Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 316-318

This is my every day.

Rejection letters piling up, all of them saying I'm overqualified. Interviewers saying, "You'll be bored here," "You won't stay here," or "You seem ideally suited for teaching."As the end of my unemployment nears, and I cannot even get $10 an hour administrative jobs to respond to my resume. All that education--I was so so proud--high school valedictorian and the first in my family to go to college. Top 3 percent of my college class. Countless awards, honors, fellowships, you name it. To grow up on welfare and end up at one of the top-ranked programs in my field in the U.S.? So so proud. My parents sacrificed and saved to get me through the PhD, only for me to return to poverty, saddled, no crippled, with 60K in student loans. A minimum wage job--which I cannot get--will not even pay the interest on them. I'll never own a home, I will never have a family, and as the days pass, it's increasingly likely that I will not have a job or roof over my head. It was all for nothing.
"Maybe you should leave the PhD off your resume..."
Posted by: maddy on Jan 28, 2009

Wealth is, and always has been,the by-product of creativity. There has been a war on creativity and the arts, in general, for most of my life time.The word art did not always conjure up images of dusty heads hanging in empty halls. It meant quite simply to put things together. Real Artists were crafts men and women making and trading needed, simple,useful and beautiful things.In order to create art, one must be allowed to question, to stare into space for hours, to tinker, to seem to be doing little else than imagining. These abilities are not taught or encouraged in our schools.Starting with elementary school, our children are punished and medicated for day dreaming, getting out of line, walking too fast or too slow, speaking with out permission and asking difficult questions.They are put in school board approved uniforms so they learn to value colorless conformity over creativity or individual choice and to fear anything or anyone different.This atmosphere is not conducive to creativity, invention or developing critical thinking skills.
Elementary change
Posted by: blondesprite on Jan 28, 2009

Down in the Old Dark Mills
By Joe Hill
1879.10.7-1915.9.19

How well I do remember
That mill along the way,
Where she and I were working
For fifty cents a day.
She was my little sweetheart;
I met her in the mill --
It's a long time since I saw her.
But I love her still.
CHORUS: Down in the Old Black Mill,
That's where first we met.
Oh! that loving thrill
I shall ne'er forget;
And those dreamy eyes,
Blue like summer skies.
She was fifteen --
My pretty queen --
In the Old Black Mill.
We had agreed to marry
When she'd be sweet sixteen.
But then -- one day I crushed it --
My arm in the machine.
I lost my job forever --
I am a tramp disgraced.
My sweetheart still is slaving
In the same old place.

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 312-315

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs…
Barack Obama,
Inauguration speech

The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.
Bertrand Russell
In Praise Of Idleness












I am now convinced that the simplest solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income. A host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from wide-spread economic security.
Rev . Martin Luther King, Jr.
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?


aaa


aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaPresident Obama is on the right track President Obama is on the right track with his economic stimulus plan. Give the money directly to the people, not just to the big banks and corporations. But don't stop there. Keep the stimulus coming. Every year.

Today there are more than 200 income-tested federal social programs costing more than $300 billion a year. Much of that money goes for administrative expenses, not to the needy.

Charles Murray, whose 1984 book "Losing Ground" claimed that welfare was doing more harm than good, now agrees with the Rev. King's approach. Murray calls for giving an annual cash grant of $10,000 - with no work requirements - to every adult over age 21.
MLK's dream exists as poverty persists
By Al Sheahen
DailyNews
Updated: 01/19/2009 12:04:27 AM PST

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 309-311

I am 65, socked away money in a 401k over a lifetime of work -- often working two or three jobs when I was a single parent (a status not of my choice). I never asked for a hand-out from anyone, parents, government, friends. I showed up for work, did extra, paid my taxes, helped friends and family when they were in need on occasion and kept an optimistic outlook even at times when there seemed to be little reason for it. Two years ago I quit my job, a job I had loved working with people I loved. Frankly, I was so burned out I was no good to anyone, including myself and certainly not to my fine co-workers. But after I quit full-time work, I took on three part-time jobs (including work from home, on invitation from my former employer), even eschewing SS because I wanted to retain that lifelong feeling of being self-reliant. I looked forward not to an elegant, glitzy later life, but perhaps a car to replace the 13-year-old one, maybe a few trips, even a first manicure (imagine). In these two years I've bought one item of clothing, a mother-of-the-bride dress for an amazingly lavish $120. The retirement money I had socked away was overnight halved by the stock market crash, despite my hawk eye on diversifying, despite the fact I had some in bonds, some in cash (Banks don't pay enough interest to make it worthwhile placing everything away there). But now I wish I had done so. Alan Greenspan, I trusted you. This was money I took out of my paychecks over the years for the time when I would continue to support myself rather than ever become a burden or worry to family. Now I'm on SS, which has limits for any income I can scrape together, jobs are tight -- especially for someone my age (a terrifically bright, lively, engaged woman), the industry I worked in (newspapers) has tanked, and I am kicking myself for not simply spending my lifetime up to my ears in credit, but wildly extravagant with cars, home updates, fashion, new shoes, good wine ... whatever. I'm totally discouraged and disheartened, each of these new feelings for me, who once believed (foolishly) that "doing the right thing" would matter. it doesn't. Trust me.
You've forgotten someone else
CommentPosted by:
BST
Jan 13, 2009 7:52 AM



…we’re going to need an economic policy centered on the poor: more money for food stamps, for Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and, yes, cash assistance along the lines of what welfare once was, so that when people come tumbling down they don’t end up six feet under. For those who think “welfare” sounds too radical, we could just call it a “right to life” program, only one in which the objects of concern have already been born.

If that sounds politically unfeasible, consider this: When Clinton was cutting welfare and food stamps in the 90s, the poor were still an easily marginalized group, subjected to the nastiest sorts of racial and gender stereotyping. They were lazy, promiscuous, addicted, deadbeats, as whole choruses of conservative experts announced. Thanks to the recession, however -- and I knew there had to be a bright side -- the ranks of the poor are swelling every day with failed business owners, office workers, salespeople, and long-time homeowners. Stereotype that!
The Nouveau Poor Have Reached Numbers Too Large to Ignore
By Barbara Ehrenreich,
Barbaraehrenreich.com.
Posted January 13, 2009.



The questions the corporate hog now asks hard-working ordinary people are: “Why don’t you work even harder to feed yourself and your family? Why aren’t you independent like you should be? Why do you want something free?”

Now the irony approaches absurdity. The giant hogs have eaten themselves. Nothing remains. Their lies and their frauds have been exposed. Their destruction of trust and their rejection of basic American values has now become rampant. And the hogs come begging to the people, ride their corporate jets to Washington, and beseech the people to save them.
Gerry Spence

Wise Old Man 5

Gerry Spence

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 307-308

So what happened in 1913? Simple, congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, in the dead of night, giving that private monstrosity the power to print our money at the cost of 2.6 cents per bill, now it’s 4 cents per bill, which it then uses to so called buy treasury securities. So it prints money, and then instantly they have enough value to buy a treasury security. So let’s say the fed prints 10, 1000$ bills at a total cost of 40 cents. And then they buy a single $10,000 treasury bond. Well when that bond matures, let’s say in 10 years, the fed returns the bond to the united states, and the united states pays the fed the 10,000 face value of the bill. Which means, the Fed collects 10,000$ on a 40 cent investment, which amounts to 25000% interest. And that, my friends, is the 9 trillion dollars in public debt that you read about in papers, and occasionally is mentioned by the media gurus on fox and cnn. It’s money that we owe to the banking families for the privilege of printing our money and raping our society, and that is what happened in 1913.

And something else happened in 1913. Congress passed the income tax act in 1913, to pay the interest to the fed upon America instantly becoming the world’s greatest debtor nation at a stroke of a pen. And if you don’t believe me, here’s what the Grace commission reported to Ronald Regan in 1984: “100% of what is collected through the income tax, is absorbed solely by interest on the federal debt. All individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel of income is spent on the services that tax payers expect from government."

1. …repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and we return the printing and minting of money to the people. And that will instantly wipe out 9 trillion dollars of debt, and provide immediate liquidity; America becomes a creditor nation once again.

2. Confiscate the assets of the Federal Reserve bank; all of its gold, its buildings, its notes, its securities, and all the property of the members of the board and the owning families. And the country will be instantly restored, flush in enough capital to replace our present currency with currency that is backed by a valuable commodity – Gold and silver.

3. Repeal the Income Tax Act of 1913, and eliminate IRS. That will INSTANTLY end the tyranny, restore dignity to the American people, and immediately restore hundreds of dollars a week to people’s paycheques. What would you do if you had another 2, 3, 4 hundred dollars a week on your paycheque?

Would your family be able to give up the 5 and 6 jobs that it holds down to make ends meet, with the kid’s working and both parents working one or two jobs? Fathers could stop running away from their responsibilities; families could be rebuilt; people would have the time to enjoy their lives; and finally raise their families instead of working until they drop.
Sam Kennedy

When our attention is captured, when our inner voice is silenced, a hostage mentality begins to manifest. Just as the “Stockholm Syndrome” tells us that hostages often identify with their captors as a form of psychological survival, we too easily give up our basic human rights, our prospects for a better future and all that would set us free, to be complicit with our captors. Many of us even wear leashes around our neck, called “ties,” as a sign of our subservience. Is it any wonder then that the U.S. has the world’s highest percentage of its population incarcerated? Even John McCain agrees, referring in his Oct 8, 2008 speech to Americans as “my fellow prisoners.”
Imaginal Hygeine
M.T. Xen

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 303-306

I have an MA and my husband has a PhD in biology. He has won major research awards, etc. He was still struggling to find work a year ago. We are just now (he is 36) on the cusp of a permanent job for him (one that will not change in 2 or 3 years). If he were not a citizen, he would have no trouble finding job upon job in research. Yes, it's all a scam. We are in loan debt up to our ears, and we did a lot of smart things. He went to a very cheap and good undergrad, and we both had fellowships. We started to "Get it" with regard to the fraud of American education and jobs about five years ago. Oh, and we just moved back here from Canada because guess what? With awards and with a proven track record in genetics and research my husband could not get a job at the time in his own freakin' country (gotta love the Bush years). We say we want math and science to have a bigger place in America, but I don't believe it. My husband has questioned many times whether he should have gone down this path... he is good at it, but it's a LOT of work and life sacrifice for very little reward ultimately. I think this will only get worse with H1B Visas.
Posted by: gazey
Dec 2, 2008



…we often reveal what we most loathe about ourselves via our jobs. They represent how we want others to perceive us. I ask every nurse, “Why did you become a nurse?” “I wanted to help people.” Anyone who has ever done any inner work knows that we can’t ‘help’ anyone. We can only assist others in their healing. We all must do our own work. Nurses tend to believe that taking care of others is more honourable than taking care of themselves and their self-loathing is revealed by their rampant addiction to substance as well as behaviour. Most nurses are one of or any combination of: overweight, smokers, drinkers, or druggies. Those who aren’t don’t claim to identify themselves as BEing a nurse. They are likely to know, “I am not my job.” Those who try to hide-out with their professions are doing themselves a disservice, not to mention those with whom they come into contact. Cops, collection agents, and all others who intend to intimidate people want the world to perceive them as ‘powerful’ – but only because they believe they are not. Since at some visceral level we all know this the cops become bullies because their jobs fail to assuage them of their belief in their powerlessness. The status of one’s job might seem powerful yet those behind the titles are powerless, by their own estimation, or they wouldn’t have chosen that particular vocation.
Mary Elizabeth: Croft



"‘You fill out a job application and you can’t write ‘long-range reconnaissance and sniper skills.’"
ANDREW SPURLOCK, an Army infantryman who was disabled in the Iraq war, on his search for a job that paid better than delivering pizzas.
New York Times
November 18, 2008





I Will Not Obey


The new ruling party is holding the aces
The rest of the cards are all missing faces
I’m sorry I can’t know you today
What can one say? I will not obey.

Give us your sons and give us your daughters
No one is safe or immune from the slaughter
How indifference makes them rage
What can one say? I will not obey.

National Guard or freedom fighters
All houses belong to cigarette lighters
But who hides in the smoke?
What can one say? I will not obey.

Better perhaps to perish outside
Of the bunkers where our generals hide
I turn away and spit
What can one say? I will not obey.

Give us the minds of your children to learn
The substance of books we have not yet burned
But can they read the sky for rain?
What can one say? I will not obey.

Soon all tyrants will feel our impatience
We choose to create our own combinations
I was always willing to agree
What can one say? I will not obey.

The essence of contract is agreement
Not coercion or obedience
And agreement is sacred
What can one say? I will not obey.

There’re so few wars of people’s liberation
For the people have so seldom risen; only the armed faction
Listen, the armed faction lies
They recreate the state through their action
When the people rise
It is not they, but the state, which dies

I sing this song for the prisoners’ release
Most of all now for the new state police
You see, the guns have changed hands - again
What can one say? I will not obey.


Utah Phillips, 1935-2008