On March 25, 1911, Frances Perkins was visiting with a friend who lived near Washington Square in New York City when they heard fire engines and screams.
Let’s not stop here. Trump - Musk team is destroying what Perkins accomplished. We must stop it. We need to do our share of work now. At least start writing to your senators and congressperson.
Two months later, on May 29, 1911, my mother was born. Born of Sicilian parents who had recently come to “the new world” to prosper and grow. And now the pendulum has so shifted from societal protections to one of laszze fair, (misspelled), we need to fight for the return of structural economic protections.
Spot on. And you’re right about Trump’s believing he has laissez faire. Good thought. We need to show he’s wrong about that, along with a lot of other things.
Hiro-- better yet, call them on a regular basis to express your feelings. I used to write during the 1st regime, but heard that calling is better, so that's what I now do (Next time I'll try to remember to ask the staffer if there is a difference.) Here are my suggestions:
First, I always prepare a script to organize my thoughts. Keep it as short as possible -- mine are usually 2 points, and a few paragraphs. The phone banks are busy, so neat and tidy messages are perhaps more effective.
Be sure to thank the staffer who handles the call, both at the beginning and when finishing your comments. Treat them with respect. And after maling your comments, ask them to convey your message to their boss, your elected representative, and if you want a response, let them know. I had never called mine before, but have called at least once or twice a week since January.
Both of my senators as well as my 2 reps are Dems, so I give credit when it is due. Yesterday, I expressed my outrage at the affair becoming known as Signalgate, and then said again (this is a common theme) that the country is looking for leadership, not lip service to those of us who are organizing actions, participating in them or who are desperate for direction. They have an army ready to take action, but Dems in Congress, as well as any others willing, must do more than express concern.
I live in NC. Both senators are MAGAts, and so is my congress critter. He hopped on board to dismantle the Department of Education the “correct” way. Is there a “correct” way to take special education services away from students? Or Pell grants from college students? Enough of this privatize everything shit. That’s a government handout to a company.
We need to demonstrate in the streets. We need to rise up out of our chairs, push ourselves away from our keyboards and do some shouting out there for everyone to see. I urge you to look at the kind of demonstrations going on in Hungry right now as they seek to unseat Orban.
I am becoming increasingly convinced politicians will not listen until they are publicly humiliated in town halls and in the streets.
We need many protests. Bigly. And often. Next big one April 5th at all state capitols, DC and many local. Please come out and voice your concerns. It's the best weapon we have.
There is a local one here, but, having been in a huge crowd in Chicago, the experience is so much better, so I will probably go there. I'm 72. Thanks, sister.
You are correct but now the electeds are claiming dems are threatening them so no more in person town halls. Barrasshole/WY hasn't held one in years. I call and ask why. No real answer.
I completely agree, Barbara. I've signed up for the April 5 Indivisible protest, but I think they blew it in terms of scheduling with an effective message. April 19 (also a Saturday!) is Patriot's Day in Massachusetts, and is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the start of the Revolution. I think the organizers missed an incredible opportunity to make a connection between what was fought for in 1775 and what we are fighting for now.
Also, in another year it's the 250th anniversary of our Founding: the day the Declaration was signed. I remember the Bicentennial year of 1976 well (and not just because it was the year my wife and I married — we were kids!). Seriously, we should be aligning our actions to these dates; they are a messaging gift from the ages, if we know how to accept it and use it.
I’m in Florida and read that report also and am horrified! Children being allowed to work night shifts! Also, Florida government doesn't like citizen-led amendments and find a way to override them when they don’t like the outcome. So now they just want to abolish the whole idea.
Deborah, well, gotta make up for the lack of the undocumented to do the scut work. Children make a grand substitute as they can be paid next to nothing and be easily exploited too. DeSatan can burn in hell along with death star and muskrat.
I am so glad my parents are no longer alive, living In Dowling Park FL. The politics were bad enough then. Now? Can we build a border wall along FL state lines to keep their shit from spreading?
Five Calls is a brilliant app that gives you the tools to make the calls. Background info and then a script along with your electeds phone numbers. I know my calls get through because I usually get an emailed letter back from them the same day. Mine are Republicans which means lots more to complain about.
That's great, Annette! I prefer not to call with canned messages that the staffer has heard before, so I do it my way, in my own words. If I ask for a direct response to my comments, I generally get one (not the same day).
5 Calls app. They do the work for you. Identify your reps. Identify issues. And, provide a script with talking points if you want. It makes calling every day easy and it gets easier each time you do it.
Thanks Barb, but I have my 4 Congressfolks's names and office numbers in my phone, and I prefer to express my feelings in my own words and decide which issues I want addressed. To each his/her own.
A timely quote from the powerful 1962 Perkins speech to which HCR provides the link: "One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States."
Jamie K -- And most important, it is **Insurance**. Not just "Social Security", but Social Security Insurance, into which every (nearly) worker pays with each paycheck -- to be there in case something happens to the Insured. Just like Home Insurance, Car Insurance, etcetera.
Jamie K, one would really like to think so, however, it appears that the Muskrats are slashing Social Security staffing and offices to such an extent (actually across the whole government) that it would take months for anyone to actually get registered for Social Security, let alone to get a problem fixed, a problem like having been declared dead when one is still very much alive!
I won’t matter if the money is there- not “cutting” SS- if there is no infrastructure left to get the money out to the people. It just sits there, a gigantic slush fund for them.
But now it is NOT safe because an authoritarian in the White House care not for law and intends to keep power, so he won't need the support of constituents. We must prevent that!
Come on isn’t it obvious? They are after the social security trust fund. In fact, it occurred to me the other day, they are after all the money that is sitting around as part of the US government’s function. It must be a considerable amount of money if you add it all up. All money paid by US citizens, trusting their tax money will go to the projects and programs set up by our elected ELECTED representatives to benefit all of us.
At the very least, they want to privatize the administration of Social Security which will allow them to skim money off Trillions of dollars as hefty administration fees.
Thank you Hiro, that our head elected officials be working for us vs the laughing stock of the world is a vast division. But humor is what’s left at the end of any day by the present regime I was amused by whomever called Pete ‘kegbreath’
Hiro, there seems a direct correlation between “when President Herbert Hoover claimed that unemployment was ending” and tRump, Musk and their Magats claiming that there will be “a time of difficult transition” before we get to their beautiful final result …with billionaire oligarchs in charge of what was once our country. I see that the movement to "vote them out" has begun already in Pennsylvania’s special election with a Democrat replacing a Republican in both the state senate as well as the state house last night -https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/25/us/elections/results-pennsylvania-special-elections.html
Exactly!! And don’t just write CALL CALL CALL! We MUST demand Musk (never elected 🤬) & his DOGE BS be removed from the WH & our government!! If we don’t get rid of him & trump & his HORRENDOUS Nominees NOW —we are doomed to become Russia—& that’s no exaggeration!!
Please, people, remember that this started in earnest with the Reagan administration. The Republican Party has been becoming more white and less democratic ever since. (It had a significant assist from the Clinton administration and from congressional Democrats, some of whom still don't seem to get what's going on.) Trump didn't come out of nowhere. Pass it on.
I agree, we have to understand that this has been in the works for decades. You could trace it back to Goldwater or even further. Think about all the time and energy and of course lots of $$$'s that the right has invested:
- The Federalist Society as a pipeline for right wing judges
- All the gerrymandering done at a state level
- The presence in both old and new media...think about Rush Limbaugh, Fox, the NY Post, and now Twitter/X
These are the power bases that they have been building, and they all work to reinforce each other. I know progressives have their own power structures but we are not as active.
I think we have to look back at how Black people organized in the 20th century to push back on Jim Crow and eventually bring forth the Civil Rights movement as an example. I'm reading The 1619 Project and it's inspiring. It reminds me that if we want our society to reflect our values, we need to work together to manifest them, or some other power will try to impose their values on us.
Bob, your observations about the path that has lead us to where we are today are spot on. I especially like your point about creating a society that reflects the values we believe in; or some other power will impose their values on us.
Hoover and Nixon and every President from Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt don’t count? Reagan was the awful follow up to them and the poster boy for the Republicans after him.
Hiro. Exactly. We have our great people from history and people today who work for equal and just rights. THEN people voted for the thugs (cheeto and his side kick and vance) to destroy all the good that has been done for people.
Luckily the MAGA/Project 2025/DOGE cowboy incells don’t realize the significance of the name (oh, if they would follow HCR!). If they did it would already have been renamed it the Vanderbilt Carnegie Gould DO child labor building.
KSC, The new labor secretary is a one term R Rep from Oregon who was ousted this last election. She has never struck us as being totally nuts, so it will be interesting to see what she does. My husband worked on the unemployment side fo the Employment Division here in Oregon when it was still functional. Unemployment is part of the Labor Department and so will fall under her purview.
I have followed her a bit, actually Michele. I was surprised the Rs confirmed her given that she has some pro labor positions historically and (horrors) is a woman and (gasp)of nonAryan extraction. I doubt she’d be able to prevent the building being rebranded or sold out from under her and her staff. I guess we will see about her response to the attacks on benefits working people rely on not to mention their civil and political rights.
We were surprised too at her being chosen, not only as a woman and a non-Aryan, but her stance on some issues. And she has seemed fairly sane in light of some of the other MAGAs, even as a person who could actually do the job. I am wondering if she is some kind of token choice. My husband is well versed in the employment aspects of the Labor Department and he has torn his hair at some the recent problems of the division here in Oregon, which were, I might add, predictable up to a point. The head of the division is a political appointee and that led to some problems while he was still working. They were well versed in all the current buzz words in management, but knew nothing about what the Employment Division was actually about.
In a related vein, vis-a-vis the use of a woman of color as a token, I am betting that if they choose a fall person for the Atlantic Mag signal fiasco it will be Tulsi Gabbard.
Our Constitution and Republic are inspired by the matrilineal Iroquois Confederacy, the law and spirit of our land as is Francis Perkins. If we survive as a species, it will be our matrilineal inheritance.
Not anymore. Too much has been turned back. From Reagan's "welfare queens", slashing the middle class and ignoring the AIDS epidemic to the MAGA of today burning up Social Security we have lost significant ground in social justice reforms and existing programs. People need to wake up to the cruel reality that too many American children are literally hungry, our infant and maternal mortality rates are obscenely high and our social justice programs decimated. Perkins would be distraught.
Barbara, I fear that the Republicans and especially tRump got very good at telling stories and developing stereotypes which were enormously influential despite NOT having statistics or actual figures to back up their stories and stereotypes. Noah Yuval Harari explicates the special power of stories as a defining feature for our species in his latest book Nexus -https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/books/review/nexus-yuval-noah-harari.html
And the forces that resisted Frances Perkins and all she stood for are at work today. In Florida, faced with threats to the state’s workforce of undocumented agricultural workers, they are debating expanding child labor.
Her legacy is safer working environments and a social safety net. She and FDR and so many others used the New Deal to make a better country. I used to bow my head every time I passed the Department of Labor building in DC that carries Frances Perkins's name.
I did not know who Frances Perkins was until this morning, thank you Heather. For me, her character and actions are the definition of social responsibility. For over 60 days, this administration has focused on destroying every part of our government that guarantees the health, safety and well being of every citizen. From the top down, these cruel, disgusting and corrupt people claim they are ridding our country of "waste, fraud and abuse", while the truth of their actions are, they're enriching themselves and their corporations.
It's time for we the people to say, "no more". No one is coming to save us, we need to do it ourselves. Frances Perkins found a way, it's time for each of us to find our way. We are not alone, our strength is in our numbers. Stand up and speak out.
I sometimes wonder if they love destroying everything that is helped society because it was developed by a woman. They are all misogynistic white male supremacists that are salivating at push women back. But I am not going back and will continue to have as loud of voice as I can and encourage woman to do the same.
I think it's far worse than that. And it's not really about money. That's just the icing on the cake for them. The goal of the people behind Project 2025 is to cull society of "inferior genes" and get rid of all whom they despise. Call it Social Darwinism, Race Purification, Social Engineering, or what have you, but it seems clear that they want to exterminate the poor, the sick, the disabled and all gay, trans, and dark-skinned people by any means of neglect and trauma possible. That's why they resist gun laws. They want more people culled. They want more poor women dying of miscarriages. They probably celebrated when a million Americans died of COVID. They are psychopaths. There is no reasoning with them, nor appealing to their empathy. They haven't any for people they consider inferior and expendable which is, likely, everyone commenting here. If you aren't a Millionaire or a Billionaire and part of their elite class, you are expendable.
And while the word "freedom" is broad enough in its nuanced senses to include an entity that is "free" to destroy the freedoms of others, "free" of the encumbrance of due process, it is surely not what is meant (except by tyrants) by the phase "free society". It is only against the background of the "Freedom is Slavery" (or that Slavery was freedom, as a few on the right still allege) that we need even bother to state we mean "freedom" in a positive sense. In our current ironic squall of Orwellian rhetoric come-to-life, when Iowa passed a blanket ban on any book that mentions sex in school libraries*, excluding, among other classics, "1984".
The "Liberty" our founding principles honor is not an untempered impulse but an environment of freedom, a society defined to promote UNIVERSAL rights and responsibilities; for which the Declaration of Independence is a letter of intention, and the Constitution an underlying "blueprint". An environment in which one experiences being free to act on harmless whims, yet free from irresponsible whims of others as well as some of the other slings and arrows that flesh is heir to, such as the protections of fire codes, storm warnings, police, fire, and military protections, etc. The list goes on; subject to the fully considered collective consent of the governed.
* My wife and I were conservative, as compared with some other families, about our influence on the introduction of awareness of societal violence and sexuality with our daughter. We took an "as needed" approach, not to rush, not to lie, and not to shame. This in contrast to "pretend it isn't there" vacuum we grew up with, in which the things kids say when adults are not around (and a lot of it off the mark) being the sole source of "forbidden" information. That approach appears to have succeeded for all involved, at least in our case.
"… what civilized societies do?" There you have it. The immoral person holding the position that a president should have would have everyone fighting to the death in the streets over pennies and spoiled food. He is the very incarnation of evil.
Tagging the humanitarian social philosophy and actions of people like Francis Perkins who worked under Roosevelt as "socialist" something malign, by the Republicans for such a long time that it infuses a large part of voting America, has simply left USA well behind the rest of the OECD in terms of social conscience. Under Trump this will turn out even moreso, if Maga Republicans have their way. You know, regardless of GDP/person of the poorer state of Louisiana being comparable to that of Canada, life expectancy in Canada is 82 while that of Louisiana is 73. One big reason, universal health care, the other, wealth inequality. And USA is about to aggravate both!
Civilized societies, yes. But have we really looked at ourselves as a society on the whole? I don't think we have.
Look at what passes for entertainment these days, phony, outrageous wrestling, all these 'survival' type shows that pit people against each other for a prize, competition for 'love' where the dialogue shows just how illiterate we are, game shows that applaud insulting players, crime dramas that pit local law enforcement against the 'feds', video games where players can kill at will to gain points, shows about people that are terribly overweight, shows that glorify stupidity. My guess is that watching contestants injure themselves is just a modern day version of gladiator fights.
Folks that embrace this type of entertainment are not bad people, but this type of behavior that we see on TV, the movies, video games, computer sites, when it is consumed over & over & over I have to wonder just how civilized we really are???
Many years ago i was talking to a fellow student who was from Mexico, as I remember…
She said she was surprised at our rules for taking tests - that talking to another student was considered cheating. In her country they were encouraged to collaborate on tests. I’ve never forgotten that. It made so much sense to me. We’re so focused on competition in every thing…right from early elementary school.
Francine fine -- Thanks so much for contributing that about Mexico's positive view of collaboration! To my mind, it's a highly civilized way of learning.
I don't think we train our citizens well how to collaborate justly and productively. "Group Projects" I am aware of in public schools and college just evaluate the quality of the product, not the quality and effectiveness of the actual collaboration. That is a poor model of management, although I suspect it also prevails in business. Years ago I saw an article about how effective managers circulate and meaningfully discuss problems and progress of the project with employees.
I recall we students were repeatedly addressed in convocation as "The Leaders of Tomorrow". We were all leaders then, no followers or collaborators; and I was not even in Lake Woebegon.
Testing: an industry by , of and for the testers . I learned that early in my career as a psychologist. I stopped giving “ crazy tests “ , as my juvenile clients called them , in 1974. I wonder how much damage they have done.
I think that some standard tests have a place, but we naively or lazily invest far too much authority in them. At best such tests my have some validity in a sum of a large statistical sample, but can and do produce capricious results for a given individual. At worst they pretend to quantify things that are far more complex than the model, and offer no provision for the elephants in the room.
That is an excellent response. My concern was that these tests were seen as a crystal ball. Social workers I worked with would do interviews with our kid residents and travel to their homes to interview parents and neighborhoods do their write ups and then refer them to me for my magical tests. When in fact their assessments were based in reality and almost more accurate than my test results. When I did test, I kept in consideration my subjective experience with these kids. Some kids tested with low IQ yet you would have to be an emotional and social idiot to dismiss this kid’s unmeasurable IQ. Like the expression “ the map is not the territory “, the test is not the kid.
There are pros and cons to every social model, at least the ones that appear to produce reasonably just results. I exclude tyrannies, but maybe that's just me? Tyranny sucks.
You read my mind, just ranted about that somewhere. Coarse and vulgar. Idiotic competitions instead of cooperation. I loved PBS in the 70’s. The possibilities looked so promising, but the “Survivor” mentality ushered in an era of the worst competitions imaginable. Are gladiators next.
The WWE was the match that lit the fire and Donnie was deeply involved in that. Linda McMahon Secretary of Education Dept is a big fat middle finger to us. We must never forget that REPUBLICANS voted them all in and are RESPONSIBLE for this insanity. The administration of FOOLS!
It's interesting. It's just my opinion, but it felt to me that the "mission" of PBS tilted subtly more toward the commercial TV model after the huge success of "Upstairs, Downstairs". I did not watch it. It looked like a classy soap to me. Thenceforth public TV seemed to have an enuring obsession with royalty. I was more a science and nature fan, although I enjoyed some of the mysteries, dramas and some classics, such as Dickens. It seemed to me (at least on KQED) that political and investigative reporting somewhat faded after the Upstairs/Downstairs Revolution; although (later) Frontline was always excellent. I still subscribe to two PBS TV stations and an NPR station every year, although I now very rarely watch or listen.
I loved their classic interpretations but they are not a fav for everyone. So much better than what commercial channels turned into. Not much difference since repubs have cut to the bone. They have tried to ruin everything Dems have done. EVERYTHING And with the four-year whiplash (if it isn’t disappeared), one can’t count on anything being stable. Allies have noticed.
I think we all have escapist "guilty pleasures". One of mine is watching cheesy foreign murder mysteries over the 'Net. I try not to devote too much such time to the remaining minutes of my one wild and precious life.
We've regressed, actually. The games/movies/programs are a brainwashing into regression by tapping into primitive instincts without any hassles from moralities and plenty of hormones racing around in absolute glee.
Mindfulness, compassion, The Golden Rule is not the concern of this administration. Progress is what Progressives do. We are one- quarter into the 21st Century with a president and administration who wants to take us back to the 18th Century.
There are many intelligent and compassionate authors, teaches, persons, Helen Cox Richardson for 1 & Joyce Vance for another.
I must add our recent brave, intelligent & compassionate, young 3rd year Skadden attorney, Rachel Cohen. It's not every day an associate takes on Big Law.
Their conversations are absolutely wonderful -- as was the call-in this week when the woman from Bloomfield, NJ, Liz, described the protests she's organized with her neighbor that take place in Montclair every Sunday afternoon that have grown from a handful of people to hundreds.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire travesty is what comes naturally with unregulated businesses. That is what Republicans are trying with all at their disposal to recreate in the United States. They think it was great.
We are all disposable serfs. Let the work be miserable, but unemployed life even more so. What good are people who just cost the system money to a billionaire who doesn't yet have enough?
Thanks, Jon Rosen. It's good to be reminded of Dickens's soaring social commentary. He helps keep us grounded. As you know, in this same conversation between the Ghost of Christmas Present and the wealthy miser Scrooge which is happening as they watch how Tiny Tim's life might end with him dying in childhood, the Ghost intones, "It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child..."
You already are. It's just not as obvious............yet. Almost the entire southern half of southern Minnesota has high nitrate waters, Monsanto is paying out millions to settle Cancer-from-Roundup lawsuits. As a more personal, experience I was out smelling my Rugosa roses one evening, RDO was spraying the potato field across the road, and suddenly I was smelling chemicals instead of roses, so I jumped in my pickup and roared over to where they were reloading the field sprayer. ECHO 720. It's a fungicide, sprayed every 5 days on potatoes. You are supposed to wear HazMat when working; not supposed to touchy anything sprayed with it, for 5 days, and we were continually breathing the fumes. London pea soup fog was a mixture of fog and coal smoke; have a photo of a foggy day. It wasn't fog. It was smoke from western fires, and air quality alerts were posted that day, and many days over the past few years. I live in north central Minnesota
Repubs like to smear a lot of things, one of which is rules for the rich. Regulated, deregulated. How long is a rope? Like Reagan bloviating about the evils of “government”. Which government? What kind of government? To benefit whom?
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
To secure these rights… The Preamble of the Constitution offers a look at some of the ways this can be manifested, but basically, we aver an axiomatic right to determine the rules and social infrastructure of our own social environment, is such ways that universal, unalienable rights are protected and nourished. “Regulation” in such a state serves to maximize the diversity of our paths to happiness by defining an environment in which there are freedoms to and freedoms from; from rape, robbery, murder and other aggressions. From the worst results of illness and natural disaster. A reciprocally united society when it comes to the common weal, and one in which one can be different and excel, if doing no harm.
Plutocratic, radical deregulation is just a license to bully. Everybody is obliged to observe certain boundaries. It batdung crazy to except activities related to the “love of money” from societal ethics. What have decades of right wing “deregulation” done FOR Main Street? TO Main Street?
I believe Reagan ran his presidential campaign using the infamous Welfare Mom as a call to end much of what Francis Perkins created. The "New Republicans" cried into their linen hankies that they were being robbed by scoundrels.
There are always scammers, as long as there have been humans. And there was a real Welfare Mom scammer, but her gains were but a grain of sand compared to the scammers and gazillionaires robbing us of our freedom and hard earned social securities right now. MAGA cultists believe in these lies and have focused their anger on the wrong culprits.
Perhaps it seems too abstract when fatcats steal from million. Harder to relate to? For sure it's happening. The fatcats rule from palaces and towers, but the poor and desperate live among us. The Ministy of Justice just removed access to a study that showed that immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crimes than native born. It was too off message.
People always seem to find 'goats' when they need them -- Samaritans, Jews, gypsies, 'coloreds', etc. -- usually a sign of guilt when someone starts pointing out 'goats'....
"...focused their anger on the wrong culprits" is critically important. Republican neoliberal economics (trickle down economics) is the cause of all their problems but Republican lying, Democratic Party buy-in, and liberal confusion about this has prevented them from learning the truth. It's a serious, immense tragedy.
Well said, well observed. But haven't heard the word aver used in a sentence since my dad passed in 1992... thanks for the re-memory of a remarkable guy. :)
Bill Gardner, you are a remarkable guy as well, better than one in a million!
(Just checked the word frequency of "aver" and it is used in roughly 1 in 10,000,000 words!)
any deregulation, for that matter.... How is it that some laws only apply to the not-so-wealthy? or the well-connected? or the 'attractive'? The universality of the Ten Commandments is profound in the 'Thou shalt not...' series that do not anywhere include exceptions!
Posting the Ten Commandments in schools may have unintended consequences, since the oligarchs and thieves in power break many of them. The kids might eventually notice.
That's where we point out that God didn't make any room for exceptions. At least, we make the attempt to distinguish biblical/Christian from non-biblical/Christian. I do not advocate for posting Ten Commandments anywhere by a government. I only point out that "Christian nationalists" or Bible salesmen are hypocrites, not to be revered no matter how wealthy and powerful they may seem to be.
Rex, I would argue that the term unregulated…like the phrase ‘free market’….is a device that serves the corporate mantra of unfettered capitalism as the way to prosperity. The businesses are is essence the beneficiaries of regulation that allow their exploitation. The markets are not ‘free’ when the thumb of corporate sponsored government is used to disadvantage workers.
I don't think even conservatives are willing to endorse a completely unregulated corporate and social sphere. They know it sounds bad to reasonable people, possibly even some conservatives (!), who are concerned about environmental degradation, shorter life spans, even a less than high regard for the United States among civilized nations.
If there are any conservatives who are actually concerned about environmental degradation, human dignity, and the health and welfare of other people, they sure are hiding well.
“Some” and “many” don’t mean a damn thing. It’s the percentage that counts. And the percentage of Republicans who are decent human beings is near zero,
...or to cheat customers or ruin competitors. Markets are created by humans and subject to whatever conditions set by humans in their various surroundings with whatever regulations are necessary to those surroundings. Freedom is a quality of living where we can determine what is necessary for our surroundings.
Good observations and thoughts, along the lines of Jefferson Cowie’s 2022 Pulitzer wining ‘Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power. The thesis being that since the colonial era, Freedom From government oversight characterized one of the two prevalent notions of freedom in the US, and nearly prevailed early in our history, nearly again during reconstruction, and finally, has, now.
Herbert or J. Edgar? I'm sure Edgar was a big liar. He endeavored to create false complaints of moral turpitude on Martin Luther King. He had his FBI create justifications for offing Black Panthers and other people who offended Republican political values.
Well, I'd like to see a satire where some of Trump's incompentent appointments celebrate the Triangle Shirtwaist disaster and ask for future generations to be grateful the Trump administration is rescinding efforts to reduce mercury and benzene pollution among other things.
So many posts are coming up talking about the wonderful wealth of the 1920s...! Despite what we now know about what created that and what resulted from it!!! Seems like celebrating having wheat in Moscow while Ukraine starves and is where the wheat is grown until all the growers have starved....
And we might owe something to Heather for reminding us of how it was a terrible, nauseatingly unnecessary disaster -- killing so many otherwise helpless and disgustingly trapped young women -- which underlay the entirety of Frances' subsequent career.
It may give us good pause. The U.S. is now roiling in similarly unnecessary crisis. Back in 1913, it was greedy, stupid self-entitled white men, factory owners, sweatshop owners, responsible for the stupidity. Today it's just another reincarnation of similar indifference to human life, similar disregard for people's need for health care, for good schools, for safe retirement, for natural environment.
Some sorts of bastards (and colossally idiot, incompetent) seem always to be with us.
But can we hope for any rub-off logic that, as Frances Perkins (and other labor actions) came from that disaster, some fine person -- great person -- might emerge from what we near-helplessly inhabit now?
Don't forget the greedy among today's politically active conservatives. There is no amount of money that is great enough for them, and that comes at the expense of responsible stewardship of the earth and care for the people on it.
They have just moved their sweat shops and environmental degradation overseas where there are lower wages and fewer regulations. It is laughable to think T's tariffs will bring factories back to the US.
And I am just as befuddled that they (Repubs and Magats) don’t or can’t see the advantages to themselves of cleaner air, cleaner water and the health of the planet! The health of the whole is vastly more important to our survival and prospering, even and maybe especially financially, than any one cause alone.
It's middle of the night -- now Thursday morning in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan, where I live.
When you mention "cleaner air, cleaner water and the health of the planet," I also think of the wisdom some novelists have as to more open, more fitting relations people may have among others. I think of the way we need to respect certain processes, traditions, and laws accrued into our institutional lives. I think of the constitutional checks and balances accounting for the republic which Musk, Trump, and their MAGA ideologues for Putin now seek to destroy.
They seem to have a fear of missing out -- that someone having something means they don't have it and are missing out on that ownership privilege/pleasure. As if they were severely deprived as children...?
Could we ever use her now. You have written so much about her but there is always more that we find out again. It is time for women and there are several in leadership roles. AOC is rising fastest and clearest. A powerful brain with focus.
Victoria, one suspects that debunking lies takes not only courage but better stories, stories which more accurately represent the world as it is, stories which have numbers and historical accuracy within them.
I don't know Liz well outside of her greatest & courageous stand; many my age know her Dick dad much better, but she had a very mixed record on environment and big business and civil rights as I recall from the blue perspective. Here's her record on civil rights:
But yeah, out of respect for her courage and support for the constitution, I sent her a large donation ~2022. Ever since, I've had a window on the R's campaign rhetoric... so her donor database was also hacked & betrayed by the party that sabotaged her career - but perhaps enabled her greatness and provided the corrupt context that best showed off her strengths.
Gee Heather, you usually don't pass up an opportunity to plug a connection to Maine. Francis's parents were from Maine, and their homestead is a museum in Newcastle, and was designated as a national monument by President Biden. https://francesperkinscenter.org/
Maine has had an outsized influence (in many important, often progressive ways) on national politics, up to and definitely including Janet Mills and (of course) HCR! (NOTE: I was born and raised in Maine)
A good question. Not sure she will be re-elected again if she runs again in 2026, esp if Janet Mills decides to challenge her, but there are still some very red rural areas in Maine.
Especially in Western and Northern Maine, more conservative areas, it counts for a ton that she is seen as "one of us"/a true Mainer and really that seems to carry with it an implicit trust in her (or any Maine-born leader, I think) to do right by Maine. But she has taken that constituency support largely for granted for a long time, I think.
WSBMaine -- I visited a "friend" in Millinocket briefly once, on my way back to Nova Scotia from Vermont. I asked her about DJTrump, and she exclaimed with delight that she loved him! I replied, "Even though nearly everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie? 8,000 [then] documented lies and counting?" She replied, somewhat surprised, "Oh really? I didn't know that." Ostrich Syndrome is still prominent.
This story is an example of human beings doing the right thing. The Trump regime is an example of the exact opposite. May he and his accomplices rot in hell.
“There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done,” Perkins said. “It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”
And when Ronnie took the reins in DC, repubs proposed that they vilify FDR, and undo the myriad programs that took their money and gave it to the undeserving. He said, do you think it can be done. He imported Rupert Murdoch, who was sure it could be done.
It was in the 80’s that I first heard some say that FDR didn’t end the depression, WW2 did. And other disparaging things that i had never heard before. I was shocked. Then came the junk bond scandal and repubs signed on to “Greed is good.” I think it was Everett Dirksen (my fav Repub.) who said “a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you are talking real money.” And he hadn’t run into Muskrat, who hadn’t been born yet. How we need an Everett and a Frances today! Will it be Bernie and AOC? I would never have guessed, but the “empathy is bad crew” needs to be kicked to the curb. Enough of the greed, and self-righteous nonsense masquerading as Christianity. Enough of the coarse and vulgar that permeates all aspects of society, from tv, to social media, profits above all, to religious hypocrites.
THROW THE BUMS OUT AND TAKE BACK A COUNTRY with promise recognizing that “he’s my brother.” Do I think it can be done. I do. Hopefully without a catastrophe like the shirtwaist factory fire.
COVID was cataclysmic. Far more deaths than in the Civil War. Every nation lost people to it, but we, reportedly the "richest country in the world" and perhaps the most technically advanced lost an outsized share of our citizens due to crap, cult leadership.
Seniors in nursing homes were akin to those workers jumping to their deaths. Up to38% of all Covid 19 deaths were reportedly due to being locked up in nursing homes.
It’s comforting to know that someone remembers Senator Dirksen and the fine men, Democrats and Republicans, who were dedicated to the collective good of our country and not just for what each could grab for themselves, as so often seems today. I miss them. America gravely misses them.
He and Barbara Jordan made me think that our government was in good hands, then both died. We have suffered grievously since Ronnie manipulated his way into the WH.
I remember vividly the day after Reagan was elected, I thought, this is probably the beginning of the end for the US. Nothing since has ever changed my mind. There were
brief reprieves but the destruction has marched ever forward. Until the disaster in which we all find ourselves.
The moment it was announced that Reagan had been elected president, a friend said "Well, it's going to be a great four years for millionaires. I fully agreed, but did not begin to understand how long the trend was going to be in the direction of total plutocracy.
She was amazing and we have all benefited by her presence on earth.
Let’s not stop here. Trump - Musk team is destroying what Perkins accomplished. We must stop it. We need to do our share of work now. At least start writing to your senators and congressperson.
Two months later, on May 29, 1911, my mother was born. Born of Sicilian parents who had recently come to “the new world” to prosper and grow. And now the pendulum has so shifted from societal protections to one of laszze fair, (misspelled), we need to fight for the return of structural economic protections.
Spot on. And you’re right about Trump’s believing he has laissez faire. Good thought. We need to show he’s wrong about that, along with a lot of other things.
Glenda, re Mr.T….I’d just leave it at lazy….that’s fair!
Lazy, he is, but also seriously lacking in moral fortitude. Well,
he'll have fun in his new Tesla...which he can't drive. Shameful!
Lynda Greer-Atlanta, GA.
lynda, he lacks any element of human decency, period. He is an example of how horrible human beings can be. And we have muskrat, who is the same.
If it doesn't involve trump and his hatreds or needs or fears, it doesn't happen. Period.
Laissez faire, that's the Beatles' "Let it Be". Trump is more "My Way". How long can this nightmare continue before there is an explosion?
As long as the People let it!!
:(
I wish we had this emoticon...or the crying one........because that's my response here.
We need to fight for the return of morality.
We knew what you meant: laissez faire.
My mother was born in 1911 too, Bill.
Your words touch me.
Bill, CORRECT…but close! That would be "laissez faire."
I'm glad they came. I'm sure they were beautiful people.
Hiro-- better yet, call them on a regular basis to express your feelings. I used to write during the 1st regime, but heard that calling is better, so that's what I now do (Next time I'll try to remember to ask the staffer if there is a difference.) Here are my suggestions:
First, I always prepare a script to organize my thoughts. Keep it as short as possible -- mine are usually 2 points, and a few paragraphs. The phone banks are busy, so neat and tidy messages are perhaps more effective.
Be sure to thank the staffer who handles the call, both at the beginning and when finishing your comments. Treat them with respect. And after maling your comments, ask them to convey your message to their boss, your elected representative, and if you want a response, let them know. I had never called mine before, but have called at least once or twice a week since January.
Both of my senators as well as my 2 reps are Dems, so I give credit when it is due. Yesterday, I expressed my outrage at the affair becoming known as Signalgate, and then said again (this is a common theme) that the country is looking for leadership, not lip service to those of us who are organizing actions, participating in them or who are desperate for direction. They have an army ready to take action, but Dems in Congress, as well as any others willing, must do more than express concern.
I live in NC. Both senators are MAGAts, and so is my congress critter. He hopped on board to dismantle the Department of Education the “correct” way. Is there a “correct” way to take special education services away from students? Or Pell grants from college students? Enough of this privatize everything shit. That’s a government handout to a company.
"congress critter" ✅
But, but, but - the billionaires need more billions. It's so obvious where those added billions need to come from, isn't it?
I think one of our campaign slogans (war chants!) should be "Nationalize! Not Privatize!"
Nationalize Starlink to keep us safe! Nationalize SpaceX to put NASA back in charge!
We need to demonstrate in the streets. We need to rise up out of our chairs, push ourselves away from our keyboards and do some shouting out there for everyone to see. I urge you to look at the kind of demonstrations going on in Hungry right now as they seek to unseat Orban.
I am becoming increasingly convinced politicians will not listen until they are publicly humiliated in town halls and in the streets.
We need many protests. Bigly. And often. Next big one April 5th at all state capitols, DC and many local. Please come out and voice your concerns. It's the best weapon we have.
I am going to the one in Kentucky! Since I am 75 with vertigo I bought a cool maple walking stick to navigate the crowd.
There is a local one here, but, having been in a huge crowd in Chicago, the experience is so much better, so I will probably go there. I'm 72. Thanks, sister.
I would love to replay the scene in Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou where the racist politician was run out on a rail. Tar and feathers.
YES!! I've been thinking about that scene too. If only!
You are correct but now the electeds are claiming dems are threatening them so no more in person town halls. Barrasshole/WY hasn't held one in years. I call and ask why. No real answer.
I have never listened to what the Republicans are saying. Only their cult is listening. We continue to protest.
I completely agree, Barbara. I've signed up for the April 5 Indivisible protest, but I think they blew it in terms of scheduling with an effective message. April 19 (also a Saturday!) is Patriot's Day in Massachusetts, and is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the start of the Revolution. I think the organizers missed an incredible opportunity to make a connection between what was fought for in 1775 and what we are fighting for now.
So we can only protest once? Set up a demonstration on the 19th.
Not my skill set, Janis.
It's a Nationwide protest. Each State has their significant date.
Also, in another year it's the 250th anniversary of our Founding: the day the Declaration was signed. I remember the Bicentennial year of 1976 well (and not just because it was the year my wife and I married — we were kids!). Seriously, we should be aligning our actions to these dates; they are a messaging gift from the ages, if we know how to accept it and use it.
Just my two cents.
But this is the date that started the Revolution, Barbara. ‘The shot heard ‘round the world’.
Yes, call and write your legislators on a regular basis!
If you’re in Florida, the legislature is in session so NOW would be a good time.
“TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida lawmakers are looking to children to fill low-wage jobs left open by the undocumented immigration crackdown, CNN reports.
According to the network, Senate Bill 918 would allow children as young as 14 to work overnight shifts.”
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2025/03/25/florida-lawmakers-may-loosen-child-labor-laws-to-fill-jobs-left-by-undocumented-immigrants/
Also, THIS afternoon the Fl Legislature is voting on HB1205, a bill that would essentially abolish citizen-led amendments.
https://www.wusf.org/politics-issues/2025-03-10/measure-changing-florida-citizens-initiative-process-among-legislative-sessions-most-conte
📲📲📲📲📲
I’m in Florida and read that report also and am horrified! Children being allowed to work night shifts! Also, Florida government doesn't like citizen-led amendments and find a way to override them when they don’t like the outcome. So now they just want to abolish the whole idea.
Deborah, well, gotta make up for the lack of the undocumented to do the scut work. Children make a grand substitute as they can be paid next to nothing and be easily exploited too. DeSatan can burn in hell along with death star and muskrat.
I am so glad my parents are no longer alive, living In Dowling Park FL. The politics were bad enough then. Now? Can we build a border wall along FL state lines to keep their shit from spreading?
Five Calls is a brilliant app that gives you the tools to make the calls. Background info and then a script along with your electeds phone numbers. I know my calls get through because I usually get an emailed letter back from them the same day. Mine are Republicans which means lots more to complain about.
I am always polite and thank them.
That's great, Annette! I prefer not to call with canned messages that the staffer has heard before, so I do it my way, in my own words. If I ask for a direct response to my comments, I generally get one (not the same day).
I get it. It can help to have the script but I always personalize too.
The 5Calls app is so helpful with this!
5 Calls app. They do the work for you. Identify your reps. Identify issues. And, provide a script with talking points if you want. It makes calling every day easy and it gets easier each time you do it.
Thanks Barb, but I have my 4 Congressfolks's names and office numbers in my phone, and I prefer to express my feelings in my own words and decide which issues I want addressed. To each his/her own.
That's already what I said. "If you want."
Understood, Barb. And then I explained why I preferred my approach. Hey, whatever works, right?
Thank you Bill, excellent instructions. And let’s remember SS was born from lives of 120 plus young ladies who perished because of their poverty.
Pease get out in he streets.
Yup. On the 5th, and beyond.
A timely quote from the powerful 1962 Perkins speech to which HCR provides the link: "One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States."
Jamie K -- And most important, it is **Insurance**. Not just "Social Security", but Social Security Insurance, into which every (nearly) worker pays with each paycheck -- to be there in case something happens to the Insured. Just like Home Insurance, Car Insurance, etcetera.
Judith, THANK YOU for the reminder!! We paid into it to be “insured” and “assured” it would be there at retirement.
And our employers also pay into it for us - at the same rate we contribute.
Jamie K, one would really like to think so, however, it appears that the Muskrats are slashing Social Security staffing and offices to such an extent (actually across the whole government) that it would take months for anyone to actually get registered for Social Security, let alone to get a problem fixed, a problem like having been declared dead when one is still very much alive!
I won’t matter if the money is there- not “cutting” SS- if there is no infrastructure left to get the money out to the people. It just sits there, a gigantic slush fund for them.
But now it is NOT safe because an authoritarian in the White House care not for law and intends to keep power, so he won't need the support of constituents. We must prevent that!
Yes, this is the scary part.
Except what "Leon" with a chainsaw can do!!😱🤬📢
Come on isn’t it obvious? They are after the social security trust fund. In fact, it occurred to me the other day, they are after all the money that is sitting around as part of the US government’s function. It must be a considerable amount of money if you add it all up. All money paid by US citizens, trusting their tax money will go to the projects and programs set up by our elected ELECTED representatives to benefit all of us.
At the very least, they want to privatize the administration of Social Security which will allow them to skim money off Trillions of dollars as hefty administration fees.
Thank you Hiro, that our head elected officials be working for us vs the laughing stock of the world is a vast division. But humor is what’s left at the end of any day by the present regime I was amused by whomever called Pete ‘kegbreath’
Hiro, there seems a direct correlation between “when President Herbert Hoover claimed that unemployment was ending” and tRump, Musk and their Magats claiming that there will be “a time of difficult transition” before we get to their beautiful final result …with billionaire oligarchs in charge of what was once our country. I see that the movement to "vote them out" has begun already in Pennsylvania’s special election with a Democrat replacing a Republican in both the state senate as well as the state house last night -https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/25/us/elections/results-pennsylvania-special-elections.html
I'm surprised that Musk doesn't see the Tesla problems as his share of the 'difficult transition'....
Exactly!! And don’t just write CALL CALL CALL! We MUST demand Musk (never elected 🤬) & his DOGE BS be removed from the WH & our government!! If we don’t get rid of him & trump & his HORRENDOUS Nominees NOW —we are doomed to become Russia—& that’s no exaggeration!!
And send 'Hogsbreath' with him!
Please, people, remember that this started in earnest with the Reagan administration. The Republican Party has been becoming more white and less democratic ever since. (It had a significant assist from the Clinton administration and from congressional Democrats, some of whom still don't seem to get what's going on.) Trump didn't come out of nowhere. Pass it on.
I agree, we have to understand that this has been in the works for decades. You could trace it back to Goldwater or even further. Think about all the time and energy and of course lots of $$$'s that the right has invested:
- The Federalist Society as a pipeline for right wing judges
- All the gerrymandering done at a state level
- The presence in both old and new media...think about Rush Limbaugh, Fox, the NY Post, and now Twitter/X
These are the power bases that they have been building, and they all work to reinforce each other. I know progressives have their own power structures but we are not as active.
I think we have to look back at how Black people organized in the 20th century to push back on Jim Crow and eventually bring forth the Civil Rights movement as an example. I'm reading The 1619 Project and it's inspiring. It reminds me that if we want our society to reflect our values, we need to work together to manifest them, or some other power will try to impose their values on us.
Bob, your observations about the path that has lead us to where we are today are spot on. I especially like your point about creating a society that reflects the values we believe in; or some other power will impose their values on us.
Hoover and Nixon and every President from Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt don’t count? Reagan was the awful follow up to them and the poster boy for the Republicans after him.
Hiro. Exactly. We have our great people from history and people today who work for equal and just rights. THEN people voted for the thugs (cheeto and his side kick and vance) to destroy all the good that has been done for people.
The DOL headquarters is the Perkins Building.
Luckily the MAGA/Project 2025/DOGE cowboy incells don’t realize the significance of the name (oh, if they would follow HCR!). If they did it would already have been renamed it the Vanderbilt Carnegie Gould DO child labor building.
The John C. Calhoun Hall of Indentured Servitude.
Right , Frances was after all a DEI hire
KSC, The new labor secretary is a one term R Rep from Oregon who was ousted this last election. She has never struck us as being totally nuts, so it will be interesting to see what she does. My husband worked on the unemployment side fo the Employment Division here in Oregon when it was still functional. Unemployment is part of the Labor Department and so will fall under her purview.
I have followed her a bit, actually Michele. I was surprised the Rs confirmed her given that she has some pro labor positions historically and (horrors) is a woman and (gasp)of nonAryan extraction. I doubt she’d be able to prevent the building being rebranded or sold out from under her and her staff. I guess we will see about her response to the attacks on benefits working people rely on not to mention their civil and political rights.
We were surprised too at her being chosen, not only as a woman and a non-Aryan, but her stance on some issues. And she has seemed fairly sane in light of some of the other MAGAs, even as a person who could actually do the job. I am wondering if she is some kind of token choice. My husband is well versed in the employment aspects of the Labor Department and he has torn his hair at some the recent problems of the division here in Oregon, which were, I might add, predictable up to a point. The head of the division is a political appointee and that led to some problems while he was still working. They were well versed in all the current buzz words in management, but knew nothing about what the Employment Division was actually about.
In a related vein, vis-a-vis the use of a woman of color as a token, I am betting that if they choose a fall person for the Atlantic Mag signal fiasco it will be Tulsi Gabbard.
Yes, and it's on CONSTITUTION AVENUE appropriately enough!
Thank you for adding that.
Our Constitution and Republic are inspired by the matrilineal Iroquois Confederacy, the law and spirit of our land as is Francis Perkins. If we survive as a species, it will be our matrilineal inheritance.
She was a giant. FDR too.
Not anymore. Too much has been turned back. From Reagan's "welfare queens", slashing the middle class and ignoring the AIDS epidemic to the MAGA of today burning up Social Security we have lost significant ground in social justice reforms and existing programs. People need to wake up to the cruel reality that too many American children are literally hungry, our infant and maternal mortality rates are obscenely high and our social justice programs decimated. Perkins would be distraught.
Barbara, I fear that the Republicans and especially tRump got very good at telling stories and developing stereotypes which were enormously influential despite NOT having statistics or actual figures to back up their stories and stereotypes. Noah Yuval Harari explicates the special power of stories as a defining feature for our species in his latest book Nexus -https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/books/review/nexus-yuval-noah-harari.html
And the forces that resisted Frances Perkins and all she stood for are at work today. In Florida, faced with threats to the state’s workforce of undocumented agricultural workers, they are debating expanding child labor.
They did it….passed the law
Are you ***king kidding me?!? That is outrageous. The Repugnants are so full of it when they go on and on about precious children (or fetuses).
Frightening, but not surprising. Now, go roast them on it.
Her legacy is safer working environments and a social safety net. She and FDR and so many others used the New Deal to make a better country. I used to bow my head every time I passed the Department of Labor building in DC that carries Frances Perkins's name.
I did not know who Frances Perkins was until this morning, thank you Heather. For me, her character and actions are the definition of social responsibility. For over 60 days, this administration has focused on destroying every part of our government that guarantees the health, safety and well being of every citizen. From the top down, these cruel, disgusting and corrupt people claim they are ridding our country of "waste, fraud and abuse", while the truth of their actions are, they're enriching themselves and their corporations.
It's time for we the people to say, "no more". No one is coming to save us, we need to do it ourselves. Frances Perkins found a way, it's time for each of us to find our way. We are not alone, our strength is in our numbers. Stand up and speak out.
From Robert Pinsky’s astonishing poem, “Shirt.”
Well worth looking up and taking to heart
“The witness in a building across the street
Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step
Up to the windowsill, then held her out
Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.
And then another. As if he were helping them up
To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.”
I sometimes wonder if they love destroying everything that is helped society because it was developed by a woman. They are all misogynistic white male supremacists that are salivating at push women back. But I am not going back and will continue to have as loud of voice as I can and encourage woman to do the same.
I think it's far worse than that. And it's not really about money. That's just the icing on the cake for them. The goal of the people behind Project 2025 is to cull society of "inferior genes" and get rid of all whom they despise. Call it Social Darwinism, Race Purification, Social Engineering, or what have you, but it seems clear that they want to exterminate the poor, the sick, the disabled and all gay, trans, and dark-skinned people by any means of neglect and trauma possible. That's why they resist gun laws. They want more people culled. They want more poor women dying of miscarriages. They probably celebrated when a million Americans died of COVID. They are psychopaths. There is no reasoning with them, nor appealing to their empathy. They haven't any for people they consider inferior and expendable which is, likely, everyone commenting here. If you aren't a Millionaire or a Billionaire and part of their elite class, you are expendable.
https://american-reality.com/optimized-for-survival/
And why the hell not? Are not the things Perkins stood for what civilized societies do?
Prof. Timothy Snyder says programs like those envisioned and implemented by Francis Perkins are what allow people to experience positive freedom.
"positive freedom." Yes.
And while the word "freedom" is broad enough in its nuanced senses to include an entity that is "free" to destroy the freedoms of others, "free" of the encumbrance of due process, it is surely not what is meant (except by tyrants) by the phase "free society". It is only against the background of the "Freedom is Slavery" (or that Slavery was freedom, as a few on the right still allege) that we need even bother to state we mean "freedom" in a positive sense. In our current ironic squall of Orwellian rhetoric come-to-life, when Iowa passed a blanket ban on any book that mentions sex in school libraries*, excluding, among other classics, "1984".
The "Liberty" our founding principles honor is not an untempered impulse but an environment of freedom, a society defined to promote UNIVERSAL rights and responsibilities; for which the Declaration of Independence is a letter of intention, and the Constitution an underlying "blueprint". An environment in which one experiences being free to act on harmless whims, yet free from irresponsible whims of others as well as some of the other slings and arrows that flesh is heir to, such as the protections of fire codes, storm warnings, police, fire, and military protections, etc. The list goes on; subject to the fully considered collective consent of the governed.
* My wife and I were conservative, as compared with some other families, about our influence on the introduction of awareness of societal violence and sexuality with our daughter. We took an "as needed" approach, not to rush, not to lie, and not to shame. This in contrast to "pretend it isn't there" vacuum we grew up with, in which the things kids say when adults are not around (and a lot of it off the mark) being the sole source of "forbidden" information. That approach appears to have succeeded for all involved, at least in our case.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/26/iowa-law-banning-books-including-1984-and-ulysses-blocked-by-us-federal-judge
"… what civilized societies do?" There you have it. The immoral person holding the position that a president should have would have everyone fighting to the death in the streets over pennies and spoiled food. He is the very incarnation of evil.
Tagging the humanitarian social philosophy and actions of people like Francis Perkins who worked under Roosevelt as "socialist" something malign, by the Republicans for such a long time that it infuses a large part of voting America, has simply left USA well behind the rest of the OECD in terms of social conscience. Under Trump this will turn out even moreso, if Maga Republicans have their way. You know, regardless of GDP/person of the poorer state of Louisiana being comparable to that of Canada, life expectancy in Canada is 82 while that of Louisiana is 73. One big reason, universal health care, the other, wealth inequality. And USA is about to aggravate both!
Make conscience cool again!
I believe so too. The " New Hitler" . We sure did not need him nor his MAGA gang!
RTN- I believe you are spot on about what Trump is.
I second party from his immediate orbit reports are to be believed, he admires Hitler. I certainly admires other despots, and proudly so.
Civilized societies, yes. But have we really looked at ourselves as a society on the whole? I don't think we have.
Look at what passes for entertainment these days, phony, outrageous wrestling, all these 'survival' type shows that pit people against each other for a prize, competition for 'love' where the dialogue shows just how illiterate we are, game shows that applaud insulting players, crime dramas that pit local law enforcement against the 'feds', video games where players can kill at will to gain points, shows about people that are terribly overweight, shows that glorify stupidity. My guess is that watching contestants injure themselves is just a modern day version of gladiator fights.
Folks that embrace this type of entertainment are not bad people, but this type of behavior that we see on TV, the movies, video games, computer sites, when it is consumed over & over & over I have to wonder just how civilized we really are???
Many years ago i was talking to a fellow student who was from Mexico, as I remember…
She said she was surprised at our rules for taking tests - that talking to another student was considered cheating. In her country they were encouraged to collaborate on tests. I’ve never forgotten that. It made so much sense to me. We’re so focused on competition in every thing…right from early elementary school.
Francine fine -- Thanks so much for contributing that about Mexico's positive view of collaboration! To my mind, it's a highly civilized way of learning.
I don't think we train our citizens well how to collaborate justly and productively. "Group Projects" I am aware of in public schools and college just evaluate the quality of the product, not the quality and effectiveness of the actual collaboration. That is a poor model of management, although I suspect it also prevails in business. Years ago I saw an article about how effective managers circulate and meaningfully discuss problems and progress of the project with employees.
So right, competition is me first, always
I recall we students were repeatedly addressed in convocation as "The Leaders of Tomorrow". We were all leaders then, no followers or collaborators; and I was not even in Lake Woebegon.
And tRumpers paid others to take the tests for them ;)
Well, the rich.
Testing: an industry by , of and for the testers . I learned that early in my career as a psychologist. I stopped giving “ crazy tests “ , as my juvenile clients called them , in 1974. I wonder how much damage they have done.
I think that some standard tests have a place, but we naively or lazily invest far too much authority in them. At best such tests my have some validity in a sum of a large statistical sample, but can and do produce capricious results for a given individual. At worst they pretend to quantify things that are far more complex than the model, and offer no provision for the elephants in the room.
That is an excellent response. My concern was that these tests were seen as a crystal ball. Social workers I worked with would do interviews with our kid residents and travel to their homes to interview parents and neighborhoods do their write ups and then refer them to me for my magical tests. When in fact their assessments were based in reality and almost more accurate than my test results. When I did test, I kept in consideration my subjective experience with these kids. Some kids tested with low IQ yet you would have to be an emotional and social idiot to dismiss this kid’s unmeasurable IQ. Like the expression “ the map is not the territory “, the test is not the kid.
There are pros and cons to every social model, at least the ones that appear to produce reasonably just results. I exclude tyrannies, but maybe that's just me? Tyranny sucks.
You read my mind, just ranted about that somewhere. Coarse and vulgar. Idiotic competitions instead of cooperation. I loved PBS in the 70’s. The possibilities looked so promising, but the “Survivor” mentality ushered in an era of the worst competitions imaginable. Are gladiators next.
The WWE was the match that lit the fire and Donnie was deeply involved in that. Linda McMahon Secretary of Education Dept is a big fat middle finger to us. We must never forget that REPUBLICANS voted them all in and are RESPONSIBLE for this insanity. The administration of FOOLS!
It's sabotage of our own Nation. China is supporting their schools, authoritarian though their government may be.
or VILLAINS!
It's interesting. It's just my opinion, but it felt to me that the "mission" of PBS tilted subtly more toward the commercial TV model after the huge success of "Upstairs, Downstairs". I did not watch it. It looked like a classy soap to me. Thenceforth public TV seemed to have an enuring obsession with royalty. I was more a science and nature fan, although I enjoyed some of the mysteries, dramas and some classics, such as Dickens. It seemed to me (at least on KQED) that political and investigative reporting somewhat faded after the Upstairs/Downstairs Revolution; although (later) Frontline was always excellent. I still subscribe to two PBS TV stations and an NPR station every year, although I now very rarely watch or listen.
The PBS streaming channel, called Passport, has some wonderful series to watch. It's well worth the $5/month.
I do that.
I loved their classic interpretations but they are not a fav for everyone. So much better than what commercial channels turned into. Not much difference since repubs have cut to the bone. They have tried to ruin everything Dems have done. EVERYTHING And with the four-year whiplash (if it isn’t disappeared), one can’t count on anything being stable. Allies have noticed.
Bread and Circuses without the bread.
I think we all have escapist "guilty pleasures". One of mine is watching cheesy foreign murder mysteries over the 'Net. I try not to devote too much such time to the remaining minutes of my one wild and precious life.
We've regressed, actually. The games/movies/programs are a brainwashing into regression by tapping into primitive instincts without any hassles from moralities and plenty of hormones racing around in absolute glee.
Or how moral.
Old Westerns usually have a moral to the story! PBS has wonderful programming. Watch local news only to keep up on local stuff.
Unless they regress, as some are prone to do…
There seems to be eternal tension between greed and compassion. Hubris and "mindfulness".
Mindfulness, compassion, The Golden Rule is not the concern of this administration. Progress is what Progressives do. We are one- quarter into the 21st Century with a president and administration who wants to take us back to the 18th Century.
and keep power forever, none of that democracy crap
Or until he blows up the world trying to make Gaza a trompe resort. The 2021 movie DONT LOOK UP is eerily accurate.
Gigi, make Gaza a resort or Canada a state, or buy or annex Greenland, …the list from tRump’s fevered mind goes on and on!
Unf**kingbelievable
Or "Dark Ages". And what of the Christian "Great Commandment"? Find the villains in this picture.
Apparently the current society - or those happy with how things are going - don’t think that is what a society (civilized or not) is supposed to do.
Not a well informed one anyway.
Great post. So important that we remember the ripple effects of intelligent and compassionate leadership.
There are many intelligent and compassionate authors, teaches, persons, Helen Cox Richardson for 1 & Joyce Vance for another.
I must add our recent brave, intelligent & compassionate, young 3rd year Skadden attorney, Rachel Cohen. It's not every day an associate takes on Big Law.
Please add others ....
Glad of Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Anat Shenker-Osario (at the.ink video interviews).
Their conversations are absolutely wonderful -- as was the call-in this week when the woman from Bloomfield, NJ, Liz, described the protests she's organized with her neighbor that take place in Montclair every Sunday afternoon that have grown from a handful of people to hundreds.
Dr. *Heather* Cox Richardson
Unfortunately, that kind of progress often needs great tragedy as inspiration. The current administration may be our tragedy to allow progress.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire travesty is what comes naturally with unregulated businesses. That is what Republicans are trying with all at their disposal to recreate in the United States. They think it was great.
We are all disposable serfs. Let the work be miserable, but unemployed life even more so. What good are people who just cost the system money to a billionaire who doesn't yet have enough?
Of course, this is not new. Charles Dickens knew all about this 200 years ago:
"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?"
"Plenty of prisons... but many would rather die than go there."
"If they would rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population."
The Christmas Carol
Thanks, Jon Rosen. It's good to be reminded of Dickens's soaring social commentary. He helps keep us grounded. As you know, in this same conversation between the Ghost of Christmas Present and the wealthy miser Scrooge which is happening as they watch how Tiny Tim's life might end with him dying in childhood, the Ghost intones, "It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child..."
But would Musk give a damn?
Agree. My hunch is...definitely not!
Thank you for the reminder. I would absolutely hate living in the Times and circumstances described by Dickens.
You already are. It's just not as obvious............yet. Almost the entire southern half of southern Minnesota has high nitrate waters, Monsanto is paying out millions to settle Cancer-from-Roundup lawsuits. As a more personal, experience I was out smelling my Rugosa roses one evening, RDO was spraying the potato field across the road, and suddenly I was smelling chemicals instead of roses, so I jumped in my pickup and roared over to where they were reloading the field sprayer. ECHO 720. It's a fungicide, sprayed every 5 days on potatoes. You are supposed to wear HazMat when working; not supposed to touchy anything sprayed with it, for 5 days, and we were continually breathing the fumes. London pea soup fog was a mixture of fog and coal smoke; have a photo of a foggy day. It wasn't fog. It was smoke from western fires, and air quality alerts were posted that day, and many days over the past few years. I live in north central Minnesota
Good points.
And Dickens hardly the first to condemn avarice and predation.
NFC is the modern assessment of serfs. Non-functional characters.
...my kids use NPC, Non-Playable Characters - ;)
Extras.
Which means disposable.
Musk certainly has a problem with all the all-too-obvious serfs all around him....
Bunch of Scrooges.
Scrooge had a "heart" after all. I'm not sure the oligarchs do. If they do, you'd need a microscope to find it.
Repubs like to smear a lot of things, one of which is rules for the rich. Regulated, deregulated. How long is a rope? Like Reagan bloviating about the evils of “government”. Which government? What kind of government? To benefit whom?
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
To secure these rights… The Preamble of the Constitution offers a look at some of the ways this can be manifested, but basically, we aver an axiomatic right to determine the rules and social infrastructure of our own social environment, is such ways that universal, unalienable rights are protected and nourished. “Regulation” in such a state serves to maximize the diversity of our paths to happiness by defining an environment in which there are freedoms to and freedoms from; from rape, robbery, murder and other aggressions. From the worst results of illness and natural disaster. A reciprocally united society when it comes to the common weal, and one in which one can be different and excel, if doing no harm.
Plutocratic, radical deregulation is just a license to bully. Everybody is obliged to observe certain boundaries. It batdung crazy to except activities related to the “love of money” from societal ethics. What have decades of right wing “deregulation” done FOR Main Street? TO Main Street?
I believe Reagan ran his presidential campaign using the infamous Welfare Mom as a call to end much of what Francis Perkins created. The "New Republicans" cried into their linen hankies that they were being robbed by scoundrels.
There are always scammers, as long as there have been humans. And there was a real Welfare Mom scammer, but her gains were but a grain of sand compared to the scammers and gazillionaires robbing us of our freedom and hard earned social securities right now. MAGA cultists believe in these lies and have focused their anger on the wrong culprits.
Ah well, it is hard to be human.
Perhaps it seems too abstract when fatcats steal from million. Harder to relate to? For sure it's happening. The fatcats rule from palaces and towers, but the poor and desperate live among us. The Ministy of Justice just removed access to a study that showed that immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crimes than native born. It was too off message.
People always seem to find 'goats' when they need them -- Samaritans, Jews, gypsies, 'coloreds', etc. -- usually a sign of guilt when someone starts pointing out 'goats'....
"...focused their anger on the wrong culprits" is critically important. Republican neoliberal economics (trickle down economics) is the cause of all their problems but Republican lying, Democratic Party buy-in, and liberal confusion about this has prevented them from learning the truth. It's a serious, immense tragedy.
Well said, well observed. But haven't heard the word aver used in a sentence since my dad passed in 1992... thanks for the re-memory of a remarkable guy. :)
Bill Gardner, you are a remarkable guy as well, better than one in a million!
(Just checked the word frequency of "aver" and it is used in roughly 1 in 10,000,000 words!)
any deregulation, for that matter.... How is it that some laws only apply to the not-so-wealthy? or the well-connected? or the 'attractive'? The universality of the Ten Commandments is profound in the 'Thou shalt not...' series that do not anywhere include exceptions!
Posting the Ten Commandments in schools may have unintended consequences, since the oligarchs and thieves in power break many of them. The kids might eventually notice.
That's where we point out that God didn't make any room for exceptions. At least, we make the attempt to distinguish biblical/Christian from non-biblical/Christian. I do not advocate for posting Ten Commandments anywhere by a government. I only point out that "Christian nationalists" or Bible salesmen are hypocrites, not to be revered no matter how wealthy and powerful they may seem to be.
Some animals are said to be more equal than others.
in their own minds... ;-)
living in a different reality generally is a signal that you might be in an asylum...
It is also reminiscent of the Match Girls Strike of 1888 in London. The mini series Enola Holmes payed homage to that one.
Rex, I would argue that the term unregulated…like the phrase ‘free market’….is a device that serves the corporate mantra of unfettered capitalism as the way to prosperity. The businesses are is essence the beneficiaries of regulation that allow their exploitation. The markets are not ‘free’ when the thumb of corporate sponsored government is used to disadvantage workers.
I don't think even conservatives are willing to endorse a completely unregulated corporate and social sphere. They know it sounds bad to reasonable people, possibly even some conservatives (!), who are concerned about environmental degradation, shorter life spans, even a less than high regard for the United States among civilized nations.
If there are any conservatives who are actually concerned about environmental degradation, human dignity, and the health and welfare of other people, they sure are hiding well.
Must say, if I were a conservative, I’d have more than my head in the sand…
“Some” and “many” don’t mean a damn thing. It’s the percentage that counts. And the percentage of Republicans who are decent human beings is near zero,
...or to cheat customers or ruin competitors. Markets are created by humans and subject to whatever conditions set by humans in their various surroundings with whatever regulations are necessary to those surroundings. Freedom is a quality of living where we can determine what is necessary for our surroundings.
Good observations and thoughts, along the lines of Jefferson Cowie’s 2022 Pulitzer wining ‘Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power. The thesis being that since the colonial era, Freedom From government oversight characterized one of the two prevalent notions of freedom in the US, and nearly prevailed early in our history, nearly again during reconstruction, and finally, has, now.
Or weigh heavily on the "scales of justice". Monopoly is fun to play if you don't wind up short on the rent, or sleeping in an alley.
Hoover was a liar too!?
Herbert or J. Edgar? I'm sure Edgar was a big liar. He endeavored to create false complaints of moral turpitude on Martin Luther King. He had his FBI create justifications for offing Black Panthers and other people who offended Republican political values.
And the current regime wants to weaponize the FBI again and use it for retribution.
Well, I'd like to see a satire where some of Trump's incompentent appointments celebrate the Triangle Shirtwaist disaster and ask for future generations to be grateful the Trump administration is rescinding efforts to reduce mercury and benzene pollution among other things.
So many posts are coming up talking about the wonderful wealth of the 1920s...! Despite what we now know about what created that and what resulted from it!!! Seems like celebrating having wheat in Moscow while Ukraine starves and is where the wheat is grown until all the growers have starved....
Thanks for writing about this today. It is important to remember far a variety of reasons.
Her actions were the template for empathetic society.
"Empathetic society" has a lucid ring to it. I think it the the only viable path away from our rush toward self-destruction.
Current maga-type consider empathy a mental illness of evil
And it's sad when they call themselves Christians, because they are mocking the values that Christ taught.
Well, we know they suffer from an inability to empathize.
You are correct! Elon Musk has been quoted as saying that " Empathy is a threat to civilization." Hard to believe, isn't it.
That explains a lot of actions by him and the other trumpers. No empathy. No compassion.
She was a great one, Frances Perkins.
And we might owe something to Heather for reminding us of how it was a terrible, nauseatingly unnecessary disaster -- killing so many otherwise helpless and disgustingly trapped young women -- which underlay the entirety of Frances' subsequent career.
It may give us good pause. The U.S. is now roiling in similarly unnecessary crisis. Back in 1913, it was greedy, stupid self-entitled white men, factory owners, sweatshop owners, responsible for the stupidity. Today it's just another reincarnation of similar indifference to human life, similar disregard for people's need for health care, for good schools, for safe retirement, for natural environment.
Some sorts of bastards (and colossally idiot, incompetent) seem always to be with us.
But can we hope for any rub-off logic that, as Frances Perkins (and other labor actions) came from that disaster, some fine person -- great person -- might emerge from what we near-helplessly inhabit now?
Don't forget the greedy among today's politically active conservatives. There is no amount of money that is great enough for them, and that comes at the expense of responsible stewardship of the earth and care for the people on it.
They have just moved their sweat shops and environmental degradation overseas where there are lower wages and fewer regulations. It is laughable to think T's tariffs will bring factories back to the US.
Phil, well said.
And, somehow…we must all do more than “hope”.
Phil, heartily agreed! Yet I remain befuddled by the apparent disregard by Repubs and especially Magats of the enormous fiscal advantages over history of a more equitable distribution of wealth - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._economic_performance_by_presidential_party
And I am just as befuddled that they (Repubs and Magats) don’t or can’t see the advantages to themselves of cleaner air, cleaner water and the health of the planet! The health of the whole is vastly more important to our survival and prospering, even and maybe especially financially, than any one cause alone.
Thank you, John.
It's middle of the night -- now Thursday morning in the mountains of Kyushu, Japan, where I live.
When you mention "cleaner air, cleaner water and the health of the planet," I also think of the wisdom some novelists have as to more open, more fitting relations people may have among others. I think of the way we need to respect certain processes, traditions, and laws accrued into our institutional lives. I think of the constitutional checks and balances accounting for the republic which Musk, Trump, and their MAGA ideologues for Putin now seek to destroy.
They seem to have a fear of missing out -- that someone having something means they don't have it and are missing out on that ownership privilege/pleasure. As if they were severely deprived as children...?
Should ask them all if their spouse or children have polution- induced asthma. Skin disorders, genetic disorders & such.
Could we ever use her now. You have written so much about her but there is always more that we find out again. It is time for women and there are several in leadership roles. AOC is rising fastest and clearest. A powerful brain with focus.
To debunk the lies takes courage, and the gift of public speaking skills.
Agree—plus, recognition and opportunity.
Victoria, one suspects that debunking lies takes not only courage but better stories, stories which more accurately represent the world as it is, stories which have numbers and historical accuracy within them.
Trump has that 'gift' -- the wag of the conman selling you rain in a drought or salvation in a depression.
A Republican I admire, and a woman: Liz Cheney.
I don't know Liz well outside of her greatest & courageous stand; many my age know her Dick dad much better, but she had a very mixed record on environment and big business and civil rights as I recall from the blue perspective. Here's her record on civil rights:
https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/171319/liz-cheney/13/civil-liberties-and-civil-rights
But yeah, out of respect for her courage and support for the constitution, I sent her a large donation ~2022. Ever since, I've had a window on the R's campaign rhetoric... so her donor database was also hacked & betrayed by the party that sabotaged her career - but perhaps enabled her greatness and provided the corrupt context that best showed off her strengths.
Gee Heather, you usually don't pass up an opportunity to plug a connection to Maine. Francis's parents were from Maine, and their homestead is a museum in Newcastle, and was designated as a national monument by President Biden. https://francesperkinscenter.org/
Maine has had an outsized influence (in many important, often progressive ways) on national politics, up to and definitely including Janet Mills and (of course) HCR! (NOTE: I was born and raised in Maine)
That's the Maine thing...
Why is Susan Collins still senator?
A good question. Not sure she will be re-elected again if she runs again in 2026, esp if Janet Mills decides to challenge her, but there are still some very red rural areas in Maine.
Especially in Western and Northern Maine, more conservative areas, it counts for a ton that she is seen as "one of us"/a true Mainer and really that seems to carry with it an implicit trust in her (or any Maine-born leader, I think) to do right by Maine. But she has taken that constituency support largely for granted for a long time, I think.
WSBMaine -- I visited a "friend" in Millinocket briefly once, on my way back to Nova Scotia from Vermont. I asked her about DJTrump, and she exclaimed with delight that she loved him! I replied, "Even though nearly everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie? 8,000 [then] documented lies and counting?" She replied, somewhat surprised, "Oh really? I didn't know that." Ostrich Syndrome is still prominent.
Which is WHY, instead of hoping for a dawn of enlightenment, or dreading the dusk of our civilization, we need to talk to R's.
They still do have heads on the end of that neck sticking out of the sand.
And MANY have good hearts, even if their values are misinformed.
And yes, I often can't stand them (or who I imagine they are), so I am likewise blindered by my own echo chambers.
Anyway, see you in DC April 5!! HANDS OFF my constitution! is the theme... ;)
And proud of it!
Nyuk nyuk
Thank you, Steve!
Biden was uplifting!
Craig, I am so glad to know that! Thank you! Maybe I can visit it the next time I can go to Maine.
Good gene pools in ME!
Had a "lump in my throat" while reading this story. So much was accomplished by Perkins and FDR. Thank you for this story.
This story is an example of human beings doing the right thing. The Trump regime is an example of the exact opposite. May he and his accomplices rot in hell.
A true hero, and she must be rolling in her grave. Thank you for honoring her today.
Powerful and timely contrast to the destruction and devastation the Trump Administration is wreaking across the board and throughout the world…! 😓😡😓😡
It is up to all of us.
“There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done,” Perkins said. “It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”
Love that quote, Suzanni!
Ok with you if repeat it and print it out?
Will put it on the board at work.
““There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done,
It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.”
Frances Perkins
of course!
Wow. I even knew a bit about this story, and reading this piece still blew me away.
Each of us does a little bit - step by step. Thank you for being there and for taking the walk with us!
And when Ronnie took the reins in DC, repubs proposed that they vilify FDR, and undo the myriad programs that took their money and gave it to the undeserving. He said, do you think it can be done. He imported Rupert Murdoch, who was sure it could be done.
It was in the 80’s that I first heard some say that FDR didn’t end the depression, WW2 did. And other disparaging things that i had never heard before. I was shocked. Then came the junk bond scandal and repubs signed on to “Greed is good.” I think it was Everett Dirksen (my fav Repub.) who said “a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you are talking real money.” And he hadn’t run into Muskrat, who hadn’t been born yet. How we need an Everett and a Frances today! Will it be Bernie and AOC? I would never have guessed, but the “empathy is bad crew” needs to be kicked to the curb. Enough of the greed, and self-righteous nonsense masquerading as Christianity. Enough of the coarse and vulgar that permeates all aspects of society, from tv, to social media, profits above all, to religious hypocrites.
THROW THE BUMS OUT AND TAKE BACK A COUNTRY with promise recognizing that “he’s my brother.” Do I think it can be done. I do. Hopefully without a catastrophe like the shirtwaist factory fire.
COVID was cataclysmic. Far more deaths than in the Civil War. Every nation lost people to it, but we, reportedly the "richest country in the world" and perhaps the most technically advanced lost an outsized share of our citizens due to crap, cult leadership.
Seniors in nursing homes were akin to those workers jumping to their deaths. Up to38% of all Covid 19 deaths were reportedly due to being locked up in nursing homes.
Chump’s blooper that was as bloody as any idiotic thing he did, or didn’t do…
It’s comforting to know that someone remembers Senator Dirksen and the fine men, Democrats and Republicans, who were dedicated to the collective good of our country and not just for what each could grab for themselves, as so often seems today. I miss them. America gravely misses them.
He and Barbara Jordan made me think that our government was in good hands, then both died. We have suffered grievously since Ronnie manipulated his way into the WH.
I remember vividly the day after Reagan was elected, I thought, this is probably the beginning of the end for the US. Nothing since has ever changed my mind. There were
brief reprieves but the destruction has marched ever forward. Until the disaster in which we all find ourselves.
You were more prescient than I was. Just thought he couldn’t do that much damage. How unwoke was I…
The moment it was announced that Reagan had been elected president, a friend said "Well, it's going to be a great four years for millionaires. I fully agreed, but did not begin to understand how long the trend was going to be in the direction of total plutocracy.
I was unaware of how much others orchestrated behind the scenes, sort of like now