Labor Chapter Recruitment Letter

The Carbon County Labor Chapter is sending out the following letter to selected union members:

Last year active and retired union members in Carbon County formed the Carbon County Labor Chapter, the first step to becoming a county-wide Labor Council.  It is important, given proposed anti-union legislation in Pennsylvania, that we are a strong voice for working class Americans.

We meet at the AmVets In Lansford at 215 West Ridge Street on the third Thursday of every month at 7 p.m.  The schedule of meetings is:

January 16 July 16

February 20 Aug. 20

March 19 Sept. 17

April 16 Oct. 15

May 21 Nov. 19

June 18 Dec. 17 (Holiday party)

To visit us on Facebook, look for us at <The Carbon County Labor Chapter PA>.

If you would like to receive our newsletter by email, contact <LAChris@ptd.net> or call 610-377-0235. 

Our president is Terry Whiteman.  You can call him at 610-379-0162.  His email is <chssmst@yahoo.com>.

The more members we have, the stronger we become.  Join us.

We’ll see what happens.

More anti-union crap

The January 5th edition of the New York Times featured a full-page ad by a group representing the 1% comparing American labor unions to the government of North Korea.  The ad was sponsored by “The Center for Union Facts,” and, as these things are done now, gives no clue as to who actually paid for the ad.

The ad was in support of the “Employee Rights Act,” to provide that union members would be required to vote every three years on whether to continue paying union dues.  

Actually, I could go for this provided all workers, including Wal-Mart employees, McDonald’s employees, the Mercedes plant in Alabama, hospital workers in Texas, fruit pickers in Washington, and every other worker in America had to vote every three years on whether or not he or she wanted a union.

Fair is fair, right?

Bill O'Gurek, Commissioner

Since some of the regular readers of this blog are in California and Belgium, let me give you some background.  In Carbon County, two Democrats and two Republicans run for County Commissioner.  Voters can vote for two positions, but the top three are elected.  This guarantees that neither party will control all three seats.  (Other parties, such as the Greens and Libertarians, are frozen out under this system.)

In the November election Republicans Wayne Nothstein and Tom Gerhard received the most votes, with Democrat Charles Getz coming in third.  Bill O’Gurek, the other Democratic candidate, was about 150 votes behind Getz.  

Mr. Getz, disgusted with what he regarded as a smear campaign against Mr. O’Gurek and unwilling to serve as Commissioner with Mr. Nothstein and Mr. Gerhard, decided to bow out.  I heard Mr. Getz say, with some passion, that he could not bear to be in the same room with two people that he regarded as dishonest and dishonorable.

His departure left a vacancy, to be filled by appointment by senior Carbon County Judge Nanovic.  Last week the Carbon County Executive Board met to recommend a replacement to Judge Nanovic.  I am a member of that Board and part of the unanimous vote to recommend Mr. O’Gurek.  Mr. Nanovic, following the party’s recommendation, appointed Mr. O’Gurek to fill the vacancy.

My personal belief is that Mr. O’Gurek knows the issues concerning Carbon County and was supported by thousands of voters.  The system was set up to ensure that a minority voice would be heard, and that the County government would not be dominated by a single party.  Judge Nanovic made the right choice.  

Roadless areas protected

In 1996 the Clinton administration, led by Mike Dombeck, head of the Forest Service, declared that 58 million acres (roughly the size of Nebraska) would remain roadless, although available for hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, and natural habitat.

Nine lawsuits were almost immediately filed by lumber and mining interests to overturn the new Roadless Area Conservation Rule.  Unfortunately, when the Bush administration took over in 2001, the Forest Service refused to support its own roadless policy.  

A number of environmental organizations, with Earthjustice in the lead, then stepped up to defend the policy.  Over 600 hearings were held, and over a million and a half comments were received.  Over 90% of the comments were in favor of the Rule.  Environmental groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours in legal action.  It worked.  In October 2011 the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Roadless Rule.  

I’m a member of Earthjustice, and right now I’m feeling pretty good.

A mother's letter

Instead of writing about the clowns and jokers running in the Iowa caucuses, I want to print a portion of a letter that Abigail Adams wrote to her sixteen-year-old son John Quincy, who had accompanied his father John to Europe.  John Adams was in Paris representing the newly-independent United States.

She notes that because John Quincy went abroad at such an early age, he didn’t get a chance to be acquainted with his country.  She writes:

Let your observations and comparisons produce in your mind an abhorrence of domination and power, the parent of slavery, ignorance, and barbarism, which places man upon a level with his fellow tenants of the woods:

A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty

Is worth a whole eternity of bondage.

...may you be led to an imitation of that disinterested patriotism and that noble love of your country, which will teach you to despise wealth, titles, pomp, and equipage, as mere external advantages, which cannot add to the internal excellence of your mind, or compensate for the want of integrity and virtue.  

May your mind be thoroughly impressed with the absolute necessity of universal virtue and goodness, as the only sure road to happiness, and may you walk therein with undeviating steps--is the sincere and most affectionate wish of 

                                                             Your mother, 

                                                              A. Adams

John Quincy Adams was later elected the sixth president of the United States.  Defeated for a second term by Andrew Jackson, he then served in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was a leader in the fight to rid the nation of slavery.  I believe his mother would have been proud.  

Price vs. value

In The Ethics of Authenticity (c. 1991) political philosopher Charles Taylor discusses the problems inherent in what he calls “instrumental reason.”  He explains that we calculate everything according to its cost-benefit ratio without regard to other values.  Taylor says there is “...a widespread unease that instrumental reason not only has enlarged its scope but also threatens to take over our lives.  The fear is that things that ought to be determined by other criteria will be decided in terms of efficiency or ‘cost-benefit’ analysis, that the independent ends that ought to be guiding our lives will be eclipsed by the demand to maximize output.”

Let me give you a few examples.  The Postal Service is losing money, so we must end Saturday deliveries and close local branches, even though that inconveniences millions of people and eliminates an important aspect of our communities.  Governor Corbett proposes to bring in revenue by privatizing liquor stores, even though that will mean a decline in our quality of life and the elimination of thousands of jobs.  Fracking for natural gas must proceed, even though it will mean polluted groundwater and environmental degradation.  People shop at Wal-Mart because items are cheap, even if the employees are mistreated and small shops are driven out of business.

A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.  I googled that line, and supposedly Oscar Wilde said it first.  Whoever said it, it is an accurate description of Republican members of congress, Republican presidential candidates, and way too many American citizens.

Resolutions for 2012

Fight evil and ignorance no matter where it occurs.

Buy a Glock.,  (Why should conservatives be the only ones armed?)

Lose ten pounds.

Finish the plays of Shakespeare. (I’m 1/3rd of the way there, he bragged.)

Ignore any technology developed after 2000.

Be nicer to my lovely wife Linda.

Learn Spanish.

Win Carbon County for Obama.

Canoe Long Pond, again.

Build the Carbon County Labor Chapter.

Double the readership of “Sajeonogi.”

Publish a poem.