about returning to Alaska, behind the governor, and clearly visible to the camera, a worker was feeding turkeys into a metal funnel grinder, and grinning at the TV camera. The videographer told Palin what was happening behind her shoulder; her response was “No worries,” as she continued the three-minute interview, upstaged the entire time by the worker and the slaughter.

During the interview, she explained she went to the Triple-D farm to help promote local business, and because, “You need a little bit of levity in this job.” Near the end of the interview, she acknowledged she was a controversial figure, and threw out an off-hand comment about the work being done behind her: “Certainly we’ll probably invite criticism for even doing this too but at least this was fun.” It certainly wasn’t “fun” for the turkeys.

Although most Americans have no problem with eating meat, the scene that Sarah Palin willingly became a part showed not just ineptness but insensitivity.

“The word ‘turkey,’” said Sarah Palin, is “considered a term of endearment in casual conversation.” There is no way that referring to Sarah Palin as a turkey can be misconstrued to be a “term of endearment.”

For several days, she had camped out in one of John McCain’s Arizona houses, where she underwent Debate Boot camp conducted by drill instructors who make Marine DIs appear to be slaggers.

With a few “darns,” “betchas,” and “ya”s, Palin managed to get all her talking points into the debate, even if she constantly changed the question to suit her note cards.

During the 90-minute debate, Palin six times referred to her experience as the mayor of a 6,000 resident village. Seven times, she specifically mentioned Ahmadinejad. Iran’s president, proud she knew the name, proud that she could pronounce it. No one asked if she knew his first name or anything else about him. Shades of George W. Bush in his first term trying to prove he knew something about foreign affairs by enunciating the names of a few world leaders—after several gaffes early in the campaign. Of course, twice Palin was wrong about the name of the U.S. commander in Iraq. Several times she noted she and John McCain are mavericks. About the sixth time she mentioned it, Joe Biden finally unleashed his debating skills. John McCain is no maverick he said in measured response. The Republican nominee voted with President Bush four times to extend the budget deficit, said Biden, who also pointed out that McCain went along with Bush on numerous health care and education issues, most of which were regressive rather than progressive, was one of the strongest backers of going to war with Iraq, and opposed tax cuts.

Palin’s answers were mostly glittering generalities as she peppered numerous responses with cheerleader messages about America, and even tossed in Reagan’s “shining city” example, and punctuated another response to Biden with a Reaganesque, “Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again.” Her responses, after awhile, seemed to be more acceptable to a beauty contest than a vice-presidential debate.

Both Palin and Biden had a few factual errors, with Palin ahead in the count of misstatements, discrepancies, and outright lies, according to factcheck.org, a non-partisan source at the University of Pennsylvania. Possibly Palin’s biggest problem, and something that should coincern every voter, was that she bumbled on the constitutional definition of the role of the vice-president, something Biden quickly corrected.

Nevertheless, Palin came across as confident, charming, and folksy, even giving America three on-camera winks. She successfully muted her previous blunders in interviews with TV news anchors Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, where she claimed Alaska provides 20 percent of the nation’s energy (it’s only 3.5 percent), revealed the only Supreme Court case she knows is Roe v. Wade, that like President Bush she probably isn’t much of a reader, believes she knows foreign affairs because Russia is a few miles from Alaska, and disguised her lack of knowledge of vice-presidents by claiming George H. W. Bush was the vice-president she admired the most because he “kind of learned the ropes in his position as VP and then moving on up.” In that same interview, responding to a question about what was the worst quality of the current vice-president, Joe Biden said it was shredding the Constitution; Sarah Palin said it was “the duck hunting accident.”

In the debate, Biden threw specifics after specifics. Almost every major online newspaper poll gave Biden the win, especially among undecided voters, with several polls showing him scoring in the 70s and 80s. The CNN poll showed that about 51 percent thought Biden did a better job, while 36 percent supported Palin. At MSNBC, it was 78 percent for Biden. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal readers polled online gave Biden 52 percent. The ultra conservative Drudge Report, however, gave Palin the lead at 68 percent.

But, this was also a win for Sarah Palin. Expectations for her were so low that if she didn’t shoot a moose during the debate, people would be thrilled. In theatre, actors learn that their first responsibility is to learn their lines and don’t fall over the scenery. In this debate, Sarah Palin knew her prepared lines, and the scenery still stood after 90 minutes.

The House had just defeated, 228–205, a bipartisan $700 billion bailout bill. But it was the Democrats who were the subject of vicious rhetoric.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “poisoned our conference,” screeched Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Republican minority leader. He said the House would have voted for the bill “had it not been for the partisan speech the Speaker gave on the floor of the House.” Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) specifically said that Pelosi’s speech changed the minds of about a dozen Republicans who voted against the bill. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), waving a copy of Pelosi’s speech, screamed out, “Here is the reason I believe why this vote failed!” The speech, he said, “frankly struck the tone of partisanship that frankly was inappropriate in this discussion.” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior advisor to Sen. John McCain, was equally blunt — and equally wrong. The bailout failed, he said, because “Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.”

But it wasn’t the Democrats who brought about the bill’s defeat. The Democrats voted 140–95 for the bill; the Republicans voted 133–65 against the bill. Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain reluctantly supported the bill. Nevertheless, the viciously partisan Republican leadership, eager to paint anything Democratic as vicious partisanship, couldn’t even get a majority of their own members to agree to the bailout, one that now had added protections for the taxpayer.

What infuriated the Republican leaders was Pelosi’s accurate portrayal of the Bush–Cheney Administration’s economic policies as “built on recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision and no disciple in the system.” While driving America into the deepest deficit in its history, the Administration had usurped its own campaign lies that breathlessly panted the fear that the enemies of American consumers are “tax-and-spend liberals,” as if it was one word.

There are several reasons why this version of the bailout failed. Every member of the House is facing re-election in less than six weeks, and their constituents are angry. They’re angry at the government’s lack of oversight and regulation, supported and encouraged by Bush and McCain, that helped bring about the crisis. They’re angry at the failing mega-mammoth financial institutions that sacrificed the middle class to a horde of unbridled greed and incompetence. They’re angry at corporate executives who make millions while their companies are failing, and then get multi-million dollar “golden parachutes” that let them float into retirement, while the average taxpayer’s 401(k), with only a few thousand dollars may now be worth only half what it once was. They’re angry at “house flippers,” aided by easy-to-get mortgages and some unscrupulous real estate brokers, who made minor fortunes and helped raise housing prices to the point where middle-class families could no longer afford to own a home in an economy that was being held up by toothpicks.

But, most of all, consumers and members of Congress are furious at President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and their Neocon gaggle who no longer have credibility. For seven years, the Bush–Cheney Administration has used fear as a bargaining weapon.

Six weeks after 9/11, the U.S. had the PATRIOT Act, a 342-page law, which few members of Congress read before voting for it, that pretending to stop terrorists essentially stripped much of our constitutional protections. And the people and their elected leaders agreed to it.

Using the tactics of fear, the Bush–Cheney Administration lied to the people, almost abandoned the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and invaded Iraq, which had no connection to 9/11. And the people and their elected leaders agreed to it.

For the morally bankrupt Bush Corp., dissent is unpatriotic, un-American, and maybe even treasonous. “You’re either with us or against us,” President Bush told Americans. Because the people didn’t want to be seen as opposed to America, they and their leaders agreed to being bullied. “Support the troops,” Bush told Americans, but meant “Support me and my policies.” And Americans didn’t want to be seen as not supporting America’s soldiers, even if the Bush–Cheney Administration, didn’t give the troops pay raises, adequate body armor or medical care.

The Bush–Cheney Administration said they were “compassionate conservatives.” But, Katrina put an end to that lie.

This is an Administration that believes the environment is important only if it doesn’t interfere with private business. For years, Bush said he believed global warming doesn’t exist, and if it does it wasn’t caused by mankind. Only under the crushing weight of scientific evidence did Bush reluctantly have to modify his beliefs.

Almost eight years of incompetence and lies, with the President’s credibility lower than that of Three-Card Monty dealers in New York City, led Americans to finally realize they have been scammed. Bush had cried out “fear” once too often.

But, it wasn’t the PATRIOT Act, the Iraq War, or the destruction of the environment that brought about the people’s anger. It was their self-interest. In Bush’s Wild West economy, Americans have seen inflation, increased unemployment, foreclosures, and bankruptcies; they have seen their retirement plans dwindle in the vapors of economic chaos. The vote against the bailout was simply political reality by members of Congress who no longer were about to be stampeded by fear, scammed by lies, and whose own self-interest is to be re-elected.

We don’t remember that the Knights of Labor created the first Labor Day in 1882 and that Congress made it a national holiday in 1894.

Almost none of us will write about the personalities of the labor movement. About Mother Jones (1830-1930), the militant “angel of the coal fields” for more than six decades. About “Big Bill” Haywood (1869-1928) who organized the Industrial Workers of the World, a universal coalition to fight for the rights of all labor. About cigar-chomping Samuel Gompers (1850-1924), the first president of the American Federation of Labor, a job he held for 38 years.

We won’t be seeing any stories about Sidney Hillman (1887-1946) who led strikes in 1916 to reduce the workweek to 48 hours, from the standard 54–60 hours, and then helped create the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) before becoming a major political force for workers during the labor-friendly Roosevelt administration. Missing will be remembrances of Saul Alinsky (1909-1972), known as the “father of grassroots political campaigns” who worked alongside Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) who used Alinsky’s tactics to organize the United Farm Workers.

Hardly any of us remember Heywood Broun (1888-1939), one of the nation’s best-paid columnists who risked his own financial stability to create The Newspaper Guild in 1935 to help those reporters making one-hundredth of his salary. Most reporters never heard about him or the history of the Guild. After all, we may believe that unions are acceptable for factory line workers, but we’re “professionals,” and mistakenly believe we don’t need unions; we’ll just continue to get assigned unpaid overtime and split shifts, while working for low wages, minimal benefits, and without a minimally-acceptable recourse for our grievances. Besides, if workers mattered, our newspapers would have a Labor page in addition to the daily Business pages.

Also missing from the news media will be stories about Eugene Debs (1855-1926), Joe Hill (1879-1915), and thousands of others who went to prison defending the rights of the workers not only to organize, but to demand better working conditions. We won’t become involved in the struggle, risk our jobs and futures. That’s someone else’s responsibility. We’ll just follow inane rules and complain privately.

We will make the effort to find a couple of current labor leaders, both of whom will say organized labor is having a tough time but is still strong and vital, the only recourse against poor working conditions and unfair labor practices. We’ll report that fewer than 13 percent of all workers are now in unions, down from a peak of 35 percent in 1954, but won’t dig into myriad ways of intimidation by Management.

We may interview the workers. An elderly man’s remembrance of his life in the coalmines or breakers, and what Black Lung did not only to his own health but to his family and friends. We might chat with an elderly woman who worked 12-hour days six days a week for $3–$4 a day in the heat and humidity of a garment factory. We may talk with a few current workers who will tell us they don’t have it great, but it could be worse and overall, on the record of course, they work hard and are pleased with their jobs. And we probably won’t be too shocked to learn that most readers seem to think that Labor Day seems not to be a remembrance of the struggles for respect, dignity, and acceptable wages and working conditions, but of self-serving political speeches, hot dogs, burgers, and a pool party.

Some of us may write about the statistics of labor that show a retreat from the robust economy of the Clinton era. It doesn’t take much research to learn that the Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation, is 5.5 percent higher than a year ago, the sharpest increase since the last year of the George H.W. Bush administration. Factoring in inflation and recession, even with minimal raises, the rank-and-file workers are making about 3.1 percent less than a year ago, according to the Department of Labor. We’ll quote the most recent data of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that “Employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and several service-providing industries, while health care and mining continued to add jobs.”

We’ll point out that unemployment in a depressed economy is now 8.8 million, an increase of 1.6 million over the past year. We’ll note that “non-farm payroll employment continued to decline” and that payroll employment is down by 463,000 since the beginning of this year.

Business euphemistically claims it is “downsizing” or “rightsizing.” The “bottom line” is improved; corporate investors are being “optimally compensated.” About 550,000 Americans were part of mass layoffs last year. Recent Department of Labor studies report that American workers are “the most productive” ever. That’s because not only are they are doing so much more to compensate for their fellow workers having been laid off, but because they live with the fear if they don’t work even harder they, too, may be laid off, or lose promotions, in an economy that is going as far south as our manufacturing plants.

We’ll report the cold statistics that among the unemployed are about 461,000 “discouraged” Americans, about 90,000 more than a year ago, who “wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job” but are not counted as unemployed because “they had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey,” according to the BLS. These Americans are not only discouraged by the labor economy, they have undoubtedly been absorbed by a long-term depression.

Meanwhile, corporate executives are taking multi-million dollar bonuses for improving the “cash flow.” Even if executive management makes a few mistakes along the way, and the “return on investment” isn’t what the Board of Directors expects, almost all CEOs and their immediate underlings have the “golden parachute” that allows a soft drop from employment, yielding termination packages that amount to millions of dollars and considerable benefits that no working class person will ever receive.

Of course, there are some industries that have gained in the past year’s plunging economy. Retail sales, which the Department of Labor reports as having the lowest average wages, is gaining workers. But, that’s because it’s just “good business sense” to hire 100 low-paid part-timers and save the cost of benefits than to hire 50 full-time clerks. About 5.7 million Americans work part-time, up from 1.4 million the previous year. This category, according to the BLS, “includes persons who indicated that they would like to work full time but were working part time because their hours had been cut back or they were unable to find jobs.”

To the 50-year-old who worked hard for one company half of his life, showed up for work on time, left on time, and tolerated the company’s banal preaching about everyone is “part of our happy family,” and then is laid off as an “economy measure,” the numbers don’t matter. To the worker who put in 20 years in one job, and then is fired for reasons that would be questionable under any circumstance, the numbers don’t matter. To the $20,000-a-year worker who is told that her raise can only be 2 percent this year because “we’re having a bad year,” but sees upper management not only get raises and more stock options, but also hire other managers, all of them making five times or more than her salary, the other numbers don’t matter.

This year, I’m writing a Labor Day column. With all the layoffs and unemployment, with the blatant anti-labor biases of the current administration and the decisions by the pro-corporate National Labor Relations Board that will linger long into the next administration, next year there may not be much American labor to write about.

* Among Dr. Brasch’s 17 books is With Just Cause, a look at the historical and social issues in American labor. His latest book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (2nd ed.), available at amazon.com and other bookstores.