UNIONS

 

I was born and raised in a union household.  I owe a lot to my fathers union.  I probably would not have gone to college without it.  I have never crossed a picket line in my life and I pray that I never will.  Unions helped create the modern middle class in 20th century America.  Unions did so, by being the champion of middle class values and American patriotism and exceptionalism.

 

 

 

As an adult I was a member of two unions.  The first was the UFT, the NYC chapter of the AFT.  This union or at least the chapter in one school where I taught Special Education, did not think much of my students and at times even less about their members who taught them.  Both the AFT and the NEA nationally would initially oppose efforts to mainstream students with disabilities.  Today both would probably deny this but they would be lying.

 

 

So my personal experience with unions has been mixed as has the experience and perceptions of millions of other Americans which are reflected in the decline of union membership in the work force to 11.3%.  Private sector union membership is now an anemic 6.7% while the public sector union membership is a healthier 35.3%. while growing in controversy as to its effect on the size and cost of government at all levels.

 

This past weekend workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted not to join the UAW despite  the active cooperation of VW management and I G Metall the bargaining agent for Volkswagen  workers in Europe.  The UAW has fallen from a high of 1.5 million members  to less than 400,000 nationally.

 

 

The loss was a shock  for both the UAW and its parent body, the AFL-CIO, whose President Richard Trumpka announced that going forward labor would coalesce with progressive forces in the south in order to overcome the distrust of unions. This distrust however stems from organized labor's past unsavory relationship with organized crime,,frequent union thug behavior   and labors new unsavory alliances with so called "progressive" groups many of which are anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, covertly racist, anti-American and either socialist or communist politically.

 

 

They include environmental zealots who seek to destroy union jobs by killing the coal industry, preventing the building of the Keystone XL pipeline and limiting the drilling for domestic oil and gas....all which adds insult to injury by dramatically increasing energy costs for middle class Americans in particular. Predictably the loss in Tennessee is now being blamed on racism and Nazis by MSNBC.  A week later threats are still being made toward anti union activists.

 

 

Unions are now also seen as an integral part of the Democratic Party.  In NYC for example it is now hard to distinguish where the unions begin and where the party takes over.  Public sector unions in particular have become heavy handed political players in large cities and heavily unionized states.  The Working Families Party which has as one of its founders, the current Mayor of New York who together with public sector unions and questionable groups like the former ACORN, is in point of fact in total control of all the levers of power in the city and to a lesser degree, in the state legislature.  The WFP has all but eclipsed the Democratic Party in the city even while party enrollment remains overwhelmingly Democratic..the WFP is now the tail that wags the Democratic dog.

 

 

This however brings a basic and fundamental question to the forefront that is essential to the social and political compact between the government and the people.  If the foremost objective of political labor is to promote the needs of unions and theoretically their members...what happens to the rest of us, if  the labor movement takes over the reins of government?. 

 

That question is no longer a theoretical one as the Progressive NYC Mayor emulating his hero the Progressive US  President proceeds to go to war against anything and everything that unions despise.  

 

The most prominent example of this  are Charter Schools of which NYC has 183,  the largest number of any city in the nation,  On the whole these schools, which are public schools not under the thumb of the UFT  cost approximately half per pupil as regular schools and  have 60% black children, 30% Hispanic children and 96% low income children on their rosters, They do markedly better than their non-charter  counterparts on reading, math and science with the % who goes to college or are college bound  also higher than regular schools.  Currently there are over 70,000 mostly minority children, on waiting lists for these schools and the demand for opening more is overwhelming, particularly in minority areas of the city.

 

 Naturally the UFT and the Progressive Mayor  hate these schools and are trying to do everything possible to starve them of funding and ultimately shut them down.  Yet considering the pupil population affected, no one calls these actions racist...which by any objective standards they are.   The moral bankruptcy of public sector unions and their progressive political lackeys who incessantly identify themselves as champions of the poor, the minorities and the "children" while simultaneously condemning all of them to an inferior education and hence a life of struggle and hardship, is the single biggest example of why government with public sector unions  no longer work... if they ever did.

 

Both FDR and George Meaney thought public sector unions to be a terrible idea and anathema to democracy.  There is an inherent conflict of interest when  people in elective office are politically dependent on the workforce for whom  they will ultimately make decisions  with regard to pay,  benefits and work rules. It is naive at best to believe that  this symbiotic relationship between politicians, union money and union campaign workers  somehow magically also guarantees that the greater needs of the general public will still be front and center in the halls of power.  Instead evidence mounts as the cost and size of government goes through the roof  due mostly to the  increase in the number of union workers along with their pay, pensions and health care...that the people are ignored and invisible.

 

Unions, despite all of the above are not obsolete nor should they be.  But if they are to remain relevant they are one huge special interest that needs to be decoupled from politics in the public sector and become  more in synch with  the needs and beliefs of their rank and file in the private sector.  Moreover, if 501 (c) (4) groups can be pushed out of the public square re even non partisan political activity, then 501 (c) (5) entities ( unions) should also be restricted out of simple fairness and in order to level the playing field. 

 

If unions are to both survive and find comity with the general society, they must return to a state of being about protecting their members and their jobs without aligning themselves with those who would destroy these same jobs out of ignorance malice or an unquenchable thirst for power,  They cannot remain the shock troops of a progressive fairy tale that preaches that wealth must be shared by all, work is optional in achieving success and prosperity and the state will take care of all your needs forever.  This is not the America that working men and women built.  This is instead the fantasy "social justice" American utopia described in the old hobo song the "Big Rock Candy Mountain".

 

 

ERLANDSSON 

BASEBALL

BASEBALL

 

I grew up in upstate New York.  Winters there begin before Thanksgiving and end just before Easter ...if Easter falls in April.  As kids my brothers and I reckoned that Spring actually began in February when the Pitchers and Catchers reported for spring training in either Florida or Arizona.  We knew that somewhere it was warm  with sunny blue skies and we could almost smell the linseed oil and pine tar.

 

Baseball is the most democratic of sports.  You can be thin or fat...tall or short...man or woman...fast or slow...disabled or not...and after 1947 black, white, brown or yellow.  Somehow if you love baseball ...baseball will love you back.

 

Once down in the Dominican Republic, where every town, village or barrio has both a church and a ball field, I watched a group of boys, some with shoes and some without, clear rocks and debris from an empty field to make a   diamond and outfield.  I stayed and watched them play ...some still without shoes.  They had to play and I had to watch.

 

 

Baseball tugs at your heart and tugs at your brain.  It is unlike any other sport because it  truly is a metaphor for life...a drama conceived and played first on an American stage and now on a world stage. It begins the first time you visit a ball park and for that I will let the words of my brother Don describe it from memory,  in the eyes of an eight year old boy...

 

In 1954 I experienced one of the greatest thrills of my young life.  My uncle, Vern was a big baseball fan.  He called my mom and asked if he could take my brothers and myself to a baseball game...  Being 8 years old I didn't know what to expect...   As we got out of the car I could smell the hot dogs and popcorn and peanuts.as  we walked through this big gate.  My uncle stopped to buy a Program.  and  asked if we would like one.  I said sure.  We then proceeded up this concrete runway.  Much to my surprise I thought I was in heaven.   The lights glowed over this majestic space.  As I looked at it... I saw this wonderful green fence with a lot of advertising on it.  As I continued to gaze at this wonderful place I looked at the manicured dirt field, with grass that I had never seen before.  Then in a split second 9 men walked out in their glistening white uniforms.   They had this big red "C" on the left side of their uniforms.   They were the hometown Corning Red Sox and   I was like a kid in a candy store.  We found seats and proceeded to watch these men play a little boys game.  Now from 1954 through 1960 we were a fixture at these games.  ... This started an exciting journey and love for the game of baseball.  It's now 60 years later and 2014, the War Memorial Stadium where they played, is just a place for football, lacrosse and track.  But in 1954 through 1960 it was a cathedral for the most memorable life experience that I have ever had. My heart still belongs to the days of watching the Corning Red Sox.  A few years ago I was able to acquire two Corning Red Sox Jerseys.  These are two of my prize possessions.  They are not the glistening white uniforms that I first saw, but  they still look good to me.

 

 

My brother says it all...when you're a baseball fan, you're not just a spectator... you're part of the game.

 

In the years since then there have been many historic and breathtaking moments that I have witnessed  during games, usually on the radio or television.  Ned Garver and Bobby Thompson in '51... Willie Mays catching the hit by Vic Wertz over his shoulder on the run in "54...The Dodgers in "55...Don Larsen in "57...Maris in '61...the '69 and  "86  Mets and every game that Derek Jeeter ever played.  When my oldest daughter was a baby I would sit in her nursery in a rocking chair with the game on the radio, until she would fall asleep happy the Mets were ahead.  Later she would go to Shea on her birthday to see her name on the big screen and go to Yankee stadium for  fourth of July double headers with fireworks.  She loved the hot dogs!

 

 

 

 

 

But when I think about my best  baseball memory.. that took place  in 1954 when the Corning Red Sox won the Pennsylvania, Ontario, New York (PONY) class D league pennant.  For my brothers and myself... Corning NY...our hometown... for one brief and shining moment  that lives forever within us... was the very center of the Baseball universe!

 

But my favorite and most personal memory however is still sitting in the dark with my baby girl in her crib...happy and at peace with the world and listening to the game ...picturing it all in my mind...play by play and seeing it all on the radio.

 

ERLANDSSON AND ALLISON

IMMIGRANTS

 

I am the son, the husband, the grandson, the nephew, the cousin and the descendant of immigrants.

 

The first  came in May 1638 on the ship BEVIS out of Southampton England.  Her name was Annis Littlefield and she came with six children and two male bond servants.  She landed in what is now Welles Maine, which then was close to the North East boundary of what was  the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Plantation Colony.

 

 

There for 150 years, my ancestors farmed, fished, hunted and fought the French and Indians and then their British cousins in the Revolution.

 

By 1830 my great-great grandfather Spencer moved to south central New York to work on the Chemung Canal which connected the Erie Canal at Seneca Lake to the Chemung River and then the Susquehanna.

 

On August 13,1862 his son, my great grandfather Charles, enlisted in the Union Army.  35 days later he was at Antietam, followed by Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and all the battles up to and including the capture of Atlanta.

 

 

He came home sick from the war and married Mary Jane Bunnell who was of German and Irish ancestry.  My grandfather Forrest was born in 1880 and he would marry my Grandmother, Cynthia Amanda Richards after the turn of the century.  Her family name was originally Richarde but her father Egbert, Americanized it after he married  my other great grand mother Elsie who was a Howe. They and my Grandmother's little sister Bertha all died of diphtheria in 1880 and she and her baby brother grew up as orphans.

 

The second wave came in 1912 and 1914 from Smaland, Sweden.  My grandfather Gustav came first to make glass in Corning, New York.  My grandmother Klara Franson Erlandsson came next with my father, his two brothers and her sister in May 1914 on the RMS Mauretania just months before the start of the Great War.

 

 

In 1917 my father ran away at 13 to join the Army and fight the Kaiser.

My Grandfather had to take the train to Buffalo to bring him home.  In 1942 he was back in Buffalo to fight either Hitler or Tojo but this time Uncle Sam found him too old and too married and sent him back to Corning Glass to make CRTs for radar for the war effort.  In between the family had changed their name and become citizens.  By the time I was born my father and my uncles had lost most of their Swedish and were Americans through and through.

 

The third wave came in  April 2003 on a Northwest Airlines jet from Pangasinan in the Philippines.  This wave was a single person... my wife to be, who four years later became a US Citizen in a ceremony so moving that it still sends chills up my spine.  She is the vanguard of more de la Rosa's, de la Cruz's, Sta. Ana's and others who will follow her here because this nation is still the end of the line for any and all who seek personal and religious freedom, and the  opportunity for the pursuit of happiness and a better life.

 

 

My family is comprised by blood, marriage, adoption and choice of gays, straights, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Atheists, Puerto Ricans, Jamaicans, Colombians, Italians, Irish, Poles Russians, English, Scots, Welsh, Filipinas and Filipinos, Chinese, Malaysians and with all due respect to Elizabeth Warren and according to my family lore... American Indians.  What unites this large, diverse and growing family is that while we all know where we came from...we also know who we are now and where we want to go as Americans and that causes as many quarrels as agreements... but so what...that's America.  I mean start a conversation with five Americans and soon you'll have an argument with ten points of view.

 

My family is the best firsthand  illustration of American exceptionalism that I know and in this national debate about what to do with 11 million people here illegally...American exceptionalism is rarely mentioned... as if if doesn't matter.  The most exceptional thing moreover, about my personal family story is that it is not exceptional at all insofar as it is the basic story of the vast majority of Americans.  It is the motivation and daring of our ancestors and relatives to leave their homes and come here to reinvent and free  themselves, often at the risk of their lives and fortunes, that is the living core of what immigration and naturalization must be about.

 

Because of all of the above,  the argument over amnesty...a path to citizenship...legal resident status etc.,  can be a painful conflict for me and many others like me. But why people come here and what they want when they get here is central to  this issue and ultimately how to resolve it.  People should not come here  merely to gain the free things that the law entitles them to receive but rather to gain the individual freedom and inalienable rights that the law guarantees and protects for them.

 

One thing however is  painfully clear... wanting amnesty to gain political hegemony or not wanting it to prevent the other side from getting it, is not a rational or moral reason to go one way or the other.   Moreover it is fairly clear that the present structure and workforce of USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) cannot handle any program that involves everyone who is undocumented at the present time. 

 

Change then must be gradual or at least staged  and if the goal and objective is to generate true Americans and not simply Democrats at the end of the line...  then applicants must earn what others have had to sacrifice to gain and the pathway should not be easy.  Since they are here because they have broken the law to begin with, the following should at a minimum, be required without in any way stereotyping the appicants:

 

Applicants for permanent residency should be identified and screened for  past criminal activity or terrorist associations and anyone convicted of a crime before or during the process should be denied and eventually deported...

 

All applicants must prove they have been living in the United States at least a year prior to the enactment of the legislation...this is a one time opportunity... 

 

All applicants must be proficient in English and subject to rigid testing in this regard since they have been living here ...some for quite a while...

 

No language but English should be on all USCIS materials as well as on all voting ballots for all Federal elections going forward from the enactment of the legislation...any applicant found to be illegally registered to vote should be prosecuted and deported...

 

Any one who has come into the country as a minor, through no fault of their own, graduated College or who has served or is serving in the Armed Forces should be eligible for a fast track process for residency and then citizenship...

 

All basic applicants should pay all outstanding and back taxes, fines and appropriate fees to USCIS as  part of the application process....they should refund all cash benefits received while here illegally...

 

All basic applicants must enroll in two years of study at night or during the day of coursework in American History and Civics, including how the Federal, state and local governments work,  prepared by scholars recommended by both five conservative and five liberal 501 (c) (3) organizations named by each political party...

 

Applicants must pass this course at the end of the two years or be denied residency status with exceptions for persons with a disability that hinders or prevents them from accomplishing this under the statutory timetables ...

 

All applicants must wait in line for naturalization based on their date of legal application, behind any and all legal applicants regardless of category, who are on long term waiting lists...

 

 This law would not go into effect until January 21, 2017 to prevent regulatory tampering and/or nullification...

 

Yes, the borders should be secured for reasons of anti-terrorism and crime fighting alone.  Similarly,  worker visas for high tech or other needed or desired workers should be available and  foreign students graduating from American Schools should be offered a chance to stay and apply what they have learned  for the benefit of the country, provided they meet security requirements.  Family reunification should not be abandoned out of fairness in nothing else to U.S. citizens and legal residents,  but for all of the above who want to become  American citizens,  then they must do what those who came before them had to do ...sacrifice...work hard...and at the end of the line leave the old behind and fully embrace their exceptional new country. 

 

 ERLANDSSON

THE STATE OF THE UNION  IS NO LONGER "JUSTIFIED"

 

The annual State of the Union Address or SOTU has become a ghastly affair.  It makes buffoons out of our elected officials and makes the television viewers at home long for a pageant at least as dignified and solemn as the Grammy's...which should not be an impossibly high standard.   Hey... Jay-Z and Beyonce at the 2015 SOTU...now that's a thought.   After that we could have the "Cirque du Soleil's" production of "Potomac Fantasia" complete with acrobats, clowns, and people breathing fire. I mean If you are not going to talk substance... then bread and circuses are all that's left.

 

 

Thomas Jefferson refused to make the pilgrimage to the hill because he understood he was a co-equal branch of government.  Instead he sent a written epistle and for 100 years his successors wisely did the same until the autocratic Woodrow Wilson decided to use the occasion  as an opportunity to try and make the Executive Branch not co-equal but a superior branch of government.

 

Today the SOTU has become a festival of words unaccompanied by either action or facts.  It is a stage where the actors on the stage often loath each other but when on camera take every opportunity to kiss, hug or embrace one another as if they hadn't seen each other in weeks.

 

Barack Obama's fifth SOTU was an unexceptional and graceless affair until the very end when he paid tribute to wounded warrior Ranger Sgt. Cory Remsburg who was horribly wounded during his 10th deployment to Afghanistan. The sustained applause for this brave man was the only genuine  moment of the evening and the President is to be commended for including this and at least ending a dreary event on a high note. 

 

 

But even this does not soften the valid criticism from others that  Obama was using the gallant soldier as a human prop for a war that he, Obama,  does not support according to the memoirs of former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.  Further, an even more valid criticism is the inappropriateness of using Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both apolitical institutions, as props for an event that has degenerated into  almost 100% partisan political stagecraft. 

 

Notwithstanding the end of the address, the beginning and middle consisted of a stultifying list of "This is what I'm going to do in 2014...the year of action"  which begs the question that Charles Krauthammer asked, " what were the other years... years of inaction"?  Obama vowed to the Congress and the nation that he would act alone if necessary to move his agenda forward and then proceeded to resurrect  a list of items he's been promising for five years repackaged as  wars against income inequality, discrimination against women, climate change and new sanctions against Iran.

 

The SOTU is a "Listomania" on steroids. It is a duplicit exercise of promises never meant to be kept or ones which can't be met .  In either event it has become a principal exhibit of how politicians lie and think we are stupid enough to believe them if they talk pretty enough.  Again the SOTU makes one think about starting a new reality show around the event called "Real Lying Politicians of the Beltway" or "Dumb  Dynasty".

 

One episode could have Nancy Pelosi's head spinning around like Linda Blair in the "Exorcist" while she says in a deep, guttural voice"once we pass it we'll know what's in it".  Bring back "Bubba" and throw in some sex and you would have both ratings and an audience which you didn't have this year with only 11% of the country watching.  C'mon even MSNBC does slightly better and that's scary.

 

 

The SOTU is not supposed to be a political pep rally.  The President is supposed to report to the people about what the true State of the Union is ...warts and all.  If it doesn't do this then what good is it?

 

We were bored and misled for 48 minutes by what many pundits are describing as "Small Ball" or a wish list so insignificant with regard to the horrid state of our country as to be insulting.  It was in addition a compendium of achievements which in fact either were wholly or partially untrue or which could not be honestly credited to the 44th President.  But keep in mind Chris Matthews thought the speech "Majestic"!  I so wish that I could be his personal Pharmacist!

 

One dirty little secret that emerged re-energized from this years spectacle is the growing number of Democrats who truly dislike this President and will say so privately but not publicly...at least not yet!  This dislike has roots deeper than the debacle of "ObamaCare".   Obama has been an aloof and imperious Executive, uncomfortable or unwilling to compromise or cooperate with his own party as well as Republicans.  The man is a community organizer and community organizers do not break bread with the enemy and the enemy  in this instance is the Constitution which contains other branches of government which regardless of party does not or should not bend to one man will.

 

 In addition he is a man with few close friends.  Count them... Valerie Jarrett... Michelle... Valerie Jarrett... The PM of Denmark,the very hot Helle Thorning-Schmidt ... Valerie Jarrett,.. Eric Holder... Valerie Jarrett and the two  private contract  black Ops  commandos hired to safeguard his college transcripts, birth certificates and applications for Social Security and Selective Service.  These guys like him because they will now be making $10.10 an hour.  Did I mention Valerie Jarrett?

 

The mostly middle aged participants at the event, stood up, applauded and sat back down 85 times in the course of the speech thereby negating the necessity of them going to the gym or their Pilates classes for the week.  Here's another thought...  next year everyone comes in sweats or shorts   on second thought  scratch that!

 

 

At 10:00 PM I changed the channel.  "Justified" was on.  I have my work and I have my priorities.  After all U. S. Marshal Raylan Givens is more real and more authentic than most of  those inside the Beltway.  He is a man of few words, but when he talks he means what he says and backs it up whenever necessary.  In other words he is the anti-Obama and the  antithesis of every other poseur in Washington City.  It was during the show I had my epiphany..."The State of the Union as presently staged is no longer "Justified"

 

 

ERLANDSSON